RE: Dumpster diving? (was B20)

["James H H Lampert" <jamesl@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Some (probably Large) number of places, (or even programmer's looking
> for dev machine, or extremely small shops,) that can't afford even
> archaic equipment of 5 or 10 years ago MIGHT be able to afford the
> electricity (and maintenance headaches) to run one-a these things.

Then, too, there's a simple fact, one that the folks at Microsloth and
Intel are constantly trying to obfuscate: "Technologically obsolete" does
NOT mean "functionally obsolete." If it does what you need it to do, in a
reasonably cost-effective way, then why replace it? The only reason why I
got rid of my 16MHz V20 notebook in favor of the used 486 notebook
(eventually two of them, but that's another story) I bought cheap on eBay
was because the hard drive on the first notebook had died on me, and the
screen was in somewhat lousy shape, too. The only reason why I got rid of
my XT-class desktop machine in favor of a PC-DOS 2000/Linux dual-boot
P2-class mini-tower was because I found myself increasingly relying on the
notebooks instead (they're bigger and faster than the XT, just as the new
machine is bigger and faster than the notebooks), the XT-class machine was
on its third monitor (which I'd had to scrounge) and second hard drive
(for which I'd had to have a custom hard-card made up by MegaHaus), and
was starting to get flaky. The only new software I've bought for those
machines in a decade has been PC-DOS 2000 and Red Hat Linux 8 (Publisher
Edition), and since NOTHING I own has any version of Windoze on it, and
nearly all the software goes back to the days when a 12MHz 286 was
considered fast, everything performs at blazing speed.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. And even if it is broke, don't fix the
parts that aren't.

JHHL

P.S.: If you do pick up a used B20, or C04, or D02, then as long as it has
at least V2R3, it'll run the latest release of QuestView.