The existing laptop has been used as a telescope mount control and image capture for a few years. It has had its issues…
USB2 only (not USB3 which most astro cameras use these days), and it intermittently locked up for seconds at a time.
So a refurbished (from amazon) mini computer came along to replace it, at under $200 Can.
hp elitedesk 800 G3 mini  CoreI5@2.5GHz, 16GB DDR4, 256GB NVME, 480GB SSD, graphics intel HD 530 , HDMI 1920*1080
This had more RAM, faster solid state drives, and most importantly USB3

Observatory Configuration:
Serial-USB Adapter (Prolific PL-23xx)
Mount: Skywatcher AZ-EQ6GT
Telescope Vixen VC-200L
Camera: ZWO ASI290MC
Remote Focuser: PCFC JMI?
Skywatcher Synscsn Hand Controller

This is the list of software that needed to be installed and configured to get the observatory operational again.

prolific serial-usb adapter PX23XX v206, configured to com11 in my case
Ascom Platform v6.61 – file ascomplatform661.3673.exe
the file synscan_hand_controller_ascom_driver606262setup.exe dated 2021-07-26 has installed an ascom telescope chooser that says skywatcher! (this was the critical piece)
ZWOASI_camera driver v3.2
Firecapture v2.7.12 (imaging program)
skychart v4.2.1-4073 (primary sky chart and telescope controller)
stellarium 23.1 (backup sky chart and telescope controller)
Sharpcap v4.0.9545.0 (2023 march) (backup imaging program)