Re: When You Hear The Heavy Accent & The Poor Phone Connection... HANG UP!! ----- 0MCX2ECzHk

As I've said in another post, IME XP Pro works very nice, and I am impressed by my Dell Optiplex.

Hmmmm. I'm using a (fairly) new dual 1.25GHz G4 Dual Mirror Door. It runs

Never a hiccup, happily churning along on OS 10.3.3.

Oh, and I bought it brand new, just before a "speed bump" was issued. Got enough back on it and the LCD display via price protect that I was able to add a second 22" Cinema display.

Whoa! Is this the same guy who does the laptop "airbag" commercial on the tele?

Brian,

In the professional world, if you can't get support for problems, then it's no good. I stopped using Macs years ago because I had one acting as a terminal for a very expensive sound hard disk system and I could not find support at the time to sort out a problem. I've used PCs for my business needs since then and I've had very few problems, and when problems do occur, I can find support quickly.

Jim.

A piece of equipment is only as good as its maintenance or service. That is not even limited to computers.

When did that become true? Admittedly I have not worked on a Mac since '98 but in that year our company (the largest independent supplier of platters for hard disk drives) had 19 inline sputtering systems throughout the world. Each of those sputtering systems had a process gas controller. Each of those controllers was controlled by one (each) IBM XT of either 8086 or of 8088 vintage. As you may know, the 8086 does not even use or support a hard drive. At the same time, the oldest model Mac's currently in use were IIc's and IIe's. I am fairly certain that the 8086 dates the IIc by at least a few years. I know the company purchased them in 1985 (or so) when the company was formed.

My point is simply, if a person, company, or other entity has no reason or need to change, they wont! And it does not matter if it is a Mac or PC. Don't be blinded that because you are in a fine institution of higher learning or large company that is compelled to update everything to stay competitive, that everyone else in the world does the same.

Sorry, I had to upgrade the II series platforms as well as the older PC platforms. However the expansion potential was severely restricted in the Macs. Sort of like built in intentional obsolescence. I have to assume it was by design so business would be forced to purchase new computers every

Art

Brian,

I do not think I have ever been to your house... If that is an invite, then sure I would like to see one.

BTW: Windows 3.0 came out when AT 286's were in vogue. I did not have a chance to notice anything other than the OS.

Take care,

Art

I learned BASIC on a Tandy 1000. And Star Trek too...

Yep, if something works don't screw with it. Not to mention that he would have to spend some REAL money to switch out the Interface if he switches to another computer controller. Might be cheaper to purchase a new engraving machine.

Art

Jeff, that is impressive as you are speaking of a laptop. I have three laptops but the oldest is running Win98se. Had an old Toshiba running Win95 but it finally went TU.

Art

Art

That would make it either 2x 20GB platters, a 1x 40GB platter, or a 2x 30GB platters (derated due to platter imperfections)

Horse hockey! Modern head flying heights are in the single digit micron range. The heads lift by aerodynamic forces created by rotation of the disk(s). These drives do not care how they are set. In this they are far superior to drives made even as late as the mid-90s. What will make a huge impact to drive life is orientation relative to cooling air flow. Vertical installations often block air flow. Blocked airflow heats drives up, heated drives blow the electronic circuits. That simple.

Anyone remember Seagate Barracuda 4 drives that had multiple stacks? The Seagate requirement was for you to install additional cooling measures. Classic example of poor design.

I did not know that Maxtor would capture data? For free?

Art

That is his problem, if the Tandy goes down for good, he has to scrap the engraver, big time expense to replace it.

I am only quoting what the Maxtor technician said to me.

Apparently they will if you are not in a hurry for it. Lead time 8 wweks. Most companies want it faster so that is where the cost comes in.

It was in a post, but if you're even in Nashville, look me up!

Did anyone see the contest Dell ran last year (or maybe two years ago) for the oldest in-service computer?

The winner was an Altair from a lawyer's office, IIRC.

And the simple rate of producing garbage and chasing one's tail is hardly a measure of performance.

Dan Mitchell ==========

Paul Mc>

Well, Dan, if that is where you are stuck at, you definately have the wrong software for your system. If you are on a MAC, your options are limited, if you are on a PC, drop me an email and I will help get you the correct software so that you can do your necessary task without your current problems.

It is just a question of the correct tools. You may know what you want to do, but not HOW to do it. The tools on the Windows platform all run the full range, from cheap/free utilities that may or may not do what they claim to do. through the consumer level, pro-sumer level all the way to full Professional applications.

No worries, Dan, I can help get you productive.

in article dc6cc.15510$ snipped-for-privacy@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net, Art Marsh at snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.net wrote on 4/4/04 10:32 PM:

The older II and IIC used the "NUBUS" and add on cards were an issue, even then. But it is also true that at that same time, we had ISA, MicroChannel, EISA et al for the PC. And about 4 different, incompatible network topologies: TCP, AppleTalk, Netbios, LANManager, Novell, Banyon, TokenRing, ARCNet, probably more.

Things have settled down a bit. Some PCs are finally abandoning the old 16 bit ISA and it silly restrictions. One of the reasons Macs used to be so much more easily configurable (if you could find the hardware :) was the PC problem of limited interrupts and duplicate I/O register assignments. Heck, the old Dec Unibus was better than that!

Ed

Circa 1980, guys brought their Apples to the office because they got sick and tired of waiting for the central computing office to return their data.

Politics helped to stifle the trend. "No personal computers allowed" became the mantra -- led by of course, corporate management.

Apple was in offices before the PC. IBM salesmen just circumnavigated the politics better than Apple.

Possible, but I would rather believe that it was the intense competition in the PC clone markets that led to lower pricing which Apple (being a complete proprietary system) refused to deal with. Eventually, it all came down to the individual system cost and cost of ownership. PCs still beat Macs in that department in the larger Business world. Our corporate depreciation schedule was either 3 years or 5 years depending on the system cost of the computer. Macs were 5 years and Clones were usually 3 years. Since our company needed to maintain its competitive advantage (and entice customers like IBM, Maxtor, Quantum, WD, and Seagate) we generally bought new systems to replace depreciated out ones. Again, it's about the budgets.

If Apple were to slash it's prices by at least 50%, they would surely gain greater market share. Most would like a Mac over the PC. If the budgets would allow. But that is not going to happen.

Art

See, even technicians can make a mistake! What that Tech said was true... 10 years ago. Here is a website for a brief summary of how hard drives work. I take you to the head section first. BTW: This site is a little dated as I am not sure GMR remains a standard as it was mainstream at the time of my layoff (1999) and flying hights are down to less than 3 Micro-inches, not the 3-7 Micro-inches stated. The article uses inches, the drive industry generally uses Micron. The goal is to use Nanometer or Angstrom as a measuring unit. We're getting close.

Interesting! Learned something new today. I know a few folks over at Maxtor and MMC. You gave me some ammo to kid them with. LOL!

Art