I envy you. We don't have Dell Outlets in this region. When you were suggesting what I should buy, a US based vendor sent me a PM offering to ship what I needed. I thanked him, but had to decline. Unless the vendor will guarantee price delivered to my doorstep, I won't do the deal. In all likelihood I'd be held to ransom by customs here. When I buy stuff from Amazon that is taxable, I usually get almost half of what they charge provisionally back; they must be as pessimistic as I am.I'm pragmatic because (1) my home net has 4 computers now... used to have 5.... so I don't buy just 1 at a time at upgrade, (2) used workstations work just as well as new for several years and you save 75% or more off of the new price. If you want to buy the equivalent of new, Dell Outlet has them with full 3-year warranty. This last batch of 5 Precision workstations that I bought from Dell Financial Services (off-lease, 3 years old) cost me about $275 each and have now been running in my place for 4 1/2 years. (Actually, I sold my old T3400s so that the net cost of the upgrade was only about $100/unit.)
I'm hoping my current bunch will last until then end of W7. Then I'll look for used or off-lease Dell Precision T5810s for ~$350 each.
Ok, enough from Mr. Pinchpenny.
I've never used KVM. I had only one SFF... an HP if I recall... and it was a pain. I could only use half-height/half-length video cards and was too cramped to work around comfortably. When the PSU went out, I couldn't find one for it anywhere in town... had to ship it back to the vendor, so I'm not a fan of SFF.
Buying a new PC - Motherboard ?
- Thread starter Maverick1
- Start date
Well yes, I'll grant you that. If you had tape and 64K, you are worthy of my respect, besides all the other reasons you've demonstrated by helping so many of us.You're such a noob!
My first PC had a tape drive. My next one had an 8" floppy drive, 64K of RAM (that's right, "K"... not a typo) and cost $5,000. My 1st HDD was 40MB with lots of bad sectors... and I thought, "wow, this is fast" ... and it cost only $400!
I remember those 8" floppies, when the company I worked for computerised accounting in 1979, we used them and had to courier the week's accounts in them to the Head Office every Monday morning. Yes, courier, you young'uns didn't read that wrong.
Those 8" floppies really were "floppy"... not encased in plastic like later.
I remember that. And you know what, I still have movies that had to be split over 2 CDs.
I just bought a new DVD player, the Sony that's about 13 years old has become finicky and won't recognise episodes on a DVD until multiple attempts, ejecting/reloading and everything else you can think of.
I wanted the Pioneer, but the sales chap in the store pointed out it would only play region 3 DVDs. Hell, that wouldn't do, I have DVDs I've bought in my travels to Europe and America, lots actually, so I took his advice and bought this China brand I've never heard of. The store is a department is the biggest retail group here, and they offer a 3 year warranty on it, so what the heck, it cost less than $50. In comparison, the Sony cost a small fortune, like Scats old rigs.
How times have changed.
My Grandpa told me, "Show respect to old people. You'll be one someday."
Here's a cool trip down memory lane. 85 ads.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/85-...e-computer-ads?utm_term=.pjq0kwkxB#.jkZ69A9LY
Well @vanzandt, that is a serendipitous choice.
When I was first posted to Bangkok in 1996, there was no Skytrain yet, they were just about starting construction I think. Weekends I'd go into the city centre for shopping and stuff. Needless to say, traffic was a nightmare.
One Saturday afternoon I was in a taxi, stuck in traffic on Sukhumvit Road, looking around, when I saw a sign, Radio Shack! I made a note of the location, Amarin Plaza.
I went there sometime later, to see what I could see. Well, I'm your typical guy; 3 places I can't be allowed in are stationery stores, bookstores, and electronics outlets. Not the mega stores that sell computers and TVs etc, places like Radio Shack.
I spent ages there and bought a few items. I can't remember what they were, except for one thing; a mouse pad.
This was before the optical mouse, we used the old ball mouse, which picked up lint and dust and had to be opened and cleaned, if you can remember. I had a laptop with a touchpad, I hated it, so I used a mouse.
So I saw this mouse pad. None of the plastic rubbish you get as freebies nowadays, this was a lovely rubbery material, soft to the touch, and I bought it on the spot; it worked beautifully with a ball mouse.
It became a firm favourite, and I took it with me all over Asia, across Europe and the States, wherever business took me. After the optical mouse became common and many folks just used the table top for it, I'd still fish out my mouse pad from my computer bag and use it. I remember one time my staff trying to dissuade me, demonstrating that the optical mouse would work perfectly on any surface. Fat chance, I wasn't giving up my mouse pad.
I stopped the endless travel 9 years ago, so the mousepad doesn't live a nomadic life anymore, it has a place to call home, now on the small dining table I bought to house my rig on.
It's not dirty, as you might think, the patches are where the surface has worn down over 20 years of almost daily use, from the mouse and the heel of my palm.
It's night here so I had to shoot at an angle to avoid shadows, but you can see it well enough.
Look at the bottom right hand corner and tell me if that brings back any memories for you.
When I was first posted to Bangkok in 1996, there was no Skytrain yet, they were just about starting construction I think. Weekends I'd go into the city centre for shopping and stuff. Needless to say, traffic was a nightmare.
One Saturday afternoon I was in a taxi, stuck in traffic on Sukhumvit Road, looking around, when I saw a sign, Radio Shack! I made a note of the location, Amarin Plaza.
I went there sometime later, to see what I could see. Well, I'm your typical guy; 3 places I can't be allowed in are stationery stores, bookstores, and electronics outlets. Not the mega stores that sell computers and TVs etc, places like Radio Shack.
I spent ages there and bought a few items. I can't remember what they were, except for one thing; a mouse pad.
This was before the optical mouse, we used the old ball mouse, which picked up lint and dust and had to be opened and cleaned, if you can remember. I had a laptop with a touchpad, I hated it, so I used a mouse.
So I saw this mouse pad. None of the plastic rubbish you get as freebies nowadays, this was a lovely rubbery material, soft to the touch, and I bought it on the spot; it worked beautifully with a ball mouse.
It became a firm favourite, and I took it with me all over Asia, across Europe and the States, wherever business took me. After the optical mouse became common and many folks just used the table top for it, I'd still fish out my mouse pad from my computer bag and use it. I remember one time my staff trying to dissuade me, demonstrating that the optical mouse would work perfectly on any surface. Fat chance, I wasn't giving up my mouse pad.
I stopped the endless travel 9 years ago, so the mousepad doesn't live a nomadic life anymore, it has a place to call home, now on the small dining table I bought to house my rig on.
It's not dirty, as you might think, the patches are where the surface has worn down over 20 years of almost daily use, from the mouse and the heel of my palm.
It's night here so I had to shoot at an angle to avoid shadows, but you can see it well enough.
Look at the bottom right hand corner and tell me if that brings back any memories for you.
