toddestan

That sounds like one of those fixtures where the ballast is in the fixture and the bulb is just a bulb, similar to a regular fluorescent light fixture. As opposed to the screw-in CFLs that most people are familiar with where the bulb also contains the ballast.

Those are kind of unusual in homes - I've mostly seen them in commercial applications like hotels and stuff like that.

I had something similar, except it was a blown fuse.

Granted, the fuse was soldered in place and you had to take it apart to get to it. But once it was replaced it worked perfectly. No idea why the fuse blew either, unless it was just defective.

That's mostly just indirect lighting.

Bias lighting is specifically lights that are placed behind screens to help reduce eyestrain from viewing a bright screen in a dark room.

I remember in the original 1990's NASCAR Racing game, I discovered a glitch where if I managed hit an AI car into the outer wall a certain way while driving backwards, it would launch said AI car backwards at some incredible rate of speed which could make for some spectacular wrecks.

Anyhow, that's what I spent most of time doing.

Does Encarta count as owning an encyclopedia?

I still have that exact model of Dell sitting in a closet. Was in regular use until around 2014 or so. Even ran Vista on it for a while.

It was not my dorm room PC though, that was an Athlon XP box I put together myself.

With the N64, it helps if you can hook it up to a TV from around that era too. Games like Goldeneye look terrible on a modern LCD. I had that experience myself - "Man, I know I'm used to modern games now, but I don't remember these games looking this shitty". Then I dragged out my old CRT and hooked it up, and instantly it was "Now this is how I remember these games looking like".

At best, I've seen a small discount and whatever is traded in is junked to keep it off the second-hand market.

I'm not saying that old hardware is useless. I make good use out of old hardware too. I have an old i5 Dell from about 2012 running ZoneMinder, a Phenom II system from around 2009 that I use a Linux server, an even older Core 2 Duo system that's a glorified MP3 player, and even a very early 2000's Pentium III that I use for a router (sadly I'm going to have to retire it from these duties soon - it can barely handle a 100 mbps DSL connection, and it's too old and outdated to run the modern router distributions).

However, for every one of those computers I have another one like it sitting in a closet plus a few extras. All the geeks and tinkerers I know are also swimming in old hardware. If I really wanted to get rid of this stuff, I'd have a hard time giving it away. Economically, this stuff is worthless. The supply greatly exceeds the demand(*)

(*) well, except maybe the Pentium III... it's old enough now that retro gamers may be interested...

I've never had to present my SS card or a photocopy of it for any job. They of course ask for my SSN as they legitimately need it, but that's it.

If all she uses the computer for is playing Sims 4, another option is just let her continue to use Windows 10. If she's running it through Steam she's probably got another 3-4 years before that stops working.

That's true, but the supply vastly outstrips the demand. They may make great Linux machines, but the majority of 10-15 year old computers have little to no economic value.