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Hmm, just thinking about that... build two threadripper boxes with 10 gigE and link them with a crossover cable for a highly respectable cluster 32 core that costs less than $3k.

amd ThreadRipper same thing no IPMI and no workstation boards.

The ThreadRipper Opteron 6300 is a socket G34 board.

NewEgg has Dual-Socket G34 boards, designed for workstations and server racks.

It can use an embedded KVM for remote management, which is an IPMI 2.0 compliant interface.

So... go vote with your wallet or something.

Gigabyte: http://b2b.gigabyte.com/Server...

Newegg: https://www.newegg.com/Product...

Well you can still get these

https://www.newegg.com/Product...

Problem is look at the CPU

https://ark.intel.com/products...

A Cherry Trail Atom at 1.44 to 1.92 Ghz is going to be a bit underpowered even if all you want to do is run Chrome.

Honestly I wouldn't buy anything with less than an i5 M - I don't even like the U series Core i5s. Of course that means that you're probably looking at a 13 inch machine.

What you want is a netbook. They were $3-400 machines with an Intel Atom. E.g. I had one of these with 2GB ram for a couple of years. The problem is that Chrome bloated to the point that it run like crap on an Atom and Windows slows down too for reasons that are a bit unclear.

Of course people like Asus decided to stop promoting netbooks. That's not the same as stopping making them. E.g.

https://www.newegg.com/Product...

$229 machine with an Intel Celeron N3350, 4GB Ram and 64GB of eMMC. The only difference between that the original netbooks is that you've got a slightly less bad screen. 11.6" 1366*768 instead of 10" 1024*600. It's Windows 10 S but you can upgrade to normal Windows. I bet it'd run Linux too.

Lenovo P910 with a pair of 10 core Xeon processors (better, faster than a single 18 core), 64 GB of RAM, 512 GB SSD for boot drive. Price is $4500.

Add a better video card (GForce GTX1080 is a faster, better video card than the Vega 56 in the Mac) for $700 from NewEgg

Add a pair of Samsung 1 TB SSD drives for $289 each (fully redundant RAID for better data integrity than the Mac).

Add a pair of 28" 4K Samsung monitors for $369 each. Why I would want a non-standard "5K" display is beyond me, when 4K is the standard for all video content etc. I'd love to have a full second monitor for whatever else I wanted to look at/read/use as well.

Total comes to $6516. It's a faster graphics platform, more CPU horsepower, double the RAM, more storage (redundant at that), and much more screen real-estate. And it's nearly $1000 less. AND - I can still add more drives, more graphics cards, etc. since it's a tower configuration. And I can save $1000. What's not to like?

Lenovo P910 with a pair of 10 core Xeon processors (better, faster than a single 18 core), 64 GB of RAM, 512 GB SSD for boot drive. Price is $4500.

Add a better video card (GForce GTX1080 is a faster, better video card than the Vega 56 in the Mac) for $700 from NewEgg

Add a pair of Samsung 1 TB SSD drives for $289 each (fully redundant RAID for better data integrity than the Mac).

Add a pair of 28" 4K Samsung monitors for $369 each. Why I would want a non-standard "5K" display is beyond me, when 4K is the standard for all video content etc. I'd love to have a full second monitor for whatever else I wanted to look at/read/use as well.

Total comes to $6516. It's a faster graphics platform, more CPU horsepower, double the RAM, more storage (redundant at that), and much more screen real-estate. And it's nearly $1000 less. AND - I can still add more drives, more graphics cards, etc. since it's a tower configuration. And I can save $1000. What's not to like?

Lenovo P910 with a pair of 10 core Xeon processors (better, faster than a single 18 core), 64 GB of RAM, 512 GB SSD for boot drive. Price is $4500.

Add a better video card (GForce GTX1080 is a faster, better video card than the Vega 56 in the Mac) for $700 from NewEgg

Add a pair of Samsung 1 TB SSD drives for $289 each (fully redundant RAID for better data integrity than the Mac).

Add a pair of 28" 4K Samsung monitors for $369 each. Why I would want a non-standard "5K" display is beyond me, when 4K is the standard for all video content etc. I'd love to have a full second monitor for whatever else I wanted to look at/read/use as well.

Total comes to $6516. It's a faster graphics platform, more CPU horsepower, double the RAM, more storage (redundant at that), and much more screen real-estate. And it's nearly $1000 less. AND - I can still add more drives, more graphics cards, etc. since it's a tower configuration. And I can save $1000. What's not to like?

Uhh... They don't call them "laptops" or "netbooks" anymore, but they most certainly still make them that size.

I have an Asus Transformer T100 that I bought well after December 2012. It hit the market in October 2013, and was essentially a netbook form factor, but with a detachable keyboard, running Windows 8.1 Home. I upgraded mine to Windows 10 during the free upgrade year.

They still make them. Here's one you can buy for $300.

Maybe Apple will even let you upgrade this system...!

We've heard that one of our customers bought some bad Ram or SSD or something and had a bad experience and also they like thin machines. So we've decided to solder it all down.

Still for a hefty premium you can order the machine with extra Ram.

https://www.apple.com/shop/buy...

How does $400 for an extra 8GB Ram and 128GB of SSD sound like?

Now you'll say "That sounds expensive. I could buy the RAM for $91.76

https://www.newegg.com/Product...

And a 128GB SSD for about $133

https://www.newegg.com/Product...

Presumably Apple buy stuff cheaper than I do. E.g. look at the spot prices for NAND and SSDs here

http://www.dramexchange.com/

So why is it it $400? Other than that you've got me over a barrel.

And, more to the point if the system were upgradeable I could buy the unupgraded version now and buy more Ram and a larger SSD later when/if I need them. At which point they'll will be cheaper.

Like I did with my Macbook Pro 2012. That was about $1200. Now for a future proof machine I need to pony up $1699.

Suddenly Windows 10 doesn't seem so bad. I bet I could even get XCode running in a VM on an Asus laptop if I had to.

Maybe Apple will even let you upgrade this system...!

We've heard that one of our customers bought some bad Ram or SSD or something and had a bad experience and also they like thin machines. So we've decided to solder it all down.

Still for a hefty premium you can order the machine with extra Ram.

https://www.apple.com/shop/buy...

How does $400 for an extra 8GB Ram and 128GB of SSD sound like?

Now you'll say "That sounds expensive. I could buy the RAM for $91.76

https://www.newegg.com/Product...

And a 128GB SSD for about $133

https://www.newegg.com/Product...

Presumably Apple buy stuff cheaper than I do. E.g. look at the spot prices for NAND and SSDs here

http://www.dramexchange.com/

So why is it it $400? Other than that you've got me over a barrel.

And, more to the point if the system were upgradeable I could buy the unupgraded version now and buy more Ram and a larger SSD later when/if I need them. At which point they'll will be cheaper.

Like I did with my Macbook Pro 2012. That was about $1200. Now for a future proof machine I need to pony up $1699.

Suddenly Windows 10 doesn't seem so bad. I bet I could even get XCode running in a VM on an Asus laptop if I had to.

32GB to 64GB $800 and no you don't get keep the 32. Big rip off when for $800 you can get an 64GB ECC kit.

https://www.newegg.com/Product...

I've got a pair of these

https://www.bragi.com/theheadp...

They're actually great for watching videos on my tablet at the gym or listening to podcasts because they can block out outside sounds very effectively. However when I VOIP call people some of them complain it's less clear than my $20 7-11 headphones.

The Headphone (dumb name) goes for $119 at NewEgg

https://www.newegg.com/Product...

Because I'm in Asia I paid a fair bit more than that since they're imported ultra low volumes.

I.e. a fairly high end bluetooth headset is actually worse than a really cheap set of wired headphones. Plus of course bluetooth headsets are usually running in SBC mode unless the planets align sufficiently for them to run in a better codec - both the phone and the device must support the same high end codec.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

SBC is a low computational complexity which doesn't honestly bother me, but it bothers the hell out of some people.

Looking here

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Each A2DP service, of possibly many, is designed to uni-directionally transfer an audio stream in up to 2 channel stereo, either to or from the Bluetooth host.[2] This profile relies on AVDTP and GAVDP. It includes mandatory support for the low-complexity SBC codec (not to be confused with Bluetooth's voice-signal codecs such as CVSDM), and supports optionally MPEG-1 Part 3/MPEG-2 Part 3 (MP2 and MP3), MPEG-2 Part 7/MPEG-4 Part 3 (AAC and HE-AAC), and ATRAC, and is extensible to support manufacturer-defined codecs, such as aptX.[3]

So SBC is mandatory and the fallback compatibility option. If you buy your headset and phone from the same company you'd probably get MP3, AAC or aptX. Unfortunately my phone is an ageing Galaxy S5 and so I'm probably stuck with SBC - I couldn't figure out a way to see which codec is actually in use.

Of course this sort of thing is probably where iOS has an advantage over Android - Apple could just make sure both their Apple/Beats branded bluetooth devices and the latest handsets all support the same, possibly proprietary, codec and then Time Cook can give a Jobs style keynote about how great it is.

Yeah the stock market is full of rampant speculation, but I think Wall Street is probably has it right. I know I will be modded down for pointing this out but Coffee Lake is sold out everywhere, Ryzen is not. Although Ryzen has made AMD competitive, most PC builders are still buying Intel.

Given that it took Intel 8 months to add Coffee Lake in between Kaby Lake and Cannon Lake and it took AMD 5 years to develop Ryzen... the situation that happened between 2003-2006 when AMD was the technically superior choice is unlikely to ever happen again. The good news is that Ryzen has made AMD just slightly profitable again, so at least they are no longer in danger of imminent bankruptcy.

Yeah the stock market is full of rampant speculation, but I think Wall Street is probably has it right. I know I will be modded down for pointing this out but Coffee Lake is sold out everywhere, Ryzen is not. Although Ryzen has made AMD competitive, most PC builders are still buying Intel.

Given that it took Intel 8 months to add Coffee Lake in between Kaby Lake and Cannon Lake and it took AMD 5 years to develop Ryzen... the situation that happened between 2003-2006 when AMD was the technically superior choice is unlikely to ever happen again. The good news is that Ryzen has made AMD just slightly profitable again, so at least they are no longer in danger of imminent bankruptcy.

I have an Antec P90 without the side window https://www.newegg.com/Product...

My receiver was $350 back in 2012. It sounds and works great. Not interested in spending that kind of money for a connector.

To be clear, you're not willing to spend any amount of money to fix the problem or you're not interested in replacing your receiver for any amount of money?

No, they do not. Connecting the Amazon FireTV to the receiver gives me sound just fine, but the component output won't play on the TV. Apparently there is a way to get it to downgrade to SD and see it, but what's the point in doing that?

So to clarify your specific parameters as opposed to the OP's problem. Why do you need component video? Not sure what you mean because a FireStick does not have component video. If you need component video is an HDMI to Component adapter suitable?

I have a device with HDMI output. I want video on the TV and audio on the receiver. Get it? The way I do that now is the HDMI is plugged into the TV, and the toslink output on the TV goes to the receiver for surround sound. Works great, and that's why I'll be keeping my toslink.

And why can't you plug the HDMI to the receiver and then HDMI to the TV? Seems like you have a very specific setup but haven't detailed all the parameters you require. For example are you saying that your receiver has no HDMI and you don't want to spend any money on a new receiver?

Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see the price of these guys. Any information out there? And what about the cost of motherboards?

$500 looks to be the base https://www.newegg.com/Product...

1) M.2 can be SATA, and there exists adapters. https://www.newegg.com/Product...
2) I don't see any technical reason a RAID controller can't connect NVMe disks.

and you can also get an cheap pci-e x4 to m.2 slot board.
https://www.amazon.com/Rivo-PC...

https://www.newegg.com/Product...

Yes, I'll pay $5 more for that motherboard

So basically you're ok with paying $5 more per item for hassle-free returns.

Newegg Premier is just $50/yr. It gives you expedited shipping, free returns for any reason (Amazon charges you return shipping if there's nothing wrong with the item), no restocking fee, and your friends and family can use your membership as well. By your metric, if you and your friends/family could potentially buy more than 10 items per year from Newegg, this is a better deal than Amazon.

it's massively overkill for her. A Ryzen 3 is on par with a high end i3 or low end i5 (depending on the part). Grandma gets one of these. Ryzen 3 is for her grandson and his RX 460 (or 480 if he can talk Grandma into it).

https://m.newegg.com/products/...

EXTERNAL blu-ray burner for less then $50.. You didn't think they would cost as much as like a Samsung bluray player or some shit like that did you? And btw faster internal bluray drives are a lot cheaper.

GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1060 DirectX 12 GV-N1060G1 GAMING-3GD 2.0 3GB 192-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 ATX Video Card
https://www.newegg.com/Product...
$245

But according to several sites a 1050ti would be fine too if you accept running with lower settings..

For $210 you can get a cheap base system.
Case $33 - https://www.newegg.com/Product...
MB $45 - https://www.newegg.com/Product...
CPU $70 - https://www.newegg.com/Product...
RAM $53 - https://www.newegg.com/Product...
HDD $6 - https://www.newegg.com/Product...
Total: $207
Total including the GTX1060 - $452

This was just a really quick search .. You can get lower with same or better spec's if you shop around..

But you also need to consider comparing systems on an equal level... 4k gaming on XBox/PS4 is not always "real".. PS4 Pro does some sort of upscaling to make it look better.. XBox has other issues.. Feel free to have a look at the links below.
https://www.extremetech.com/ga...
http://www.wired.co.uk/article...
http://wccftech.com/elite-dang...

So... It's a huge difference in comparing 4k gaming on a console and a PC.

GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1060 DirectX 12 GV-N1060G1 GAMING-3GD 2.0 3GB 192-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 ATX Video Card
https://www.newegg.com/Product...
$245

But according to several sites a 1050ti would be fine too if you accept running with lower settings..

For $210 you can get a cheap base system.
Case $33 - https://www.newegg.com/Product...
MB $45 - https://www.newegg.com/Product...
CPU $70 - https://www.newegg.com/Product...
RAM $53 - https://www.newegg.com/Product...
HDD $6 - https://www.newegg.com/Product...
Total: $207
Total including the GTX1060 - $452

This was just a really quick search .. You can get lower with same or better spec's if you shop around..

But you also need to consider comparing systems on an equal level... 4k gaming on XBox/PS4 is not always "real".. PS4 Pro does some sort of upscaling to make it look better.. XBox has other issues.. Feel free to have a look at the links below.
https://www.extremetech.com/ga...
http://www.wired.co.uk/article...
http://wccftech.com/elite-dang...

So... It's a huge difference in comparing 4k gaming on a console and a PC.

GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1060 DirectX 12 GV-N1060G1 GAMING-3GD 2.0 3GB 192-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 ATX Video Card
https://www.newegg.com/Product...
$245

But according to several sites a 1050ti would be fine too if you accept running with lower settings..

For $210 you can get a cheap base system.
Case $33 - https://www.newegg.com/Product...
MB $45 - https://www.newegg.com/Product...
CPU $70 - https://www.newegg.com/Product...
RAM $53 - https://www.newegg.com/Product...
HDD $6 - https://www.newegg.com/Product...
Total: $207
Total including the GTX1060 - $452

This was just a really quick search .. You can get lower with same or better spec's if you shop around..

But you also need to consider comparing systems on an equal level... 4k gaming on XBox/PS4 is not always "real".. PS4 Pro does some sort of upscaling to make it look better.. XBox has other issues.. Feel free to have a look at the links below.
https://www.extremetech.com/ga...
http://www.wired.co.uk/article...
http://wccftech.com/elite-dang...

So... It's a huge difference in comparing 4k gaming on a console and a PC.

GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1060 DirectX 12 GV-N1060G1 GAMING-3GD 2.0 3GB 192-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 ATX Video Card
https://www.newegg.com/Product...
$245

But according to several sites a 1050ti would be fine too if you accept running with lower settings..

For $210 you can get a cheap base system.
Case $33 - https://www.newegg.com/Product...
MB $45 - https://www.newegg.com/Product...
CPU $70 - https://www.newegg.com/Product...
RAM $53 - https://www.newegg.com/Product...
HDD $6 - https://www.newegg.com/Product...
Total: $207
Total including the GTX1060 - $452

This was just a really quick search .. You can get lower with same or better spec's if you shop around..

But you also need to consider comparing systems on an equal level... 4k gaming on XBox/PS4 is not always "real".. PS4 Pro does some sort of upscaling to make it look better.. XBox has other issues.. Feel free to have a look at the links below.
https://www.extremetech.com/ga...
http://www.wired.co.uk/article...
http://wccftech.com/elite-dang...

So... It's a huge difference in comparing 4k gaming on a console and a PC.

GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1060 DirectX 12 GV-N1060G1 GAMING-3GD 2.0 3GB 192-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 ATX Video Card
https://www.newegg.com/Product...
$245

But according to several sites a 1050ti would be fine too if you accept running with lower settings..

For $210 you can get a cheap base system.
Case $33 - https://www.newegg.com/Product...
MB $45 - https://www.newegg.com/Product...
CPU $70 - https://www.newegg.com/Product...
RAM $53 - https://www.newegg.com/Product...
HDD $6 - https://www.newegg.com/Product...
Total: $207
Total including the GTX1060 - $452

This was just a really quick search .. You can get lower with same or better spec's if you shop around..

But you also need to consider comparing systems on an equal level... 4k gaming on XBox/PS4 is not always "real".. PS4 Pro does some sort of upscaling to make it look better.. XBox has other issues.. Feel free to have a look at the links below.
https://www.extremetech.com/ga...
http://www.wired.co.uk/article...
http://wccftech.com/elite-dang...

So... It's a huge difference in comparing 4k gaming on a console and a PC.

GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1060 DirectX 12 GV-N1060G1 GAMING-3GD 2.0 3GB 192-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 ATX Video Card
https://www.newegg.com/Product...
$245

But according to several sites a 1050ti would be fine too if you accept running with lower settings..

For $210 you can get a cheap base system.
Case $33 - https://www.newegg.com/Product...
MB $45 - https://www.newegg.com/Product...
CPU $70 - https://www.newegg.com/Product...
RAM $53 - https://www.newegg.com/Product...
HDD $6 - https://www.newegg.com/Product...
Total: $207
Total including the GTX1060 - $452

This was just a really quick search .. You can get lower with same or better spec's if you shop around..

But you also need to consider comparing systems on an equal level... 4k gaming on XBox/PS4 is not always "real".. PS4 Pro does some sort of upscaling to make it look better.. XBox has other issues.. Feel free to have a look at the links below.
https://www.extremetech.com/ga...
http://www.wired.co.uk/article...
http://wccftech.com/elite-dang...

So... It's a huge difference in comparing 4k gaming on a console and a PC.

Not sure where you're getting that. I loved my Phenom II when it came out, but other than increased competition I'm not sure where all this Ryzen hype is coming from.

Not sure where you're getting that. I loved my Phenom II when it came out, but other than increased competition I'm not sure where all this Ryzen hype is coming from.

re: https://store.vikings.net/libr... not to mention the overpriced cpus vikings is trying to hoc on your "freedom" https://www.newegg.com/Product... lol

Can you buy it? AMD arguably made "ok" CPUs (talking within past 2-3 years), and even some mildly interesting ones. But could you buy them anywhere?

Yes you can.

So far I've seen no indication that not using Facebook makes you an outcast, unable to get jobs, unable to travel, or anything like that.

I've been wondering about that. With the Boarder Brown Shirts (not TSA, though many toss that name out with this) inspecting incoming - including American citizens - "social media" both on their electronic devices and also searches by the agents in the back room while you are waiting, will they believe you if you tell them you don't use "social media"? Or will they make the assumption that you are trying to evade them and so give you the Extra Special Treatment?

I've considered setting up Facebook and other accounts like phone contacts on a "burner phone", possibly a Chrome Book with games and non-important stuff like a few documents and an essay on the patriotic American, just for travel in and out of the United States, while keeping my actual stuff on a thumb drive like one of these: https://www.newegg.com/Product...

I'm with Osgeld (sister post). The fact is that most of us don't need near the amount of available horsepower. Even running compilers and Java server applications (i.e. Tomcat + WebApp) is within the realm of the processors we see in phones. We're seeing Atom-based laptops (i.e. https://www.newegg.com/Product...) getting adopted. These aren't much more powerful than the S8. People are talking about docking stations for phones but I actually think that things will go a different direction. Windows remote desktop is fabulous (No VNC and the like don't come close) and I imagine people will have everything on their phone and apps will run either in tablet or desktop mode. When you get where you're going, plug your phone into a power source and RDP to it from a dumb terminal and pick up right where you left off. Saves the problem of having to have docking stations for different types of devices.

Here's a list of quad-core-or-better desktop processors priced under USD$100. Notice how it's all AMD because Intel only has dual-core processors in that price range.

I haven't tried this myself, but from the specs it looks to be reasonable inexpensive, reasonably small and light, and reasonably powerful:

- Intel NUC (about 1 pound)
- fit-Uptime UPS for mini-PCs (about 0.5 pound and should power the NUC for maybe 1-3 hours on battery, depending on exact model of NUC etc)

There's a nice section on barebones computers there

I've seen those:
https://www.newegg.com/Product...

Thanks for the SSD link -- I didn't realize they were back in the '50's as well ! That makes sense though -- the price was just through the roof.

> it looks like a decent SSD will cost around $0.35/GB, and HDD around $0.035. That's 10x the price for technology that's nearly half as old.

Your analysis matches my findings too. Back in 2013 I noted they were around $0.75 / GB.

i.e.

In 2011 prices were around $1.20/GB for SSDs, and around $0.33 for a high performance HD.

SSD: $145 Intel 320 SSD 120 GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...

HDD: $280 Velociraptor 600 GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...

HDD: $100 Velociraptor 300 GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...

It is kind of funny to see the Velociraptor 300 GB still selling today -- in 2017 is $48 = $0.16/GB, and the 600 GB at $0.19/GB !

Back in 2010, SSD prices were $2.14/GB

$274 128 GB
Crucial RealSSD C300 CTFDDAC128MAG-1G1 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...

Gotta love Technology and Capitalism ! :-)

Thanks for the SSD link -- I didn't realize they were back in the '50's as well ! That makes sense though -- the price was just through the roof.

> it looks like a decent SSD will cost around $0.35/GB, and HDD around $0.035. That's 10x the price for technology that's nearly half as old.

Your analysis matches my findings too. Back in 2013 I noted they were around $0.75 / GB.

i.e.

In 2011 prices were around $1.20/GB for SSDs, and around $0.33 for a high performance HD.

SSD: $145 Intel 320 SSD 120 GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...

HDD: $280 Velociraptor 600 GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...

HDD: $100 Velociraptor 300 GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...

It is kind of funny to see the Velociraptor 300 GB still selling today -- in 2017 is $48 = $0.16/GB, and the 600 GB at $0.19/GB !

Back in 2010, SSD prices were $2.14/GB

$274 128 GB
Crucial RealSSD C300 CTFDDAC128MAG-1G1 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...

Gotta love Technology and Capitalism ! :-)

Thanks for the SSD link -- I didn't realize they were back in the '50's as well ! That makes sense though -- the price was just through the roof.

> it looks like a decent SSD will cost around $0.35/GB, and HDD around $0.035. That's 10x the price for technology that's nearly half as old.

Your analysis matches my findings too. Back in 2013 I noted they were around $0.75 / GB.

i.e.

In 2011 prices were around $1.20/GB for SSDs, and around $0.33 for a high performance HD.

SSD: $145 Intel 320 SSD 120 GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...

HDD: $280 Velociraptor 600 GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...

HDD: $100 Velociraptor 300 GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...

It is kind of funny to see the Velociraptor 300 GB still selling today -- in 2017 is $48 = $0.16/GB, and the 600 GB at $0.19/GB !

Back in 2010, SSD prices were $2.14/GB

$274 128 GB
Crucial RealSSD C300 CTFDDAC128MAG-1G1 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...

Gotta love Technology and Capitalism ! :-)

Thanks for the SSD link -- I didn't realize they were back in the '50's as well ! That makes sense though -- the price was just through the roof.

> it looks like a decent SSD will cost around $0.35/GB, and HDD around $0.035. That's 10x the price for technology that's nearly half as old.

Your analysis matches my findings too. Back in 2013 I noted they were around $0.75 / GB.

i.e.

In 2011 prices were around $1.20/GB for SSDs, and around $0.33 for a high performance HD.

SSD: $145 Intel 320 SSD 120 GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...

HDD: $280 Velociraptor 600 GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...

HDD: $100 Velociraptor 300 GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...

It is kind of funny to see the Velociraptor 300 GB still selling today -- in 2017 is $48 = $0.16/GB, and the 600 GB at $0.19/GB !

Back in 2010, SSD prices were $2.14/GB

$274 128 GB
Crucial RealSSD C300 CTFDDAC128MAG-1G1 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...

Gotta love Technology and Capitalism ! :-)

you can get real PCI-E SSD for about $1/gig or less and you don't have to deal with any of the fake raid bs.

How do you define "real PCI-E SSD"? Would you include a $9,000 enterprise-grade PCI-E SSD from Intel with up to 850,000 IOPS 4K random reads?

Intel DC P3608

Guess what? It consists of two SSD's that are configured as RAID0 by Intel's RSTe driver software.

https://www.newegg.com/Product...

Just buy USB sticks with a write-protect switch on them.

You don't even have to spend a lot (although Kanguru makes nice gear)
https://www.newegg.com/Product...

https://www.newegg.com/Product...

Just buy USB sticks with a write-protect switch on them.

You don't even have to spend a lot (although Kanguru makes nice gear)
https://www.newegg.com/Product...

https://promotions.newegg.com/...

Setting aside the fact that any TV not connected to the internet is a dumb TV, what you're probably looking for is a Commercial TV. They tend not to come with all of the extra consumer crap.

The places that do 'accept' it, for the most part DONT ACTUALLY ACCEPT BITCOIN . . . It's too fucking volatile to hold onto. They mostly pass BitCoin transactions through a third party who then pays your bill with a real financial transaction.

Oh, so sort of like credit cards. You give your card information to the merchant, they go to a 3rd party who then actually handles the shifting of money around.

Outside of malware and exchanges, no one of any importance directly accepts BitCoin for payment, so try again.

Overstock.com, Expedia, Newegg, TigerDirect.com, Shopify stores, Dish... Yeah you're right. None of those businesses are really of any importance. Just some of the largest online retailers or service providers in their particular industry.

If I wanted to pay a bill with Bitcoin, I don't care what the merchant does with it after I make my payment. It's not my problem as long as my account is credited for the payment.

I have always used a ThinkPad that is off lease and verified. Newegg has a host of models listed between $200-$300. And the ThinkWiki will help you with the particulars if you aren't familiar with the model you get.