The guys who can't afford more than $100 are not a big part of the market.
However, it's not fair to ignore 'em. I just don't see how one can make a
living selling used parts when a replacement for the whole she-bang costs >$10
like the one I snagged last week. Are people really willing to pay $100 to
repair something they could easily replace for $10 if they were to look?
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: "Glen Goodwin" <acme_ent_at_bellsouth.net>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Saturday, May 04, 2002 11:04 PM
Subject: Re: APPLEVISION Monitor
> > From: Richard Erlacher <edick_at_idcomm.com>
>
> > With the pace at which obsolescence has been creeping up on
> > everybody, I'd say upgradeability is of no consequence at all any more.
>
> A lot of my customers can afford $100 for an upgrade or repair but can't
> afford the $300 you quote below for a basic tower, so for them
> upgradeability is relevant.
>
> > Systems bought three years ago don't use the same drives
>
> I haven't seen any real change in fdds or CD-ROM drive in the last three
> years. Besides capacity, what's different about today's hard drives?
>
Nothing, but the old motherboards won't talk to them without some sort of
band-aid, and the current generation HDD's won't work at full speed with the
old interfaces, not to mention that the 3-year-old "DMA-capable" motherboards
won't operate with DMA because the implementations were fouled up. Some were
fixed, some weren't. None of that stuff is intolerable, but it makes little
sense to live with it.
What kind of upgrade can you offer for $100? I'd imagine you can offer
something 2nd hand but still functional. You can't easily maintain something
for less than it would cost to replace it though. Where do you find a
replacement AT power supply? How can you make a profit replacing 'em? Where
do you find a new replacement for a P54C CPU?
>
> > NEW 1 GHz monitorless systems
> > with 15 GB HDD's (WAY too small to be of interest to anyone nowadays) and
> a
> > DVD + FDD, a modest (64MB ??) of RAM, and the usual stuff including mouse
> and
> > keyboard, sporting a 4MB on-board video expandable to 16 MB, on-board
> sound,
> > and 4 USB ports along with a V.92 modem and all the other usual bells and
> > whistles are advertised on the local late-night TV for under $300. At
> prices
> > like that one can't afford to upgrade. By the time the warranty runs
> out,
> > they'll be obsolete again.
>
> Obsolete?
>
They're obsolete when eBay's the only place you can buy new RAM that works in
your computer. They're obsolete when you can no longer buy new power supplies
that plug into your motherboard. They're obsolete when the BIOS doesn't
accomodate the smallest new hard disk you can buy and they're obsolete when
the BIOS you have to buy for 'em, 2nd hand, costs more than a new HDD.
>
> Glen
> 0/0
>
>
Received on Sun May 05 2002 - 10:34:24 BST