19 Jun
2005
19 Jun
'05
3:12 p.m.
Dang, seems an awful lot to maintain something that, in my
experience, has a very low failure rate... I've had three
harddrives go up on me (Admittingly, IBM DEATHSTARTS), one
motherboard that ate ram for Breakfast!
My current general use machine is a P2 400 I've had for
about five years (IIRC), and it hasn't suffered a single failure
in that time. I do have a faster P4 1.5GHz, but it's in
more of a server roll then anything else.
Though recently, I'm finding I havn't even powered up any of the
machines on my desk and instead just use the iBook I have.
Perhaps a cheap laptop off ebay of decent ability (Say a P2
or similar) would suit you well? Even something with dead
battery (Which, I'm sure you'd get around to repairing :))
I use my laptop in such a capacity, as a portable document
archive.
I understand the urges to be able to repair your equipment,
but dosn't it stop somewhere? :)
Of course, can't refute the argument about the internet
connection :)
On 6/19/05 5:29 PM, "Tony Duell" <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
If it's really that big of a deal for licensed software, I have
About fifty Win95 license & cd kits sitting in a box... :)
How about a W3.11 license? Only got about 100 of them :/
No, it's not that. I believe it's perfectly possible to view and print
pdfs using free software under a free operating system.
The exrta costs, over the cost of the PC, are things like the broadband
connection (I am not going to try to download a 10Mbyte file with a 14k4
modem...), the equipment to maintain and repair the PC (things like a BGA
rework station, a faster 'scope and logic analyser than the ones I
already have, etc), and, of course, a house extension to put said PC in.
-tony