Here's an interesting article from Byte magazine:
http://www.byte.com/art/9802/sec5/art1.htm
It talks about how computers are becoming obsolete the day you buy them
due to all the crazy new technologies being released into the market. My
observation is that anyone who chases technology and is always upgrading
to the latest and greatest is always going to have an "obsolete" computer.
The situation is not as bad as the article makes it out to be, not that
the article is actually saying the speed of new technology introductions
is a problem. But if people could be satisfied with what they have on
their desk, this issue of obsolescense would not be an issue at all.
In 1995 I bought a Pentium-90 system which I clocked up to 100Mhz. It
came with Windows 3.1 but I quickly upgraded to Win95. It originally had
16MB RAM (which I've since upgraded to 32M) and a 1GB HD. It has a 5.25"
and 3.5" floppy and a CD-ROM drive. I'll soon be adding another 540MB HD
I have lying around spare, and then a 1.7GB SCSI HD as soon as I find a
SCSI cable. It's slow by today's standard, but the damn thing works. I
use an old version of Microsoft Works (3.0) for my word processing and
spread sheeting; some people haven't even heard of Works! They only know
Word. But Works loads instantly, whereas Word takes it seems forever to
load which is why I don't use it. Plus its bloated and drags my system
down.
Which brings me to my point. The computers we collect are still so damn
useful! And this is not a new argument, but even though these old
machines don't have SVGA and EDO RAM and Ultra-SCSI and other new-fangled
fanciness, they still work! They can still process words, and crunch
numbers and hold information. And best of all, they play games MUCH more
fun than the current cache of cathartic creations; DOOM was novel when I
first played it, but every other incantation after it (DOOM II, QUAKE,
DUKE NUKEM, ETC) is the same game with a different "scenario" and
graphics, and that damn bobbing up and down makes me sick anyway!
Give me Choplifter, Rescue Raiders or Dino Eggs any day!
If you read the article carefully it gives a glimpse of the types of
machines that may be collectible in ten years or so. The article proposes
the dawn of the age of the "disposable" computer. This is totally
ridiculous. I cannot even relate to that mode of thinking. But on the
positive side, it means disgustingly cheap (and probably FREE) computers
10, 5, even 1(!) year(s) from now. More cheap PCs for us to run Linux on!
(Imagine having your own DLA [Distributed Linux Array] consisting of 16 or
more 300Mhz Pentium II PC, alls for just a song! You could break
government encryption with something like that :)
People these days with their 333Mhz Pentiums with 128MB RAM and 4GB
harddrives should shut the hell up and be happy.
Long live "obsolete" computers.
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar_at_siconic.com
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Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass
Coming Soon...Vintage Computer Festival 2.0
See
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Received on Fri Feb 20 1998 - 15:22:08 GMT