REPLY: 2303.fido_bbscarni@1:124/5016 2bae623c   
   MSGID: 1:18/200@fidonet 674ac718   
   CHRS: UTF-8 2   
   TZUTC: -0500   
   TID: MBSE-FIDO 1.1.0 (Linux-x86_64)   
   Hello Mortar!   
      
   28 Nov 24 20:13, you wrote to me:   
      
    MM> If you don't mind buying recycled/refurbished gear.   
      
   I haven't bought a new (as in off-the-shelf) computer since 1999.  I haven't    
   had to.  Off-lease business machines do what I need and I can get them for a    
   fraction of their cost new.   
      
   For example, I bought this Dell Optiplex 7040 I'm on (i7, 3.2ghz, 32GB RAM)    
   for under $600 when it was a year old.  My old reliable HP Elitebook 840 G1    
   laptop is six years old.  Paid $194 for it.  Had some spare 16GB laptop RAM I    
   slapped in it and it's worked great under Windows 10 and 11, now Slackware    
   Linux happily.   
      
   I have never had the need for the latest and greatest.  I learned in the early    
   90s when I worked for a big electronics recycler in Portland, Oregon, that    
   people throw away perfectly good computer equipment just to keep up with    
   Microsoft's planned obsolescence timetable.  If you're not dealing with them,    
   you don't need the latest and greatest.   
      
   Another example: my BBS is running under Slackware Linux n a HPE ProLiant    
   ML110 G6 server, probably 6-8 years old now, with a quad-core Xeon 2.4ghz CPU    
   and 8 GB RAM, that I bought for $110, with free shipping, from a shop in    
   Marietta, Georgia, off of eBay.  That little server has been rock solid.   
      
   I have a Dell PowerEdge R710 blade server here: 16 cores Xeon 2.4ghz, 48 GB    
   RAM, six SAS drives, 4 1GB NICs internal...got that for free.   
      
   So it's all about perspective.  After growing up dirt poor and having been    
   given a lot of hand-me-downs and such, I learnbed that newer is not always    
   better and after 35 years in IT, not to believe the hype of the latest new    
   thing in the pipeline.   
      
   -- Sean   
      
   ... God gives us relatives; thank God we can chose our friends.   
   --- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5-b20240209   
    * Origin: Outpost BBS * Johnson City, TN (1:18/200)   
   SEEN-BY: 1/110 18/200 105/81 106/201 128/187 129/305 153/7715 218/700   
   SEEN-BY: 226/30 227/114 229/110 114 206 275 300 317 400 426 428 470   
   SEEN-BY: 229/550 664 700 266/512 282/1038 291/111 320/219 322/757   
   SEEN-BY: 342/200 396/45 460/58 633/280 712/848 902/26 5020/400 5075/35   
   PATH: 18/200 229/426