The main problem is that computers improve much more quickly than musical instruments, or cars, or whatever. I have computers that are nearly 40 years old that work just as well today as the day they were made, the only problem is these old computers don't run the modern apps we want. They don't have music players, or web browsers, or even convenient Internet access.

The computer didn't get worse, the world just moved on. Likewise, your old Core2Duo machine from ten years ago is just as good today, except it was made for an era when Windows fit inside of 256mb of RAM, and javascript was only used to make your cursor a weird color.

Computers don't get slower, we just ask them to do more things.

Now that the Moore's curve has started to flatten, I would not be nearly as opposed to a 30 year machine (especially a repairable one) today as I would have been even 5 years ago.

New processors and RAM are not making the previous generation processors obsolete anymore, which leads me to believe that a 30 year computer is now something which could be realistically considered.

I buy from the local college surplus when they life-cycle their desktops. For what I do at home (browsing, email, youtube, ssh for work) they are more than adequate.

So despite my plan to replace components constantly, I haven't actually had to do it. This has made me realize how little practical value constant upgrades to these components now provides.

I like to play with 8-bit machines, BBC Micro, C=64, Atari 800 and the like, all 30+ years old, the only repair they need is when a capacitor dries out and thats easy to do with the manual and a soldering iron. The constant upgrade cycle of so-called modern machines is clearly, totally artificial.

The hours I spent trying to learn basic with no book and no internet on that thing. Just typing random things into that blue console trying to figure out what secrets it held.