Sun Monitor (UK) (2)

From: Richard Erlacher <edick_at_idcomm.com>
Date: Tue Jul 20 23:56:29 1999

What irritates me is that I, who have practiced in this industry for many
years as an outgrowth of my hobby, which this was until about twenty years
ago, since most of my earnings were in a different engineering discipline up
to that time, recognize the skinflint syndrome among hobbyists more than I
ever did before.

Those same individuals who lament that vendors won't "document" their
products enough to allow their repair (long after their projected economic
life, measured in seconds, not years, has ended twice over) because they
(these hobbyists) have no respect for the intellectual property rights of
equipment and software vendors, to wit, they use software they "borrowed"
and never buy even their most frequently used software tools claiming that
"better" stuff is "free" by which they mean it didn't cost THEM anything.

They make excuse after excuse for not parting with a dime, yet see it
perfectly satisfactory to spend a man-year avoiding an expenditure not much
larger than the price of a common lunch on hardware or software. While it's
their choice about how they spend their time, if they valued their time
because it was of economic value, they'd better understand the situation.

The fact is, not everyone wishes to run old and obsolete hardware/software
exclusively, and not everyone is, therefore, in the position that they have
to fix something because they can't buy one. That's what thrift stores are
for, or even used computer gadget stores.

There's no benefit in delaying one's use, for enjoyment or exploitation, of
a given piece of equipment just because it costs half a dollar to buy what
might take only a year to fix.

In cases where my objective is to use something, I don't spend a year fixing
a part if a half hour's wages will buy a replacement.

Just to let you know my heart's in the right place, though, I've spent
dozens, if not hundreds of hours fixing those 8" floppy drives I'm
essentially giving away for the cost of freight.

Nevertheless, I believe that more often than not, penny-wise is
pound-foolish.

Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: Glenatacme_at_aol.com <Glenatacme_at_aol.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp_at_u.washington.edu>
Date: Tuesday, July 20, 1999 10:22 PM
Subject: Re: Sun Monitor (UK) (2)


>In a message dated 7/20/99 9:58:39 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
edick_at_idcomm.com
>writes:
>
>> What the computer industry is about is MAKING MONEY. It's good that
there
>> are some people working in the industry who realize that it's about
GETTING
>> PAID, and not so much about having fun.
>
>For those of us who are both computer professionals and hobbyists the trick
>is making enough money to be able to have fun with our hobby ;>)
>
>Glen Goodwin
>0/0
Received on Tue Jul 20 1999 - 23:56:29 BST