On 3/30/2017 11:20 AM, justan wrote:
Wrote in message:
On Thu, 30 Mar 2017 05:48:47 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 3/29/2017 9:04 PM, wrote:
On Wed, 29 Mar 2017 19:34:37 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

You can get back in forth to work in a Tesla too but you don't really
need all of that power. I guess if you want the biggest and baddest
machine on the block, go for it. You can afford it. ;-)


Lesson I learned a long time ago from a old timer
mechanical engineer (P.E.)

"When in doubt, make it stout".


Unfortunately, in the computer biz, stout is not the same as fast.
I had to give up my PC based MP3 players because once you got much
beyond a P1 166, reliability in the Florida car environment because
you couldn't keep them cool. The same was true of hard drives. Once
you got much over 10-15gig, they started getting more heat sensitive.

My interest in laptops used to be as cheap (to run) servers since they
used to run at "night light" levels of power. This last one I got came
with a 90w power brick. You need to put a towel in your lap if you
actually use it as a laptop or you will roast your nuts. The Dell
Latitude (P3/400 W/98 machine) I am running back in the shop is always
cool to the touch.
The specs say it pulls a max of 36w but it seems to cruise in the
10-15w just talking to the printer, scanner or banging an external
hard drive.



Greg, not many people use or are as interested in computers as you are.
I really am not interested in seeing how long I could use Windows 98.

When your objective does not change, why should your hardware and
software change? Most home users are doing very simple tasks on their
PC and yet we have convinced them they need a machine that is as fast
as the ones used by animators at Pixar. I guess it is just me but my
97 Honda gets me up to the Publix just as well as a brand new Bugatti
would. I do not measure my self worth by things I have acquired.


Lets not get testy, boys


Not getting testy on my part and didn't mean to insult anyone. I
respect Greg's hobby and interest in keeping old computers running and
using them for all the things he likes to do. It just isn't for everyone.

On Thu, 30 Mar 2017 12:28:43 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:


Not getting testy on my part and didn't mean to insult anyone. I
respect Greg's hobby and interest in keeping old computers running and
using them for all the things he likes to do. It just isn't for everyone.

I guess my problem is I got into the PC business working out of the
parts room. IBM upper management made the decision that hardware guys
had no use for PCs and there was no budget for them. When I said
something about it to my direct manager she said "you know how to get
parts don't you"? I could order everything but cases (they have a
serial number like the receiver of a gun) and that is why my early
machines were all built in wooden boxes. We were managing $12M in
parts with a pencil so I had a good business use.
Once I got into it I figured out how many parts were being replaced in
a "FRU bucket" that were not bad (blindly throwing several parts at a
problem and not isolating further) so I started trolling the returns
for parts. There was an IBM internal "swap" BB where I could trade
used good parts for all sorts of things.
I had the same issue with software. We had no budget for software but
we had software writers who put their stuff, that IBM said no on, up
on the internal network. There were also lots of cool tools that never
actually saw the light of day in the retail world.
I just found pleasure taking things that nobody else wanted and
creating new things we needed.