OK, here we go... I said nothing about the old software. The bashing refers to complaining about some relatively new Windows bug, slamming AOLers because they are such "losers", and pot shots at Bill Gates. There are plenty of other places to rip these people to shreds. On this list, it is just plain old _noise_. The term "PeeCee" generally means cheap clone. Real IBMs get better respect that that. I am talking about crappy 386plus machines. Talking about them really dilutes the interest in this list. With this argument, almost _anything_ electronic can be related to classic computers. You have to draw the line somewhere. Are digital watches included? Microwave ovens? Alarm systems? Radios and Radars? CD players? Audio amps? All of these _could_ be called "computers", simply because they have some sort of analog computation or digital electronics, but I think that might really be going over the line. The problem here is that _almost_invariably_ the threads turn to "Linux is so great, Windows sucks, I have Linux running on such-and-such Pentium". This is NOT classic computing at this point, and should be moved to an appropriate forum (and there are several hundred of them, at least). This is _not_ a Unix sysadmin list. If you want to run Linux on an old machine - great (although I don't see why - the fastest way to cheapen a VAX is to have it run Unix - personal opinion) - but keep the topic focussed on the old machine, _not_ the newest version of Linux. Linux _itself_ is basically off topic, as only a tiny percentage of the talk about it refers to the early releases. It just might be common sense, however. I am _not_ saying that these threads should be nipped off at the bud. If a moderator was to exercise a little control when the threads get out of hand, perhaps throwing the offenders in the "penalty box" for a short amount of time, the noise on the list would go way down. List members would start to control themselves. This plan works - I am on several lists that are moderated in this fashion, and they are very clean, on-topic, non-drivel forums. _William_Donzelli_ aw288(a)osfn.org

I don't mind the OT stuff. If I want to read, I read, if not there's always the delete key. I get 4-500 messages a day. I read those I want to read, the rest I either ignore, or delete. I don't want moderation. A little spam doesn't upset me. James http://home.texoma.net/~jrice/classiccomp2.html Christopher Smith wrote: