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[–][deleted] 29 points30 points ago

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::glances down at the Optiplex GX260 SFF lying on the floor::

Don't worry, neglected Dell, they're not mocking you specifically...

[–]Silverback 1 point2 points ago

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Yeah, I'm rocking a gx260 as well, got a 6200 and the ram is maxxed at 2gb, it works. I can kinda game, and quite speedy on teh interwebs.

All in all, totally worth the 90 bucks I spent on it.

[–]steve93 2 points3 points ago

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It's a 280, note the SATA hard drive, and 2.8GHz processor

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point ago

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Awesome. Mine's slightly more crappy. Same processor but IDE, not SATA.

[–]MEatRHIT 0 points1 point ago

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Looks down: Precision T3400

Down and right: Optiplex 780... laughs

Granted the last 3 jobs I had I had a GX260/280 painfully slow with 512MG-1GB of ram

[–]Enkaybee 37 points38 points ago

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Holy fucking shit, it has Hyper Threading!

[–]knightofni451 9 points10 points ago

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2.8 ghz pentium 4? Wasn't that pretty much top-of-the-line in its day?

[–]hearforthepuns 2 points3 points ago

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Yes, and for a lot of people that's perfectly enough computer.

Hell I still get by with a 1.5GHz Pentium M on my home PC.

[–]johnahs88 5 points6 points ago

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What.

[–]bowling4meth 4 points5 points ago

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P3-850 with 256M ram here.

[–]eoin2000 0 points1 point ago

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Wow. I though my Athlon 1700 was bad (Compaq Presario 6142). That shit's 10 years old. Still working though!

[–]romwell 1 point2 points ago

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Hey, I still use 1.6GhZ Pentium M Laptop, although my primary computer these days is the EeePC 1000HE =)

[–]thibit 0 points1 point ago

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My main computer is running a 2 GHz Pentium M that's paired to a ATI Mobility Radeon 7000 that has a mere 16MB vRAM. 2GB DDR 333 tops it off.

My desktop is running a 3.4 GHz Pentium D with an nVidia 7050 and 4 GB DDR2 800. Main reason for my running this is I desired a hardware acceleration capable CPU and be able to do some minor gaming. I should've waited a few months, as the Core Duo dropped in price soon thereafter...

[–]lobsters[S] 0 points1 point ago

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i just retired my pentium d yesterday.. semi tears no fuck that i hate you pentium d!

[–]thibit 0 points1 point ago* 

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To a Core Quad or Duo?

The beauty of the motherboard that I have in my desktop is that I can go all the way to a Core Quad Q9550 or back down to a Pentium 4 516.

[–]lobsters[S] 0 points1 point ago

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To AMD Phenom II x4. I hate the intel sockets mostly because of the shitty plastic heatsink anchors.

[–]thibit 0 points1 point ago

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Ah...

Yeah, I had a terrible time getting my heatsink on. Thought that I almost broke a peg once and had around 10 false-positives with it being connected properly.

[–]lobsters[S] 0 points1 point ago

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i broke several pegs/anchors and now have given up

[–]hearforthepuns 0 points1 point ago

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2GB RAM... Wow.. My laptop only has 512MB!!

Meanwhile at work I have a Core 2 Duo and 8GB of RAM :)

[–]thibit 0 points1 point ago

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I needed to max out the capabilities as I still hit swap from time to time...

I'm still in the 32bit realm, so in reality I'm not even using the complete capabilities of my desktop quite yet.

[–]aperson 0 points1 point ago

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I get by with my 990MHz Celeron eeepc everyday.

[–]assblood 0 points1 point ago

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Haha, I'm starting to become frustrated with my Athlon X2 4800+!

[–]m1ss1ontomars2k4 1 point2 points ago

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Nah, 3.2 was better.

[–]dmsean -2 points-1 points ago

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woosh.

Everything was "top of its line" when it was the fastest processor available.

[–]m1ss1ontomars2k4 1 point2 points ago

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Some processors were never the fastest processor available.

[–]mingdamirthless 20 points21 points ago

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That's like some shit off STAR TREK.

[–]hglman 11 points12 points ago

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(extremely fast)

[–]epicRelic 1 point2 points ago

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No, it's from Star Wars. You're getting it confused with Warp Threading.

[–]obchase 26 points27 points ago

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The future is now! This thing comes with a Huge 80GB hard drive AND it's high speed internet ready. I bet this is what Daniel Graystone uses at his house.

[–]mingdamirthless 25 points26 points ago

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Big 80GB hard drive. WILL BARELY FIT IN THE COMPUTER!

[–]nekoniku 6 points7 points ago

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The case bulges slightly from the humongousness of the hard drive.

[–]mightychicken 5 points6 points ago

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Seriously though, those cases are annoyingly small. My fingers still hurt from servicing them (take that as you will).

[–]tmushrush 3 points4 points ago

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I have big fingers too. If I was a lesbian I'd be well hung.

[–]Silverback 0 points1 point ago

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Those cases sound very similar to my wife.

[–]PaulRay 1 point2 points ago

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Yeah, they do, especially when they start whining.

[–]mattindustries 0 points1 point ago

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Agreed. I worked for a university a few years back (2003ish) and just opening the case was a pain. I think that is with most dells though... the one I am on right now has a wonky case as well.

[–]fossuser 3 points4 points ago

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I'm surprised they didn't say 80,000 MB

[–]f2x 8 points9 points ago

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Now hold on a sec... Consider the following: You could buy about 53 of these things for just under $10,000. Assemble into a neat little beowulf cluster and lo... You'll be the envy of people that no one envies.

This ad is pretty funny though.

  • (a) Intel Pentium 4 2.8 GHz with Hyper Threading (extremely fast)

  • (b) 1 Gigabyte (GB) of DDR2 RAM Memory (equal to 1024MB of RAM!)

  • (c) HUGE 80GB Sata Hard Drive (Lots of space for music, photos, and video)(Sata is the newest fastest hard drive format)

    .

    .

    . Equal to 1024MB of RAM?! The newest fastest hard drive format?! What's not to love?

[–]cecilkorik 13 points14 points ago

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RAM memory, no less! I imagine this is the kind of stuff they use to store my PIN number in the ATM machine!

[–]apfhex 1 point2 points ago

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Recursive Access Memory memory?

[–][deleted] -1 points0 points ago

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I thought it was 'random'

[–]romwell 0 points1 point ago

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I bet it also comes with a kick-ass CPU unit, has the latest BIOS system, is equipped with the USB bus and has a 100Mb LAN network connection. Although it is probably too old to have an SLI interface, it likely has an AGP port. As you already mentioned, it has a large HDD drive, so altogether it comes off as a very good machine of its time.

[–]tincansandtwine 0 points1 point ago

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I believe hdd is high density disk.

[–]romwell 0 points1 point ago

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Not according to Wikipedia, and not to my knowledge.

[–]tincansandtwine 1 point2 points ago

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You are correct. I am mistaken.

[–]DontNeglectTheBalls 2 points3 points ago

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Just to note, these machines don't have SATA interfaces, they have IDE. Used to work on them all of the time.

[–]hearforthepuns 2 points3 points ago* 

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Welcome to reddit, slashdot refugee. See: performance per Watt.

[–]f2x 1 point2 points ago

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Oh my... Is it really that obvious? But I'm not ashamed. I'm cool. I'll disclose my history: From /. to Fark to TWCL to Digg and finally started to homestead here on Reddit nearly 3 years ago. I try to be a good netizen no matter whose company I keep.

[–]schtum 6 points7 points ago

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beowulf cluster is kind of a dead giveaway. oh wait, did I just admit to recognizing a 15 year old meme?

[–]joeframbach 2 points3 points ago

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I have a feeling a lot of people here recognized it too.

[–]f2x 1 point2 points ago

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I suppose you're right. Whenever I see really cheap computers that aren't all that special by themselves, my mind immediately thinks of networking them together to make a whole greater than it's sum. Also, it's not really a meme unless you precede it with "Can you imagine a". So no on the first part, but yes on the second. ;-)

[–]OverlordXenu 0 points1 point ago

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Shit, I'm only a few years older than 15 and I know about a god damned beowulf cluster. Plebeian supercomputer? Fucking awesome.

[–][deleted] ago

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[deleted]

[–]Silverback 8 points9 points ago

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Please be joking.

[–]hypnozooid 7 points8 points ago

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That computer has better specs than the one I'm on now :(

[–]acousticcoupler 1 point2 points ago

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You are not alone.

http://i.imgur.com/ccjFe.png

[–]hypnozooid 0 points1 point ago

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pentium 4 2.5something processor, 256 mb of ram, no graphics card (it's like 480 x 600 resolution, 4 bit color, and you can't scroll down in firefox). The hard drive is 60 gb, but for whatever reason it has a really good audio card - I guess they haven't really changed since 2002.

[–]dmsean 0 points1 point ago

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480 x 600 resolution? You mean 640 x 480 :D

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points ago

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Nope, portrait.

[–]hypnozooid 0 points1 point ago

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Something like that. Right now I'm using a different computer (my 300 dollar laptop), so I don't know off the top of my head, but that sounds right.

[–]acousticcoupler 0 points1 point ago

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Yeah I upgraded the RAM in mine. It's amazing what a difference it can make. Assuming you are running XP 256 is barely enough for the OS. This makes the system page out pretty much any program you run.

[–]ReaverXai 0 points1 point ago

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That computer has the same specs as the one I'm on now. Exactly the same.

[–]Stingray88 8 points9 points ago

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The best part is it's not even a good price.

[–]Silverback 1 point2 points ago

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Yeah, my 260gx cost $60.

[–]bhal123 5 points6 points ago* 

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[–]steve93 2 points3 points ago

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I'm quite sure that is a dell Optiplex Gx280, the 2.8 processor and SATA hard drive confirms it is not the Gx260 as suggested before me.

[–]blooregard325i 2 points3 points ago

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Super computer, eh? I'm got one of them in my garage holding the door open... Think that'll lower its value?

[–]Lurking_Grue 0 points1 point ago

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I used to work at an effects house in the 90s that used a SGI indy workstation to prop the door open.

It was an expensive computer even then.

[–]brennus 3 points4 points ago

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I guess I've lost track of progress as I don't see what's wrong with this :-(

My desktop I'm on now is P4 and 1GB of RAM. What's considered the norm now?

[–]kerklein2 3 points4 points ago

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Dual core processors, 2-4GB RAM, at least 250GB HDD.

[–]bacchus101 9 points10 points ago

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...for a laptop.

[–]brennus -3 points-2 points ago

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4GB of RAM? What the hell would you fill it with? My old media centre ran in 256MB and I recently upgraded to 2GB just because there was a cheap offer and it's still sitting there using about 150MB when I use it.

[–]dokumentamarble 1 point2 points ago

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What an awful price.

[–]lobsters[S] 2 points3 points ago

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they should be donating this hunk to a school somewheres

[–]FLOWAPOWA 8 points9 points ago

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you must hate kids

[–]tkilgore 1 point2 points ago

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Sadly enough, this is about the same specs as my computer :<

[–]Stingray88 1 point2 points ago

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You do realize you can upgrade it tremendously for under 50 bucks right?

[–]tkilgore 6 points7 points ago

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My computer has been upgraded :(

[–]Cagacazzo 1 point2 points ago

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For all negative comments, THIS IS WHAT THEY USE AT CERN!

[–]el0rg 1 point2 points ago

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hahah.. I'm way too familiar with that computer, on account of my being the lone IT guy at a call center with 520 of the fucking things. I definitely wouldn't call 'em "super" computers, but they're alright for the most part.

[–]unrealious 3 points4 points ago

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State of the art 2004

[–]ryanvsrobots 2 points3 points ago

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Do you think they'll check whether or not i'm a professional when I buy xp pro?

[–]FlyingBishop 0 points1 point ago

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To be fair, this computer probably is powerfully enough to solve the equations needed to build an atomic bomb.

Of course if you're stupid enough to buy a refurbished Dell nettop, you probably aren't looking to use it as a research machine.

[–]Silverback 0 points1 point ago

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If any computers were used in the making of Fat Man & Little Boy, they would be like 1% as good as this Dell.

[–]FlyingBishop 0 points1 point ago

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The computers used in the making of Fat Man & Little Boy were warehouses full of women using adding machines. Each one would have some instruction to do on a piece of paper, and they would pass it on to the next with the new result. To deal with human error, they would have several lines doing the same computation in parallel.

So 1% is rather generous.

[–]Silverback 0 points1 point ago

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Source? I went digging around, and found several Turing complete systems that were around at the time, I could not find any info on the systems if any used at White Sands.

[–]FlyingBishop 0 points1 point ago

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I originally heard it in my senior Theory of Computation seminar back in college.

Here's one source

This source says that the ENIAC and the like were used in the Manhattan project, but as I recollected, they didn't come online until well into the project, so the bulk of the computation was done on the old-fashioned computers made up of women in warehouses.

These computers were especially important for generating ballistics tables, which gunners used to determine the correct angle to aim their howitzers to shoot a given distance.

[–]sdlvx 0 points1 point ago

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Free shipping! I'll take 3, please!

[–]steamynachos 0 points1 point ago

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Heh, I'm using pretty much that same machine right now.

[–]SmartAssX 0 points1 point ago

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Man l33t hax3rz with dis comp.

[–]Wynner3 0 points1 point ago

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I use those at work, doesn't feel super to me.

[–]realgenius 0 points1 point ago

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Now you know how much your company is willing to spend on you.

[–]MrFoo42 0 points1 point ago

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Nice to know my work desktop PC is still a "Super computer"... Yup, 4 years, 9 months and a few days after I got it it's still the only PC I have at work, and boy does it show it's age.

[–]dogggis 0 points1 point ago

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Interesting story:

A few years back when my company was replacing their old Cray with a new one, they wanted to donate it to a college to use for educational purposes. The only problem is that no college wanted to take it because apparently the annual operating cost for it was somewhere around 200k. So it was loaded onto a flatbed truck and taken to a scrap yard :( A guy who worked in our data center told me this.

[–]PaulRay 0 points1 point ago

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You can't HANDLE that kind of POWER!!

[–]Severian 0 points1 point ago

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Actually that's twice the RAM I have now.

[–]ranscot 0 points1 point ago

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my niece thanks you for her new computer, been looking for a starter computer for a 9 year old, thanks!

[–]ThinkBrad 0 points1 point ago

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No one should own this computer. NOT EVEN buy.com.

[–]realgenius 1 point2 points ago

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Look at some of the comments on this page. This is midrange power, running a relatively lightweight OS, for under $200. Not everybody has Mac money. Hell, if you ran Mint in VirtualBox on this, it be a LAMP server without breaking a sweat.

[–]ranscot -1 points0 points ago

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Dude, I am from South Texas, this is a "new" computer for the backwoods valleys.

[–][deleted] -1 points0 points ago

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reddit hits new lows of mundanity. What the hell is this doing on my front page. Get me out of this subreddit.

'haha whoa dude, hey're calling it a super computer but it's just a barely adequate dell desktop! Hilarious! Upvoted hard!'

[–]caramal -1 points0 points ago

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Let me introduce you to my friend and your new friend, Mr. Down Arrow.

First time is free.

[–]blueboybob -1 points0 points ago

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The Windows XP license is worth it.

[–]realgenius 0 points1 point ago

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No shit. You can't even buy them any more.

[–][deleted] ago

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[deleted]

[–]fani 1 point2 points ago

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Go clean up first before you touch the keyboard again.

[–]njharman -1 points0 points ago

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Does anyone know how this compares to a Cray 1, I sure bet it has more disk and probably more RAM.

[–]mrpappy -1 points0 points ago* 

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This reminds me of the first computer I ever bought.

[–]atmandk 2 points3 points ago

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Funny, reminds me of the turd computer I ever bought.

[–]L8sho -2 points-1 points ago

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Does that thing have electric dick massage?