Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!seismo!dimacs.rutgers.edu!mips!sjsca4!poffen From: poffen@sj.ate.slb.com (Russell Poffenberger) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc Subject: Re: Upgrading Original IBM PC Message-ID: <1990Sep27.184730.12105@sj.ate.slb.com> Date: 27 Sep 90 18:47:30 GMT References: <2522@dsacg4.dsac.dla.mil> <1990Sep18.232351.24184@uncecs.edu> <1990Sep26.151253.16992@Solbourne.COM> Reply-To: poffen@sj.ate.slb.com (Russell Poffenberger) Organization: Schlumberger Technologies, San Jose, CA. Lines: 48 In article <1990Sep26.151253.16992@Solbourne.COM> polo@hagar.Solbourne.COM (Dave Polakowski) writes: >In article gerry@frc2.frc.ri.cmu.edu (Gerry Roston) writes: >> >>I'm sorry folks, but this is one of the absolute stupidest threads I >>have ever seen on the net. The IBM PC was obsolete years many years >>ago. Anything with a 286 is obsolete now! Why waste good money to >>purchase junk? Spend a few bucks and at least get a 386SX, there's no >>excuse not to. Oh, and if you say $$$, figure out how much your time >>is worth and multiple that by the time savings from a faster machine. >>(UH... I never thought of that?!) >> >>Furthermore, it is people like the original poster who are doing more >>harm to the PC market than they can ever realise. If MicroSoft had >>balls, they would say that stating with MS DOS 5.x, they will drop >>support for anything not running a 286. Yeah, they'll alienate some >>folks, but it will allow the rest of the planet (the intelligent half >>who have a reasonable hardware platform) to finally have a software >>capability equal to their harware perfomance. >> > >Sorry, Gerry, but pull your head out. I am of the belief that any PC >that can be used for meaningful work is not obsolete. Why should I care >if my PC does 35.6 MIPS if all I need to do with it is word processing or >database entry? The machine is sitting idly by most of the time waiting >for my keyboard entry anyway. Many people are still using Commodores, >for cryin' out loud. > >How would you feel if every model year, car makers quit providing parts >for last year's model? Oh, but you'll get better gas mileage with a new >model, so why waste money fixing up last year's junk? If GM had balls, >they could do this. So what if they alienate a few million drivers? > There does get to be a point when old equipment is not worth supporting. One of the reasons why (if I remember right) automakers carry spare parts for old models is because they are required to by law. I think this is for 20 years. Considering how computers become obsolete faster than cars, dropping support for products that are say 8 to 10 years old is not unreasonable. Besides, most likely DOS 5.0 will be such a memory and performance hog, who would REALLY want to run them on their PC/XT compatibles anyway? Russ Poffenberger DOMAIN: poffen@sj.ate.slb.com Schlumberger Technologies UUCP: {uunet,decwrl,amdahl}!sjsca4!poffen 1601 Technology Drive CIS: 72401,276 San Jose, Ca. 95110 (408)437-5254