12 Oct
2000
12 Oct
'00
1:59 p.m.
On October 12, Sue & Francois wrote:
This may be off topic but I just have to brag
I just received my cobalt cube today whoo hoo.
Its is not 10 years old yet but has just been made obsolete by SUN who
bought Cobalt a couple of weeks ago.
It's brand new never openned in the original box.
I just can't wait to setup my server. But I have to for now though.
That's it
Thank you for reading, you may return to your normal occupation now.
Wait a sec. Something you said made me stop and think for a minute.
YOU, an individual, own a thing. An action by a completely separate
group of individuals far far away have magically made the thing you
own *obsolete*?
How is it that we, as a society, can have this happen?
-Dave McGuire
12 Oct
12 Oct
4:19 p.m.
New subject: Obsolete? (Was: Re: Speaking of cubes)
Well... It's has been superceeded. And is (I believe) no longer available
for purchase.
From a Market (note the capital M) point of view this
piece of equipment is
obsolete. From an end user's point of view it's a
treasure.
Plus I guess I wanted to be kinda on topic with bragging about obsolete
stuff that doesn't quite fit the charter.
With your train of though even a C64 or an IMSAI is not obsolete if they are
still being used by individuals, it doesn't matter that the company that
used to manufacture them is long gone. And obsolescence only comes after the
last user stop being one.
Hummm now it's my turn to "stop and think" (TM)...
So here's the real question what is the essence of obsolescence?
Francois
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave McGuire" <mcguire(a)neurotica.com>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2000 6:59 PM
Subject: Re: Speaking of cubes
On October 12, Sue & Francois wrote:
This may be off topic but I just have to brag
I just received my cobalt cube today whoo hoo.
Its is not 10 years old yet but has just been made obsolete by SUN who
bought Cobalt a couple of weeks ago.
It's brand new never openned in the original box.
I just can't wait to setup my server. But I have to for now though.
That's it
Thank you for reading, you may return to your normal occupation now.
Wait a sec. Something you said made me stop and think for a minute.
YOU, an individual, own a thing. An action by a completely separate
group of individuals far far away have magically made the thing you
own *obsolete*?
How is it that we, as a society, can have this happen?
-Dave McGuire 
5:34 p.m.
New subject: Obsolete? (Was: Re: Speaking of cubes)
On Thu, 12 Oct 2000, Sue & Francois wrote:
With your train of though even a C64 or an IMSAI is
not obsolete if
they are still being used by individuals, it doesn't matter that the
company that used to manufacture them is long gone. And obsolescence
only comes after the last user stop being one.
Well, sort of a stretch, but Bill Millard, who founded IMSAI, also founded
ComputerLand, which by court accounts was started up in part using assets
that were technically owned by IMSAI; ComputerLand went into bankruptcy
and re-emerged as Vanstar, which was acquired by Inacom in 1998:
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-334076.html?st.ne.fd.mdh
So, if you're real imaginative, IMSAI is still around, but I doubt they'd
give you any support on an IMSAI 8080.
So here's the real question what is the essence of
obsolescence?
In the case of computers in general? I guess if electricity ceases to
exist, then they would truly be obsolete :)
Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger
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Looking for a six in a pile of nines...
VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1
San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California
See http://www.vintage.org for details!
13 Oct
13 Oct
4:30 a.m.
New subject: Obsolete? (Was: Re: Speaking of cubes)
and re-emerged as Vanstar, which was acquired by Inacom
in 1998:
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-334076.html?st.ne.fd.mdh
So, if you're real imaginative, IMSAI is still around, but I doubt they'd
I went to the Inacom bankruptcy sale a couple weeks ago.
4:49 a.m.
New subject: Obsolete? (Was: Re: Speaking of cubes)
On Fri, 13 Oct 2000, Mike Ford wrote:
Well, that ends it all then, doesn't it?
I guess you can still get support and stuff from Todd Fischer at the
new and improved IMSAI:
http://www.imsai.net
;)
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
and re-emerged
as Vanstar, which was acquired by Inacom in 1998:
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-334076.html?st.ne.fd.mdh
So, if you're real imaginative, IMSAI is still around, but I doubt they'd
I went to the Inacom bankruptcy sale a couple weeks ago. 
12 Oct
12 Oct
5:47 p.m.
New subject: Obsolete? (Was: Re: Speaking of cubes)
On Thu, 12 Oct 2000, Sue & Francois wrote:
Well... It's has been superceeded. And is (I
believe) no longer available
for purchase.
From a Market (note the capital M) point of view this piece of equipment is
obsolete. From an end user's point of view it's a treasure.
Plus I guess I wanted to be kinda on topic with bragging about obsolete
stuff that doesn't quite fit the charter.
With your train of though even a C64 or an IMSAI is not obsolete if they are
still being used by individuals, it doesn't matter that the company that
used to manufacture them is long gone. And obsolescence only comes after the
last user stop being one.
Hummm now it's my turn to "stop and think" (TM)...
So here's the real question what is the essence of obsolescence?
It has always been my impression that obsolescence was the situation
when more advanced equipment that would do the job (and perhaps more)
was available but the old equipment was still in productive use.
Obsolete, however, was when the old equipment was in little or no use
and had been superseded by the new.
- don
Francois
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave McGuire" <mcguire(a)neurotica.com>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2000 6:59 PM
Subject: Re: Speaking of cubes
On October 12, Sue & Francois wrote:
This may be off topic but I just have to brag
I just received my cobalt cube today whoo hoo.
Its is not 10 years old yet but has just been made obsolete by SUN who
bought Cobalt a couple of weeks ago.
It's brand new never openned in the original box.
I just can't wait to setup my server. But I have to for now though.
That's it
Thank you for reading, you may return to your normal occupation now.
Wait a sec. Something you said made me stop and think for a minute.
YOU, an individual, own a thing. An action by a completely separate
group of individuals far far away have magically made the thing you
own *obsolete*?
How is it that we, as a society, can have this happen?
-Dave McGuire 
5:58 p.m.
New subject: Obsolete? (Was: Re: Speaking of cubes)
Seems to me Obselete is a marketing term, and therefore means very little in
the field of machines. In documentation it's valuable - this version obseletes
the older version because it has these revisions and is more accurate. A
technology can be obselete - tubes (valves) have been almost uniformly
obseleted by semiconductors of various types. Is an amplifier based on this
technology obselete? Hard to say, does it still make a good sound? Can you
still get parts for it? I wouldn't call it obselete then.
Obsolete, however, was when the old equipment was in
little or no use
and had been superseded by the new.
- don
--
Jim Strickland
jim(a)DIESPAMMERSCUMcalico.litterbox.com
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BeOS Powered!
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4:21 p.m.
On Thu, Oct 12, 2000 at 09:59:49PM -0400, Dave McGuire wrote:
Wait a sec. Something you said made me stop and
think for a minute.
YOU, an individual, own a thing. An action by a completely separate
group of individuals far far away have magically made the thing you
own *obsolete*?
How is it that we, as a society, can have this happen?
I thought all old-tech afficionadoes knew the answer to that one...
if it still does everything you want it to do, then it's not obsolete.
And in any case obsolete doesn't mean the same thing as useless.
--
_______ Shawn T. Rutledge / KB7PWD ecloud(a)bigfoot.com
(_ | |_) http://www.bigfoot.com/~ecloud kb7pwd(a)kb7pwd.ampr.org
__) | | \________________________________________________________________
Free long distance at http://www.bigredwire.com/me/RefTrack?id=USA063420
13 Oct
13 Oct
7:12 p.m.
New subject: Obsolete, was Speaking of cubes
I just peeked in the dictionary, Obsolete means "no longer in use". By that
definition many things are clearly not obsolete, they are just not in the
front lines anymore. What completely bends our perception is that most
tracking is done based on cash flow, purchase of new hardware and software.
Older machines shift very little cash, and often zero additonal money is
spent on software, so no tracking, it drops off the radar.
Ranking machines based on the cost of ownership, and thinking more is
better is kind of nuts isn't it?
I brought home 5 Compaq Prolinea 575 desktops this week. Nobody at the
scrapyard wanted them as complete computers. Parasites had already looted
the ram out of three of them, and were eyeballing the 420 MB hard drives,
when I decided it was ridiculous to allow that to happen (W95 that works
for the 575 was about all that was on them, but sheesh, why effectively
throw that away?). With modest effort (considering I know nothing about a
PC) I got them running on my LAN and surfing the web via ethernet and my
cable modem. Slow, but not THAT slow, mostly they appeared to be suffering
from just 16 MB of ram (with 6 72 pin slots that
won't be too painfull to
fix). A closer look at the motherboard revealed a
couple PCI slots between
the ISA, so I figure with decent NICs these old crates will wail running
Linux doing cheesy network duties (ftp, email, dns, and web for local use
only).
8:41 p.m.
New subject: Obsolete, was Speaking of cubes
On Fri, 13 Oct 2000, Mike Ford wrote:
I just peeked in the dictionary, Obsolete means
"no longer in use". By that
definition many things are clearly not obsolete, they are just not in the
front lines anymore. What completely bends our perception is that most
Perhaps "outmoded" is a more apt adjective to use.
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
14 Oct
14 Oct
1:18 a.m.
New subject: Obsolete, was Speaking of cubes
At 01:41 AM 10/14/00 -0700, Sellam wrote:
On Fri, 13 Oct 2000, Mike Ford wrote:
Th term "obselete" is fine but we have to remember that it's just a
marketing term. The computer that I'm typing this on is considered
"obselete" but it gets the work done.
My $0.02 worth,
Joe
I just peeked in the dictionary, Obsolete means
"no longer in use". By that
definition many things are clearly not obsolete, they are just not in the
front lines anymore. What completely bends our perception is that most
Perhaps "outmoded" is a more apt adjective to use. 
2:25 a.m.
New subject: Obsolete, was Speaking of cubes
Joe wrote:
I just peeked in the dictionary, Obsolete means
"no longer in use". By that
definition many things are clearly not obsolete, they are just not in the
front lines anymore. What completely bends our perception is that most
Perhaps
"outmoded" is a more apt adjective to use.
6:43 a.m.
New subject: Obsolete, was Speaking of cubes
On Sat, 14 Oct 2000, Joe wrote:
I think if you look at the definition of "outmoded" it is a better way to
describe old computers than "obsolete". Old computers are never really
"obsolete". However, they are "outmoded".
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
Perhaps
"outmoded" is a more apt adjective to use.
Th term "obselete" is fine but we have to remember that it's just a
marketing term. The computer that I'm typing this on is considered
"obselete" but it gets the work done. 
8:08 a.m.
New subject: NeXt Cube Offer for shipping
My brother Mike has quite a few collectable machines in Salt Lake City,
UT. He guestimates 400lbs in hardware stored in Salt Lake City, UT.
Mike offers a Next Cube, monitor (greyscale), keyboard, mouse etc, with
40mb ram to the person who will ship his other machines to him in Kinchelo
Michigan.
You can respond to me or to Thanatos(a)30below.com
Thanks,
Jeff
--
-----------------------------------------------------------
Jeffrey S. Worley
President
Complete Computer Services, Inc.
30 Greenwood Rd.
Asheville, NC 28803
828-277-5959
THETechnoid(a)home.com
-----------------------------------------------------------
2:11 p.m.
New subject: Obsolete, was Speaking of cubes
Mike Ford writes:
I just peeked in the dictionary, Obsolete means
"no longer in use". By that
definition many things are clearly not obsolete, they are just not in the
front lines anymore.
However, that begs the question of "in use by whom?"
If you define it as "in use by me", or "in use by someone,
somewhere",
then it's not a particularly useful term. There are electromechanical
adding machines still in use by some people somewhere, but any sensible
person considers them obsolete.
The conventional meaning is "no longer in *common* use".
Last time I said on this list that something was obsolete it started
a huge flame war because people took offense at my claim that something
they own is obsolete. These people seem to associate a lot of emotional
baggage with the word obsolete, and think it's a personal insult.
For my own part, I recognize that almost every computer I own is
obsolete, and it doesn't bother me in the least. In fact, part of
my enjoyment from activities like restoring PDP-11/70s is *because*
they are obsolete.
Eric
12 Oct
12 Oct
5:18 p.m.
Francois wrote:
I just received my cobalt cube today whoo hoo.
Its is not 10 years old yet but has just been made obsolete by SUN who
bought Cobalt a couple of weeks ago.
Dave McGuire <mcguire(a)neurotica.com> wrote:
Wait a sec. Something you said made me stop and
think for a minute.
YOU, an individual, own a thing. An action by a completely separate
group of individuals far far away have magically made the thing you
own *obsolete*?
How is it that we, as a society, can have this happen?
How is it that anyone can *prevent* this from happening?
13 Oct
13 Oct
5:40 a.m.
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14 Oct
14 Oct
1:50 p.m.
> Wait a sec. Something you said made me stop and
think for a minute.
> YOU, an individual, own a thing. An action by a completely separate
> group of individuals far far away have magically made the thing you
> own *obsolete*?
Tony replied:
This depends on how you define 'obsolete'.
Presumably said group of
individuals can :
Stop selling the thing
Stop supporting the thing
Sell a product that does all your 'thing' will do and more.
What they can't do is prevent the 'thing' being useful to you.
Unfortunately for some things that last statement is false. I had a
VideoGuide that I really liked, but they were bought by a competitor and
shut down. Prior to that, the device would do some functions even if
you weren't subscribed. But when they shut down the service, they sent
poison packets to all the units, and now they won't do anything.
There was some talk about a class-action lawsuit against them for
intentionally damaging a product they had already sold. But nothing
came of it.
Now in the states that have passed the UCITA, this sort of behavior
is actually legal! :-(
Eric
6:59 a.m.
Dave McGuire wrote:
On October 12, Sue & Francois wrote:
<MS Bashing>
I blame Microsoft. :-)
Actually in a way I do, as the hardware got faster and more memory was
available the apps got sloppier and became everything to everyone. Not
to single MS out I'll use Netscape as an example: Do we need to have our
mail program part of the Browser? The recent Mozilla release (18) looks
wonderful but cause Linux to swap like mad on a 64M box. I like Linux
(and Unix in general and it sounds like VMS too :-) because I could
make that which was obsolete under NT work just fine for Linux (you
would not believe how idle a 386SX/16MHz is running all my HA software
and a few other things).
We've thrown away being efficient for time to market and now we're starting
to see the environmental effect. Can anyone really see the need for a 233MHz
sprinkler controller?
</MS Bashing>
--
Linux Home Automation Neil Cherry ncherry(a)home.net
http://members.home.net/ncherry (Text only)
http://meltingpot.fortunecity.com/lightsey/52 (Graphics)
http://linuxha.sourceforge.net/ (SourceForge)
This may be off topic but I just have to brag
I just received my cobalt cube today whoo hoo.
Its is not 10 years old yet but has just been made obsolete by SUN who
bought Cobalt a couple of weeks ago.
It's brand new never openned in the original box.
I just can't wait to setup my server. But I have to for now though.
That's it
Thank you for reading, you may return to your normal occupation now.
Wait a sec. Something you said made me stop and think for a minute.
YOU, an individual, own a thing. An action by a completely separate
group of individuals far far away have magically made the thing you
own *obsolete*?
How is it that we, as a society, can have this happen? 
17 Oct
17 Oct
7:01 a.m.
On 14-Oct-2000 Neil Cherry wrote:
MS out I'll use Netscape as an example: Do we need
to have our
mail program part of the Browser? The recent Mozilla release (18) looks
wonderful but cause Linux to swap like mad on a 64M box.
If you downloaded a binary distribution, it contains copious debuging
information. Recompile it without debugging info to get a more accurate
idea of the bloat.
-Philip
12:26 p.m.
liste(a)artware.qc.ca wrote:
On 14-Oct-2000 Neil Cherry wrote:
Then we get the other kind of bloat, developers bloat (I now need this
library AND development package, etc). I may give it a try after I get
a new drive. Right now I'm more worried about my VS3100 and Microvax.
They look so alone, ignored and not on the network. :-)
--
Linux Home Automation Neil Cherry ncherry(a)home.net
http://members.home.net/ncherry (Text only)
http://meltingpot.fortunecity.com/lightsey/52 (Graphics)
http://linuxha.sourceforge.net/ (SourceForge)
MS out I'll use Netscape as an example: Do we
need to have our
mail program part of the Browser? The recent Mozilla release (18) looks
wonderful but cause Linux to swap like mad on a 64M box.
If you downloaded a binary distribution, it contains copious debuging
information. Recompile it without debugging info to get a more accurate
idea of the bloat.
8833
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