Posted on 11/13/2007 11:19:21 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Check this out:
Western Digital Caviar GP WD10EACS 1TB 5400 to 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
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My old group’s first hard drive was a 10 mB Winchester for a DEC system - total cost for drive and controller came out to $100 per mB. A 750 gB drive I bought last week for a desktop system came to $0.00027 per mB.
Installation has always been the hardest part of Linux. But if the system is pre-installed and has the right drivers for the hardware already built in, how hard is it to run a web browser? Or a word processor?
The biggest issue would be to have an update tool that works as invisibly as Windows Update, i.e., not necessarily invisible, but mostly automated.
I think the article misses one point. Only a company the size of a Walmart could withstand Microsoft’s pressure. It will be telling if Walmart signs an agreement with gOS to be there sole distributer of the gPC.
You can play web based games, but it doesn't have the horsepower to play graphically intense games.
You can do quite a bit with a VIA C7 at 1.5 GHz if you customize software for it but I doubt that this will get to be a large enough installed user base to justify customizing game software to it when they can develop for game consoles instead.
I remember saying, “Man, I’ll NEVER fill this baby up!”.................
I may use a computer but I know little about their hardware and even less about their software. I just want to FReep with them. (Hmmmmmm .... that sounds almost lewd.)
Even this version of the VIA C7 processor doesn't use a lot of power, the low power version uses even less but only goes up to 1.2 GHz currently. The low power version doesn't even need a fan on the heatsink or in the case at all as long as it has some ventilation or uses the case itself as a heatsink.
You should have seen what I paid for an add on external 10MB HDD for my IBM PC. Didn't cost quite as much as the PC, which would buy you a top of the line, all the bells and whistles, laptop (and then some) these days, but it was expensive.
Yep Computer Shopper is still around but it went from that mammoth 300+ page monthly computer bible, to a thinner than PC Magazine pamphlet like magazine now. I used to subscribe to it in the mid 90's prior to me getting my feet wet with PC's. Took me a year to decide what I wanted. At the time Pentium I's rated at 90mhz were the top dog, and I waited it out until the 233's came around and of course I went agauinst the grain with AMD, as I didn't want to support the 800 pound gorilla (Intel)
It will run web browsers, mail programs, productivity apps like word processing and spreadsheets, mostly over web-based applications provided by Google.
What it won't do is run most software written for the Microsoft Windows platform. If you just surf the web, send email, and do up a few documents, this will probably work fine for you.
You can do Freerepublic posting and browsing very well...not sure how well YouTubes will run....but Linux Mint (build on Ubuntu runs the videos OK)
I just saw one on the magazine rack a few days ago. It looks like a regular magazine rather than the huge catalog of ads with three articles so the post office counted it as a mag for postage of the old days.
$200? I could buy 10 of them (almost 20 if you count inflation) for the price I bought my 7 MHz Leading Edge PC in 1985. And toss in another 3 (5 with inflation) for the price I bought my hard disk to add later on.
Excuse me while I shake my cane at some young whippersnappers.
From what you write I’d have to say you haven’t used a recent version of Ubuntu. First, you boot a livecd...and get to play with Ubuntu before deciding to install. To install, click the icon on the desktop.
Installation is a snap...all done graphically, repartitions and preserves the Windows partition, migrates your Windows data.
Reboot and you are up and running. Gutsy Gibbon (latest release of Ubuntu) had my wifi up and running effortlessly, configured my networked printer, saw Samba shares, all with no input.
And Ubuntu’s Update Manager updates the system too.
(Sorry if you were aware of all that).
I’m surprised that it doesn’t have a 56k modem as well as the ethernet port.
While I can't speak for Ubuntu; I run SuSE and it has auto-update capabilities if you care to use them. Unlike winders though, it is not required, and it does not phone home and delete stuff w/out your knowledge.
I suspect, given their target market and Wallyworld demographics, that feature is probably turned on.
I used to read EVERY page and EVERY ad on those old huge Computer Shoppers!....Wouldn’t throw one away for years..........
“Wow, we will never fill that hard drive up!”
Yes, ashamedly these were my own words, in 1989.
I think it cost more than my car at that time, the 8 pen color plotter was twice what my car cost.
Our current ACAD program alone would not even fit on a 40meg hard drive.
Intel to launch Shelton'08 low-cost desktop platform next year
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Intel is expected to launch its Shelton'08 low-cost desktop platform for systems priced as low as US$100 next year and targeting emerging markets, according to industry sources. Even though it is a desktop platform, its improved heat dissipation and power consumption will have Shelton'08 first being adopted for sub-US$300 notebooks in the third quarter of 2008, and shortly afterward for US$100 desktop systems, the sources said.
According to the sources, the platform will use 45nm Diamondville processors, with either Intel's 945GC or SiS 671 chipsets. It supports Microsoft Vista Basic.
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