On 3/30/17 7:19 AM, justan wrote:
"Mr. Luddite" Wrote in message:
On 3/29/2017 7:45 PM, wrote:
On Wed, 29 Mar 2017 18:52:36 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 3/29/2017 6:29 PM, Poco Deplorevole wrote:
I'll let you know what I finally get, but I'm leaning towards that HP now. Thousand bucks for all
that seems like a decent deal.

https://www.costco.com/HP-ENVY-17t-L...100317268.html



Looks like a nice one. Now that a few of us have suggested HP, you'll
probably have all kinds of problems with it. :-)

I am also starting to shop for a new laptop. This one is getting a bit
long in the tooth although it still works fine. Not too excited about
Win 10 though, but I suppose I'll get used to it.


Get used to paying Microsoft a recurring charge too. That is their
goal. They want subscription software, not pay and run forever.

I have still not found anything I want to do that XP won't do for me.
Maybe I should just follow you guys around and pick up the machines
you throw away. ;-)

Bear in mind I was in the computer biz for 30 years, dealing with
thousands of customers over the years. The ones who were most
successful always ran a generation or two behind the bleeding edge.
Their hardware was field tested, all of the ECs were installed and the
"lemons" were history. (imagine the poor suckers who bought a "noodle
snatcher") The same was true of the software. Older versions had all
of the bugs shaken out.


Doesn't mean squat when the older computer with an older OS ****s the
bed due to a mother board blowing up or the hard drive crashing. I am
not into computer repair or building like you are. When it dies I buy a
new one.




Same here. I used to fix mainframes but since the PC took over and
became a throwaway item i have little interest in monkeying with
hardware. It's hard enough keeping all of the devices talking to
each other.


Well, of course, it isn't *that* difficult, depending on which devices
and what you want them to do when they "communicate."

On 3/30/17 8:39 AM, justan wrote:
Keyser Soze Wrote in message:
On 3/30/17 7:19 AM, justan wrote:
"Mr. Luddite" Wrote in message:
On 3/29/2017 7:45 PM, wrote:
On Wed, 29 Mar 2017 18:52:36 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 3/29/2017 6:29 PM, Poco Deplorevole wrote:
I'll let you know what I finally get, but I'm leaning towards that HP now. Thousand bucks for all
that seems like a decent deal.

https://www.costco.com/HP-ENVY-17t-L...100317268.html



Looks like a nice one. Now that a few of us have suggested HP, you'll
probably have all kinds of problems with it. :-)

I am also starting to shop for a new laptop. This one is getting a bit
long in the tooth although it still works fine. Not too excited about
Win 10 though, but I suppose I'll get used to it.


Get used to paying Microsoft a recurring charge too. That is their
goal. They want subscription software, not pay and run forever.

I have still not found anything I want to do that XP won't do for me.
Maybe I should just follow you guys around and pick up the machines
you throw away. ;-)

Bear in mind I was in the computer biz for 30 years, dealing with
thousands of customers over the years. The ones who were most
successful always ran a generation or two behind the bleeding edge.
Their hardware was field tested, all of the ECs were installed and the
"lemons" were history. (imagine the poor suckers who bought a "noodle
snatcher") The same was true of the software. Older versions had all
of the bugs shaken out.


Doesn't mean squat when the older computer with an older OS ****s the
bed due to a mother board blowing up or the hard drive crashing. I am
not into computer repair or building like you are. When it dies I buy a
new one.




Same here. I used to fix mainframes but since the PC took over and
became a throwaway item i have little interest in monkeying with
hardware. It's hard enough keeping all of the devices talking to
each other.


Well, of course, it isn't *that* difficult, depending on which devices
and what you want them to do when they "communicate."


Without going into details, powerline hits can cause unpredictable
things to happen. Recovery can be easy or it can be
difficult.


Without going into details, I assign a fixed address to every device I
can, and also to my server, which is attached to a large UPS. When we
get a surge or lose power, even if everything momentarily shuts down,
when I restart or if the UPS takes over, the devices seem to hold their
addresses. The phones attach on their own via wi-fi, and don't need a
fixed address...they find the server by name.

On Thu, 30 Mar 2017 05:45:29 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 3/29/2017 7:45 PM, wrote:
On Wed, 29 Mar 2017 18:52:36 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 3/29/2017 6:29 PM, Poco Deplorevole wrote:
I'll let you know what I finally get, but I'm leaning towards that HP now. Thousand bucks for all
that seems like a decent deal.

https://www.costco.com/HP-ENVY-17t-L...100317268.html



Looks like a nice one. Now that a few of us have suggested HP, you'll
probably have all kinds of problems with it. :-)

I am also starting to shop for a new laptop. This one is getting a bit
long in the tooth although it still works fine. Not too excited about
Win 10 though, but I suppose I'll get used to it.


Get used to paying Microsoft a recurring charge too. That is their
goal. They want subscription software, not pay and run forever.

I have still not found anything I want to do that XP won't do for me.
Maybe I should just follow you guys around and pick up the machines
you throw away. ;-)

Bear in mind I was in the computer biz for 30 years, dealing with
thousands of customers over the years. The ones who were most
successful always ran a generation or two behind the bleeding edge.
Their hardware was field tested, all of the ECs were installed and the
"lemons" were history. (imagine the poor suckers who bought a "noodle
snatcher") The same was true of the software. Older versions had all
of the bugs shaken out.


Doesn't mean squat when the older computer with an older OS ****s the
bed due to a mother board blowing up or the hard drive crashing. I am
not into computer repair or building like you are. When it dies I buy a
new one.


If you are running a imager like Acronis, losing a hard drive is no
big deal (viruses etc) You just stuff in the new drive and reload the
last good image you have. It is just a few clicks after you boot the
recovery CD. If I simply replace a bad machine with one that is
similar, that image will basically work too, although I may need to
tweak a few drivers. Running XP, Microsoft has stopped screwing with
you about changing hardware. In fact you can run multiple machines on
the same license.
If your plan is to just buy a new machine every time you have a
glitch, with a new OS to learn and rebuilding your PC from scratch
you are screwing with PCs more than me.

On Thu, 30 Mar 2017 11:12:32 -0400 (EDT), justan wrote:

Wrote in message:
On Thu, 30 Mar 2017 07:19:17 -0400 (EDT), justan wrote:


Same here. I used to fix mainframes but since the PC took over and
became a throwaway item i have little interest in monkeying with
hardware. It's hard enough keeping all of the devices talking to
each other.

Yet you don't mind learning a new OS every time Bill Gates wants a new
car. The hardware is the easy part


Sure I mind but some of the new hardware and software doesn't play
well with Win 3.1

===

Even in the corporate mainframe world users eventually become forced
into hardware and software upgrades. It's too expensive for the
vendors to make and support software that is backwards compatible with
older hardware, and the hardware vendors have no market incentive to
do more than is absolutely necessary. Eventually the increased
reliability and environmental efficiency of the newer CPUs becomes
compelling and that triggers both hardware and software upgrades.
The same is true with PCs if you want to take advantage of better
graphics, network speeds, larger hard drives, energy efficiency, etc.

On 3/30/2017 11:58 AM, justan wrote:
Wrote in message:
On Thu, 30 Mar 2017 08:39:39 -0400 (EDT), justan wrote:

Without going into details, powerline hits can cause unpredictable
things to happen. Recovery can be easy or it can be
difficult.

Power hits can be fairly easily mitigated if you have decent surge
protection and UPS. Working with 1000 customers who refused to turn
off their computers and unplug them every afternoon when we had a
thunderstorm got us pretty good with surge protection. Most of that
knowledge world wide came from Florida.


The only recent hardware failures
I could attribute to powerline
are a gfi outlet and a device that had some operational issues
even after a factory reset and reconfiguration. The only surge
protection we have is built into the mains panel. Most of my
devices are inexpensive and easily replaceable. I can't justify
the cost of individual surge protectors.


Having only a laptop, an iPad, and a networked printer I can't justify
having a UPS either. The laptop and iPad battery last plenty long
enough and the printer has never lost it's connection to the network.

On Thu, 30 Mar 2017 12:18:35 -0400,
wrote:

Even in the corporate mainframe world users eventually become forced
into hardware and software upgrades. It's too expensive for the
vendors to make and support software that is backwards compatible with
older hardware, and the hardware vendors have no market incentive to
do more than is absolutely necessary. Eventually the increased
reliability and environmental efficiency of the newer CPUs becomes
compelling and that triggers both hardware and software upgrades.
The same is true with PCs if you want to take advantage of better
graphics, network speeds, larger hard drives, energy efficiency, etc.

I understand that but if I was running a data center, I would still
stay one or two levels back. Let the pioneers catch the arrows.
XP does not seem to have a problem handling any network speed or hard
drive I throw at it and it is hard to find a PC that uses less power
than an old laptop. It is certainly not going to be that I7 sports car
John is looking at. If energy is an issue, you want the smallest,
slowest machine that will get the job done hence my W/98 server and my
WYSE "thin client" machines.

On Thu, 30 Mar 2017 13:48:17 -0400, wrote:

On Thu, 30 Mar 2017 11:12:32 -0400 (EDT), justan wrote:

Yet you don't mind learning a new OS every time Bill Gates wants a new
car. The hardware is the easy part


Sure I mind but some of the new hardware and software doesn't play
well with Win 3.1

The main limitation with W3.1 is in graphics and full motion video.
DOS (the engine under W3 and lower) does a good job with music,
pictures and excels with text based applications. There are DOS tools
that handle text far better than any windows program in a much tighter
package.
I still use "CE3", a subset of the IBM E editor, when I want to select
data and manipulate it from HTML tables or anything else I can paste
from a windows file.

===

I'd argue that the main limitation with Win 3.1 was the lack of
working memory, and I/O bandwidth. I used to get frequent memory
crashes back in the day if I tried to have more than a couple of
windows open at the same time that I was browsing the web with
Netscape. Windows 98 and Win NT fixed some of that but it really
wasn't until Win 7 that things really stabilized. I push my machines
fairly hard with a number of different apps running more or less
continuously. I was never able to do that reliably prior to Win 7.

On Thu, 30 Mar 2017 12:25:06 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:


Having only a laptop, an iPad, and a networked printer I can't justify
having a UPS either. The laptop and iPad battery last plenty long
enough and the printer has never lost it's connection to the network.

I haven't bought a UPS in years but I have a bunch. Most people just
chuck them when the battery dies. If you buy batteries from the
manufacturer, they cost almost as much as a new one but they are
commodity items on the net that sell for a fraction of what APC wants.
We have most of the stuff in the living room on UPS (TV, sat box, this
PC etc). I have had power failures and not even noticed until I
noticed the kitchen light went out ;-)
Most are just blips that last a few seconds until the recloser can
operate. That will still put you in the penalty box for 5-10 minutes
until everything reboots and gets going again. Your DVR loses what it
was doing etc.

wrote:
On Thu, 30 Mar 2017 11:58:44 -0400 (EDT), justan wrote:

Wrote in message:
On Thu, 30 Mar 2017 08:39:39 -0400 (EDT), justan wrote:

Without going into details, powerline hits can cause unpredictable
things to happen. Recovery can be easy or it can be
difficult.

Power hits can be fairly easily mitigated if you have decent surge
protection and UPS. Working with 1000 customers who refused to turn
off their computers and unplug them every afternoon when we had a
thunderstorm got us pretty good with surge protection. Most of that
knowledge world wide came from Florida.


The only recent hardware failuresI could attribute to powerline
are a gfi outlet and a device that had some operational issues
even after a factory reset and reconfiguration. The only surge
protection we have is built into the mains panel. Most of my
devices are inexpensive and easily replaceable. I can't justify
the cost of individual surge protectors.

Surge protection goes farther than simply plugging in a few
protectors. For most of the country, that may work for you but we get
an ass kicking thunderstorm just about every day for half the year.


Our biggest problems in the 80's was Colorado. Lots of lighting, and the
disk controller we had had a **** power supply. Pass transistors that
passed ever line glitch through.

On Thu, 30 Mar 2017 14:24:59 -0400,
wrote:

On Thu, 30 Mar 2017 13:48:17 -0400, wrote:

On Thu, 30 Mar 2017 11:12:32 -0400 (EDT), justan wrote:

Yet you don't mind learning a new OS every time Bill Gates wants a new
car. The hardware is the easy part


Sure I mind but some of the new hardware and software doesn't play
well with Win 3.1

The main limitation with W3.1 is in graphics and full motion video.
DOS (the engine under W3 and lower) does a good job with music,
pictures and excels with text based applications. There are DOS tools
that handle text far better than any windows program in a much tighter
package.
I still use "CE3", a subset of the IBM E editor, when I want to select
data and manipulate it from HTML tables or anything else I can paste
from a windows file.

===

I'd argue that the main limitation with Win 3.1 was the lack of
working memory, and I/O bandwidth. I used to get frequent memory
crashes back in the day if I tried to have more than a couple of
windows open at the same time that I was browsing the web with
Netscape. Windows 98 and Win NT fixed some of that but it really
wasn't until Win 7 that things really stabilized. I push my machines
fairly hard with a number of different apps running more or less
continuously. I was never able to do that reliably prior to Win 7.

I never really used W3.1 that much. I was a DOS guy and there were
software work arounds that got past Bill Gates thinking 640K was
enough for anyone. DOS dBase IV was smart enough to use all the memory
you could throw at it. I found the diminishing returns came at around
2 meg. I had 6.5m on my AT machine and I kept 4m in a Ram Drive. If I
was in a hurry, I loaded the whole directory, program, data etc to the
ram drive and executed it there. dBase really screams if it is all in
RAM, even on an old 8 mz 286.

http://gfretwell.com/ftp/Woodiy%20AT.jpg