Computers and related demonic devices

13

Comments

  • JuanaCruzJuanaCruz Shipmate
    edited September 2020
    Boogie wrote: »
    That’s fine @Arethosemyfeet - if your machines are doing what you need that’s great. But the OP of this thread is about those that don’t.

    My solution is simple and worth saving up for. 🙂

    My solution (buying reconditioned CAD workstations) is just as simple and less than half the price and more powerful to boot.

    And I thought I was the only one!! :smile:

    I buy reconditioned Dell Precision laptops which are essentially CAD workstation. I had one (M4700) from 2012 working just fine, but because of Win 10 recently had to buy a recondition Precision 7510 which is has quad Xeons and 32Gb of memory. Amazing machines, and they last forever. I think I paid £350.

    Also designed to be easy to repair or upgrade, you can swap graphics cards in and out, I installed a higher res. screen etc. They don't look flash in the coffee-shop but offer incredible power, built to last forever and can be fixed if finally something does fail.
  • JuanaCruz wrote: »
    Boogie wrote: »
    That’s fine @Arethosemyfeet - if your machines are doing what you need that’s great. But the OP of this thread is about those that don’t.

    My solution is simple and worth saving up for. 🙂

    My solution (buying reconditioned CAD workstations) is just as simple and less than half the price and more powerful to boot.

    And I thought I was the only one!! :smile:

    I buy reconditioned Dell Precision laptops which are essentially CAD workstation. I had one (M4700) from 2012 working just fine, but because of Win 10 recently had to buy a recondition Precision 7510 which is has quad Xeons and 32Gb of memory. Amazing machines, and they last forever. I think I paid £350.

    Also designed to be easy to repair or upgrade, you can swap graphics cards in and out, I installed a higher res. screen etc. They don't look flash in the coffee-shop but offer incredible power, built to last forever and can be fixed if finally something does fail.

    Mine's a Dell Precision 4800, running Windows 10 very happily. I paid £330 2 years ago. I think I'd offer even odds of it still working if I were forced in extremis to use it to disabled an assailant.
  • chrisstileschrisstiles Shipmate
    edited September 2020
    JuanaCruz wrote: »
    Boogie wrote: »
    That’s fine @Arethosemyfeet - if your machines are doing what you need that’s great. But the OP of this thread is about those that don’t.

    My solution is simple and worth saving up for. 🙂

    My solution (buying reconditioned CAD workstations) is just as simple and less than half the price and more powerful to boot.

    And I thought I was the only one!! :smile:

    I buy reconditioned Dell Precision laptops which are essentially CAD workstation. I had one (M4700) from 2012 working just fine, but because of Win 10 recently had to buy a recondition Precision 7510 which is has quad Xeons and 32Gb of memory. Amazing machines, and they last forever. I think I paid £350.

    Also designed to be easy to repair or upgrade, you can swap graphics cards in and out, I installed a higher res. screen etc. They don't look flash in the coffee-shop but offer incredible power, built to last forever and can be fixed if finally something does fail.

    Mine's a Dell Precision 4800, running Windows 10 very happily. I paid £330 2 years ago. I think I'd offer even odds of it still working if I were forced in extremis to use it to disabled an assailant.

    I do something similar - and the surplus desktop form-factor workstations do well for cost-conscious church-offices/elderly parents and so on, but even without this a low end Mac costs around the same as a Mid-level XPS (and the latter will have better specs).

    When it comes to mobiles the comparison is more difficult because of the cost being bundled into the cost of the contract. I have an iPhone because I managed to get a good contract on a phone that's a generation less than cutting-edge, I have a low-end Samsung for work and it's also a reasonable phone, though obviously not as well made as the more expensive Apple.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited September 2020
    My kit usually dies because I drop it, sit on it, drop it in the bath or otherwise subject it to unsustainable physical trauma. Or the kids do.

    I have the co-ordination and executive function of a tightrope walking Walrus.

    I would therefore never dream of investing in tech on the basis of long expected lifespan.
  • I'm buying or mostly getting for free HP laptops. They're 5 or 6 years old. Very robust. Wipe the Windies off them put on something Linux. Usually Linux Mint or if really old and slow BunsenLabs.

    I'd given away a number of these to older people who just need email, web browser, video calling, type a document and no trouble with anything virus etc. 6 or 8 years old.

    My trouble continues to be: we have to use Windows servers and Microsoft programs.

  • My trouble continues to be: we have to use Windows servers and Microsoft programs.

    Virtualbox?
  • JuanaCruzJuanaCruz Shipmate
    edited September 2020
    Mine's a Dell Precision 4800, running Windows 10 very happily. I paid £330 2 years ago. I think I'd offer even odds of it still working if I were forced in extremis to use it to disabled an assailant.

    I think with a decent head blow from a 46/47/4800 they'd be dead or at best knocked-out given the weight and that solid brushed aluminium case. As they have an inbuilt freefall sensor I think you wouldn't lose data either, at worst a dented case :wink:

    You know that you can get 3 drives in there if you swap out the DVD drive and use a minicard SSD? I think mine had about 2.5TB storage that.

    The replacement Precision 75xx series has much much better battery life, is a lot lighter, and has a Thunderbolt connection but I only bought it as 4700 won't run Win 10 (the 4800 does) so I can't imagine you'd need more for at least 5 years, if then tbh. Awesome laptops.

  • I have the 2TB HDD I pulled from my last desktop in a caddy for my long term storage so I've not needed to play around with the internals yet. No internal DVD drive on mine either so plenty of space.
  • I'm afraid I do use Google, but I comfort myself with the thought that they have No Fucking Clue™ who I am or what I am up to. You should see the ridiculous guesses they make in the ads. That's what comes of having a garbage brain inquiring mind on lots and lots and LOTS of subjects...
  • I'm very low tech - still using XP - but thanks to Ghostery (which costs nothing) I don't see any ads. Ecosia is my default search engine, but I do wish it could find Australia-only results for me, so that when I search for something in Melbourne, it doesn't include all the other places in the world named Melbourne.
  • cgichard wrote: »
    I'm very low tech - still using XP - but thanks to Ghostery (which costs nothing) I don't see any ads. Ecosia is my default search engine, but I do wish it could find Australia-only results for me, so that when I search for something in Melbourne, it doesn't include all the other places in the world named Melbourne.

    XP has six years of unpatched vulnerabilities for hackers to exploit. Please upgrade for every one else's benefit.
  • mousethief wrote: »
    cgichard wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    Duck Duck Go is crap at finding technical articles.
    Is Google Scholar any better?

    Yes. Much much much better.

    Scholar is ok - but if you want systematic replicable results (e,g. if you want to do a meta analysis, or to understand the state of academic literature around something) don’t use it. It changes the results of you search depending of what you have looked for before, so someone else doing exactly the same search will get different results,

    For health research in the U.K., HDAS is fantastic - otherwise I’d start with individual databases. CORE searches everything available as open access on the web (but it is not human curated.) https://core.ac.uk/
  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host
    Boogie wrote: »
    You do have to compare like with like. Apple do not produce budget devices, so you need to compare the iPhone with something like a Pixel 4, and the Macbook with a high-end MS Surface or similar. If you're comparing with Acer's latest student deal at £299.99 (or whatever) then it's going to come up short.

    Except that you buy an Apple once. My son’s Macbook is now six years old and going just as well as when it was new. Laptops (whatever the price) don’t last, or - if they do - they all become slow and infuriating.

    Like Sam Vimes walking boots..
    That is absolutely not true of their phones, whose batteries wear out quickly by design. I bought an 8 three years ago, and it is failing in every way.


  • @mousethief
    Yes, virtualbox and others allow running windows basically as an application, and they can be shut down, restarted etc, at will, with back-ups created outside windows. The problem is running windows at all. And microsoft at all. Windows and microsoft are slow and clunkly, one size to fit all.

    The comments about Windows XP being obsolete is a signal of the problem. They should not have the right to declare your working machine as obsolete. Would you accept this if your bicycle, car, religion was declared "end of support"? I will note that running XP in a virtual machine is rather common. You can also run Android on a computer in a virtual machine and have a phone account with an internet phone service that way. I'm not really interested in these things, but I like to know they're possible.

    Apple. Their desire is to tie you to themselves. No question that's their purpose. The Apple operating system is not unique. It's a version of Unix, and so is Android, and so is Linux. Apple however locked their's down a lot more. It is possible to take their stuff apart if you locate the tools. They are rather evil to try to prevent this. https://www.ifixit.com/ is a source of general "right to repair" info.

    It is curious that companies at all are able to cultivate brand loyalty. These gadgets are to my mind like toasters or blenders. They serve functions and when they stop working, they should be properly recycled. Do you know the brand name of your bread toaster or microwave and you are loyal to it? Or your toilet?


    I'm on the FOSS side of things. Free and open source software. Which means anyone can tinker with everything. FOSS means free speech and free to tinker. It does not mean free beer. I also bake my own bread.
  • I like a nice bit of FOSS too, but I've never got Linux working well enough to be able to ditch Windows entirely. I do like to game on my PC too so there are limits to my Linux use. I do use FOSS for a lot of things (video editing, of late).
  • Nothing like a Sunday morning shoot 'em up video game eh? :wink:
  • They're not declaring the machine obsolete but the particular OS software it's running.

    All OSes go obsolete eventually.
  • I'm afraid I do use Google, but I comfort myself with the thought that they have No Fucking Clue™ who I am or what I am up to. You should see the ridiculous guesses they make in the ads. That's what comes of having a garbage brain inquiring mind on lots and lots and LOTS of subjects...

    Same here. It makes me laugh some of the guesses they make. I often use Google to settle debates between husband, me and visiting daughter which seems to confuse matters even more as our discussions range far and wide.......
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    They're not declaring the machine obsolete but the particular OS software it's running.

    All OSes go obsolete eventually.

    And in the case of my 13 year old Toshiba it was the lack of Windows 10 compatible drivers that prevented an upgrade, which seems to me to be Toshiba's responsibility rather than Microsoft's.
  • @KarlLB https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_release

    14 year old Toshiba. I've a 10 year old Toshiba running Bunsenlabs Linux. The battery is shot, But so long as a the power doesn't go out. You can try them out on a live USB thumb drive, which doesn't change the installed operating system.

    Re not being able to do Window$ 10, I'd say it's a conspiracy between the hardware and software companies to not allow others besides them develop the appropriate drivers. But then, in a solely for-profit model, there's probably a limited market. This is different than a focus on usability. The pollution aspect is also ignored: junking machines is not environmentally friendly due to the dangers re recycling, but also the inputs into making new ones.
  • The RR model is exactly what MS have moved to with W10.
  • Rossweisse wrote: »
    Boogie wrote: »
    You do have to compare like with like. Apple do not produce budget devices, so you need to compare the iPhone with something like a Pixel 4, and the Macbook with a high-end MS Surface or similar. If you're comparing with Acer's latest student deal at £299.99 (or whatever) then it's going to come up short.

    Except that you buy an Apple once. My son’s Macbook is now six years old and going just as well as when it was new. Laptops (whatever the price) don’t last, or - if they do - they all become slow and infuriating.

    Like Sam Vimes walking boots..

    That is absolutely not true of their phones, whose batteries wear out quickly by design. I bought an 8 three years ago, and it is failing in every way.

    My iPad is OK only until you want to download another app. Apple keeps old versions of their software, so I know it exists, to get to it I need to download it on a recent Apple device which I do not want to use the app on, then find the app on the iPad. Even for free apps. Except I have no other working Apple devices.

    Apple: Rotten to the core.

  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host
    Apple imposes arbitrary and something puzzling changes on iPhone and iPad users. Voice Memo was a useful app; I could record interviews with it, and transcribe them with relative ease. Then they changed it so that there’s a five-second jump, which makes it much harder to edit (for a friend who’s a radio producer), or to go back and re-hear that one word you missed. To get something better, I had to browse the App Store and pay for it. I wouldn’t do the upgrades, except that there always security updates included in them, and I don’t want to risk not getting them.
  • balaam wrote: »
    Rossweisse wrote: »
    Boogie wrote: »
    You do have to compare like with like. Apple do not produce budget devices, so you need to compare the iPhone with something like a Pixel 4, and the Macbook with a high-end MS Surface or similar. If you're comparing with Acer's latest student deal at £299.99 (or whatever) then it's going to come up short.

    Except that you buy an Apple once. My son’s Macbook is now six years old and going just as well as when it was new. Laptops (whatever the price) don’t last, or - if they do - they all become slow and infuriating.

    Like Sam Vimes walking boots..

    That is absolutely not true of their phones, whose batteries wear out quickly by design. I bought an 8 three years ago, and it is failing in every way.

    My iPad is OK only until you want to download another app. Apple keeps old versions of their software, so I know it exists, to get to it I need to download it on a recent Apple device which I do not want to use the app on, then find the app on the iPad. Even for free apps. Except I have no other working Apple devices.

    Apple: Rotten to the core.

    I can't speak for laptops but indeed yes. Who remembers this from only a few years ago?
    https://www.wired.com/story/apple-iphone-battery-slow-down/

    So (over-priced but well-designed) consumer devices lock you into Apple's closed ecosystem, said devices are then strategically and over-rapidly made obsolete so you buy another iPhone, iPad.

    At the same time the Apple iStore monopoly is taking a 30% cut (afaik no flexibilty or negotiated discounting) from the suppliers of all Apps/Software, and the supplier has no options. Epic Games who make Fortnite are in court over this now. I'd assume iTunes is DRM locked so you couldn't move it to another non-Apple platform without "ripping it" and removing the DRM?

    Anyway hats off, it's a stonking business model but not one I'd buy into personally.
  • The thing about iPads though, is they are very user friendly. They do just work, and they are very robust.
  • The thing about iPads though, is they are very user friendly. They do just work, and they are very robust.

    Up to a point. Helping a friend from church print from their iPad was an exercise in frustration and inexplicability.
  • Can I hand you a USB thumb drive and you copy the document? No my Apple craputer doesn't work like that.

  • The comments about Windows XP being obsolete is a signal of the problem. They should not have the right to declare your working machine as obsolete. Would you accept this if your bicycle, car, religion was declared "end of support"?

    This happens all the time, for all kinds of appliances. Manufacturers stop making replacement parts. I can point you at any number of things at work that we are nursing along, buying up spares on ebay, until we can afford to replace them with something new.

    It's the same with FOSS, by the way. Nobody runs an unpatched Linux 2.0 series kernel. You could, in principle, patch one to fix all the bugs, but there's nobody maintaining a 2.0 kernel that keeps up to date with bug-fixes. Everyone upgrades to the new version (people with exotic / embedded hardware perhaps excepted.)
  • The thing about iPads though, is they are very user friendly. They do just work, and they are very robust.

    I beg to differ. Mrs C has an older iPad. Things inexplicably fail on it, and the bloody thing won't tell you why.

  • The comments about Windows XP being obsolete is a signal of the problem. They should not have the right to declare your working machine as obsolete. Would you accept this if your bicycle, car, religion was declared "end of support"?

    This happens all the time, for all kinds of appliances. Manufacturers stop making replacement parts. I can point you at any number of things at work that we are nursing along, buying up spares on ebay, until we can afford to replace them with something new.

    Pretty much the archetypal example of this phenomenon is the UK's main long wave transmitter in Droitwich, on borrowed time as it relies on antique glass valves which are no longer manufactured.
  • Can I hand you a USB thumb drive and you copy the document? No my Apple craputer doesn't work like that.

    Office 365 with Gove security protocols replicates this annoyance faithfully.

  • The comments about Windows XP being obsolete is a signal of the problem. They should not have the right to declare your working machine as obsolete. Would you accept this if your bicycle, car, religion was declared "end of support"?

    This happens all the time, for all kinds of appliances. Manufacturers stop making replacement parts. I can point you at any number of things at work that we are nursing along, buying up spares on ebay, until we can afford to replace them with something new.

    It's the same with FOSS, by the way. Nobody runs an unpatched Linux 2.0 series kernel. You could, in principle, patch one to fix all the bugs, but there's nobody maintaining a 2.0 kernel that keeps up to date with bug-fixes. Everyone upgrades to the new version (people with exotic / embedded hardware perhaps excepted.)
    Yes, but if the computer cannot be "upgraded" to the next version of window$, it is junk.
  • I loathe and despise error messages that say nothing but "something went wrong." What the hell use is that?
  • Apple software is highly intuitive, as long as your intuition matches the intuition of Apple's software designers. Mine doesn't.
  • JuanaCruzJuanaCruz Shipmate
    edited September 2020
    @NOprophet_NØprofit - this is an awesome reply genuinely and makes me think so I will unpack it a little ...
    ... The problem is running windows at all. And microsoft at all. Windows and microsoft are slow and clunkly, one size to fit all.
    Yes but almost all laptops are designed to last 3-5 years currently so MS can rely on a market-level assumption you'll have new hardware. Slow and clunky certainly often happens when you don't. I think part of the problem is our consumer expectation a laptop lasts such a short period. Certainly they can be built to last 10 but you'd pay for it.
    The comments about Windows XP being obsolete is a signal of the problem. They should not have the right to declare your working machine as obsolete. Would you accept this if your bicycle, car, religion was declared "end of support"?
    To be fair here XP lasted 12 years. Microsoft offered free upgrades from XP to Win 7 and also Win 7/8.1 to 10 over the years. Others have covered this more anyway ...

    And yes, my religion WAS declared "end of support"! :wink:
    Apple. Their desire is to tie you to themselves. No question that's their purpose. The Apple operating system is not unique. It's a version of Unix, and so is Android, and so is Linux. Apple however locked their's down a lot more. It is possible to take their stuff apart if you locate the tools. They are rather evil to try to prevent this. https://www.ifixit.com/ is a source of general "right to repair" info.
    No arguments, your honour ...
    It is curious that companies at all are able to cultivate brand loyalty. These gadgets are to my mind like toasters or blenders. They serve functions and when they stop working, they should be properly recycled. Do you know the brand name of your bread toaster or microwave and you are loyal to it? Or your toilet?
    Current reality says otherwise ... aka that's COMPLETE B*LL*CKS
    - Most of us probably have a laptop and mobile. Some a tablet. Some may prefer combined devices like a laptop-tablet or phone-tablet/phablet. Anyway for two-three devices that's maybe £1000-1300 now ... vs £80-100 for a toaster + microwave?
    - Ideally we'd like ALL our devices to have a platform that integrates seamlessly out of the box, have services like Apps stores, music, seamless cloud storage integration, and total compatibility of purchased software across devices. For some gaming capabilities may be a key factor on both laptop and mobile. Or video editing etc etc
    - Some of us like to tinker, some of us don't that's for sure!!! :wink: -
    - If you look at Google, Microsoft, Apple and "Linux" you'll find very different levels of ability to meet these in terms of hardware platforms, software, integration, seamlessness, add-on service levels and "tinkerability". We are a million miles away from the level of commoditization of a toaster or a toilet.
    - Loyalty comes from best meeting consumer needs, which these platforms/suppliers do in very different ways, and different levels of completeness and seamlessness , at different price points, and some are more tinkerable than others
    I'm on the FOSS side of things. Free and open source software. Which means anyone can tinker with everything. FOSS means free speech and free to tinker.
    Great, so you have a disposition for Linux based systems. People who like Apple want absolutely the opposite of you - consumer-friendly devices which work well out of the box without tinkering. So different needs => different consumer groups => branding

    But I enjoyed reading :smile:
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    Pretty much the archetypal example of this phenomenon is the UK's main long wave transmitter in Droitwich, on borrowed time as it relies on antique glass valves which are no longer manufactured.

    I have an unusual pint mug made by a man over 30 years ago who had previously been employed in blowing glass for valves
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    I recognise that some people don’t like Apple, but I’ve been a happy user since 1989.

    I don’t find obsolescence happens too rapidly. I just replaced my bought-new mid-2012 MacBook - much battered - a couple of months ago. It was struggling to run Zoom, OBS, Google Chrome and presentations simultaneously.

    I’m running an iPone 6s - released 5 years ago, though mine is only 2-3 years old.

    I also have my wife’s hand-me-down 5+ year-old iPad Air. It’s still being supported but won’t run the latest OS from a year ago. It still integrates with most of what I want to do.

    I agree it’s hard to break out of the Apple ecosystem, though not so difficult with computers rather than phones or tablets.
  • I like a nice bit of FOSS too, but I've never got Linux working well enough to be able to ditch Windows entirely. I do like to game on my PC too so there are limits to my Linux use. I do use FOSS for a lot of things (video editing, of late).

    Stuff like Proton make it much more feasible than it used to be to replace Windows for Gaming. For the longest time getting a Linux *desktop* that I liked up and running was too much like work, so at home I used *nix on the server and network devices with a Windows desktop. These days Linux desktop distros are much improved, and it's only audio software that stops me switching entirely.
  • I like a nice bit of FOSS too, but I've never got Linux working well enough to be able to ditch Windows entirely. I do like to game on my PC too so there are limits to my Linux use. I do use FOSS for a lot of things (video editing, of late).

    Stuff like Proton make it much more feasible than it used to be to replace Windows for Gaming. For the longest time getting a Linux *desktop* that I liked up and running was too much like work, so at home I used *nix on the server and network devices with a Windows desktop. These days Linux desktop distros are much improved, and it's only audio software that stops me switching entirely.

    I was going to ask a whole series of questions on drivers but just found someone who did Linux on the same laptop (well mobile workstation) I have.

    "I downloaded the 15.10 Mate Ubuntu distro, and it's a complete dream, everything worked 1st time booting it up" ... including Audio and the Nvidia CAD card.

    I admit I'm impressed and a bit tempted. Linux HAS come a long way ...



  • I like a nice bit of FOSS too, but I've never got Linux working well enough to be able to ditch Windows entirely. I do like to game on my PC too so there are limits to my Linux use. I do use FOSS for a lot of things (video editing, of late).

    Stuff like Proton make it much more feasible than it used to be to replace Windows for Gaming. For the longest time getting a Linux *desktop* that I liked up and running was too much like work, so at home I used *nix on the server and network devices with a Windows desktop. These days Linux desktop distros are much improved, and it's only audio software that stops me switching entirely.

    I might give it a go when I get around to putting another SSD in my Dell. Last I used Linux it was native (which was admittedly faster than Windows for things like Crusader Kings II), Wine, or nothing.
  • Catching up on all the posts, I find that doing so is most interesting - and quite relaxing, because I not only do not understand most of it, I don't need to either! Huge admiration for those who not only do understand, but can take things apart and put different ones together.

  • I am very stuck to Microsoft - becasue that is where my knowledge and job is focussed. And they have had massive problems over time.

    But - today I think they are doing a good job. I think current MS software is - broadly speaking - good quality and fit for purpose. This has not always been the case (believe me, I have worked with MS software that made me despair).

    The core difference between MS and Apple is that Apple control the hardware as well as the software. That makes things really easy for them. I have had to work a little with Apple in creation of mobile apps, and it has not made me any more positive towards them. I find them a pain to work with as a developer.
  • I like a nice bit of FOSS too, but I've never got Linux working well enough to be able to ditch Windows entirely. I do like to game on my PC too so there are limits to my Linux use. I do use FOSS for a lot of things (video editing, of late).

    Stuff like Proton make it much more feasible than it used to be to replace Windows for Gaming. For the longest time getting a Linux *desktop* that I liked up and running was too much like work, so at home I used *nix on the server and network devices with a Windows desktop. These days Linux desktop distros are much improved, and it's only audio software that stops me switching entirely.

    I might give it a go when I get around to putting another SSD in my Dell. Last I used Linux it was native (which was admittedly faster than Windows for things like Crusader Kings II), Wine, or nothing.

    It's Wine under the hood, but these days at least for Steam it's as simple as installing the installer and then using it as you would under Windows.
  • Pretty much the archetypal example of this phenomenon is the UK's main long wave transmitter in Droitwich, on borrowed time as it relies on antique glass valves which are no longer manufactured.

    Those are tube amps putting out 500kW of power. In the high power game, some kind of tube amplifier is still state-of-the-art. The problem for BBC long wave is that nobody else needs 500kW at 200 kHz, so they'd need something custom - and that tube amps like that aren't very close to any more common need, so a manufacturer couldn't get away with a modification of an existing product.
  • The BBC does in fact own what is left of the entire global stock of the valves because they don't trust anyone to make them. The fact that Droitwich is on borrowed time did in fact cause the replacement of quite a few electricity meters, as those which switched on a low rate for electric (storage) heating using radio telemetry had to be replaced by ones with their own internal clock. (Long wave being the signal carrier as it can take multiple encoding as well as getting everywhere.)
  • Pendragon wrote: »
    The BBC does in fact own what is left of the entire global stock of the valves because they don't trust anyone to make them.

    ...and as a general rule, if you go to one of the small number of makers of high-power tubes, and say "I'd like to buy this thing that's nothing at all like anything else you currently make, and I'd like to buy one a year", you'll be able to hear the laughter about as far as you can hear the long-wave radio.
  • Pendragon wrote: »
    The BBC does in fact own what is left of the entire global stock of the valves because they don't trust anyone to make them.

    ...and as a general rule, if you go to one of the small number of makers of high-power tubes, and say "I'd like to buy this thing that's nothing at all like anything else you currently make, and I'd like to buy one a year", you'll be able to hear the laughter about as far as you can hear the long-wave radio.

    I'm assuming that, were they so inclined, the BBC would buy 50 of the things and stick them in a warehouse (I suspect that the cost of producing the second valve is far, far lower than that of producing the first). Nonetheless I imagine the cost would be eye-watering.
  • When I last sailed this vessel, I was 100% Linux (whichever distro I fancied playing with, but usually Debian or a derivative). My mobile phone was a Palm, very well integrated with Linux. Then out came the iPhone. To go with it, I moved to Mac. Microsoft was a joke, as well as a competitor in my earlier IT marketing days with Sun Microsystems of blessèd memory. MS stayed a joke through various iterations, so I didn't even look at Windows 10.
    I'm still a Mac (everything Apple) fan, but when my 2011 Macbook Air died recently (an iMac is my main desktop device), I thought I'd try out a Dell Latitude, and immediately dumped the installed Windows 10 and put on Ubuntu's latest beta. It became obvious that my presentation software needs are now more complex than when I last used Open Office (now Libre Office) - I need to have song-accompaniment audio running across several slides, but not all slides. Libre Office can't do a simple thing like that. So I ditched Ubuntu, reinstalled Windows 10 Pro (Insider beta). It was/is a revelation. A not unattractive UI, Edge is wonderful (I've replaced Safari with Edge on my iMac/Apple devices). MS is now an Open Source champion. And since I have to export Apple Pages/Keynote to Word/Powerpoint anyway to share, I might as well produce stuff with them natively in the first place.
    Oh, and my Latitude costs much less than a comparable spec Macbook.
    I am very stuck to Microsoft - becasue that is where my knowledge and job is focussed. And they have had massive problems over time.

    But - today I think they are doing a good job. I think current MS software is - broadly speaking - good quality and fit for purpose. This has not always been the case (believe me, I have worked with MS software that made me despair).

  • Having extra time on my hands, I've so far acquired a desktop and 6 laptops, all a decade to 15 years old. You can get them free (that's a great price eh?). Put Linux on of them (also free). They needs to be
    1. able to carry video calls - which requires external cameras for some but these are <$15.
    2. browse the internet
    3. manage to show Netflix and other video services

    Then I go to the building admin where my father formerly lived (he died end of July 2020) and give another away to an old person who doesn't have a computer so as to connect them to outside world and give them something to do.

    I'm finding that wiping Windows (most are Windows 7) and putting Linux on takes about 20 minutes per computer. Which is a fast installation. Tweaking to be user friendly is another 15 to 20. (if anyone cares, just putting on Debian 10 (code named "Buster" - the versions are named for characters in Toy Story) with XFCE desktop.
  • Pendragon wrote: »
    The BBC does in fact own what is left of the entire global stock of the valves because they don't trust anyone to make them.

    ...and as a general rule, if you go to one of the small number of makers of high-power tubes, and say "I'd like to buy this thing that's nothing at all like anything else you currently make, and I'd like to buy one a year", you'll be able to hear the laughter about as far as you can hear the long-wave radio.

    I'm assuming that, were they so inclined, the BBC would buy 50 of the things and stick them in a warehouse (I suspect that the cost of producing the second valve is far, far lower than that of producing the first). Nonetheless I imagine the cost would be eye-watering.
    For those interested in such wirless matters, read this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Last-Train-Hilversum-journey-search/dp/1408889994

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