Re(2): [SunRescue] a sad, sad day

[Tim Hauber]

rescue at sunhelp.org,Internet writes:
> An interesting point.  Why does it suck?  That machine is
>probably...what,
>four years old?  (when were P75s current?)  It's no slower now than it was
>then, and it was GREAT (to the purchasers, that is) then..."wow! a new
>pentium!"
>Are his applications NOW, in 1999, that different from what they were in
>1995?
>I expect not.  If that's the case...how is it that, with the same
>hardware and
>the same uses, that something comes to suck from being GREAT?
>
>  Is it simply because something better/faster exists?
>
>  That'd be pretty silly.
>
>
>             -Dave McGuire
>
>_

Ah! the point of my ravings!  The average home non-techie, the same one
that has to replace light bulbs when they blow, has to paint his house
every 7.5 years because the paint starts falling off, the one that trades
in his car for a new one, because he can afford to finally, he never
notices the slow down when he upgrades an individual program, the machine
just seems to get slower.  Then Microsoft has a "new" Windows that will
make everything (and I quote) "faster and easier", so he buys it, and the
new bells and whistles keep him occupied for a week, then he goes to his
friends house, with the brand new Gateway with the 31" Monitor/TV, and
it's way faster than his, and his conclusion is that his old computer is
just slowing down.  This guy has no concept of clock cycles or even
directory structure, his machine is expected to crash because he doesn't
understand what happens when he installs something, he just takes that
$9.95 disk of COOL GAMES!!! from the check out at the grocery store and
runs it, so everything is all over the place on his badly fragmented
drive, he doesn't dare empty the recycle bin, all he knows is it was fast
when he got it and slow now.  He has no use for a router, he'll buy a
third phone line for his kids computer before he'd think about networking
and sharing a dial-up, and he doesn't need any DNS or Mail servers.  

For useful purposes (useful in context, not reality) his machine is
obsolete, he should replace it with a newer one.  Our job, the techies
with a conscience, is to find a productive home for as many of these
cast-offs as possible, or conversely, to fill as many roles with cheap,
but totally sufficient, computers as possible.  

Unfortunately in this day of coporate prosperity (at least in the US)
companies would much rather throw money at hardware to fix things than
spend time or people, so if you need a group mail server, by a new
machine, and throw out that P-120.  The Techies' ability to re task old
stuff will make him more valuable if/when the tech boom ends, and money
gets tight.

And yes, I do have an opinion about everything :-)

Tim