21 Apr
2002
21 Apr
'02
6:05 p.m.
Rumor has it that Richard Erlacher muttered these words:
Well, I don't really follow the commodity PC market since they're typically
either overpriced or pieces of junk compared to what I can build myself.
Anyhow, you're talking about getting Suplus/Used machines. I KNOW there's
PB's still out there in those markets.
The only computer I presently own that cost more than
$100 is a notebook. A
dozen or more of them have run at the POP without interruption since 1994
(except for that one time when the power outage outlasted the UPS) and
there's NEVER been a service problem. The majority of them came from surplus
and the low-end at that.
Well, I was talking about NEW (as in from a non-used, non-surplus vendor).
Sure you can get a Pentium Pro 200 Server for $50 that's built like a tank,
but that's not the same as getting a new computer for $50.
more below ...
Hmm, more fun to come...
----- Original Message -----
From: <pat_at_cart-server.purdueriots.com>
HUH??? I dont see how M$ OFFICE is any more necessary than anything I
enumerated above. If you're looking for file compatibilty, OpenOffice
does that right out of the box with no hassles.
On Sun, 21 Apr 2002, Richard Erlacher wrote:
Those are "nice" but not necessary. I'm happy with the M$ stuff that
Bill
sent me years back. I'm apparently not on "the list" any longer and
haven't
gotten a free copy of XP or any of the OFFICE software after the 2000
release. No, I wouldn't pay that much, but I
wouldn't pay out more than, say
$25 for all the UNIX boxes on the planet either, and that only if
they were already
Hmm. I would pay $25 for any Unix box faster than a 85MHz Sun
SparcStation 5. Maybe it's just me.
I'll enumerate some 'useful apps'...
OpenOffice http://www.openoffice.org (Great office suite)
XMMS http://www.xmms.org (like WinAMP)
GAIM http://gaim.sourceforge.net (cross-service IM client)
Of course, I do buy it whenever I see the CD's at
the thrift store. Windows
typically costs $2 there. Office 2K cost $5, last time I saw it. Typically,
Debian costs either the same as a few blank floppies or CDs depending on
how you decide to do the install. OpenOffice costs however long it takes
to download the installer.
And neither of them have as many bugs (oops, I mean 'features') as MS
Windows or MS Office. Heh, I'd even say they're MORE USABLE than the
MS Equivalents. The only reasons Microsoft still exists are:
1) Biz-droids that are scared by MS's FUD or their own ignorance of
alternatives
2) Consumers who don't have a real choice because of (a) binary
compatibilty (b) cheap hardware not being supported under other OS's or
(c) inavailablility of machines running Linux that they can get at
HH Greg, Best Buy, Circuit City, Sears, Service Merchanise, etc.
a nice ~200 MHz Pentium box with a little (32MB) of
RAM and <10GB HDD and a
small (15") monitor, plus the usual keyboard and mouse, costs around $75. If
it's not running, often because it hasn't got either the RAM or a HDD, it
goes for $10, though it may go for as much as $20 if the split the parts up.
Uhm, since when can't a PC be a *nix box? Last I checked, most Linux and
BSD distros ran on garden-variety PCs.... and were MUCH less resource
intensive than M$'s alternatives.
Show me a new
computer that will last one month past its warranty period
that costs $150. Packard Bell is great for delivering DOA machines, and
is known for delivering cheap machines. Show me a *nix vendor that sells
ANYWHERE as bad quality machines as major PC vendors like PB. I'm pretty
sure you can't do it. I've looked for a cheap vendor for Linux Intel/AMD
machines and haven't found one.
PB has been history for about 4 years, haven't they? Compaq is essentially
gone, and HP's next ... I buy complete machines for under $100 and put them to
work for people at
least twice a month. It's not my business, but I don't like to see people
<snip>
One local surplus vendor had 33 HP workstations. We
told him all we wanted
was the power supplies, so he sold 'em to us for $5 each. He kept the
monitors (fixed-frequency SONY GDM1950's) We took out the PSU's, the mass
storage, and the RAM, and pitched the rest. My partner sold the RAM at some
ridiculous price and sent me a fat check. I decided I didn't want the PSU's
and gave them to a friend. I'm beginning to wonder whether it's worth feeding
power to those 2 and 3 GB hdd's though.
OK, you seem to be stuck on comparing a $600 new system to a $20 used
system. When I said $100 above, no one had said jack squat about used, and
I was talking about a *new* system. ** I don't consider a 'new in the box'
system that hasn't been offered as a new model by its manufacturer for >1yr
as new.
Workstations are overrate, if you ask me, though they
may have had their
day. Hardware dedicated to UNIX concepts is just no longer what's wanted.
Say what you like about the PC culture, it's what hits the mark for most
users.
OK, show me a PC in a thrift store that'll render a 3d animation as quickly
as a new top-of-the-line SGI workstation. Not everyone needs that horsepower
but some people (myself included) need or want something that'll compile code
or do X quickly as possible. After all, time is money.
OR show me a thrift-store PC for under $100 that'll convert a 2hr dvd (er
MPEG2 stream) to MPEG4/DivX;-) in under 20hrs. My old Athlon 700 took
approximately that long and is worth much more than $100 used. Now that's a
task Joe Consumer might want to do.
Yes, they whine, but they are able to do things not
even the most
sophisticated computer scientists could do when I was in college, yet they
don't even know how to read well enough to figure out what a message of more
than a line or two means.
Well you won't get any argument from me that most consumers of PCs are
complete morons. Personally, I say give them a broadband connected 'network
computer' that connects to an ASP to run apps and give them a gaming console
for games. Giveing Joe User a PC that they 'sys admin' themselves is a
terrible idea.
My $0.02
-- Pat