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⬅️ Previous capture (2021-11-30)
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Nathan Galt mailinglists at ngalt.com
Thu Jul 15 08:52:31 BST 2021
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On Tue, Jul 13, 2021, at 11:59 AM, Andrew Singleton wrote:
That was perhaps the most perfect explaination one could hope for.
After all what is Gemini itself if not a refutation of Big Web's bloat
and hoovering of resources for it's own sake? It isn't a regressive 'i
will just use gopher!' it goes 'we don't need all this for every
situation.'
I'm not saying everyone should go for the minimal computer possible,
but a lot of people either as hobby or outright inability to get better
are on older platforms.
And if someone wants to fire up a c64, or ibm, or whatever and there is
a dongle that lets them get through the security aspects? Let them in.
If someone has a 486 in the corner they don't want to get rid off
because it was their dad's computer, or even their own first computer,
or more likely got it so they can play DOS games on native hardware,
and want to try some networking on it? Let them.
To preach that old hardware should just be summarily thrown in the
dumpster and be forgotten is honestly kinda silly. Especially given
Gemini itself. The whole point is to be able to write a client in a
couple hundred lines of code, so the objective is to be lean. Digging
out the museum pieces is a great way of testing that if nothing else.
I’d like to push back against this a bit. While I have an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality, one cannot justify running all old computers on environmental grounds because newer computers are so much more energy-efficient. Sure, the 486 in the closet might be capable of sending data over a serial port, but the Raspberry Pi it connects to that runs an operating system with modern TLS handling can handle everything the 486 can at a fraction of the power budget.
If you’re in favor of running (and keeping running) old hardware on environmental grounds, then it’s worth thinking about what a cutoff point might be for energy use. Last I checked, old computers have all sorts of useful recycleable parts in them, and there’s nothing wrong with recycling a 486-based space heater after a fond farewell and replacing it with a 64- or even 32-bit Raspberry Pi that will be orders of magnitude faster at a fraction of the energy use, and be able to run modern TLS libraries itself.