On Mon, Dec 15, 2014 at 04:46:29PM +0100, Karel Lang AFD wrote:
> The laptops you talk about are 6+ yrs old now ...  will be 12yrs then.
> After that its museum piece :].

Again - the reason for 32 bit is not that I cherish old CPUs with
inadequate RAM - but that I am currently looking at a 15 inch diagonal
(12x9 inch) 2048x1536 matt finish screen on a laptop, and such useful
screens are no longer made.  Indeed, I start with 1600x1200 production
laptops and replace the displays with ultra-high resolution NEC
prototypes that some friends and I bought when Microsoft refused to
support them.  They just happen to fit the T60 after some firmware
hacking.  Production laptops are now made for watching movies and
playing games when the boss isn't looking. 

I do crazy stuff like write A or A4 size papers, construct high
resolution graphs, and fill screens with lots of xterms with
beautifully rendered text.  Chromebook is interesting, but the
screen is small and my visual acuity is decreasing.  I guess that
makes me a museum piece, too. :-)

There is a promising local startup that hopes to custom build laptops,
using a kit of plug-together boards fit into a 3D-printed case (!!!).
But I don't understand how they will survive, much less where I will
find more 12x9 inch LCDs in the future.  That is why I stockpiled
what I have, and accept reduced rendering speed.  

And that is why I ask here; if anybody runs old machines for
compatibility reasons, it would be experimental scientists running
multi-year data collections.  Perhaps scientists doing very high
resolution imaging.  There appear to be Thinkpad T60s deployed all
over the International Space Station in the pictures I've seen.
Yet another museum piece ...

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          [log in to unmask]