17 Apr
1999
17 Apr
'99
3:12 p.m.
On Sat, 17 Apr 1999, Bill Yakowenko wrote:
I am slowly coming to accept that my value set was
molded when
certain things were scarce, and no longer are.
I would have been thrilled to get any kind of computer when I was
in high school. So it is hard for me to imagine people willing to
throw away _any_ computer. But now I am starting to see that XT's
and 286's are like paper cups. Not only do they tend to work less
well as they age (they eventually break and lack support from their
manufacturers), but they are really next to valueless in terms of
replacement cost. Even if getting a computer to somebody who is
destitute, the time of the compu-geek who sets it up is worth more
than a newer faster machine would be.
The only difference between the old x86 machines and paper cups is
quantity: there are fewer paper cups.
Bill.
(I'm not advocating a throw-away culture, BTW. Just noting the
economics of the situation. I wish we could convince people to put
in the effort to use and learn from the old machines rather than
continuously filling up landfills with them just to make more. But
I'm still a long way from getting the rest of the world to see things
my way.)
I'm afraid that will not happen until we are able to convince folks that
one can do much useful work with a computer with out pretty(?) pictures
and rodents. And I fear that the likelihood of that is asymptotic with
zero!
- don
(Okay, so that's another difference between XTs and paper cups:
paper cups are more landfill-friendly.)
On 15 Apr 1999, Mike Ford <mikeford(a)netwiz.net> wrote:
] The Goodwill near me just got 600 computers from Pacific Bell, all 486 and
] older, most in pretty good shape. The result is that a LOT more only
] slightly wanky 486 boxes are getting tossed in the scrappers bin. Goodwill
] won't take a 386, or if it gets in the product stream it goes either to the
] scrapper or the huge AS-IS morning auction of bins of stuff only loosely
] sorted by category.
]
] However painfull you may find it personally, it only takes a TINY bit wrong
] to make an old computer have negative value except as scrap or parts.
donm(a)cts.com
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