• MeatsOfRage@lemmy.world
    132·
    1 year ago

    For context, the emachines “never obsolete” wasn’t referring to this computer, it was a recycling program where you could send your old machine back and get a huge discount on your next one. It was actually a pretty good deal at the time, especially when your average family machine was a lot more expensive than they are today

    • FlexibleToast@lemmy.world
      5·
      1 year ago

      There were a couple of companies that tried programs like this. PeoplePC was another similar program. You would pay for their services and they would lease you a computer every 3 years.

    • CoderKat@lemm.eeEnglish
      4·
      1 year ago

      I wonder how much of a discount OP can get when they send their machine back?

      • jarfil@lemmy.world
        3·
        1 year ago

        If it’s in perfect condition, and they valued it based on second hand retrocomputing market prices… probably a nice chunk of cash.

  • SuperIce@lemmy.worldEnglish
    63·
    1 year ago

    You conveniently blocked the part of the sticker saying what they mean by “never obsolete” with the red circle. IIRC, they gave you a massive discount to trade in your computer every 2 years for the latest model, so you were always up to date. Kinda like phones now.

  • FakinUpCountryDegen@lemmy.world
    28·
    1 year ago

    God,the number of these I sold at Best buy…rolling my eyes the entire time…and making absolutely sure the customer understood exactly what that phrase meant in this ultra-scammy context…

    Ended up not being able to handle that job. Something about literally full-time debunking of lies printed on everything in sight was exhausting for me.

    • scottywh@lemmy.world
      1·
      1 year ago

      I sold a bunch of them used… Lol…

      They were basically obsolete the minute they were shipped to stores with the shitty Celeron CPUs, virtually no RAM, and tiny hard drives but people still bought them from me a year later for too much money.

  • mtcerio@lemmy.world
    22·
    1 year ago

    The “never obsolete” refers to a subscription service, where they would periodically send you updates somehow. LGR has a good video on this.

  • psmgx@lemmy.world
    16·
    1 year ago

    What’s the form factor? ATX?

    Rip out the guts and slap in a Ryzen with some SSDs. Troll people by playing Farcry or something equally as demanding on it.

      • PeterPoopshit@lemmy.world
        1·
        1 year ago

        By the time they got rid of the AT form factor found around the pentium and early socket 7 era, motherboard sizes and screw hole placement started following the ATX specifications which meant standardization. Manufactures still sometimes did really dumb shit with case designs but they still do that today. For example I once saw this shitty compaq with the psu right over the cpu so you can’t fit a serious cooler. And those iconic Windows XP Dell Dimensions everyone had were only big enough to fit micro atx motherboards even though the case was basically mid tower sized. I can’t even remember how they made such inefficient use of the space but it involved lots of stupid brackets and screws in idiotic places.

  • ansiz@lemmy.worldEnglish
    10·
    1 year ago

    Seems like about every pubic US university was selling those back in the late 90’s. So overpriced, even for the time!

  • reagansrottencorpse@lemmy.world
    81·
    1 year ago

    My families first computer was a Goliath of an IBM tower. Similar gross color I believe. If someone came home suddenly when you were wackin’ it you had to just unplug it because it took too long to get the porn off the screen and onto something else. It also would give you away at night with it’s insane modem sounds when connecting to the Internet.