27 Jun
1997
27 Jun
'97
9:49 a.m.
I am glad to hear that others, like myself, commonly use a "non-mainstream"
machine for ordinary home applications. I would like to keep this discussion
going for a while. I don't know that Dr. Shoppa using all that classic
DEC machinery at his Canadian university qualifies as doing "ordinary home
applications", although I'm delighted to hear that the old junk is still
providing useful service (heck, at Hughes here, we have PDP-11s running
AMRAAM test equipment, and HP-1000s running Tomahawk test equipment).
But it depends upon what you are doing. While in
theory you could
calculate e to 100,000 digits using an Apple ][, it might take upwards of a
week for the results, and you couldn't use the computer in the meantime,
whereas on modern machines, 100,000 digits could be generated in under an
hour, and with the right OS, you could still work on other things [1].
I would also hesitate to say that calculating e to 100,000th digits is
an ordinary household task. As is graphics arts, desktop publishing, audio
mixing, and a lot of other things that some people do in their homes for fun
or profit. Obviously you need the tools for the job. But nearly EVERYTHING
you do for common home jobs can be done on the "home computers" that were sold
for the purpose nearly 20 years ago.
I do use my old machines now and then, but if anyone
here has never ran a
modern MAC or PC, they have NO idea what is bieng missed. web pages in full
photo quality color, realistic games, PPP connections, Realaudio etc. I am
not a member of the dark force, I just have a multitude of machines, and I
have EXPERIANCED running them, from an apple ][ +, C=64, IBM XT, and a 586-133.
we must have an open mind about this, as there are some who still never ran
anything NEW, and pass judgment about how bad a machine is when they have
never used one.
I really have no dispute with people with modern machines. [Especially
Macs or BeOS machines, for instance; peecees to me are primarily means
for the Microsoft empire to attain world domination.] My beef is:
(a) When these people look down on you for sticking with your "toy"
computer when theirs is obviously so much more superior to yours,
(b) People mislead by the above people into thinking that they MUST
have a Pentium-class peecee to balance their checkbooks on,
(c) User/owners of "non-mainstream" machines dumping them when they
swallow the propaganda that they MUST have a peecee or they will
be hopelessly left behind.
The obvious reason the collectors in this List can acquire the classic machines
for pennies from thrift stores is that people who donate to or shop at these
thrift stores believe this is worthless junk that isn't capable of doing
anything useful. I (and others on this List) KNOW that is false, but what can
you do? How do you raise a voice of opposition in the face of the Wintel
juggernaut?
--
**********************************************
* David Ormand *** Southwest 99ers *
* dlormand(a)aztec.asu.edu *** Tucson, Arizona *
**************************** TMS9900 Lives! *