Well, it's not true that old PCs drain more power than new ones. Look at their PSUs: it is not so uncommon to see old PCs equipped with 150W PSUs, while new ones need at least a 250W one, while sometimes people get a 300W one!
That's for sure.
Old PCs (and old hardware in general) make a great word processing unit (I have one 386/33 w/Win 3.1 and Word 2), a good Linux network PC and so on.
There's still plenty of life in old computers!!
That is *really* a good idea.
Plus, there is a large community of "retrocomputing fans" (not convinced? check the bids for old computer stuff on eBay!)
I wonder if...
3Com should make it clear if its revenues come from the selling of Palm devices (in which case the OS should remain free), or if it shifted to a software house concept (in that case it should develop a multi-platform system for multiple CPUs) and charge for the OS.
I think a partial solution about this problem would be letting people interested in retrocomputing grab everything they want for free. It would mean a lot of PCs not being wasted in our environment.
I know it is not THE solution but you would get both more happy people and a better "tech garbage" situation.
Well, it is not so strange. You should keep in mind that we're talking about Microsoft, the company which wanted to stop supplying Windows CD copy of Windows when you bought a new PC to "stop the piracy"! And it wanted to link your Windows copy to your hard disk serial number or so, so if you wanted to format/swap your hard disk you would have to "contact your vendor"!!!!!!!!
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Well, it's not true that old PCs drain more power than new ones. Look at their PSUs: it is not so uncommon to see old PCs equipped with 150W PSUs, while new ones need at least a 250W one, while sometimes people get a 300W one!
That's for sure. Old PCs (and old hardware in general) make a great word processing unit (I have one 386/33 w/Win 3.1 and Word 2), a good Linux network PC and so on. There's still plenty of life in old computers!!
That is *really* a good idea. Plus, there is a large community of "retrocomputing fans" (not convinced? check the bids for old computer stuff on eBay!)
I wonder if... 3Com should make it clear if its revenues come from the selling of Palm devices (in which case the OS should remain free), or if it shifted to a software house concept (in that case it should develop a multi-platform system for multiple CPUs) and charge for the OS.
I think a partial solution about this problem would be letting people interested in retrocomputing grab everything they want for free. It would mean a lot of PCs not being wasted in our environment. I know it is not THE solution but you would get both more happy people and a better "tech garbage" situation.
Well, it is not so strange. You should keep in mind that we're talking about Microsoft, the company which wanted to stop supplying Windows CD copy of Windows when you bought a new PC to "stop the piracy"! And it wanted to link your Windows copy to your hard disk serial number or so, so if you wanted to format/swap your hard disk you would have to "contact your vendor"!!!!!!!!