17 Nov
2001
17 Nov
'01
5:18 p.m.
From: Dave McGuire <mcguire(a)neurotica.com>
On November 17, Stan Sieler wrote:
Dead to me is broken. Obsolete is when it cant forfill the intesded task
or when it has reached a level of repair difficulty where replacement is
an option. For those CNC tools with PDP-8 or PDP11s running them
that number is still over $50,000 to upgrade and 100s of thousands of
dollars to replace. In the face of that the PDP-8 that still makes good
flanges is cheap at $2000 for a working cold spare.
For example I was given three working 386(mono) and 486(color) laptops
as too weak to be useful. Fully working machines with Xircom network
adaptors and all!
Allison
PA-RISC is dead/dying ... HP has said so. IA-64
killed it.
[knee-jerk reaction to a pet peeve follows]
Well, as long as "dead" can be defined as "salespeople don't want to
sell you a new one". For me, it can't. I can pick up the phone and
buy PDP8 equipment from a commercial vendor. How long ago was THAT
architecture discontinued?
For me, something is "dead" (or "obsolete" or whatever you want to
call it) when it can no longer do its job adequately and