I must admit, coffee was coughed across p115 of issue 341 of PC Pro as I read David Crookes’ inflammatory headline “Floppy disks: the tech that won’t die”. How many times does an IT repair business reach for the 3.5s these days? On the week I sprayed David’s article, three.
One of our regular customers is Dan, who’s a tech enthusiast confident enough to break out the screwdrivers. Dan’s superpower is knowing when to stop. Normally when he’s hit that point, he arrives in our shop with boxes of boards, RAM and cables, along with a lengthy hit list of other tweaks. This job was Dan’s Sleeper PC, which is a concept I’d never heard of, at least not by that name.
According to world-beating AI, GPT-3.5 defines a Sleeper PC as “a computer that is set up to turn off its display and/or enter a low-power mode after a period of inactivity, such as a few minutes”. If this concept seems confusing, it’s because GPT-3.5’s definition of a Sleeper PC is cobblers. The r/sleeperbattlestations sub-Reddit defines a Sleeper PC as “new hardware in an old or unassuming case”, but that’s only scratching the surface. Like trying to fit a 2023 hybrid car engine into a 1965 Ford Anglia, squeezing modern PC components into an older case is more than a matter of
