Self Same computers

From: Chuck McManis <cmcmanis_at_mcmanis.com>
Date: Thu Sep 6 22:21:08 2001

At 06:42 PM 9/6/01 -0500, John Foust wrote:
>With prices dropping so low, computers have become more
>disposable. But even with the $200 Celeron 566 you can
>buy today, it still has drive bays and memory slots and
>IDE and USB I/O interfaces.

Yup and they are all disposable. Its weird but in the Bay area you can buy
an old Pentium deskside computer (P5 or P5MMX) for $50 to $75 but pull the
boards out and resell them and you can get $150 to $250.

>Does commoditization necessary mean they'll no longer be
>expandable, and that they'll be expendable?

Yes. Fastest growing PC segment = "laptop" what makes laptops unique?
Nothing but a couple of PCMCIA or CARDBUS slots for "expansion" everything
else you are generally stuck with.

> (Driving to the
>office tonight, a very beat-up and rusty car very nearly
>matched the speed of my 2001 model.) Does it mean people
>won't want to buy replacement parts or upgrade options?

Generally peripherals (joysticks, firewire CDRW drives, etc) will be the
"aftermarket" like trailer hitches, KC lamps, and fuzzy dice are for cars.

>What might this mean for classic computers? In fifteen years,
>some of them may be unbootable, as the ASP-like web services
>they depended on have disappeared like so many dog-food-selling
>dot-com ephemera sites.

Screw 15 years, I've got a computer like that right now, its called a
"I-Opener"
And one called a DivX player.

>To stretch the auto analogy, even in the smallest towns there
>are still auto parts stores and repair shops and at the next
>level, all the junk yards and parts dealers who fill the
>needs of the repair stores.

Yup, folks like Tony who can rip a 2.5" drive out of an ancient laptop
without damaging it are going to become the new kings of the "chop shop"
kingdom.

>With the surging wave of enthusiastic game-players who rapidly
>drove the pace of graphics card development far beyond what
>the earlier CAD and computer graphics market ever demanded,
>has emerged a new class of computer owners who eagerly
>upgrade, tweak, customize and polish their systems beyond all reason.
>Just like car enthusiasts. :-)

'cept a lot of game players are going to go X-pox and PS/2 here and screw
the PC.
--Chuck
Received on Thu Sep 06 2001 - 22:21:08 BST