Slowing Aging

Retro-Mac Youtuber ActionRetro posted (on Twitter) a picture of his Powerbook 2400c (model released May 1997) on a wireless network, to which I replied about using the same card in my Latitude C600 (model released November 2000) and said it was "marginally newer".

Powerbook 2400c browsing the ol' wireless internet pic.twitter.com/MOuKmRLUOE

— Action Retro (@ActionRetro1) October 30, 2021

On reflection of the speed at which computing progressed in the late 1990s, it absolutely isn't "marginally newer". Its a good two generations newer. 1Ghz Pentium III Coppermine, 512MB RAM, the option for onboard wifi (I have an Intel 2200 populated, but Windows 98 can't use that), and a (poor) 3D accelerator; versus a 180Mhz 603e, a max 112MB RAM and 2D graphics. The days of PowerPC being vastly more performant than x86 systems had, realistically, gone by then - we had already entered the days of rigged Photoshop filter time demos to claim than better than equivalent performance, the reality being clock-for-clock or worse)

These were both expensive, business, machines at the time of their sale. But the improvement in three and a half years is incredible. You would have found it very difficult to keep using that computer as your main machine by late 2000 without expensive upgrades ($1000) -  My current laptop is now approaching five years old; and after increasing to its max RAM (16GB) for €70, I suspect I'll be using it until it physically falls apart - it can absolutely cope with modern use.

Yes, they're very different form factors. But Dell sold much smaller machines than the C600 at equivalent power, for a lot more money, at the same time; I just happen to have the C600 - and I'm very happy to have a working optical drive (upgraded to DVD-RW) in it.

I'm fairly sure the same thing - obsolete, more or less, in three and a half years even at the top end - was only so incredibly obvious in the period from the late 90s to the early 00s, the time covering the widespread introduction of 3D acceleration and the start of broadband internet being common. 

I remember my Dad's job doing their first ever life extension - new disks and extra RAM, reimage and expect another three years - rather than hardware replacement cycle some time during the XP era; and I definitely remember replacing 3 year old leased machines that were barely improved on by the replacements when doing my old medical IT job in the late 00s/early 10s. That employer sold custom built machines, and I would often be replacing systems built in the same chassis - the introduction of a front eSATA port being sometimes the only way to tell them apart!

I don't remember a three year old PC (un-upgraded) being comically old when I first started using computers in the early 90s either.