Revitalising ageing computers

A short talk, then the bench.

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Say nothing about the machine

Who has a computer at home they have given up on?

Count the hands aloud. Use the number on the last slide.

Slow, hot, and the age at which everyone assumes the answer is a new one.

One picture, not a list

The hinge. Say it, then stop talking.

01 Dust and hardened pasteIt runs hot, so it slows itself down on purpose rather than cook.
02 A spinning driveEvery click waits for a motor.
03 A dead batterySome laptops throttle hard without one.
04 Software that outgrew itWindows wants more than the machine has. Free software does not.

Age is not on the list. Say so.

The parts are made to be swapped by hand. A memory clip is less fiddly than a SIM tray. You are about to watch it take twenty seconds.

Name the fear before the demo, not after

A desktop handed down from work: memory, a solid state drive, the dust and paste, a graphics card
A laptop: a battery and a solid state drive
Both: Linux Mint, from the same memory stick

The handover. Point at the bench.

Both figures from the real receipt, see the spec. Not invented.

Everything you have just watched ran on it: Linux Mint, booted from the stick, nothing on its disk touched.

The reveal. Then walk to the bench.

Photograph this

Call back to the hands from slide 2. Leave this on screen through the demo.