Good enough computing

Anyway, I think I am being converted into the chain of though of "good enough computing"

I would generally agree with this statement, and maybe more so your whole point about jumping off the "I

must get new parts now" bandwagon. I don't think many folks need 3+Ghz QuadCore, 16GB of ram, a terabyte

of storage and so on...

The only problem is usually the price of new over the price of slightly legacy parts. I had an old 486 that I wanted

to use again and the extra 512MB of ram I installed cost more than 2GB of faster ram for my primary pc.

Let's not forget about availability of parts as well. Unlike say the hobby car industry where you can get a starter or

a pair of custom heads for your 67 Chevy bigblock, the computing industry is figuring out how to force us to buy a

complete system when all you may need is a new video card but you can't find a card that will work in your old

motherboard.

With the advent of the internet you may find old parts that will work but what about the quality, is the old 486 mobo

that Joe's Old Parts is selling one that was stable (worked with your cpu) or caused frequent reboots - who knows.

I upgrade usually when I don't need to, but I wait for a major price fall before I do and I never bother with the latest

and greatest while it is the latest and greatest - I wait until it is good - LOL.

Mike

You installed 512MB of RAM, in a 486?