🚀 go-pugleaf

> >Hmm, what increased cost are you referring to?  Original XT's cost more than
> >$5000.  Don't mistake increased hardware requirements with increased cost.
> >The first 486 I bought cost $3200 with a 250meg hd, 1meg video, 8meg of ram,
> >14" monitor.  The same money will today buy a pentium with gig+ hd, 16+ meg
> >of ram, 2+ meg 32 bit video card.  Quite a bargain in my book.
> 
> The increased cost I am refering to is that of having to purchase additional
> hardware (at current market rates) to replace or augment existing hardware
> (purchased at previous market rates).  Yes, you can buy more with $3200 today
> than you did yesterday, but you still spent the $3200 yesterday and now you
> are spending another $3200 today.  The point is that the 486 system described
> should be more than powerful enough to handle everyday applications, and users
> who already have one should not have to continually buy new and expensive
> hardware to support new and "improved" software versions.

Well, that 486 is still used by my wife (with better video card and monitor, and 
*smaller* harddrive) with Win95 to run Word6, Pegasus mail, and Netscape.  Works 
fine. I on the other hand routinely manipulate 80meg images.  I must continually 
upgrade NOT because of the OS, but because of what I do with the computer.  I
couldn't begin to do what I do with any PC OS/shell the preceded Win3.1.

-Erik Johnson
erik@phidias.colorado.edu
http://phidias.colorado.edu/vgallery.html