Cause f*ck progress



  •  I was in a computer shop today to buy a SATA cable. Just as I'm paying a frustrated elderly gentleman around 70 walks in and the following conversation ensues...

    "Hi, I'm looking for 2MBs of memory"

    "You mean 2GBs"

    "No, 2MBs. I have a 19 year old <some model> Apple and you can bet your ass it still works"

    "... you should try Apple"

    "I did and they told me they only support machines up to 6 years old. What the hell kind of service is that. Then I called their tech support and they hang up on me!"

     At this points he launches into a rant about random problems he has with this machine, at which point I walk out...

    So next time someone bothers you about a problem he has with some ancient machine that should have been recycled years ago, remember... it could be worse.



  • Hey, I admire the old guy.  That's old school financial prowess there.  He has a machine that does what he needs.  That's all he needs.  He doesn't go buy the latest and greatest just to have it. If I had to guess, I'd say the guy probably is probably worth at least a million, if not a couple of million.



  • @campkev said:

    I'd say the guy probably is probably worth at least a million, if not a couple of million
    *begins sharpening his axe*

    Wait, I'm supposed to get myself in his will first, aren't I?



  • yes.  And use someone else's axe.



  • Hey, at least he got the unit right.



  •  I have some 1MB RAM sticks in a drawer in the other room that might work for the guy...



  • @campkev said:

    He has a machine that does what he needs.  That's all he needs.
     

    Obviously not everything he needs if he needs to upgrade it!



  • If all he's doing with it is typing documents and maybe some email, he's probably better off with what he has than with a fancy new machine.

    I have an old (1991) Mac LC lying around. Has 10 MB and a 20 MB hard disk. Even though it was a low-end model when it was made, it still cold-boots faster than a lot of modern Windows machines can wake from standby (having core parts of the OS in ROM helps).

    I would suggest he get his RAM on eBay. I maxed out the LC above for about $6. Decent 50-pin SCSI hard disks are harder to find, though.



  • @joemck said:

    it still cold-boots faster than a lot of modern Windows machines can wake from standby
     

    What's the time? My old one went from power-on to desktop-ready in 1:30, and my current brand sponkin' new one (of a month)  does it in 60 seconds*.

    I understand you said "a lot of machines", rather than "any brand sponkin' new Windows machine", but I'm still curious about the numbers. You know. For the heck of it.

     

    Speaking of multi-core,
    I just wish there was an algorithm that could (efficiently) paralellize any process. My 3D render toy Bryce doesn't support multi-core CPU's. That's forgivable for an app that died five years ago, but it would be nice, see. I can run two Bryces side by side and they do the duplicate task in the same amount of time, so, meh.

     

    *) that feels wrong, somehow, for a computer that's about 4 times as powerful. Any optimizations I can make?



  • @dhromed said:

    What's the time? My old one went from power-on to desktop-ready in 1:30, and my current brand sponkin' new one (of a month)  does it in 60 seconds*.
     

    I hope that cold boot, not standby. My laptop resumes in about 5 sec (including password typing) from standby.

    @dhromed said:

    *) that feels wrong, somehow, for a computer that's about 4 times as powerful. Any optimizations I can make?

     It's not. Booting mainly means "load a bunch 'o files from hard disk to memory" (ok, that's grosly simplified. But the fact remeans that the only real bottleneck during boot time is the HDD. Since usually a lot of small files are accesed the access latency is the most important bottleneck. That one only marginally improves over the years. The only way to significantly improve it is to get a faster spinning disk, but 7200 rpm seems to be a limit at which the high density of bits on modern hdd's can still be read. 



  • @dtech said:

    7200 rpm seems to be a limit at which the high density of bits on modern hdd's can still be read.
    Let me make sure I'm hearing you right:

    So 7200 is the limit only for high capacity (density) drives?  Smaller drives would be fine with 10k?



  • @belgariontheking said:

    @dtech said:

    7200 rpm seems to be a limit at which the high density of bits on modern hdd's can still be read.
    Let me make sure I'm hearing you right:

    So 7200 is the limit only for high capacity (density) drives?  Smaller drives would be fine with 10k?

    You should have bought SSD.



  • @dtech said:

    @dhromed said:

    What's the time? My old one went from power-on to desktop-ready in 1:30, and my current brand sponkin' new one (of a month)  does it in 60 seconds*.
     

    I hope that's cold boot, not standby.

     

    That.

    From standby is about the 5 seconds you mention.

    @dtech said:

    Since usually a lot of small files are accesed the access latency is the most important bottleneck.

    Indeed.

    @dtech said:

    7200 rpm seems to be a limit at which the high density of bits on modern hdd's can still be read. 

    Notwithstanding 10,000rpm drives, though these are still a fair bit smaller (for large values of "small"). WD doesn't have any above 300GB.



  • @DOA said:

    So next time someone bothers you about a problem he has with some ancient machine that should have been recycled years ago, remember... it could be worse.

    Why should it have been recycled years ago? It still works. It's much better to reuse than recycle, unless this machine uses significantly more energy than a modern one would. Are you just annoyed that this user did not succumb to the endless pressure to throw out perfectly good stuff in order to get the latest and greatest fashionable e-penis? Eventually he'll have enough problems with it that he'll replace it, but as long as it still does what he wants it to do (or would do if he upgraded this one small part) then there's no need to throw away the entire thing. Sure, you could tell him that he wants it to do more things, but it sounds like it wouldn't be true.



  • @NSCoder said:

    @DOA said:

    So next time someone bothers you about a problem he has with some ancient machine that should have been recycled years ago, remember... it could be worse.

    Why should it have been recycled years ago? It still works. It's much better to reuse than recycle, unless this machine uses significantly more energy than a modern one would. Are you just annoyed that this user did not succumb to the endless pressure to throw out perfectly good stuff in order to get the latest and greatest fashionable e-penis? Eventually he'll have enough problems with it that he'll replace it, but as long as it still does what he wants it to do (or would do if he upgraded this one small part) then there's no need to throw away the entire thing. Sure, you could tell him that he wants it to do more things, but it sounds like it wouldn't be true.
     

    I think when he's bothering working people with trying to support a machine that uses parts as old as to equate to me walking into a Chevrolet repair shop and asking for a headlight lamp to a 1923 Series M, the point has been reached when its time to buy a new one.



  • @belgariontheking said:

    So 7200 is the limit only for high capacity (density) drives?  Smaller drives would be fine with 10k?

    Yes. Or even 15k RPM, if you're made of money. But you'll find that the largest 15k RPM drives you can easily find are in the 100-500 GB range, rather than the terabyte or larger capacity drives you can find in 7200 RPM.


  • Garbage Person

    @joemck said:

    Decent 50-pin SCSI hard disks are harder to find, though.
    My legacy mac(it's not an LC, it's a slightly more badass model) wears a 68pin 15KRPM drive in its 50pin slot. Yes, I know the speed is utterly useless to have a fast drive on that slow-ass bus, but I have CASES of barely-used 15 and 10kRPM drives. 


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