[51Cards]

I have been programming since the late 80's and one thing I learned early was to always develop (or at least extensively test) on older hardware. My primary work machine is usually a generation or two old. At present I code on a T42 Thinkpad and there is a new T60 waiting to take over in a couple months. If you're forced to develop in a "slow" environment you learn to optimize your code from the get go, all the time. You automatically rely on faster techniques as the norm vs. going back and fixing later. As a result now I frequently see my applications running at client's offices and think to myself "holy crap, that's fast". Another side benefit is that it keeps all my "fun" applications over on another more current machine and separate from work.

[vlisivka]

I also started programming in late 80's, and I use that technique too. Currently, my netbook is more powerful than my primary laptop. :-)

My laptop is also able to variate CPU clock speed from 2GHz to 200MHz. It makes me easy to execute CPU-bound benchmarks of my programs.