Re: Observation about group

["Donald C. Lee" <coach41@pacbell.net>]

Hi folks,

    I couldn't find the original message but I see some of the current
ones and I am glad other still feel the same as many people did a few
years ago.  

    I remember when I first started using PC's extensively back in 1994, I
thought my IIe could do just about the same thing I used a PC for (word
process, spreadsheet) plus play some games.  In fact, I wrote a letter to
II Alive stating that.

    These days, my IIe is not functioning and I haven't used it in a
while.  I did migrate to PC's in 1995 (for school) but really did not get
into the GUI and Netscape/graphical browsing until 1996 or 1997.  

    Now it's 2001 and the buzz word is speed, power, and faster
processors.  If you don't have a 900 Mhz computer then you are a
dinosaur.  Well, my friends and Ihave kept the faith and stuck by our
OLDER PC's.

    In my house, besides the IIe, I still run a Pentium 133 (with 48 megs
of RAM) and a Pentium 166 (with 32 megs of RAM).  Slow?  Hell yeah!  Does
it do what I need it to do?  

    Yep.  Email.  Web surfing.  Word Process a letter.  Burn a CD.  Scan a
photo.  Print some CD covers.  My old stuff gets what I need them to
do.  What upgrade when i do not need to?  While I like some of the new
games, I can find older games on the cheap and enjoy them as well.

    The same goes for Apple II owners (esp. GS owners).  GS users can do
just about anything that a current PC can.  Maybe not as fancy.  Maybe not
quite as powerful or as fast.  But for most people, it can be done.  About
the only thing missing is a graphical internet browser.  

    In a nod to the past, guess what my prefered email client is when I am
not using Hotmail?  PC-Pine.  Maybe doesn't have some features of Netscape
Mail, Outlook or whatever.  But guess what it does the job and I like
it.  I get my ISP's email as well as newsgroups in a nice little text
interface.  

    I even did the unthinkable.  In this day and age of graphical web
browers, I have a ton on my computer at work:  Netscape 4.79, Netscape
6.1, Mozilla 0.93, IE 5.5, Opera 5.  How about Lynx 2.84?  Why not?  I
downloaded and have Lynx running on my desktop machine at work.  I don't
use it much but it's there and can still go to sites that have text.  

    It's ok to come out with new things and it's ok for people to want
them.  But the industry is so quick to blow off old stuff that's it's
sad.  It's been lamented in magazines such as II Alive that many people
think that older machines are useless.  

    Obviously, the amount of people here as well as those using the C-64,
Atari's, Old Mac's and others would disagree.  

Donald

|~\ _  _  _ | _|  |  _  _              coach41@hotmail.com
|_/(_)| |(_||(_|  |_(/_(/_     http://www.geocities.com/smcoach41
Apple II user since 1983     "Our Hearts: Some people come into our lives
and quickly go.  Some stay awhile and leave footprints on our hearts and
we are never the same."


On 15 Dec 2001, Byron Desnoyers Winmill wrote:

> Michael J. Mahon (mjmahon@aol.com) wrote:
> : >without a well written program the computer is just a lot of electrons
> : >running around in circules [sic].
> 
> : But don't put down those whose needs drive them to faster, more capacious
> : platforms.  [...]  Many software houses see the hardware improvement rate
> : as a license, even a mandate, to consume all the available resources,
> : whether value is delivered or not.
> 
> While arguing that faster is sometimes better, you hit the nail on the
> head: the software being published today is not always faster.  In fact,
> sometimes it is downright slow!
> 
> I continually have to remind people that the computers of twenty years
> ago are not 10000 times slower.  That is absurd since that would imply
> that ProDOS would take about 6 days to boot, and you would still be
> waiting for the word processor to load.  Even the original Macintosh
> takes it 15 or 20 seconds to boot, with GUI.  The "wicked fast"
> Macintosh IIfx can't boot System 6 that fast because it takes about
> 10 or 20 seconds for the hard drive to spin up.
> 
> Now you are correct: an Apple II is not going to be a plesant video or
> photo editing machine.  No machine is perfect.  Even the 'bigger, faster,
> better' machines of today have their own problems.  I consider
> distractions to be one of those problems.  Writing is a chore on the
> present machines because there are so many more 'interesting things' to
> do (these 'interesting things' are actually trivialities).  The Apple II
> is more plesant to work on because I can deal with one, continuous
> train of thought.  In otherwords, it takes less disipline to work on
> an Apple II.  :-)
> 
> When all is said, I see that a lot of older machines can do a lot of
> neat stuff.  This includes video editing and digital photography (both
> of which I can do on my 68040).  I am also tired with "keeping up with
> the Jones's" simply because they insist that I need a modern web
> browser (hence machine) simply to view their website, email them
> (HTMLized email), and other collaborative efforts.  Using a computer
> in the era of connectivity has detached us from the realm of individual
> choice.  That is why I get tired of the 'bigger, faster, better' crowd.
> 
> Byron.
>