Path: utzoo!utgpu!utstat!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!uw-june!uw-entropy!dataio!pilchuck!ssc!markz
From: markz@ssc.UUCP (Mark Zenier)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Ethics of crippler circuitry
Message-ID: <1703@ssc.UUCP>
Date: 16 Feb 89 06:50:27 GMT
References: <7143@pyr.gatech.EDU> <11630010@hpsmtc1.HP.COM> <1257@raspail.UUCP> <132@aucis.UUCP>
Organization: SSC, Inc., Seattle, WA
Lines: 20

In article <132@aucis.UUCP>, bnick@aucis.UUCP (Bill Nickless) writes:
> ... 
> How does that concept of "I've bought it, it's mine" apply here?  Is it 
> unethical to get the best performance possible out of a machine you've paid
> for, even if the manufacturer didn't intend for that performance to be avail-
> able?
> 
> If a vendor is going to sell me a computer, I would use it to its best 
> performance--regardless of what the vendor intends!

During the era when crippler circuitry was popular, equipment  was 
leased, not sold.  When the CE came around for preventative maintence 
and found some upgraded equipment, they would either downgrade it or get
you billed for what you were using.  And you thought PM was to keep
things working *-). 

 
Mark Zenier    uunet!nwnexus!pilchuck!ssc!markz    markz@ssc.uucp
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