Line #146 Main/TheAllegedComputer


1	[[quoteright:350:[[WebAnimation/StrongBadEmail https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sbemail159b.png]]]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:"You mean, more amazing than checking an email on this computer?!"]]
3
4	->'''Strong Sad:''' Did your terrible computer explode?\
5	'''Strong Bad:''' No, shut up! Look, I'm gonna need to borrow, like, $900.\
6	'''Strong Sad:''' Well, I hope that's for a new computer. You could get one like yours at a garage sale for, like... ''[chuckling]'' $15.
7	-->-- ''WebAnimation/StrongBadEmail'' #33 [[Recap/StrongBadEmailE33Gimmicks "gimmicks"]]
8
9	It's a dusty, out-of-date computer with a wheezing hard drive that takes over a minute to perform a simple operation. A beaten-up computer that crashes and restarts unexpectedly and at the ''least desirable'' time for a breakdown. It's probably a big tower computer but it might also be a heavy, clunky laptop the size of an attache case. It might have outmoded accessories like a floppy disk drive and a huge Cathode Ray Tube monitor. Bonus points for a CRT that is [[TheEighties 1980s-style]] monochrome [[CyberGreen green monitor]] or a [[TheSeventies 1970s]]-era [[ComputerEqualsTapedrive reel-to-reel tape drive]].
10
11	This is The Alleged Computer. This computer, to put it kindly, isn't the most viable to use to lollygag or search funny cat videos with, let alone do real work on, as it struggles with sending an email. In fact, you could probably benefit using an old 1990s mobile phone with Internet capabilities over this type of "computer". Their best use is probably a novelty doorstop or tire chock for an RV. Or donate it to a museum.
12
13	If it runs overly slowly or breaks with a single touch (or only works properly [[PercussiveMaintenance with a very strong touch]]), it definitely fits here. If a computer is actually much more efficient than it looks, see WhatAPieceOfJunk. It may look like it belongs in a [[DownInTheDumps scrapyard]].
14
15	Compare TheAllegedCar, TheAllegedHouse, and TheAllegedSteed for severely underperforming automobiles, homes, and horses. Also see NoBackwardsCompatibilityInTheFuture and OurGraphicsWillSuckInTheFuture.
16
17	{{Walking Techbane}}s turn any computers around them into these.
18
19	While OlderIsBetter is often depicted in fiction for swords, armor, and guns, this isn't the case for computers due the the exponential gains in memory and processing speed between the 1970s and today. A 1975 Cray-1 supercomputer ran at 80 [=MHz=] for a whopping 160 mega FLOPS; in the 2020s, the GPU in cheapest phones easily exceeded 70 giga FLOPS running at 550 [=MHz=] while its CPU had multiple cores running over 1 [=GHz=].
20	----
21	!!Examples:
22
23	[[foldercontrol]]
24
25	[[folder:Comic Strips]]
26	* In ''ComicStrip/KnightsOfTheDinnerTable'', B.A. had a Trash 80[[note]]a common nickname for the TRS-80 computer, which was a pretty low-power system even for its era[[/note]] nicknamed Molly, whose slowness made it the butt of many jokes.
27	[[/folder]]
28
29	[[folder:Fan Works]]
30	* Downplayed in ''Fanfic/TheWebOfTheSpiderMan''. Peter got his laptop as a hand-me-down from his late father, making it really, really old by modern standards. Peter has been keeping it running and updated by buying whatever computer parts he could afford with his meager allowance, but it's held together with gum, paperclips, and toothpicks. While it can't compete with a modern computer, it still works fine for the most part.
31	* In ''Fanfic/NeitherABirdNorAPlaneItsDeku'', [[ArtificialIntelligence K.E.L.E.X.]] believes every single computer on Earth is this, as it's all Stone Age tech compared to what he's equipped with. To be fair, he's justified in that he's lightyears ahead of any conventional computer on Earth, to the point that he can easily upgrade Izuku's phone to make it project a forcefield powerful enough to completely repel the toxic gas produced by Korusan Island. He takes ''every'' opportunity to [[SmugSuper rub this in.]]
32	-->'''K.E.L.E.X.:''' I HAVE LINKED MY PROGRAMMING TO YOUR TELECOMMUNICATIONS DEVICE IN THE FORM OF AN APPLICATION; BECAUSE OF THE PRIMITIVE NATURE OF THE TECHNOLOGY, THERE WAS NO DIFFICULTY INVOLVED IN THE PROCESS.\
33	'''Firestorm:''' Primitive?
34	[[/folder]]
35
36	[[folder:Literature]]
37	* Newton Pulsifer, in Creator/NeilGaiman and Creator/TerryPratchett's ''Literature/GoodOmens'', has a singular knack for machinery. That is to say, he can make it stop working just by trying to make it work. And he ''always'' buys the worst. His computer is somehow always an early model with the hopelessly flawed chipset, or failing that, the early hideously bug-filled OS. [[TheAllegedCar And don't ask about his car.]]
38	* The Quark II computer produced by the original [=WayForward=] Technologies in Creator/DouglasAdams' ''Literature/DirkGentlysHolisticDetectiveAgency'', which Richard [=MacDuff=] advises police (who have a non-functioning model) would be best used as a giant paperweight. (At which point the policeman he's talking to admits they're already using it as a doorstop.) The same book also contains a very much defective example of the not-exactly-a-computer-in the-conventional-sense Electric Monk, which does all your believing for you.
39	* The first entry in the Literature/JediAcademyTrilogy, ''Jedi Search'', had Han Solo and Kyp Durron steal a ship that turned out to have a very old, very ''slow'' nav computer, which was a liability in a tense battle situation. As a result, they needed to brave the Maw, a dangerous black hole cluster, in order to evade pursuit. Thankfully this became a SuicidalGotcha thanks to the Force being with Kyp.
40	* [[spoiler: Heath Robinson]] in ''Literature/DriftlessWormhole'', to the point that vacuum tubes are a huge step up.
41	[[/folder]]
42
43	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
44	* Holly from ''Series/RedDwarf''. Despite allegedly having an IQ of 6000, he (she in some of the later series) has gone very senile, and often blunderingly damages the people on the ship.
45	* In the ''Series/{{Thunderbirds}}'' episode "Sun Probe", engineer "Brains" accidentally takes his experimental robot instead of a computer along on a rescue. When he's forced to ask the robot to make the calculations, it takes the robot a full 20 seconds (accompanied by obligatory clicks and whirrs) to make the calculation when (in spite of the pseudo-scientific nonsense-calculation used) it could have been solved on a pocket calculator as quickly as you could press the keys.
46	* Subverted in a ''Series/TalesFromTheDarkside'' episode, "The Word Processor of the Gods", based on a Creator/StephenKing short story of the same title. Writer Richard Hagstrom receives a homemade word processor from his nephew Jonathan. The machine struggles with mundane text processing, but when it's commanded to [[RealityWarper rewrite Richard's life]], the results are astounding.
47	* Vice Principal Crubbs' computer from ''Series/NedsDeclassifiedSchoolSurvivalGuide'' was so prone to freezing and crashing that it would often launch him into profanity-laced rants about how much he hated it, likely with his hand on the intercom button. At the end of an episode, he smashed it with a hammer in order to get a new one directly after telling a student ''not'' to do so.
48	* In the ''Series/{{Arrow}}'' episode "Crossing Lines", Ollie, in prison, manages to sneak into an office to do a websearch on one of the guards. His cellmate looks sceptically at the clunky keyboard and CRT monitor, wondering if it even ''has'' the internet.
49	* Jen's work computer in ''Series/TheITCrowd'' is so infected with malware that Roy says he'd MercyKill it if it were human.
50	* In "His Red Right Hand" from ''Series/TheMentalist'', according to a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech rant by California Bureau of Investigation director Virgil Minelli, the computers at [=CBI=] have "more viruses than a $10 whore."
51	[[/folder]]
52
53	[[folder:Podcasts]]
54	* In ''Podcast/TheAdventureZoneAmnesty'', paranormal researcher Thacker kept all his notes on a Mac laptop that was at least 20 years old by the time the main characters needed it. They only used it as a reference in extreme cases, because each time it booted up might be its last.
55	[[/folder]]
56
57	[[folder:Puppet Shows]]
58	* One of the ''Pigs In Space: Deep Dish Nine: The Next Generation'' skits on ''Series/MuppetsTonight'' has Piggy unveil the ship's new computer, the A.L. 19.95 plus tax. Which then takes the rest of the sketch to calculate 2+2.
59	[[/folder]]
60
61	[[folder:Toys]]
62	* Scummy Screen from ''Toys/TheTrashPack'' is a living one. He was dumped for his age (he's an old [=CRT=] monitor), and has poor pixels and gets computer viruses very easily...though in his case, these are colds for him.
63	[[/folder]]
64
65	[[folder:Video Games]]
66	* Any PC multiplayer game that requires all the participants to get matched up with each other ahead of time and ''then'' actually load into the game (think ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'') will cause accusations of this from faster loading players against the slowest. "Are you loading the game on a typewriter?" is a typical comment.
67	** One collection of comments from LOL's Tribunal (read: in-game chat) had an angry Lulu player denounce another gamer: "JESUS! Please upgrade your wooden PC powered by 8 hamsters on wheels who are digging for [[UsefulNotes/{{Bitcoin}} bitcoins]] in the wood chips!"
68	* In-universe, a couple of levels of ''VideoGame/TronTwoPointOh'' invoke this. While the systems [[ZombieApocalypse overrun by Z-lots]] aren't ''designed'' poorly, and the EN-1282 is a circa 1982 mainframe chugging along in 2003, other systems like the PDA and the Datawraith server are probably just as User-unfriendly on the outside as they are to Jet ''inside.''
69	[[/folder]]
70
71	[[folder:Web Animation]]
72	* Strong Bad from ''WebAnimation/HomestarRunner'' apparently loves computers like this and uses them by choice. He mocks his friend/pet/lackey The Cheat for using a modern computer which doesn't have a text-based interface like Strong Bad's computers, he thinks a flat screen means someone cut the back of the monitor away, and he thinks The Cheat's computer mouse is a bar of soap.
73	** The Tandy 400 (his first computer), fits after Strong Bad continues to use it after its ''explosion''.
74	** The Compy 386 (pictured above) doesn't show any negative qualities other than general obsolescence for its time. Well, that and having a massive hole blasted through the screen by Bubs with a shotgun in order to deal with a virus, much to Strong Bad's distress. (In fairness, said virus was [[RealityWarper warping reality]] [[RealityIsOutToLunch and causing]] [[NoFourthWall the line between reality and the website to completely fall apart]].)
75	** The Lappy 486 features, according to Strong Bad, an [[BlatantLies "extremely portable"]] weight of 42 pounds and a battery life of "one-half of ten minutes."
76	** Averted with the Compé, which was current when the toons that featured it were made, but still fits this trope due to it having a text-based interface alongside a desktop interface, and the very pixelated text.
77	** The Lappier is presumably better than the Lappy, but it is unclear since it's only been in a few toons.
78	** In the WebAnimation/StrongBadEmail "the facts", [[DumbMuscle Strong Mad]] apparently "uses" a computer that's just a cardboard box and a paper grocery bag done up to look vaguely like a desktop computer.
79	--->'''Strong Mad:''' E-COMMERCE! E-BUSINESS!
80	[[/folder]]
81
82	[[folder:Web Comics]]
83	* In ''Webcomic/LeftoverSoup'' Jamie had a "[[http://www.leftoversoup.com/archive.php?num=17 Linux clusterfuck]]" of three laptops that were supposed to act as one machine but in practice didn't work without all three active at once and was much less powerful than even one of them by itself. He apparently bought the mess for $50 and the original creator had died without leaving any documentation. Professional computer geek Ellen tries for a full day and night to make it work with one laptop, [[spoiler: but eventually just scraps them and buys him a new laptop]].
84	* ''Webcomic/GeneralProtectionFault'': The secret organization of the Brotherhood of the Twisted Pair seek a geek "like none other, whose skills are without equal. He (or she) will initiate a golden age of geekdom, and lead a revolution of ideas that will revolutionize the computerized world." One of the tests is averting this trope with out-of-date machinery.
85	** Fooker passed by building a server out of computer equipment made in the late 1980s, when said components were at least a decade out of date.
86	** Sharon passed by writing down what you'd have to do in order to pull off a similar feat, using 20-year-old equipment.
87	** Yoshi passed by having the computer equipment a college kid could buy on a budget confiscated by the FBI, because of what he did with it.
88	* In ''Webcomic/{{Homestesque}}'', Tyler has an Unbelievably Shitty Laptop with a CRT screen.
89	* In ''Webcomic/TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob'' has the [[MadScientist mad scientist]] Dean Martin (no, not [[Music/DeanMartin that one]]), who uses a Platform/TRS80.
90	* In ''Webcomic/QuestionableContent'', May's '''body''' is an Alleged Computer. It is literally falling apart, as shown [[https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3168 here]], [[https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=4096 here]] and [[https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=4307 here]]. The problem reaches its culmination [[https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=4348 here]] as her body's head falls off and the body catches fire--fortunately just '''after''' she's been put into a new and much better body.
91	[[/folder]]
92
93	[[folder:Web Original]]
94	* Website/TheDailyWTF has a few stories about these.
95	* In early 2021, ''WebVideo/{{Caddicarus}}'' decided to build a high-end gaming PC with help from [=LowSpecGamer=] (the latter of whom already had plenty of experience with PC building). But a ridiculous number of mishaps resulted in the computer not working properly at all. On top of difficulties getting the parts in the first place due to Covid-related supply chain issues, he ran into compatibility and power issues with the combination of parts he chose that kept the machine from booting up properly, requiring him to buy and swap out all sorts of different parts in hopes one would work. Even after he finally got it booted up, the computer started crashing frequently for reasons that neither he nor LSG or any other friends he consulted could discern. After losing 18 hours of recorded gaming footage to one reboot on the clunker, and after having spent more than £7,500 (about $10,000) on it, he finally decided to just go with a prebuilt computer. He would eventually post a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHVXp_fRGzE video]] detailing what happened in large part to explain why he had an abnormally long gap in his upload schedule.
96	* ''Blog/TheComicsCurmudgeon'' has a theory that the ''ComicBook/{{Archie\|Comics}}'' comic strip is written by the "Archie Joke Generating Laugh Unit 3000" (the AJGLU-3000), a quasi-sentient but primitive, very large, computer that attempts to mimic human interaction for humor.
97	* The official website of Creator/GeorgeCarlin had an intro where the screen would initially show static while George could be heard demanding that the hamster be woken up and start running in its wheel so the site could function.
98	* The ''Literature/BastardOperatorFromHell'' keeps one antiquated machine around because his unfinished game of ''{{VideoGame/Dungeon}}'' is on it. Its hard disk failed a long time ago; the machine has been running from memory for untold years. Other stories also make fun of various outdated equipment, like one where he made a few bucks by selling users the right to chuck their crappy old hardware from the roof of the building. It's all good fun until an old mainframe lands on the boss' car...
99	* ''WebVideo/JonTron'' has a computer that shorts out when lightly doused with (his) blood in his first ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ci2hj7CSHI Flex Tape video]]''.
100	* ''WebVideo/SsethTzeentach'':
101	** Whatever computer Sseth is using in a review is rarely portrayed in a positive light when seen or mentioned. His laptop in particular is about a decade out of date, covered in a bizarre combination of old stickers, and in such a poor state of disrepair that Sseth classifies it an improvised taser in his ''VideoGame/{{Underrail}}'' review. Its condition only gets worse in later reviews.
102	-->'''Sseth:''' To keep it working I ripped out the thermal sensor, which means if I flip it over I can reliably cook eggs on the surface."
103	** The laptop's temporary replacement in Sseth's ''VideoGame/TotalAnnihilationKingdoms'' review, which he dubs "I Have No Case and I Must Scream", is an even more extreme example, being nothing more than some loose parts wired together lacking so much as a power button, requiring that pins be shorted on the motherboard with a screwdriver to turn the computer on instead.
104	[[/folder]]
105
106	[[folder:Western Animation]]
107	* ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'':
108	** Mr. Crocker's computer is horrendously slow enough to qualify.
109	** Averted when Timmy's dad made one himself [[RuleOfFunny and it works fine.]] [[DoomItYourself Unlike his other stuff.]] Its only drawback is that it needs someone to run on a treadmill to work.
110	* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':
111	** In "Separate Vocations", the school's [[IneptAptitudeTest aptitude tests]] are scored by a huge mainframe-like machine named "Emma", which takes some PercussiveMaintenance to operate. It said Bart should be a cop and Lisa [[StayInTheKitchen a homemaker]].
112	** In "Lisa Gets an 'A'", when Lisa's dishonest exam result pushes the school's average into the boundaries of acceptability, the school is awarded some money which is spent on, among other things, a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coleco_Adam Coleco]] desktop computer which is visibly about 15 years out of date at the time of the episode and was released to mediocre reception and poor sales even when it was new. Hapless salesman Gil advises rust-proofing.
113	** They use this to take a ''great'' jab at [[IntimidatingRevenueService The IRS]] when Homer is audited in "The Trouble With Trillions". How triumphantly the agent brags about how "powerful" their computers really sells it:
114	--> '''Agent Johnson:''' Mr. Simpson, this government computer can process ''over nine tax returns per day''. Did you really think you could fool it?!
115	* Peggy Hill in ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'' uses a [[http://oldcomputers.net/kayproii.html Kaypro II]] (first released 1982) up until the turn of the millennium, at which point Hank buys her a 'blueberry' (read: G3) iMac.
116	* ''WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouse'': In the episode "Out of the Picture", the school computer Coach Pacowski has to use to edit the year book is horrendously slow.
117	* ''WesternAnimation/WeBareBears'': In "The Library", Panda tries to download and print out some practice tests for Chloe, who's cramming for a big exam. Unfortunately, the only computer available is a ridiculously outdated one with a CRT monitor ("Why does the screen bulge out?"), a dot-matrix printer, and a ''dial-up modem''.
118	* The Aardvark in ''WesternAnimation/TheAntAndTheAardvark'' cartoon "Technology Phooey" builds a computer to help him catch an ant, but its solutions are of dubious success. That's because it's actually an automatic pop-up toaster.
119	[[/folder]]
120
121	[[folder:Real Life]]
122	* The UrExample would have to be [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ENIAC ENIAC]], built in 1945. When first switched on, it drew so much electricity that it caused a brownout in adjacent localities. And in its early years of operation, vacuum tubes of the type that drove it would burn out several times daily. Also, to change its program, its operators had to ''rewire'' the thing!
123	* The Apple III is an early example, being (as Steve Wozniak described it) designed more by committee than by actual engineers. A practically non-existent cooling system (which was demanded by Steve Jobs, who hated cooling fans) and other design flaws led to reliability problems, while limited Apple II compatibility (apparently because Apple marketing were afraid the III would be seen as a toy otherwise) and poor native software support meant that many users had to rely on the Apple II backwards-compatibility feature to use the machine at all. Unfortunately, this feature only worked in 40-column mode, ruining the III's advantage of built-in 80-column support when upgrading a II with an 80-column expansion card would have been much cheaper. Despite the design flaws being ironed out in later machines, it still ended up being a flop.
124	* Another early example was the Sinclair [=ZX80=], which in addition to an (allegedly) barely usable keyboard had the design flaw of not being able to display anything whilst a key was being pressed (making it unsuitable for anything like games, [[SugarWiki/GeniusProgramming not that this stopped developers from making them anyway]]), as well as the available display area shrinking the more memory was used. Like its younger and more famous brother the [=ZX81=], which had some of these design flaws fixed, it also only had a measly 1K of RAM (which could be expanded with a RAM pack that was often held in place with blu-tac) and monochrome display (even the Commodore VIC-20 had more than this). Nevertheless these trade-offs made it the first home computer in the UK available for under £100, ended up selling some 100,000 units and proving mass-market home computing was possible, leading to the phenomenally successful [=ZX81=] and Platform/ZXSpectrum.
125	* Computers from budget brands tend to become this, where probably the only hardware that didn't require the bare minimum to pass was the parts from Intel or AMD.
126	** Motherboard manufacturer PC Chips was notorious during the 486, Pentium and Socket 7 eras for selling boards that promised a lot, but cut corners in several infuriating ways. While their 386 boards are solid, if bare-bones, their 486-class boards often used fake cache chips, complete with a hacked BIOS that made it seems like the cache was present. With no actual level-2 cache, even a high-end 486DX4 or [=Am5x86=] would only perform slightly better than a cheap 486SX machine. Their Pentium-class boards used relabeled[[note]]or cloned, depending on who you ask[[/note]] versions of VIA, [=SiS=] and Acer chipsets that reportedly weren't as good as the real ones. They were also frequently branded as [="VXpro", "TXpro" and "HXpro"=] [[note]]the actual VIA and Acer chipsets PC Chips used were sold to other [=OEMs=] as the Apollo and Aladdin series, respectively[[/note]] despite not being Intel products, which caused confusion among users and techies alike when the Intel chipset drivers for Windows either failed to install or caused system crashes. PC Chips is still around today under the "ECS" brand, after its two major components (Hsing Tech and Elitegroup) merged sometime in the 2000s, and while they're nowhere near as common now as they were in the mid-to-late 1990s, these boards still end up in the occasional cheap build.
127	** The big PC makers (Dell, Gateway, HP, Compaq) [[NonStandardCharacterDesign used or continue to use non-standard motherboard form factors that don't support replacements]]. Fine if the motherboard works, but if it fails you end up tossing all but the expansion cards and drives into the bin. Since the motherboard is non-standard, upgrading the CPU is a pain.
128	** Depending on manufacturing practices, production run differences can result in difficulties in installing or updating OEM drivers. Most notably, Dell's Latitude 3330 series business laptops have had subtle differences in the Intel HD graphics chip between different production batches (which may either be due to differences in assembly sites or changes in chipset due to raw stock availability between runs). This results in there existing ''multiple different versions'' of the Intel HD GPU driver existing for that specific model of laptop, resulting in much confusion and delay when updating or re-installing device drivers.
129	** Even some gaming oriented pre-builds are not immune. Despite being sold at large markups over the cost of parts and flashy looks, they tend to have brand name [=CPUs=] and [=GPUs=] and skimp on stuff like motherboards and power supplies. Moreover, the flashy cases tend to not be that great for airflow and general cooling capacity. There's a reason pre-builds are frowned upon by many enthusiasts who prefer to buy parts separately and build [=PCs=] themselves.
130	* Back in the 1990s, before the [=iMac=] came out, Apple released a line of low-end [[Platform/AppleMacintosh Macs]] only begrudgingly (Apple's stance, then as now, was that desktop Macs were meant to be high-end workstations), and so their quality was hit-or-miss.
131	** The two worst were 1990's Macintosh Classic (a reissue of the then four-years-old Mac Plus, which was itself an upgraded version of the Mac 128k/512k from ''1984''), and 1995's Power Macintosh 5200/6200 and 5300/6300 (a deliberately compromised design based on the Macintosh Quadra 630, which was itself not a bad machine, but was never meant to host a [=PowerPC=] CPU with a 64-bit data bus). The Mac Classic was cheap, but extremely slow even by 1990 standards and only supported monochrome graphics. The Performa [=x200/x300=] was plagued with firmware bugs and compatibility problems due to its motherboard design; [[http://lowendmac.com/2014/power-mac-and-performa-x200-road-apples/ Low End Mac has the details.]] Both were eventually replaced by better machines; the Classic was replaced just a year later with the Classic II (based on the 32-bit LC II's internals), and the 5200/6200 evolved into the PCI-based, much faster and more compatible 6360[[note]]a half-step design with only one PCI slot that was made as a drop-in upgrade for the 52xx/62xx chassis[[/note]]/6400/6500 "[=InstaTower=]" series.
132	** The Core Solo Mac mini also warrants a place on the list, owing to its very short support life, cheap single-core CPU at a time when dual-core systems were becoming standard[[note]]The Core Solo and later Core 2 Solo processors were effectively Core Duo and Core 2 Duo processors with the second core disabled either to salvage otherwise defective cores, or ''deliberately'' so they could sell them at a discount[[/note]], Intel GMA 950 graphics that performed noticeably worse in games than the ATI Radeon 9200 in its [=PowerPC=] G4-based predecessor, and most damningly, ''a 32-bit only CPU shortly before Apple started making OS X increasingly 64-bit, resulting in total incompatibility with OS X 10.7 Lion and later.'' [[http://lowendmac.com/2014/core-solo-mac-mini-a-compromised-mac/ Low End Mac has the details.]]
133	** Many older Macs used an [=ER14250=] lithium battery for the real-time clock and parameter RAM backup instead of the more common [=CR2032=] coin cells (or another type of lithium battery easily available at a corner store, such as a 123 or [=CR2=] cell). Aside from being hard to find outside of specialty shops or online, [=ER14250=]s have another problem -- older ones can explode just like bad capacitors, and the potential for damage is even worse because the "E" in "[=ER14250=]" means "lithium-thionyl chloride". Thionyl chloride is nasty stuff on its own, but get water involved and it turns into two different kinds of strong acid (hydrochloric and sulfurous/sulfur dioxide), both of which will happily chew away on any metallic surface they touch inside the case, ''including the copper and solder on the motherboard''. Many an older Mac has been damaged beyond repair by this, which is why the first thing collectors do when putting a Mac into long-term storage is ''remove the battery''. Some people that are handy with soldering have successfully replaced the [=ER14250=] battery holders with [=CR2032=] holders. Newer Macs use [=CR2032s=] from the factory (and a few 1990s Macs used PC/AT-style clock batteries), meaning they aren't as susceptible to this issue.
134	* During the early 2000s, numerous PC motherboards had bouts of "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague capacitor plague]]". where the offending capacitors would [[MadeOfExplodium burst and leak]]. The cause was attributed to industrial espionage, after an engineer was suspected of stealing formulas for a new capacitor which were revealed to be incomplete.
135	** The battery backed-up clocks used in many Platform/{{Amiga}}s (and particularly memory expansion boards such as Commodore's A501 (a standard upgrade for the A500 model for many years) mean that most vintage Amigas carrying them developed issues after 10-15 years, unless carefully treated by people with knowledge of the problem. Working Amigas are thus rarer today than most contemporary systems which sold similarly.
136	** Another, similar plague has since hit some types of vintage computing and A/V equipment, particularly Macs from the late 1980s and early 1990s. These machines all used Panasonic surface-mount electrolytic capacitors, which were state-of-the-art back then, but since they were the first generation of a new technology, they haven't stood the test of time well -- they've started leaking and destroying circuitry in much the same way as the bad caps of the 2000s.
137	* One major reason [[Platform/MicrosoftWindows Windows Vista]] was so poorly received was that it was a major leap forward in system requirements after six years of Windows XP, during which a lot of computer manufacturers had stopped bothering to upsell customers on ever-more-powerful hardware and instead just lowered their prices. Laptops under $700 and desktops under $400, which would have been unheard of in the early 2000s, became commonplace. Once Vista came out, these manufacturers tried to unload their remaining inventory with Vista preinstalled -- a mandate from Microsoft -- and ended up selling machines that could barely boot up, let alone run anything.
138	** Another reason behind Vista's botched launch was largely that the new Aero interface required a fairly high-end [[MediaNotes/GraphicsProcessingUnit GPU]] to work at a time when most computers still shipped with atrocious Intel integrated graphics solutions, many of them laptops with no upgrade path or desktops without a proper AGP or PCI-Express slot for dedicated graphics. Intel actually had to ''get Microsoft to permit the "Vista Capable" spec for integrated graphics systems instead of the "Vista Ready" badge reserved for dedicated GPU systems'' just so all the pre-built OEM vendors could sell their woefully underpowered computers and claim compatibility with the latest OS.
139	** Microsoft also decided to provide a very cheap Windows OEM license, but only as long as the devices don't exceed a very minimal RAM and display size, hoping to bank on the rise of netbooks without eating their profit from proper laptops. Unfortunately, for some vendors, it means it was more profitable to keep selling devices that were barely able to run Vista since crossing the maximum limit would force them to release much more expensive devices that generate far less sales.
140	** The success of Windows 7 -- which featured only minor changes -- was largely due to being released three years later, when every new computer on the market was more than capable of running it smoothly ''and stable Vista drivers were abundant.'' That last point about drivers is particularly critical considering that a lot of NT/2000/XP drivers would not work on Vista, especially 64-bit installations that required new drivers entirely, but drivers coded for Vista will, more or less, work all the way up to Windows 10.
141	** History has repeated itself with Windows 10. When Microsoft released the operating system in 2015, they allowed that it might be free to download for a year. Then, some months later, they decided to attach Windows 10 as a 'preferred' update for any computers capable of running it, automatically downloading it. Various issues inevitably resulted, as not only were there severe driver issues with numerous types of hardware, but many computers which were 'recommended' were incapable of running it at any speed beyond impossibly slow. Netbooks were the worst offenders. The problem has also reared its head in another way: As Windows XP and Windows Vista are no longer officially supported by Microsoft, not only are they becoming more and more an example, but if the customer attempts to update the computer to 10...
142	** Windows 11 has the exact opposite issue from Windows 10: It locks out computers that are just over 3 years old by mandating specific types of [=CPUs=] and hardware security features as a minimum. This was a case of extraordinarily bad timing on Microsoft's part, since Windows 11 was announced in the middle of a worldwide silicon shortage, cryptomining craze and scalper boom (which in turn made the requisite CPU and motherboard upgrades hard to come by); many people were angry at Microsoft for what they saw as an arbitrary and unreasonable list of requirements.[[note]]It is possible to bypass said requirements (and Microsoft themselves [[https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/ways-to-install-windows-11-e0edbbfb-cfc5-4011-868b-2ce77ac7c70e did put up a guide]] on how to do so), with the caveat that support and updates on unsupported configurations isn't guaranteed.[[/note]] However, the negative publicity isn't as bad as Windows 10's was, since the upgrade to Windows 11 is completely optional, and Windows 10 support is set to continue for several more years at minimum.
143	** At the turn of the millennium, Microsoft released two operating systems with confusingly similar names: Windows 2000, and Windows Millennium Edition (if you worked tech support at the time, you could expect about half your calls to be from someone claiming their computer runs "Windows Millennium 2000"). While 2000 earned a reputation as being stable, sturdy and nearly above any reproach[[note]]barring high-profile virus attacks such as Code Red and Nimda[[/note]] due to it running off NT underpinnings (which led Microsoft to add the subtitle "Built on NT Technology" on the boot splash), Millennium has multiple glitches and questionable design decisions that created some truly insane problems, such as the System Restore folder feature ballooning out of control until the entire hard drive was consumed unless turned off, files going above 4GB getting automatically deleted[[note]]Due to the FAT32 file system being limited to files up to 4GB in size[[/note]] and system settings defaults setting up a ''constantly readjusting'' dynamic page memory that would keep the hard drive ''active at all times''. That last one could cause premature disk wear that might eventually lead to complete drive failure. Getting this version to work correctly could get a savvy tech user suspected of using black magic. Much of the criticism behind Me was because of the fact that it was derived from the now-antiquated Windows 9x architecture, albeit with real-mode DOS access DummiedOut, reputedly to shorten boot times and [[BlatantLies improve on reliability]]. Not to mention that Windows Me was ChristmasRushed for a summer release as a stopgap while Neptune, which was to be the consumer-oriented edition of 2000, was [[ExecutiveMeddling delayed]] in favour of Me for whatever reason. If there's any silver lining to it, the NT-derived Windows XP born from the ashes of Neptune and the failure of Me would be fondly remembered as one of the best if not the best Windows release of all time.
144	* The [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coleco_Adam Coleco Adam]]: the list of "Problems" on its Wikipedia entry reads like a series of gags from a National Lampoon movie. Most notably, it generated an electromagnetic surge on startup that could wipe any tapes or disks left in or near it (and the manual ''recommended'' inserting them before booting up), and the whole thing ran off the power supply from its bundled printer. The one bright spot on the original machine was its keyboard, an early premium rubber-dome model made by parties unknown[[note]]possibly by a poorly-documented keyboard maker called Jelco, which in turn may or may not have been related to Topre, another keyboard maker in the same city that has a cult following among keyboard geeks; some users have noted the feel of the keyboard being similar to Topre "capacitive-dome" models despite being a simple rubber-dome keyboard[[/note]] in Japan.
145	* WebVideo/The8BitGuy - in the video [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hdazA-VUf0 AST Computer - Tales from Tech Support]] David talks about the staggering return rate of the titular computers. Some calls were after the computer had ''caught fire'' or were still smoking.
146	* As smartphones were technically portable computers, those smartphones which could blow up due to various reasons from overheating to poor power management count, but Samsung's Galaxy Note 7 takes the cake with how hyped, how pricey, and how good performance and feature-wise it was. Except the power regulations were poor and the battery quality was also poor, leading to the phone catching fire or popping up into a bar of hot metal in the most unfortunate situations. The backlash was tremendous, the phone quickly became a contraband, and Samsung ''even updated the phone to drastically lower the performance, even stopping charging above 15%!'' On the other hand, Samsung's full-disclosure approach to the problem contrasted with multiple other companies' "deny everything" scandals at the time, allowing the Samsung Galaxy brand to survive the Note 7's failure. The Note series didn't last much longer, though; Samsung would eventually roll the Note series' features into the Galaxy S series, starting with the Galaxy S21 in 2021.
147	** Likewise the early cheap, low-end, Android Go-powered smartphones that use hardware that was already low-end in specs when it was released years ago and those of better specs but running resource-hungry Android-based [=OSes=] instead of pure, stock, Android. While they may work finely for calls, messages, or [=WhatsApp=] anything more than that and serious multitasking will mean [[LoadsAndLoadsOfLoading booting and/or apps having long loading times]], apps being closed in the background to get extra memory, and random freezes up to system lockups. The hardware vs software race has relatively settled now, and even lowest-end devices running recent Android will work pretty well since Google's minimum requirements are now enough for decent performance, despite the vendor preloading dozens of ad-infested apps.
148	* Ever since the original [=iPad=] came out, numerous Android tablets from a myriad of manufacturers cashed in on the nascent smart device market. While some of them are of merit like Samsung's Galaxy Tab line, lower-end models especially those [[ShoddyKnockoffProduct budget]] devices running off a [=MediaTek=] or Allwinner systems-on-chip tend to end up like this either due to poor design, crappy hardware, or badly optimized software suffering of the same problems as the cheap smartphones noted above. Even name-brand tablets like those from Fuhu's Nabi line of children's tablets received criticism for the reasons mentioned above--in the case of Nabi, it suffered from a sluggish UI, had poor battery life, and in some cases had their batteries bloat up as well. Unfortunately, the predominance of these crap tablets damaged the reputation of Android tablets before the good ones could be launched, causing a vicious cycle of developers not optimizing their Android apps for tablets because not enough people buy Android tablets and people avoiding Android tablets because apps aren't optimized for them, resulting in the [=iPad=] dominating the market. Google gave up on tablets for years, leaving Samsung to pick up the slack until the available cheap hardware is finally powerful enough to bring back Google's attention.
149	** It gets even worse with the Creator/{{Sprout}} Cubby tablet, which also had its own laundry list of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5IHSafKxNE reliability issues]], the most common being its ''delicate'' LCD panel. To give people an idea on how easily broken the Cubby is, one parent claimed that their daughter trashed the LCD screen ''within a day of use'', not to mention that disassembling the Cubby would reveal that the [[https://i.imgur.com/7lyYZx0.jpeg internals look jerry-rigged]] compared to those of the Amazon Fire which while still regarded as cheap garbage, is more solidly constructed. You'd think that the company behind the device would take durability very much into account considering the Cubby's intended audience, but somehow they skimped on that and decided to pass off a shoddily-built device as something children would be able to play with reliably.
150	* Apple's [=iOS=] devices tend to start throttling their speeds as they age in, so as not to stress their aging lithium batteries too much in theory. In practice, it makes their performance drop off, leading to complaints of both their battery lives and their general performance aging badly. Apple, naturally, helpfully suggests that the best way to resolve this is to trade in for a newer model.
151	* Apple's [=macOS=] devices that don't use SSD get ridiculously slow when they upgrade to newer macOS that require APFS. Unlike Linux and Windows which happily still use decades-old file systems, Apple believes it's imperative to force their user to migrate to the new file system which indeed works really well on SSD, but becomes unbearably slow on HDD.
152	* The most commonly-reported reason for performance issues in most aging computers/electronics is that the primary memory storage is either suboptimal or degrades faster than expected. For example:
153	** The first-generation Google Nexus 7 tablet had a serious issue of flash memory performance degradation as it aged, making seem to slow to a crawl after a few years.
154	** The most common complaint of laptops suddenly seeming to hit a wall in performance speed after the advent of the Core i-series Intel processors was due to the continued use of slower, "power-saving" hard drives with throttled disk spin rates in order to reduce power consumption. You see, Windows sometimes needs to run disk-intensive operations due to writing/rewriting either files or cached information. However, after a few months of writing/deleting/rewriting files, the hard drive's contents can get rather fragmented, resulting in increased seeking times as the hard drives would need to spin more in order to access, read, or write files. On budget machines that already had slower processors, this would result in a vicious cycle of waiting for processor operations, ''then'' waiting for a hard drive to wake up and spin up to speed, ''then'' wait for it to finish accessing a fragmented file or two, resulting in the alleged "power saving" drive ''wasting'' energy alternating between idling and spinning up/down between processor operations. The easiest, if pricey, solution to this issue is to transfer the disk image into a solid state drive, which doesn't rely on a fixed spinning disk medium to retain data and has ''much'' better file access speeds (write speeds may vary depending how good a solid state drive you invest in).
155	* Let's not forget the much-publicised hardware failures encountered by Platform/Xbox360 owners during its early days, where early-revision "Xenon" models tend to die easily from overheating and from broken solder joints caused by said thermal issues, and thus display the now-infamous Red Ring of Death (RROD), no thanks to Microsoft cutting corners to keep production costs at a minimum. And not only that, design flaws with the optical drive and certain system software revisions were also the subject of intense scrutiny and subsequent litigation.
156	* The Platform/PlayStation3 isn't spared from any hardware issues either, the most infamous of which is the "Yellow Light of Death" especially on older "fat" models. They're caused by a number of factors, namely but not limited to shoddy solder, capacitor issues, overheating or dying chips amongst other things. And the only reason why Sony wasn't scapegoated as much compared to Microsoft was the reported number of cases--10% of [=PS3=]s end up with a YLOD whilst nearly a ''quarter'' of the Xbox 360 user base had experienced the RROD in some form according to one source.
157	* PC World did [[https://web.archive.org/web/20071112131959/http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,129857-page,12-c,desktoppcs/article.html an article]] about the 25 worst [=PCs=] of all time, and most of the listed were badly compromised budget [=PCs=]. Number one was notable, though, for being an entire PC ''brand'' instead of just one PC. Packard Bell computers were sold in America from the mid eighties to 2000, and (despite the prestigious-sounding name) were in no way associated with Hewlett Packard, Bell Labs or the Bell System[[note]]their proprietors bought the name from the industrial conglomerate Teledyne in 1986; the original Packard Bell was a radio maker from the classic era--who themselves weren't related to HP or Bell--that had dabbled in [=TVs=] as well before Teledyne bought them in 1968 and shut them down in the early 1970s. The new Packard Bell thus believed they could say that [[ExactWords "America grew up listening to us"]]; Pacific Telesis (which was one of the "Baby Bells" spun off from AT&T in 1982, and thus owned very similarly named Pac''ific'' Bell) were not amused and forced them to post a "not affiliated with any former Bell System entity" disclaimer with the tagline eventually[[/note]]. While their first machines were decent but nothing to speak of otherwise (many of them were rebadged Samsung machines), once they switched to their own manufacturing in Taiwan around 1990, they got a reputation for being cheap[[note]]some of their 486 machines had a similar issue to the PC Chips motherboards mentioned above, except instead of shipping with fake cache RAM, they just didn't bother putting ''any'' in, partially as a cost-saving measure (especially on 486SX machines, the 16k of built-in level 1 cache was considered good enough), partially to work around cache-coherency issues on some not-so-great 486 chipsets[[/note]], unusually designed[[note]]while most brand-name [=PCs=] in the mid-1990s had issues with non-standard parts and weird case designs, the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1csOOMXANI Corner Computer]] from 1995 was probably the most JustForFun/{{egregious}} example of this[[/note]], and horridly unreliable [[note]]they had twice the average return rate (1 in 6, when their competitors averaged 1 in 12)[[/note]]. Despite all this, they were the best selling [=PCs=] through much of TheNineties, before losing a lawsuit to Compaq in 1995 about undisclosed use of recycled parts (something everyone else did at the time as well, but disclosed in their warranty statements), resulting in them being bought out by NEC that year and pulled from American shores by 2000. The brand name eventually ended up at Acer, who only uses it in Europe and the Middle East.
158	* The Barbie and Hot Wheels computers made by Patriot Computers under licence from Mattel in 1999 were doomed to fail from the get-go. Sure, it banked on Toys/{{Barbie}} and Toys/HotWheels, both being iconic toy franchises, but not only were industry analysts sceptical on Patriot's reliance on [[PinkProductPloy gender stereotypes]], the computers--which were little more than very-low end small form factor [=PCs=] with garish, infantile designs painted on them--had a high rate of failure especially with their power supplies which used a rather uncommon form factor. Such was the failure rate that Patriot's support lines were flooded by upset parents whose children's [=PCs=] died as a result of faulty hardware, and Patriot spent so much time and effort with addressing these issues--alongside the fact that they still took orders--that the company went bankrupt as a result with 3,100 PC orders remaining undelivered. Mattel had to placate those whose orders were unfulfilled with a “free gift package” containing a $100 toy and gift certificate voucher.
159	* Controversy ensued in 1994 when ''[[VideoGame/DisneysAnimatedStorybook Disney's Animated Storybook: The Lion King]]'' crashed on a number of Compaq Presario computers that came bundled with the game which was [[ChristmasRushed rushed]] in time for Christmas. Due to issues with the Presarios in question, particularly certain video drivers which weren't thoroughly tested with Microsoft's [=WinG=] graphics API, Disney's support lines were flooded with calls from angry parents whose children were crying as they couldn't get the game to work properly. Eventually, the initial release was recalled and amended pressings of the game with better hardware support was released both as a new purchase and as a free exchange for the earlier release. The ''Lion King'' debacle eventually led Microsoft to develop the more popular [=DirectX=] API, whose development was also spurred by the fact that game developers held on to MS-DOS and were leery of the development challenges Windows imposed on developers.
160	* Chromebooks have this reputation among some users, due to the fact that early on they could only run web apps. Machines purchased by schools also tend to lock down students from doing anything remotely fun on them, and cheaper models tend to skimp on build quality.
161	* Among storage devices, Seagate gets a bad rap for their drives having a high failure rate. There's been many a [[https://www.quora.com/Why-do-Seagate-mechanical-hard-drives-have-higher-failure-rates-than-those-of-HGST-Toshiba-and-Western-Digital horror story]] on how Seagates fail for whatever reason, though some chalk it up to how relatively cheap they are compared to other brands.
162	[[/folder]]

Context Main / TheAllegedComputer