OFF: RE: HW: Mission Control: New Orders

[Jonathan Jarrett]

On Mon, Dec 24, 2001 at 03:19:15AM -0600, Dan Witt typed out:
> >         I'm stuck with Netscape 3 Gold, Keith, so think yourself not too
> > Luddite. Why am I stuck with it? Because my computer runs Windows 3.1 with
> > a 32-bit patch, has only 8 Mb of memory and very little hard disk. All
> > these things but the OS will shortly be changing and then I might be able
> > to do Netscape 4. For the meantime, I can read Mission Control all right
> > but it's painfully slow. Many things are though. And there are Javascript
> > errors because I only have Javascript 1.1 which won't swallow many
> > bugs. So for me, Dan, browser updates aren't free because they mean
> > hardware updates too. Sorry to burst the hypermation intersoupway
> > bubble there.
>
> That's fine.  You can use your 1994 computer all day.  Just don't complain
> when something designed in 2001 doesn't work on it, that's all.  I don't
> know where you live but I would think you could find somebody selling a
> second hand Pentium 400 for about $100.00( no monitor, kb, mouse). Though
> you might want to squeeze a few more years out of that SX50.

        It's a DX-2-66, actually. Did that sneer hurt when you came to
remove it? But anyway, yes, I probably could find such a machine, but that
$100 or British equivalent is (on my postgrad researcher's income) two to
three weeks' travel, two weeks' food, or 4 CDs, all things I'd rather have
than a P400 which would (since I have no other OS to hand[1]) have to run
Win 3.1. Okay it would go like Goldenrod but it still wouldn't run
anything this one won't.

        You can sneer some more; I'm about to upgrade it to a DX-2-80 and
treble the memory! (Gasp!) And solve the HDD size problem at the same
time. Most of the bits for that I got free. But the information on Mission
Control will still be buried four layers deep and scattered over several
topic-overlapping pages so that will only bring me a certain amount of
joy.

        I do object to this idea that if one doesn't have the latest tech
one's disenfranchised from the web. If I was driving a car built in 1994
I'd expect to be able to use a new road. Likewise, I know I'm driving the
Internet equivalent of a Fiesta Mk 2 but I don't see whay that should mean
I can't used the superhighway. Anyway, this is OFF. Didn't feel like I
wanted to let that particular set of jobes go past uncountered
though. Yours all,
                   Jon

[1] And I wouldn't run Win95+ without the actual disk! Because, that's
Microsoft's copy-protection in the day of the CD-ROM isn't it? It's so
unstable that if you don't have the CD one crash will make it
irrecoverable...

ObCD-R: Mr Quimby's Beard, Milwaukee 19/10/01, recorded by your good self
in fact, I believe, Mr Witt... thank goodness we agree about the
importance of something!
--
        Jonathan Jarrett                Birkbeck College, London
                 jjarrett at chiark.greenend.org.uk
        --------------------------------------------------------
  "The large print giveth and the small print taketh away." (Tom Waits)