I’m talking abundant I/O, great repairability/easy to open, maintain. A laptop from back when laptop manufacturers didn’t hate us.
The closest I got was a dell latitude 5500 which has decent I/O and a pretty modern processor.
If Lenovo were to make a modern T42 or something like that, not sparing the ports.
Framework, as someone else said: https://youtu.be/drxOpMsr6sM
It feels a little more on the closed source side to me. They have modular parts, but it is using their proprietary parts.
MNT reform is more open and modable https://youtu.be/_DA0Jr4WH-4
The MNT might be what you mean when you say old laptops. This thing is a huge slab.
Framework seems like the ideal choice but right now it is out of my price range. For long term however it does seem like the best choice right now.
That MNT laptop sure looks fun to use (and modify to my liking). However it is expensive. But I do like its open mindset
That Framework one is really neat.