21 Dec
2006
21 Dec
'06
2:43 p.m.
A VAX
isn't useful today. This is a toy. I'll not even think about
using
Well, there are plenty that would disagree with you there!.
Firstly, being 'a toy' is useful. It gives the owner pleasure. And
there's nothing wrong with that.
And secondly, if you have some application (hardware or software) that
runs on a particular machine, then it may well take significant time
and/or money to move it to a more modern machine even if that modern
machine rnss faster. It may well be worth keeping the old machine running
as long as possible. There's a lot more to computing than processor speed! An example : I've recently been working on some
HP9000/200 series
machines. I don't dispute that a modern PC will run a lot faster than the
8MHz 68000 in the HP. But the HP has a truely wonderful range of I/O
cards available (I wish I had more of them), it has IEEE-488 as standard,
and runs a powerful BASIC that can use all these I/O facilities. If I'd
got some kind of automated test set-up ssing one of those machines, it
would coast a lot of time and money to move it to a PC, even if similar
I/O cards were available. It would almost certainly be cheaper to keep
the the HP running.
But surely you wouldn't buy one to create a datalogging system.
It's also amazing how many people don't
realise that Philips made
computers. Or eduactional kits (electronics and mechanics).
I have some here, a VG8235 (MSX 2.0) and a Odyssey? (known in Brazil
just as "odyssey")...very good machines these philips :D