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cory5412
68KMLA Comrade-in-Arms
USA
4679 Posts |
 Posted - 10 Oct 2003 : 09:46:10
SINCE WHEN have Compaqs "Sucked Ass" ???I've personally owned at least three, and have personally experienced an infinite number more, and I have to say this... I've only ever had ONE major problem with ANY compaq machine... that was my dad's laptop, the screen broke (just before it was 10 years old, to say the least) other than that, I've run NT4, linux, Win2k betas, and whatever else you could throw at my face on a Compaq, and it's been great. My favorite has been the Compaq Prolinea 4/66. It's a 486 running at 66MHz, and mine had 24MB of RAM, and about a 300-400MB hard drive. I ran Windows 3.1 with DOS 5.1 (compaq Contura discs actually...), DOS 6.1 with WIn3.1, some offbrand DOSs, Windows 95 (even on just 4 mb of RAM, it was stable and fun to use.), Windows NT 4.0 Workstation (24mb of RAM here, and with Office97, it was a joy, and Caldera Linux somethingorother, I wasn't a linux expert at that time, but even then, it wasn't hard to use. This machine lived in my garage with a 14" monitor, (Ask me about TheCondensor), a Compaq Keyboard, and a PS/2 scroll mouse that I'd actually gotten free in the mail. Also, I had an HP LaserJet IIP printer, and a 14.4 modem. This was the machine I used to browse the internet at the time, do most of my homework, and alot of other 'general stuff.' If I do it on my GHz/TiBook today, I could've done it on that 486 back then. (did I mention that the onboard graphics could do 1024 by 768 in 256 colors, and 800 by 600 in thousands? Official 68k videographer
Official MLA TourGuide
Editor of the MLAgazine
"I'm just a normal computer geek who somehow landed a social life" |
Christophillis
Forums Squadron Commander
USA
688 Posts |
Posted - 10 Oct 2003 : 14:18:00
I belive that he was talking about Compaq's sucking ass because, Compaq uses lower quality , and sometimes non standred parts in their computers. They will generally be almost non upgradeable and have very strange settings. At least in my experance this holds true. I have had nothing but trouble with them.--------------------
Christophillis- Portable Squadren Commander
68k Macintosh Liberation Army
Total 68k Macs Liberated: 6.02x10^23
Or just 6 Number One, you have the helm. I'll be in my ready room. |
maclover5
LC Doctor/Hot Rodder
Australia
5830 Posts |
Posted - 10 Oct 2003 : 14:45:46
IMHO the older Compaqs were good, but recently I believe they've turned to crap."**** em" - Jobs in regards to customers
Warrior maclover5
68kMLA
Official 68kMLA Detective 
Number of 68ks Liberated: 7
Number of Contraband (PPC) Liberated from the Dumpster: 1 |
Unknown_K
Full Member
USA
602 Posts |
Posted - 10 Oct 2003 : 15:12:26
Pretty much every major manufacturer of pc's started to go cheap during the later 486 PC craze. If you compare the major brands in the 286/386/486 25 era they were built like tanks. After this time is where everybody started using cheap components, mice, cases, keyboards, soundcards, video etc.Compaqs of the pentium era were really funky. Hell I remember when gateway almost baught them out.
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Metrophage
New Member
Tonga
54 Posts |
Posted - 10 Oct 2003 : 15:38:29
> So..has the value of $2k gone up or down?Neither, I value it LESS, because the dollar is horribly inflated. The US is practically bankrupt. Countries should take their loans back by force and teach these mismanaging assholes a lesson. The US does not represent me. > windows might not be the best, or that intel chips might not be the best; but when you put them together they are good enough to do what you want. It is not that I don't get it, the "PC" standard does not readily facilitate what I want to do! Computer technology gets trickled down to what can be readily and cheeply marketed, but this is not the level where new things happen. The real development environment is still the "WS", the workstation. If the ground level ov computer research had to be done on windoze, the discipline would stagnate, if not die. Then you could look forward to more ov the same, but not the new directions which signified the development ov computers in the 1970's, and to a lessor extent, since. > So some brands get used in niche markets and make their manufacturers a nice buck, but they are not the industry standard. More or less true. UNIX is the standard, because this is the only environment where you can actually specify exactly what you need to do. Windoze is pervasive, but less capable. M$ continuously tries to copy the functionality ov macintosh and unix, offering diluted versions which run less reliably. Used to be for much less money, than for instance a few thousand dollars for ATT System V UNIX or some such thing. UNIX can now be had for at least as cheep, if not for free. Why would I want less for more? > An os is just a layer between you the user and the computer. You really shouldnt even notice it because its just used to launch you aplications and provide drivers for your hardware. If I thought like a consumer, then I might only care about what applications I could find on the shelf. A computer is not a Magic Box which runs Office and Dreamweaver, it is more fundamentally an array ov switches in which a person can put data, apply mathematical or logical procedures to it, and store the results. If you develop hardware or software, then the OS is certainly not transparent, but has everything to do with what you can get done in a given environment.
Besides, I have many more (thousands!) off-the-shelf appz which run in OS 9 than I do which run in OS 7, and OS X is establishing itself more quickly than the orignal lineage ov MacOS did. I am not going to buy an X86 just so I can run one trendy app which I probably have a more powerful and less expensive version anyway. > The open standard and multiple manufacturers made the PC what it is today Anybody can make an Intel based compter, just as anybody can make a PPC, a MIPS, etc. WINDOWS IS NOT an open standard in any sense ov the term. I contend that it is the least open "standard" in computing which you can find. And yes, the >OS<. The use may be transparent, but the marketing is not. Notice that in XP, drivers must be signed by M$ to work at all. This means that you need M$ approval to make hardware which runs on their OS. The Palladium OS (search!) makes it so even applications need to be approved by M$ to even run at all, on anybody's "PC". Will M$ sooner or later charge license fees for their approval ov software? This could make the home computer revolution as empowering to the average person as "top 40 radio" is.
If Windoze could really help me do everything, I would not be so annoyed. It is not good enough to be "The Standard", and I have no pressing reasons to use it.
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Gothikon
Full Member
Australia
537 Posts |
Posted - 10 Oct 2003 : 15:57:23
quote:
Pretty much every major manufacturer of pc's started to go cheap during the later 486 PC craze. If you compare the major brands in the 286/386/486 25 era they were built like tanks. After this time is where everybody started using cheap components, mice, cases, keyboards, soundcards, video etc.
Totally agree, when I'm out scavenging for computer stuff the number of old PC keyboards and 486s far out weighs early pentiums, and although it's not the only reason a lot has to do with the fact that these pre pentium PCs were much much more soundly constructed. I also see the difference in quality between Macs and PCs here, I have never ever found a Mac in the rubbish that did not boot up or work almost perfectly (A 6100 did have a flakey video connector so it put out no red signal) On the other hand what I do see are thousands and thousands of ink jet printers and 14" monitors, all less than 5 years old and not a single one of them works, this shows just how much standards have reduced. It says a lot when you find an ancient apple image writer that churns out page after page but a one year old inkjet from any of the major manufacturers can barely splutter! --------
Apple ][e. Apple ][gs, LC 3, Q605, Perf 638, Colour Classic (300 603ev) 2*6100, 7200, PTP 225 (Quad 604), G4 Cube |
Unknown_K
Full Member
USA
602 Posts |
Posted - 10 Oct 2003 : 16:30:57
quote:
quote:
Pretty much every major manufacturer of pc's started to go cheap during the later 486 PC craze. If you compare the major brands in the 286/386/486 25 era they were built like tanks. After this time is where everybody started using cheap components, mice, cases, keyboards, soundcards, video etc.
Totally agree, when I'm out scavenging for computer stuff the number of old PC keyboards and 486s far out weighs early pentiums, and although it's not the only reason a lot has to do with the fact that these pre pentium PCs were much much more soundly constructed. I also see the difference in quality between Macs and PCs here, I have never ever found a Mac in the rubbish that did not boot up or work almost perfectly (A 6100 did have a flakey video connector so it put out no red signal) On the other hand what I do see are thousands and thousands of ink jet printers and 14" monitors, all less than 5 years old and not a single one of them works, this shows just how much standards have reduced. It says a lot when you find an ancient apple image writer that churns out page after page but a one year old inkjet from any of the major manufacturers can barely splutter! --------
Apple ][e. Apple ][gs, LC 3, Q605, Perf 638, Colour Classic (300 603ev) 2*6100, 7200, PTP 225 (Quad 604), G4 Cube
In the early days of home computers hardly anybody owned one. Up to and including the 386 era home penetration of computers wasnt that high. It was during the 486 era with price wars waging that the price of the machines dropped enough that everybody was buying one (easy credit helped). By the time of the pentium machines the people who needed a home computer pretty much had one. So to keep selling what was then a comodity you would have to either find more uses for the home computer (gaming pretty much did this) or make them cheaper so you can make a profit (which most of the major players did). Printers sold to home users used to be dot matrix impact printers. once you purchased a printer it would last forver and only needed a new ribbon once and a while (consumables were not that much of a money maker). Once lasers and inkjets came along companies got the idea to make the printer itself a throwaway but make all their money on consumables (color ink and toner make up the most profitable part of selling printers). Printers today are made so cheap that they barely last a few years, and most of the time its cheaper to buy a new one then to go out and get a new toner cart for the old one.
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pc vs Mac?
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