>On Thu, 19 Jul 2001, Dave McGuire wrote:
>
>> On July 19, Zane H. Healy wrote:
>> > I've not been looking at the DEC gear recently, but last I did look
>>the number
>> > of Alpha boardc and CPUs seemed to have gone down drastically. I think
>> > the supply is drying up.
>>
>> I'd be seriously surprised if Alphas were drying up. There were a
>> LOT of them made. Machines of which there were far fewer, and that
>> are far older, can still be found readily.
>>
>> Having no better explanation, I respectfully submit that this
>> "shortage" of Alpha hardware is due to random market fluctuations.
>>
>
>I wonder how much of it is due to businesses sucking up spares to keep
>their real work going for the long term now that Compaq has EOLed the
>line (prematurely, many would say!!)
What I noticed was remaining stock being dumped on eBay and going into the
hands of Hobbyists. Most of these hobbyists probably being clueless Linux
users that will toss the boards and CPU's (or systems) when they're done
with them since thats what you do with an Intel box, never considering that
someone might want to run a *real* OS on the hardware. Yes, I'm feeling
pesimistic, and unlike a time nearly 10 years ago now, I don't think much
of the average Linux user.
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh_at_aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
Received on Fri Jul 20 2001 - 12:10:38 BST