Everett M. Greene wrote:
> CBFalconer <c...@yahoo.com> writes:
>> Guy Macon wrote:
>>> Boudewijn Dijkstra wrote:
>>>
>>>> If you need more expensive and power-hungry hardware to be able
>>>> to perform mostly the same tasks, then I cannot possibly consider
>>>> it an "upgrade". And if you really need eye-candy to prevent you
>>>> from becoming depressed, then there are IMHO better ways to spend
>>>> your money.
>>> So you are saying it's *not* a good plan to replace a two dollar
>>> deck of playing cards with a multi-thousand dollar PC running
>>> Solitaire?  What a concept! :)
>> Are you trying to destroy the economy?  The PC requires men working
>> extensive hours preparing the solitaire software.  In turn, they
>> require other PCs, and much compilation and linking software, which
>> provide employment to system programmers, who also require PCs. 
>> Then there is the whole replacement market, handling such things as
>> memory, disk drives, etc.  The whole system is feeding people all
>> over the world.  Not to mention the MicroSnerdians.
>>
>> By contrast, the deck of cards requires little more than a man with
>> an axe in the woods.
> 
> And as someone else remarked, you can replace word processor
> Mark I, Mod 0 (wood pencil and paper) with a more expensive
> word processor.  Once you get the more expensive computer you
> can then hammer all your work to fit a word process and/or
> Web browser when all you need is a simple text editor.
> 
> Microsoft has even extended their reach for wasting resources
> to the Internet by making it difficult to do email in a simple
> text form.  You now get email with embedded HTML so that the
> messages are at least 4 times larger than necessary.  There
> goes the Internet bandwidth...


The topper was a Word file I got from a client recently. About a dozen 
pages. 15 megabytes!

-- 
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

David Brown wrote:
> Joerg wrote:
>>
>> Easy: Go to the next PC wrench shop. They'll build whatever you like. 
>> Or order the pieces including something like this:
>> http://store.purplus.net/miwixpprwofa.html
>>
>> Heck, if you'd like to go totally retro and rock-bottom cost:
>> http://chicagocomputersupply.com/c78-00002.html
>> IIUC it's for 20 clients so that would come to about $17 per seat. 
>> Can't beat that I guess.
>>
>> I could imagine Dell losing quite a bit of revenue, starting 
>> yesterday. $50 more for the "privilege' of not wanting Vista can push 
>> very savvy buyers over to the local markets. Of which there are plenty.
>>
>> Old American saying: If you don't listen to what your customers want, 
>> someone else will.
>>
> 
> I've just had a look at the Dell website.  Maybe it's different here in 
> Norway, but the upgrade from Vista Business to XP Pro costs exactly 0 
> Norwegian kroner.  (It costs a bit more to upgrade Vista Ultimate to XP 
> Pro - but that's because you have the media and a license to downgrade 
> to Ultimate later if you want.)
> 

Business costs more.


> I suppose if you are comparing prices from a Vista Home version, it will 
> cost more, as the Vista Business license costs more.  But would you want 
> the Home version on a business machine in the first place?


Why not?

-- 
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

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Use another domain or send PM.

rickman wrote:
> On Jun 20, 4:04 pm, Joerg <notthisjoerg...@removethispacbell.net>
> wrote:
>> rickman wrote:
>>> On Jun 20, 12:39 pm, Joerg <notthisjoerg...@removethispacbell.net>
>>> wrote:
>>>> That's why I love DOS. Pretty much all of the DOS routines from the late
>>>> 80's I still need run flawlessly on NT4, Win2k and XP. I've heard they
>>>> won't on Vista but that wouldn't matter because that's off limits in
>>>> this office anyhow. Ok, there is the occasional Borland compiler bug
>>>> (runtime error) but that is quite easily fixed.
>>> If Vista is "off-limits" in your office, how do you buy new
>>> hardware?   It is pretty hard to buy a new laptop with anything other
>>> than Vista now that Dell has quit selling XP.  I can build my own
>>> desktop and run any OS I want, but I can't do much about a laptop.
>> Easy: Go to the next PC wrench shop. They'll build whatever you like. Or
>> order the pieces including something like this:http://store.purplus.net/miwixpprwofa.html
>>
>> Heck, if you'd like to go totally retro and rock-bottom cost:http://chicagocomputersupply.com/c78-00002.html
>> IIUC it's for 20 clients so that would come to about $17 per seat. Can't
>> beat that I guess.
>>
>> I could imagine Dell losing quite a bit of revenue, starting yesterday.
>> $50 more for the "privilege' of not wanting Vista can push very savvy
>> buyers over to the local markets. Of which there are plenty.
>>
>> Old American saying: If you don't listen to what your customers want,
>> someone else will.
> 
> I don't get what you are saying.  Who builds laptops to order???  I
> know I can build a desktop and put any OS on it I want.  But laptops
> almost always come with an MS OS and now that will be Vista.  I think
> Dell has a few laptops with Linux, but they don't seem to be any
> cheaper and in fact are their higher priced machines.  Who else sells
> good laptops with no OS, but *with* drivers for other OSs?


The little shop where we bought most of the PCs and laptops did. You 
went there, they poured you a coffee and then you'd sit down with the 
tech guru and piece together the machine. He used to know which drivers 
were available in which OS and which ones weren't.

Dell always gave me options. Now Linux won't work for me because I need 
to run EE software. But I usually opted for the oldest Windows they 
could fit onto the machine, for example Win2k after XP came out. No 
problem. However, that was always through their business sales, no idea 
how it is in the consumer section.

-- 
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

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Use another domain or send PM.

On Sat, 21 Jun 2008 10:04:21 +0200, David Brown
<d...@hesbynett.removethisbit.no> wrote:

><snip>
>There are various virtualisation solutions that might make your life 
>easier.  <http://www.dosbox.com/>; is a DOS emulator that gives a much 
>more complete DOS environment than a command prompt in windows.

Actually, I use a straight boot to a real DOS.  Win98SE permits me to
set up a CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT with a menu system that lets me
make a choice at boot time (or, I can just always go straight to the
pure DOS environment and, if I please, type WIN to go into Windows.)

However, since I set up separate disks for each project/client it is
usually the case that I either need some Windows environment or some
Linux environment or some DOS environment ... but more or less rarely
some combo of them.  If I'm developing, using a crossdevelopment tool
that needs to run under Win2000 or later, for example, then I need
Win2000 or WinXP for the tools I use.  I don't need the DOS box, for
the most part, at times like that.  If I'm developing using tools that
were originally designed to run with DOS, then I just configure a DOS
boot disk and use it.  The caveat there is that there are some ways of
doing things under Windows in Win98SE that can ease some of the
development under DOS, so I like a split boot situation there (side by
side code comparison programs are an example of such a tool I like to
have handy even when developing using DOS tools.)

>You 
>could also try Virtual Box, which is a good virtualisation environment. 

I recently read something here about that and I'm looking into it. Not
sure, yet, if it will actually help me though.  My problem is about
not depending on Microsoft to enable the operating system on a
permanent basis when I set up a new disk drive.  I not only have
complete control over that for Win98SE (and earlier Windows), but
Microsoft's licensing for those earlier operating systems clearly
allows me to use my license in exactly the way I need to do it.  So I
am comforming, as well, which is where I like to be.  In their later
operating system environment licensing, I'm far far less sure from a
close reading of the EULA and in any case they had appeared to require
me to call to get a new authorization -- especially given the way I go
through disks -- and trying to explain each and every time to some new
person is something I definitely do NOT intend doing.

With Vista, though, I'm finished with them.  The hardware requirements
and the special care they've taken with DRM and protecting a few large
company interests at my expense (literally speaking) is the last straw
for me.  I don't need nor do I care about movies, audio, songs, etc.
on my working machines.  It has nothing to do with what I'm about. And
yet I must pay heavily in excess cycles, memory, and specialized
hardware just because some companies are having problems with some
people and what they consider to be the off chance that I might have a
random thought about being a momentary thief.  Add to that, my own
needs for my model of doing work and their inattention to those needs
(the widening gap between their interests and mine) and I cannot see
being the only one between us who is working to bridge the gap, any
longer.

>  If that doesn't work, qemu is a more complete (and slower) x86 emulator.

Well, I need as close as possible, not emulation.  I don't use the
client's project disk for random interests of mine.  And it isn't hard
to have with real DOS.  I keep a supply of older machines on the
shelf, too.

Jon

In article <w2T6k.10614$u...@flpi144.ffdc.sbc.com>,
Joerg  <n...@removethispacbell.net> wrote:
>Jonathan Kirwan wrote:
>> On Fri, 20 Jun 2008 11:26:49 -0700, Joerg
>> <n...@removethispacbell.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Jonathan Kirwan wrote:
>>
>>>> At some point the final straw is added.
>>> I feel the same way and I'd love to ditch MS. However, there is so much
>>> stuff that won't run on anything but Windows. Hardware as well as
>>> software. Even if only few clients would need it I'd be stuck.
>>
>> Well, as I said, I'd do "as much as possible."  I agree with you about
>> some of the difficulties.  But so far as I'm aware, I can use Win2000
>> right now for everything.  Or, if forced, WinXP.  Gradually, that may
>> very well change with Microsoft pushing this hard.  However, that time
>> is a ways out -- particularly with Microsoft's willingness to sell a
>> WinXP downgrade for some Vista purchasers.  Even a few doing that, if
>> enough are out there, will mean support continues elsewhere.  So I
>> think I'm probably going to be fine for another decade -- which is
>> enough to see where the market has moved by then.  A lot can happen in
>> that time.
>>
>
>I have a wee hope to be able to cling to XP until I retire. The idea may
>not be too far out. The only reason I decommissioned a 10+ year old NT4
>box here was that there were some signs of impending hardware failure,
>worn out fans and so on. Still got it, might fix it up again for lab
>use. One of the other PCs around here runs Win2K and is still humming
>along just fine. Must be 6-7 years old now.

Not a good reason. Last sunday on my 10+ years linux server the
fan broke down. I heard it. Replaced it with an extra fan supplied
with a case I bought a year ago. The broken fan reads 1994.
I'm going to buy a roller bearing first class fan, but for the moment
I'm fine.

Fan replacement is a pretty trivial exercise.

>Old SW is sometimes a blessing. Bought a CAD package from a liquidator,
>for about ten (!) bucks. 2-3 versions back, total overkill for me with
>3D and all that, type the license request in, license key arrived within
>60secs and, voila. All I needed was AutoCad file format compliance with
>editing privileges and now I've got that. For ten bucks ...

Nice.

>
>--
>Regards, Joerg
>
>http://www.analogconsultants.com/
>
>"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
>Use another domain or send PM.


--
-- 
Albert van der Horst, UTRECHT,THE NETHERLANDS
Economic growth -- like all pyramid schemes -- ultimately falters.
albert@spe&ar&c.xs4all.nl &=n http://home.hccnet.nl/a.w.m.van.der.horst

Albert van der Horst wrote:
> In article <w2T6k.10614$u...@flpi144.ffdc.sbc.com>,
> Joerg  <n...@removethispacbell.net> wrote:
>> Jonathan Kirwan wrote:
>>> On Fri, 20 Jun 2008 11:26:49 -0700, Joerg
>>> <n...@removethispacbell.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Jonathan Kirwan wrote:
>>>>> At some point the final straw is added.
>>>> I feel the same way and I'd love to ditch MS. However, there is so much
>>>> stuff that won't run on anything but Windows. Hardware as well as
>>>> software. Even if only few clients would need it I'd be stuck.
>>> Well, as I said, I'd do "as much as possible."  I agree with you about
>>> some of the difficulties.  But so far as I'm aware, I can use Win2000
>>> right now for everything.  Or, if forced, WinXP.  Gradually, that may
>>> very well change with Microsoft pushing this hard.  However, that time
>>> is a ways out -- particularly with Microsoft's willingness to sell a
>>> WinXP downgrade for some Vista purchasers.  Even a few doing that, if
>>> enough are out there, will mean support continues elsewhere.  So I
>>> think I'm probably going to be fine for another decade -- which is
>>> enough to see where the market has moved by then.  A lot can happen in
>>> that time.
>>>
>> I have a wee hope to be able to cling to XP until I retire. The idea may
>> not be too far out. The only reason I decommissioned a 10+ year old NT4
>> box here was that there were some signs of impending hardware failure,
>> worn out fans and so on. Still got it, might fix it up again for lab
>> use. One of the other PCs around here runs Win2K and is still humming
>> along just fine. Must be 6-7 years old now.
> 
> Not a good reason. Last sunday on my 10+ years linux server the
> fan broke down. I heard it. Replaced it with an extra fan supplied
> with a case I bought a year ago. The broken fan reads 1994.
> I'm going to buy a roller bearing first class fan, but for the moment
> I'm fine.
> 
> Fan replacement is a pretty trivial exercise.
> 

There's a few more issues with this box. The power supply doesn't always 
start. Ok, that will be one resistor and maybe one cap. But occasionally 
it let off an evil hiss. The box contains 64MB of RAM and AFAIK can only 
take a grand total of 128MB. The additional RAM would probably have to 
be found in a museum.

If I have some free time I'll try it. I hate throwing away stuff. Not 
from a financial POV but because of the environment. I just know that 
almost nothing from that PC would really be recycled in a way that makes 
much sense.

[...]

-- 
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

"Everett M. Greene" wrote:
> 
... snip ...
> 
> Microsoft has even extended their reach for wasting resources
> to the Internet by making it difficult to do email in a simple
> text form.  You now get email with embedded HTML so that the
> messages are at least 4 times larger than necessary.  There
> goes the Internet bandwidth...

I get a little marker of the following type:

  Part 1.1
           Type:   Plain Text (text/plain)
        Encoding:  quoted-printable

which I then enquote and return to the sender.  There is much less
HTML in these newsgroups, and in my email correspondents, than
there used to be.  Even my daughters use plain text.

-- 
 [mail]: Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net)
 [page]: <http://cbfalconer.home.att.net>;
            Try the download section.


** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

Joerg wrote:
> Everett M. Greene wrote:
>
... snip ...
>
>> Microsoft has even extended their reach for wasting resources
>> to the Internet by making it difficult to do email in a simple
>> text form.  You now get email with embedded HTML so that the
>> messages are at least 4 times larger than necessary.  There
>> goes the Internet bandwidth.
> 
> The topper was a Word file I got from a client recently. About
> a dozen pages. 15 megabytes!

At that size I daresay it included some editing, and you could
reverse that at will.  If so, I can think of ways to discourage
them from such practices.

-- 
 [mail]: Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net) 
 [page]: <http://cbfalconer.home.att.net>;
            Try the download section.


** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

In article <1...@giganews.com>, Guy Macon 
<http://www.guymacon.com/>; says...
> 
> 
> 
> Everett M. Greene wrote:
> 
> >It wasn't that many years ago that the hardware
> >capability and capacity to run Vista was considered a supercomputer.
> >Yesterday's supercomputer wouldn't even be able to start Vista,
> >much less do anything useful with it.
> >
> >I ran a machine for many years with a 50 Mbyte hard drive and
> >got along nicely.  I increased the size when I could no longer
> >get replacements that small but only went to about 100 Mbytes.
> >Today, you need two orders of magnitude more disk space just
> >to hold the OS!
> 
> Consider the following products:
> 
> 1940s - ENIAC "Electronic Brain":
> Memory = 0.02K.  Clock = 0.06 MHz.  Cost = $5,000,000.00+
> Weight = 60,000 Lbs.  Power = 140,000 Watts
> 
> 1960s - IBM System 360 Mainframe Computer:
> Memory = 64K.  Clock = 1.3 MHz.  Cost = $1,000,000.00
> Weight = 2.000 Lbs.  Power = 2,000 Watts.
> 
> 1980s - Commodore 128 Personal Computer:
> Memory = 128K.  Clock = 2 MHz.  Cost = $300.00
> Weight = 10 Lbs.  Power = 70 Watts.
> 
> 2000s - Mattel high-end toy CPU:
> Memory = 512K.  Clock = 3.3 MHz.  Cost = Less than $1.00
> Weight = Less than 1 oz.  Power = Less than 0.1 Watt.
> 

Compare also the cost, size, coding and build time to do

	printf( "Hello World\n");

Let alone the cost of the tools (and getting certificates 
so it can run!)
-- 
Paul Carpenter          | p...@pcserviceselectronics.co.uk
<http://www.pcserviceselectronics.co.uk/>;    PC Services
<http://www.pcserviceselectronics.co.uk/fonts/>; Timing Diagram Font
<http://www.gnuh8.org.uk/>;  GNU H8 - compiler & Renesas H8/H8S/H8 Tiny
<http://www.badweb.org.uk/>; For those web sites you hate

Jonathan Kirwan wrote:
> On Sat, 21 Jun 2008 10:04:21 +0200, David Brown
> <d...@hesbynett.removethisbit.no> wrote:
> 
>> <snip>
>> There are various virtualisation solutions that might make your life 
>> easier.  <http://www.dosbox.com/>; is a DOS emulator that gives a much 
>> more complete DOS environment than a command prompt in windows.
> 
> Actually, I use a straight boot to a real DOS.  Win98SE permits me to
> set up a CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT with a menu system that lets me
> make a choice at boot time (or, I can just always go straight to the
> pure DOS environment and, if I please, type WIN to go into Windows.)
> 
> However, since I set up separate disks for each project/client it is
> usually the case that I either need some Windows environment or some
> Linux environment or some DOS environment ... but more or less rarely
> some combo of them.  If I'm developing, using a crossdevelopment tool
> that needs to run under Win2000 or later, for example, then I need
> Win2000 or WinXP for the tools I use.  I don't need the DOS box, for
> the most part, at times like that.  If I'm developing using tools that
> were originally designed to run with DOS, then I just configure a DOS
> boot disk and use it.  The caveat there is that there are some ways of
> doing things under Windows in Win98SE that can ease some of the
> development under DOS, so I like a split boot situation there (side by
> side code comparison programs are an example of such a tool I like to
> have handy even when developing using DOS tools.)
> 
>> You 
>> could also try Virtual Box, which is a good virtualisation environment. 
> 
> I recently read something here about that and I'm looking into it. Not
> sure, yet, if it will actually help me though.  My problem is about
> not depending on Microsoft to enable the operating system on a
> permanent basis when I set up a new disk drive.  I not only have
> complete control over that for Win98SE (and earlier Windows), but
> Microsoft's licensing for those earlier operating systems clearly
> allows me to use my license in exactly the way I need to do it.  So I
> am comforming, as well, which is where I like to be.  In their later
> operating system environment licensing, I'm far far less sure from a
> close reading of the EULA and in any case they had appeared to require
> me to call to get a new authorization -- especially given the way I go
> through disks -- and trying to explain each and every time to some new
> person is something I definitely do NOT intend doing.
> 
> With Vista, though, I'm finished with them.  The hardware requirements
> and the special care they've taken with DRM and protecting a few large
> company interests at my expense (literally speaking) is the last straw
> for me.  I don't need nor do I care about movies, audio, songs, etc.
> on my working machines.  It has nothing to do with what I'm about. And
> yet I must pay heavily in excess cycles, memory, and specialized
> hardware just because some companies are having problems with some
> people and what they consider to be the off chance that I might have a
> random thought about being a momentary thief.  Add to that, my own
> needs for my model of doing work and their inattention to those needs
> (the widening gap between their interests and mine) and I cannot see
> being the only one between us who is working to bridge the gap, any
> longer.
> 
>>  If that doesn't work, qemu is a more complete (and slower) x86 emulator.
> 
> Well, I need as close as possible, not emulation.  I don't use the
> client's project disk for random interests of mine.  And it isn't hard
> to have with real DOS.  I keep a supply of older machines on the
> shelf, too.
> 
> Jon

My point is that you should keep the older machines and the individual 
disks - those are your reserves, and your absolute references.  But you 
do the real work using images of those disks as virtual machines.  That 
would avoid all risk of wear and tear on the irreplaceable old parts, 
and give you a much safer backup system (just copy the images as often 
as needed).

The more sophisticated virtual machines like Virtual Box are easy to 
use, and easy to integrate with the host (things like screen resizing, 
mouse integration, networking, etc.), and support a range of guest 
operating systems, but don't cover all possibilities.  Qemu works at a 
lower level of emulation, and is slower and less integrated, but will 
work with pretty much any guest OS.