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Using vintage laptops in 2024: How do you make it work? (self.retrocomputing)

submitted 3 months ago by AusatKeyboardPremi to c/[email protected]

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I have an old ThinkPad T42 coming my way. I plan to use it alongside my daily driver mainly for reading, emacs, and retro gaming. I will be dual booting a lightweight flavour of Linux (TBD) and Windows 98 on it.

However, I am a bit concerned about its ability to handle today's internet, with all of its heavy websites.

I would love to hear from those of you who are still using old ThinkPads (or other vintage laptops) in 2024. How do you make it work? Do you use lightweight browsers, specific configurations, or lightweight websites to get around the limitations of older hardware?

Are there any specific tips or tricks you can share for getting the most out of an old ThinkPad on the modern web?

Looking forward to hearing about your experiences!

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[–] snekerpimp 11 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Considering it has a pentium, and I have core 2 duos that won’t open some websites, you might run into some issues as well. Can’t fix that, the cpu just doesn’t physically have the instruction set. But other than that, have fun and don’t expect performance greater than a raspberry pi.

[–] AusatKeyboardPremi 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Thank you. I do have my expectations in check. That is the reason the machine is restricted to certain activities like reading and writing/journaling.

I was just curious if anyone is using it to browse the web, especially with a combination of lightweight OS and browser.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Based on the heritage foundation leak there's a non zero number of people out there still using Windows XP. I don't think anyone was trying to use 98 though.

[–] AusatKeyboardPremi 1 points 3 months ago

Thank you for your insight. But I have made it clear that I will not be using Windows 98 for browsing the web, and instead use a Linux based OS.