On 2011-01-04, Hell Toupee wrote:

twelve hundred bucks for that (primitive) pc back in 1999.

hee hee..... BTDT! Paid $1800 for a 200 mmx system back in the day.

I describe these dinosaurs as "legacy machines" on my fee list, and
charge a surcharge for working on them _because_ they're so slow, and
time is money, after all. It still just kills me how many people are
willing to spend well over a hundred bucks to keep a dinosaur going
when they can get a new and much, much better box off the shelf for as
little as $300.

I can't say I blame you. OTOH, I'm one of those "relic" enablers. My
current box is an ancient P4, but I do the maint and run Linux, which
up to this point is ENOUGH. I refuse to buy new jes cuz it might be
faster and able to run newer flashier more bloated software. Now, I find
myself in need of a faster system cuz am going to get deeper into
digital graphics, so will upgrade. But, I kills me all the boxes I've
put out to pasture still worked jes fine. Monitors and HDDs die with
boring regularity, but good mobos and most cards aren't so short
lived. There's certainly nothing wrong with the 2-3 ATX cases rusting
in the shed. You have a different priority, so I see why you prefer
to not deal with these anachronisms

nb