🚀 go-pugleaf

I applaud the the noble intentions and good work of initiatives like
Computers for Africa and I don't mean to discount the positive impact such
transfers can have.  But in discussions on lists such as devel-l, afrik-it,
and gkd-97 and in organizing an upcoming conference on distance education
in Ghana this May, many folks from Africa have commented that they don't
want us shipping our "junk" to them.  Granted, 386s and even 286s have a
decent useful life left, but what they really want and need is more
up-to-date equipment.

Just to give one example of how we could kill them with our kindness,
what's going to happen to those TRS-80s when the year 2000 rolls around (in
less than two years) and all of a sudden those computers' clocks flip back
to January 1, 1900?  Perhaps that wouldn't matter for many purposes (e.g.
word processing), but for database or other applications, this would make
the computers basically worthless.

Comments?

Max Freund
School for International Training
and Ghana Distance Education Conference


>Mark, Computers for Africa is doing just that. The following is a summary
>of its history which I prepared recently to answer another query. As it
>notes, we've expanded our brief to take in donations of laptops --
>particularly Toshiba T1000SEs -- and some desktops as well as the Radio
>Shack TRS80 Model 100/102/200s.
>
>Regards,
>
>Brendan Murphy, Director
>The Computers for Africa Project


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Max Freund                       |                72 N. Hinsdale Rd.
mfreund@sover.net           |                Chesterfield, NH 03443, USA
Tel. (603) 363-8076         |                Fax (802) 258-3248
School for International Training, Program in Intercultural Management
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"[Los europeos] no nos descrubrieron, sino descubrieron que estaban perdidos."
--Rigoberta Mench³ Tum
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