There's no need to repair the hardware of a PC. If you're as
There is for me. Period. I am not using things I don't understand and
can't repair.
frugal as you indicate, and can leave the house
to rub shoulders
with other computer users, you will find an unending stream of
cast-off free-or-nearly-so PCs from three PC generations
I've never found such people. The only remotely PC-biased hacker I know
actively collectes 486s and later to run linux on. So he's not going to
be a source od machines.