6 Sep
2001
6 Sep
'01
6:30 a.m.
Jeff Hellige originally wrote:
As has been shown over and over, the masses
put up with a lot
of things that an individual would otherwise turn away from and
refuse. It's kind of interesting to note that at this point, PC
brand names mean very little and there's little to no brand loyalty.
Makes sense since there is little difference from one to the other.
This is why collecting classic computers and preserving them is so important.
Interestingly, people who were different in the early PC days were punished severely from
not being "100% PC Compatible" Many on this list remember the famous question,
"But does is run MS Flight Simulator?" Which was one of the standard
compatibility tests.
As for brand names, I think they will come more and more to mean _everything_. After all
it has happened with cars it will happen with computers. 21st century personal computers
are rapidly converging on a relatively fixed function, internet access unit with data
composition and retrieval capabilities.
No doubt the auto industry had a very similar time of it and today cars are largely
identical except for things like body styling and number of cup holders. So what used to
be special and unique, is now common and mundane.
--Chuck