Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers (was: OT email response format)

The only computer I presently own that cost more than $100 is a notebook. A dozen or more of them have run at the POP without interruption since 1994 (except for that one time when the power outage outlasted the UPS) and there's NEVER been a service problem. The majority of them came from surplus and the low-end at that. more below ... Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: &lt;pat(a)cart-server.purdueriots.comTo: &lt;classiccmp(a)classiccmp.orgSent: Sunday, April 21, 2002 8:22 PM Subject: Re: Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers (was: OT email response format) for already use Netscape, 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. 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, 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. I'm really not complaining at all. It was he who cast the first stone. I just made the observation that thinking of UNIX as appropriate for the era is totally off-base and the market has surely vindicated that view. UNIX may be fine for some things, but not for personal computing. 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 spend good money on overpriced hardware. At least half a dozen of my friends now have those surplus eTower 633's that were being hawked to the list by some spammer about 8 months back, and I got the setup CD from my stepdaughter and set them up for them. The things actually came with the setup materials, but the automated install wasn't there. That was $279 for a Cerleron 633 with 128MB RAM, a DVD, a 65K modem, 2 USB ports, FDD, a 15GB HDD, keyboard, mouse, etc. I snagged a half-dozen 15" HP Pavillion monitors at a thrift store for $5 each, paying $2.50 each because it was "senior-discount-day" and I am, after all, over 55. That same day, I bought an HP Pavillion with 32 MB RAM, a 2GB HDD, etc. and a monitor for $40. It was priced at $80, but ... It even had the speakers and cables, etc, not that I like that sort of thing. I prefer my computers be silent. 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. 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. 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.