Re: Old Computers

[Rick Tarara <rbtarara@SPRYNET.COM>]

A few comments on the Internet's favorite sport--Microsoft Bashing--and
other things.

It is the case that in the world of software updates that while NEW is
compatible with OLD, OLD is seldom compatible with NEW.  Apple is even MORE
guilty of this than M$--at least M$ maintained reasonable support for DOS
until the most recent OS (which still can run most business DOS
applications).  It is NOT really necessary however, to totally upgrade just
to accommodate those who really need the 'newest' in any organization.  It
just takes a little TRAINING.  Files that MUST be shared 'downwards' can be
saved in older formats--one just has to take the time to do such.  The
problem with freezing the file format for all time (Linux?) is that
eventually the format won't handle features that become popular or even
necessary.  Eventually the standard will change.  Everyone CAN save
word-processing documents in TEXT format now, but few would want to give up
all the formatting options.

What does competition in the office apps get you?  Chaos.  Dozens of
competing products but with subtle incompatibilities.  Even worse for
operating systems since developers of software must now contend with
multiple versions--Windows and Mac are bad enough!  Look at the current
situation where M$ is forbidden from including standard JAVA with their
newest browser (because of SUN) and developers are concerned that many users
won't install the necessary add-in for Web apps.

While I won't contest the fact that gaming drives the cutting edge of
hardware, this advanced hardware also serves others (including the Physics
community) very well.  The physics simulations, animations, etc. now
available would not run on 386 or SE machines.  As long as the technology
continues to advance at the current pace, it is just one of those 'facts of
life' that you need to upgrade hardware every three years.  Of course if you
do nothing but office-type apps, and don't share files, you can still be
quite productive with a 10 year old machine.

I can attest to the futility of giving away old computers.  My wife's school
accepted 10 units from a major retailer.  I volunteered to get them ready
for use.  I took the 10 and made 5 working units.  These were 486 machines
that I kicked up to about 20 Megs of memory and doubled up disk drives to
get to about a mb each.  I installed Win 3.1 and a few basic apps.  This was
for an elementary school and such apps as the WRITE program in Win3.1 should
have been quite useful for basic keyboarding and word-processing.  HOWEVER,
after many hours of my work, the machines never left the work-room.  Nobody
wanted machines without CD-ROMs and that didn't run the latest and greatest
software.  (Few teachers actually new how to run the machines or software!)
The moral here is that not only does the receiver of your old computers need
the technical expertise to get and keep the machines running, but the
ultimate users need the mind-set and the knowledge to use old computers
effectively.

Rick

**************************************************
Richard W. Tarara
Associate Professor of Physics
Department of Chemistry & Physics
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, IN 46556
219-284-4664
rtarara@saintmarys.edu

FREE Physics Instructional Software
http://www.saintmarys.edu/~rtarara

Win9.x, WinNT/2000,  Win3.x, Dos, Mac, and PowerMac
New: Photo-realistic lab simulations (Windows only)
Windows and Mac  CD-ROMs  now available.
****************************************************


----- Original Message -----
From: "John S. Denker" <jsd@MONMOUTH.COM>
To: <PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu>
Sent: Monday, July 30, 2001 7:20 AM
Subject: Re: Old Computers


> At 12:07 PM 7/26/01 -0400, Michael Edmiston wrote:
>
>
> This is called the Microsoft Upgrade Virus.  As soon as somebody upgrades,
> everybody has to upgrade.  This is an outrage.  This is the sort of thing
> only a vicious monopoly could do, or would do.  People expect monopolists
> to raise prices.  They are surprised when the price of any particular
> version seems lower than it could have been.  But it's a trick:  the real
> price is N times higher, because you have to keep buying up grades to the
> HW and SW.