I am a long time wreck lurker. and a recent post by Jim Laumann "A 'puter
in the shop" got me thinking.

In 1994 when I purchased my first house I wanted to buy a RAS to help with
some of the fix ups needed. My father who lived close by talked me into
getting a tablesaw because he already had a ras and said it would be nice to
have both between us. So it was off to the local sears and I purchased a
contractors table saw. I purchased the saw for $449.00 and I could not
believe that I spent that much on something I didn't event know how to use.

About a year later, my wife and I decided to purchase our first computer. I
am a CAD tech and I did not want anything less than I was using at work at
the time.
So I went to the local computer shop and had one built to try to save money.
I had to have that new HOTTT Pentium chip. I was really excited to get the
Pentium 90 that ran so hot it needed its own fan. I paid $150 bucks extra
to double the RAM to 16 megs, and I got a huge 15" svga monitor. Final
price for that computer was $2300 but man was I styling......AOL at a
whopping 14.bps ...... life doesn't get any better....


Now 2004, I have a used $449.00 craftsman table saw that I still thoroughly
enjoy, and that $2300 computer is darkening some corner in a land fill right
now..... what I wouldn't give to has that $2300 in tools now,
Funny what we are willing to spend money on.

"Rick Cox" wrote in message
ink.net...

Now 2004, I have a used $449.00 craftsman table saw that I still
thoroughly
enjoy, and that $2300 computer is darkening some corner in a land fill
right
now..... what I wouldn't give to has that $2300 in tools now,
Funny what we are willing to spend money on.


I have thought of this often. Spend a grand on a computer and it will be
worth exactly nothing in 10 years whereas a grand invested in a jointer,
tablesaw, or any blurfl will not only still be useful, but it will retain
resale value.

Frank

On Fri, 09 Jan 2004 04:00:03 GMT, "Frank Ketchum"
wrote:


I have thought of this often. Spend a grand on a computer and it will be
worth exactly nothing in 10 years whereas a grand invested in a jointer,
tablesaw, or any blurfl will not only still be useful, but it will retain
resale value.


And a grand's worth of time invested in going to see furniture that is
worth emulating will pay off in greater measure than either investment
in hardware. Too much of this newsgroups's time is taken up with the
investigation of the "How' in preference to the "What" or the "Why".

Pay for a plane ticket and sit in front of a Goddard-Townsend Chest
for a couple of hours. Go to your local museum and visit the best
examples of furniture to be found there. Pay for a nice lunch and a
good glass of wine and think about the why and the what of the pieces
that you best like.

Take your money and buy a good piece of furniture - take it into your
house and your mind and think on what makes it good.


Thomas J. Watson - Cabinetmaker (ret.)
(Real Email is tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet)
http://home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1/

Yeah, I feel your pain. I just sold a bunch of old computers that I had
laying around, a Sun Ultra 5 and a old DEC Alpha among them, that I had
purchased used from clients over the years to mess around with at home. I
figure about $1800.00 worth of stuff when I bought it. Got about $175.00 for
it. At least I'll be able to get that nice Lie-Nielsen block plane I've had
my eye on.

Kevin


"Rick Cox" wrote in message
ink.net...
I am a long time wreck lurker. and a recent post by Jim Laumann "A
'puter
in the shop" got me thinking.

In 1994 when I purchased my first house I wanted to buy a RAS to help with
some of the fix ups needed. My father who lived close by talked me into
getting a tablesaw because he already had a ras and said it would be nice
to
have both between us. So it was off to the local sears and I purchased a
contractors table saw. I purchased the saw for $449.00 and I could not
believe that I spent that much on something I didn't event know how to
use.

About a year later, my wife and I decided to purchase our first computer.
I
am a CAD tech and I did not want anything less than I was using at work at
the time.
So I went to the local computer shop and had one built to try to save
money.
I had to have that new HOTTT Pentium chip. I was really excited to get
the
Pentium 90 that ran so hot it needed its own fan. I paid $150 bucks extra
to double the RAM to 16 megs, and I got a huge 15" svga monitor. Final
price for that computer was $2300 but man was I styling......AOL at a
whopping 14.bps ...... life doesn't get any better....


Now 2004, I have a used $449.00 craftsman table saw that I still
thoroughly
enjoy, and that $2300 computer is darkening some corner in a land fill
right
now..... what I wouldn't give to has that $2300 in tools now,
Funny what we are willing to spend money on.

I always stay off the bleeding edge of computer technology. It saves me a
fortune.

"Kevin B" wrote in message
news:2OqLb.3368$5V2.8651@attbi_s53...
Yeah, I feel your pain. I just sold a bunch of old computers that I had
laying around, a Sun Ultra 5 and a old DEC Alpha among them, that I had
purchased used from clients over the years to mess around with at home. I
figure about $1800.00 worth of stuff when I bought it. Got about $175.00
for
it. At least I'll be able to get that nice Lie-Nielsen block plane I've
had
my eye on.

Kevin


I have been upgrading every 3-4 years. What I am running now is a Compaq
with a 667 Celeron. I may keep this one a bit longer! I don't do any gaming
so I don't need blistering speed. This crate surf's the net and groups just
fine. I figure when software makes its next jump and everything isn't
compatable anymore then it will be time.
Greg

On Thu, 08 Jan 2004 23:18:32 -0500, Tom Watson
wrote:

On Fri, 09 Jan 2004 04:00:03 GMT, "Frank Ketchum"
wrote:


I have thought of this often. Spend a grand on a computer and it will be
worth exactly nothing in 10 years whereas a grand invested in a jointer,
tablesaw, or any blurfl will not only still be useful, but it will retain
resale value.


And a grand's worth of time invested in going to see furniture that is
worth emulating will pay off in greater measure than either investment
in hardware. Too much of this newsgroups's time is taken up with the
investigation of the "How' in preference to the "What" or the "Why".

Excellent advice.

I consider myself lucky to live 2 hrs from NYC and Boston, 1 hr from
both Old Sturbridge Village and Hancock Shaker Village, and have some
excellent art galleries that can be visited on a long lunch break.

Only recently did I realize the true value of visiting these places in
the pursuit of this craft.

Barry

That's what I say about my Compaq, pent II, 333 with win.98 1st edition in
it.
Work's just fine for me.
Tony D.

"Greg O" wrote in message
...

I have been upgrading every 3-4 years. What I am running now is a Compaq
with a 667 Celeron. I may keep this one a bit longer! I don't do any
gaming
so I don't need blistering speed. This crate surf's the net and groups
just
fine. I figure when software makes its next jump and everything isn't
compatable anymore then it will be time.
Greg

"Rick Cox" wrote in message
ink.net...
I am a long time wreck lurker. and a recent post by Jim Laumann "A
'puter
in the shop" got me thinking.

In 1994 when I purchased my first house I wanted to buy a RAS to help with
some of the fix ups needed. My father who lived close by talked me into
getting a tablesaw because he already had a ras and said it would be nice
to
have both between us. So it was off to the local sears and I purchased a
contractors table saw. I purchased the saw for $449.00 and I could not
believe that I spent that much on something I didn't event know how to
use.

About a year later, my wife and I decided to purchase our first computer.
I
am a CAD tech and I did not want anything less than I was using at work at
the time.
So I went to the local computer shop and had one built to try to save
money.
I had to have that new HOTTT Pentium chip. I was really excited to get
the
Pentium 90 that ran so hot it needed its own fan. I paid $150 bucks extra
to double the RAM to 16 megs, and I got a huge 15" svga monitor. Final
price for that computer was $2300 but man was I styling......AOL at a
whopping 14.bps ...... life doesn't get any better....


Now 2004, I have a used $449.00 craftsman table saw that I still
thoroughly
enjoy, and that $2300 computer is darkening some corner in a land fill
right
now..... what I wouldn't give to has that $2300 in tools now,
Funny what we are willing to spend money on.

Just this past week I finally kicked sniff my first 2 computers to the
curb to free up some real estate in the garage.
A Commodore VIC20 bought in 1984 and a clone 286/12 bought in 1988.
Paid $80 for the VIC at Toys R Us and had a loan for 3 years on the 286, it
cost $3300.
My present machine (I use AutoCAD daily for my livelihood) cost 1/3 of the
286.

Interesting thread. I've been posting in that other one, too, but what the
heck. It seems lately I've been indulging in both the computer AND
woodworking purchasing arenas. I went from having a crapsman table saw and
a few benchtop tools about 2 years ago, to having a Unisaw with 50" Bies, 3
routers, full-size drill press, bandsaw, 6" jointer, 12.5" planer, mortiser,
scroll saw, OSS, etc. etc. etc. I don't think I'll be ALLOWED to buy any
more tools for a LONG time. Good thing to know I won't need to hehe.

As for the PC department. I remember how excited my dad was when he brought
home the Commodore 64 - I can't remember what year that was, I was just a
kid. But, I do remember starting about age 12 or so (probably when we got
that thing), being the ONLY kid to turn in typed reports at school and I'm
sure getting browny points for it. My friends would spend hours at my house
playing games on our BLAZING 286. I remember playing games on 5.25"
floppies, where you had to change discs about every 15 minutes (they came
with like 15 or something). So, what do I do now? Just before Christmas I
got the go ahead and bought a $3300 computer. P4 3.2 Ghz HT processor, 2 Gb
of DDR400 memory, 500 Gb RAID 0 hard drive set up, 8x DVD R/RW drive, 48x
CD-RW drive, 256 Mb Radeon 9800 XT video card, 6.1 THX capable sound card,
surround sound speakers (for my PC!!), TV tuner card & software (who needs
TiVO??), and a 20" LCD flatscreen monitor. The thing is, I still get
impatient when I start the computer hehe. It only takes 8 seconds from the
power button to the desktop. Oh how times have changed.

Mike

"Rick Cox" wrote in message
ink.net...
I am a long time wreck lurker. and a recent post by Jim Laumann "A
'puter
in the shop" got me thinking.

In 1994 when I purchased my first house I wanted to buy a RAS to help with
some of the fix ups needed. My father who lived close by talked me into
getting a tablesaw because he already had a ras and said it would be nice
to
have both between us. So it was off to the local sears and I purchased a
contractors table saw. I purchased the saw for $449.00 and I could not
believe that I spent that much on something I didn't event know how to
use.

About a year later, my wife and I decided to purchase our first computer.
I
am a CAD tech and I did not want anything less than I was using at work at
the time.
So I went to the local computer shop and had one built to try to save
money.
I had to have that new HOTTT Pentium chip. I was really excited to get
the
Pentium 90 that ran so hot it needed its own fan. I paid $150 bucks extra
to double the RAM to 16 megs, and I got a huge 15" svga monitor. Final
price for that computer was $2300 but man was I styling......AOL at a
whopping 14.bps ...... life doesn't get any better....


Now 2004, I have a used $449.00 craftsman table saw that I still
thoroughly
enjoy, and that $2300 computer is darkening some corner in a land fill
right
now..... what I wouldn't give to has that $2300 in tools now,
Funny what we are willing to spend money on.

Autocad....sigh.....
Speaking of money down the toilet....we have till the 15 to upgrade some of
our 2000 seats or they will no longer be updateable....to me that is
extorsion.
I use Land Development Desktop and Civil packages which cost about $8000 for
a new seat...sigh...

"Don" wrote in message
...

"Rick Cox" wrote in message
ink.net...
I am a long time wreck lurker. and a recent post by Jim Laumann "A
'puter
in the shop" got me thinking.

In 1994 when I purchased my first house I wanted to buy a RAS to help
with
some of the fix ups needed. My father who lived close by talked me into
getting a tablesaw because he already had a ras and said it would be
nice
to
have both between us. So it was off to the local sears and I purchased
a
contractors table saw. I purchased the saw for $449.00 and I could not
believe that I spent that much on something I didn't event know how to
use.

About a year later, my wife and I decided to purchase our first
computer.
I
am a CAD tech and I did not want anything less than I was using at work
at
the time.
So I went to the local computer shop and had one built to try to save
money.
I had to have that new HOTTT Pentium chip. I was really excited to get
the
Pentium 90 that ran so hot it needed its own fan. I paid $150 bucks
extra
to double the RAM to 16 megs, and I got a huge 15" svga monitor. Final
price for that computer was $2300 but man was I styling......AOL at a
whopping 14.bps ...... life doesn't get any better....


Now 2004, I have a used $449.00 craftsman table saw that I still
thoroughly
enjoy, and that $2300 computer is darkening some corner in a land fill
right
now..... what I wouldn't give to has that $2300 in tools now,
Funny what we are willing to spend money on.

Just this past week I finally kicked sniff my first 2 computers to the
curb to free up some real estate in the garage.
A Commodore VIC20 bought in 1984 and a clone 286/12 bought in 1988.
Paid $80 for the VIC at Toys R Us and had a loan for 3 years on the 286,
it
cost $3300.
My present machine (I use AutoCAD daily for my livelihood) cost 1/3 of the
286.

"Who needs TiVo"
That is one thing I dont mind spending money on...
TiVo and the New Yankee workshop.....Or.....Nahmie on my time......
Try it you will like it
have a good day
Rick

Mike in Mystic wrote:

500 Gb RAID 0 hard drive set up

My laptop & desktop each lost a hard drive in the past 12 months. Bummer
reinstalling everything, and there were some things I didn't have backed
up... sigh

RAID 0 is "Striped Disk Array without Fault Tolerance." IMO this is too
risky. My next desktop will be mirrored hard drives at a minimum.

My $0.02

-- Mark

That was my point, now I can just pipe my cable signal into my computer and
use that to record my shows. I don't know how much TiVO runs, but the
set-up I'm using can be had for about $50 (TV tuner card) and included
software. Electronic programming guides can be found online for free
(www.titantv.com). Plus, there's no monthly fees (something I'm assuming
TiVO has, but I'm not sure). I can then burn the shows onto CDs or DVDs (if
I want particularly high quality) and watch them on my TV via the DVD
player. Or, just watch them on the computer. I think it kicks butt.

Mike

"Rick Cox" wrote in message
gy.com...
"Who needs TiVo"
That is one thing I dont mind spending money on...
TiVo and the New Yankee workshop.....Or.....Nahmie on my time......
Try it you will like it
have a good day
Rick

I thought about that, but at the moment my storage needs are pretty high.
I've only had this system for about a month and have used a full 200 Gb of
storage space. I turn over a lot of space with multimedia work - I've
gotten pretty involved in making home movies with my DV camcorder.
Reinstalling stuff IS a bummer, but it really isn't that big a deal. I've
done it many times, and it usually takes maybe 2-3 hours max. Not that big
a deal, IMO. I routinely backup data to CD's, and now that I have the DVD
writer, I've been using some DVD-RW discs (basically extra 4.3 Gb hard
drives). I would bet I only have about 10-20 Gb of "critical" data that I
need to make sure I don't lose. Plus I have access to network storage space
(about 100 Gb for my personal use) that I can access from home, too.

In all the years I've been using computers, I've only had one hard drive
fail. Maybe I'm just lucky, but I think that the mfgs have gotten pretty
good at quality control.

The other big issue is that the RAID 1 arrays suffer pretty significantly in
performance compared to the RAID 0 arrays. What's the point of having all
the processor, memory and video performance if you handcuff it with a slow
data storage/retrieval architecture?

If this were business intensive and I couldn't handle a day of downtime,
worst case, then I probably would do the same as you and go for the RAID 1,
but then I'd probably go with a terabyte of total storage (500 Gb usable).

Mike

"Mark Jerde" wrote in message
...
Mike in Mystic wrote:

500 Gb RAID 0 hard drive set up

My laptop & desktop each lost a hard drive in the past 12 months. Bummer
reinstalling everything, and there were some things I didn't have backed
up... sigh

RAID 0 is "Striped Disk Array without Fault Tolerance." IMO this is too
risky. My next desktop will be mirrored hard drives at a minimum.

My $0.02

-- Mark

Rick Cox wrote:
[snip]
Now 2004, I have a used $449.00 craftsman table saw that I still thoroughly
enjoy, and that $2300 computer is darkening some corner in a land fill right
now..... what I wouldn't give to has that $2300 in tools now,
Funny what we are willing to spend money on.

Having made a living as a computer jockey since nineteen and aught
sixty-two, and having bought a RAS in 1965, here are some drips of
wisdom (?) from jo4hn's john. If WW tools had changed as much as
computers in the past 40 years, one would walk into the shop, say
good-day to the RAS, tell it cherry end-table, and go watch tv. The saw
would quickly order and accept delivery of the wood, oversee jointing
and planing, joinery, dry fit, glue-up, sanding and painting within a
few hours.

The same could be said of toasters and sewing machines. Somebody
already did it with cars. The computer is a different tool in the
infancy of its development. The TS (and toaster and...) are fairly
mature tools and will not change much unless the addition of a computer
chip will create a more saleable item. Dream away folks.
mahalo,
jo4hn

Mike in Mystic wrote:

Reinstalling stuff IS a bummer, but it really
isn't that big a deal. I've done it many times, and it usually takes
maybe 2-3 hours max. Not that big a deal, IMO.

To amplify... g installing the OS isn't bad. I've done it probably 200
times since Win3.x. It's everything else I use as a software developer that
takes the install/config time. Starting with FDISK it's about a 1.75 day
process. Office XP Developer, Visual Studio.NET, SQL Server 2000, ... This
time around I didn't install Delphi, Visual Studio 6 or IBM's DB2 database.
Hope I don't need 'em anymore.

In all the years I've been using computers, I've only had one hard
drive fail. Maybe I'm just lucky, but I think that the mfgs have
gotten pretty good at quality control.

I'd had good luck for years too then :-( two failures in a few months.

The other big issue is that the RAID 1 arrays suffer pretty
significantly in performance compared to the RAID 0 arrays. What's
the point of having all the processor, memory and video performance
if you handcuff it with a slow data storage/retrieval architecture?

IIRC RAID 5 has performance and fault tolerance. More info here.
http://www.acnc.com/raid.html

brain fart
You could leave your transient data on RAID 0 for max speed and have the OS
and programs on mirrored (if you were concerned about fault tolerance).
Especially on separate controllers that would be very fast. I've read of
systems setup this way.
/brain fart

-- Mark

Rick Cox wrote:

land fill right now..... what I wouldn't give to has that $2300 in tools
now, Funny what we are willing to spend money on.

The bright side is that the $448 Wal-Mart POS Xmas special computer is three
times faster than the one I use every day. The days of spending $2300 on a
computer are over unless you're a gamer.

--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/

Mike in Mystic said:

That was my point, now I can just pipe my cable signal into my computer and
use that to record my shows. I don't know how much TiVO runs, but the
set-up I'm using can be had for about $50 (TV tuner card) and included
software. Electronic programming guides can be found online for free
(www.titantv.com). Plus, there's no monthly fees (something I'm assuming
TiVO has, but I'm not sure). I can then burn the shows onto CDs or DVDs (if
I want particularly high quality) and watch them on my TV via the DVD
player. Or, just watch them on the computer. I think it kicks butt.

I've been doing that very thing since 1996, when a decent video
capture card cost $800. Guess what that card is worth now...
I DO have the complete NYW on disk, however... g


Greg G.

Damn, have you seen the prices of the Vic20's and Commodore 64's at flea
markets and things??? Collectors are paying a pretty penny for them. There's
one or the other, I can't remember which, in the Smithsonian. I'm hanging on
to both my Vic 20 and Commodore.

--
"Cartoons don't have any deep meaning.
They're just stupid drawings that give you a cheap laugh."
Homer Simpson
Jerry© The Phoneman®
"Don" wrote in message
...

"Rick Cox" wrote in message
ink.net...
I am a long time wreck lurker. and a recent post by Jim Laumann "A
'puter
in the shop" got me thinking.

In 1994 when I purchased my first house I wanted to buy a RAS to help
with
some of the fix ups needed. My father who lived close by talked me into
getting a tablesaw because he already had a ras and said it would be
nice
to
have both between us. So it was off to the local sears and I purchased
a
contractors table saw. I purchased the saw for $449.00 and I could not
believe that I spent that much on something I didn't event know how to
use.

About a year later, my wife and I decided to purchase our first
computer.
I
am a CAD tech and I did not want anything less than I was using at work
at
the time.
So I went to the local computer shop and had one built to try to save
money.
I had to have that new HOTTT Pentium chip. I was really excited to get
the
Pentium 90 that ran so hot it needed its own fan. I paid $150 bucks
extra
to double the RAM to 16 megs, and I got a huge 15" svga monitor. Final
price for that computer was $2300 but man was I styling......AOL at a
whopping 14.bps ...... life doesn't get any better....


Now 2004, I have a used $449.00 craftsman table saw that I still
thoroughly
enjoy, and that $2300 computer is darkening some corner in a land fill
right
now..... what I wouldn't give to has that $2300 in tools now,
Funny what we are willing to spend money on.

Just this past week I finally kicked sniff my first 2 computers to the
curb to free up some real estate in the garage.
A Commodore VIC20 bought in 1984 and a clone 286/12 bought in 1988.
Paid $80 for the VIC at Toys R Us and had a loan for 3 years on the 286,
it
cost $3300.
My present machine (I use AutoCAD daily for my livelihood) cost 1/3 of the
286.

IIRC RAID 5 has performance and fault tolerance.

RAID 5 is what the big boys use. It has some overhead but if you spread the
stripes across a lot of drives it isn't bad.
This was crucial in AS/400s where the loss of one drive usually meant you lost
all of them.

I'm lucky enough at work to have a RAID-5 setup with hot swap on my
desktop machine (along with two 3+ghz P4 Xeons and 2GB ram). It just
showed up on my desk a couple months ago because I guess we needed more
machines for our simulations and I had the oldest computer. It's a 6
drive array, several hundred GB of SCSI drives. I don't even know what
to do with it all. It's a little more than I think I'd do for a shop
computer. My 5 year old HP is fine for that.


Greg wrote:
IIRC RAID 5 has performance and fault tolerance.


RAID 5 is what the big boys use. It has some overhead but if you spread the
stripes across a lot of drives it isn't bad.
This was crucial in AS/400s where the loss of one drive usually meant you lost
all of them.

Silvan wrote:

The days of
spending $2300 on a computer are over unless you're a gamer.

Software development machines can be expensive too. Multiple monitors, dual
CPUs & max memory for running virtual machines, RAID for speed & fault
tolerance, ...

-- Mark

Fri, Jan 9, 2004, 12:01am (EST-1) (Greg=A0O) says:
snip This crate surf's the net and groups just fine. snip

Yep, that's basicaly why I haven't upgraded from WebTV. It works,
it's paid for.

But, with so much stuff on PDF now, and translators not showing
graphics with WebTV, I will probably upgrade to a el-cheapo computer,
when, and if, my WebTV dies.


JOAT
Don't e-mail me while I'm breathing.

Life just ain't life without good music. - JOAT
Web Page Update 9 Jan 2004.
Some tunes I like.
http://community-2.webtv.net/Jakofal...OMETUNESILIKE/

"Tom Watson" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 09 Jan 2004 04:00:03 GMT, "Frank Ketchum"
wrote:


I have thought of this often. Spend a grand on a computer and it will be
worth exactly nothing in 10 years whereas a grand invested in a jointer,
tablesaw, or any blurfl will not only still be useful, but it will retain
resale value.


And a grand's worth of time invested in going to see furniture that is
worth emulating will pay off in greater measure than either investment
in hardware. Too much of this newsgroups's time is taken up with the
investigation of the "How' in preference to the "What" or the "Why".

Pay for a plane ticket and sit in front of a Goddard-Townsend Chest
for a couple of hours. Go to your local museum and visit the best
examples of furniture to be found there. Pay for a nice lunch and a
good glass of wine and think about the why and the what of the pieces
that you best like.

Take your money and buy a good piece of furniture - take it into your
house and your mind and think on what makes it good.


Thomas J. Watson - Cabinetmaker (ret.)
(Real Email is tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet)
http://home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1/

Agreed. I recently visited my town's local museum, a place that I have only
been once before. Always thought it was for the tourists. They have quite
an impressive early american furniture collection that I spent not nearly
enough time looking at. Unfortunately, they don't let you touch it.

Jon E

"Greg" wrote in message
...
I always stay off the bleeding edge of computer technology. It saves me a
fortune.

I sorta have to stay somewhat near the bleeding edge, as I run Autocad on
three workstations in my office. One finally died, so it gave me the
justification (to myself, I guess) to buy new parts for two of them. So
now, what was a Pentium 700 (the dead one) and an old Celeron 350 are now
Athlon 2600+ with 1 GB memory, 80 Gb drives, and new CD-Rw's. Not leading
edge by any means, but they are ssssssmokin' fast compared to the old ones.

Now I just need to scrape together my pennies for better monitors.

OBWW. Nada. Zip. Nothing. Oh well.

Jon E

Sucks, don't it? I have LDDT 2i, and they've given me until June to upgrade
mine. I can't afford the damn extortion, but it's better than buying three
new ones, I guess.

Jon E

"Rick Cox" wrote in message
gy.com...
Autocad....sigh.....
Speaking of money down the toilet....we have till the 15 to upgrade some
of
our 2000 seats or they will no longer be updateable....to me that is
extorsion.
I use Land Development Desktop and Civil packages which cost about $8000
for
a new seat...sigh...

"Don" wrote in message
...

"Rick Cox" wrote in message
ink.net...
I am a long time wreck lurker. and a recent post by Jim Laumann "A
'puter
in the shop" got me thinking.

In 1994 when I purchased my first house I wanted to buy a RAS to help
with
some of the fix ups needed. My father who lived close by talked me
into
getting a tablesaw because he already had a ras and said it would be
nice
to
have both between us. So it was off to the local sears and I
purchased
a
contractors table saw. I purchased the saw for $449.00 and I could
not
believe that I spent that much on something I didn't event know how to
use.

About a year later, my wife and I decided to purchase our first
computer.
I
am a CAD tech and I did not want anything less than I was using at
work
at
the time.
So I went to the local computer shop and had one built to try to save
money.
I had to have that new HOTTT Pentium chip. I was really excited to
get
the
Pentium 90 that ran so hot it needed its own fan. I paid $150 bucks
extra
to double the RAM to 16 megs, and I got a huge 15" svga monitor.
Final
price for that computer was $2300 but man was I styling......AOL at a
whopping 14.bps ...... life doesn't get any better....


Now 2004, I have a used $449.00 craftsman table saw that I still
thoroughly
enjoy, and that $2300 computer is darkening some corner in a land fill
right
now..... what I wouldn't give to has that $2300 in tools now,
Funny what we are willing to spend money on.

Just this past week I finally kicked sniff my first 2 computers to the
curb to free up some real estate in the garage.
A Commodore VIC20 bought in 1984 and a clone 286/12 bought in 1988.
Paid $80 for the VIC at Toys R Us and had a loan for 3 years on the 286,
it
cost $3300.
My present machine (I use AutoCAD daily for my livelihood) cost 1/3 of
the
286.

"jo4hn" wrote in message
.net...

Having made a living as a computer jockey since nineteen and aught
sixty-two, and having bought a RAS in 1965, here are some drips of
wisdom (?) from jo4hn's john. If WW tools had changed as much as
computers in the past 40 years, one would walk into the shop, say
good-day to the RAS, tell it cherry end-table, and go watch tv. The saw
would quickly order and accept delivery of the wood, oversee jointing
and planing, joinery, dry fit, glue-up, sanding and painting within a
few hours.

The creation thereof is the basic permise behind the latest in CNC
machinery. The problem is keeping the cost down. I would love to have a
machine in the shop, that cost less than a grand, that you could basically
program to create a ball-and-claw cabriole leg, and then walk away. Even
When I was a kid, sometime in elementary school, the Stanley plant in town
let us tour the shop floor. There we saw workers loading boxes full of wood
chunks, essentially cubes or rounds, into a hopper, and removing totes full
of completed tool handles from the other end. Inside, the machine spun
several cutters and removed everything that wasn't programmed to be a tool
handle.

Jon E

I just got my upgrade in the mail yesterday, haven't installed it yet, cause
I'm in the middle of a big project.
I used full blown AutoCAD until 1998 then I converted to LT, as I couldn't
justify the cost of the full blown version.
LT does fine for me, I design homes.
I don't like the way AutoDesk cuts you off at the knees regarding the
support and upgrades.
2000 seats? Holy cow!
Are you a drafter there at Sands Decker?



"Rick Cox" wrote in message
gy.com...
Autocad....sigh.....
Speaking of money down the toilet....we have till the 15 to upgrade some
of
our 2000 seats or they will no longer be updateable....to me that is
extorsion.
I use Land Development Desktop and Civil packages which cost about $8000
for
a new seat...sigh...

"Don" wrote in message
...

"Rick Cox" wrote in message
ink.net...
I am a long time wreck lurker. and a recent post by Jim Laumann "A
'puter
in the shop" got me thinking.

In 1994 when I purchased my first house I wanted to buy a RAS to help
with
some of the fix ups needed. My father who lived close by talked me
into
getting a tablesaw because he already had a ras and said it would be
nice
to
have both between us. So it was off to the local sears and I
purchased
a
contractors table saw. I purchased the saw for $449.00 and I could
not
believe that I spent that much on something I didn't event know how to
use.

About a year later, my wife and I decided to purchase our first
computer.
I
am a CAD tech and I did not want anything less than I was using at
work
at
the time.
So I went to the local computer shop and had one built to try to save
money.
I had to have that new HOTTT Pentium chip. I was really excited to
get
the
Pentium 90 that ran so hot it needed its own fan. I paid $150 bucks
extra
to double the RAM to 16 megs, and I got a huge 15" svga monitor.
Final
price for that computer was $2300 but man was I styling......AOL at a
whopping 14.bps ...... life doesn't get any better....


Now 2004, I have a used $449.00 craftsman table saw that I still
thoroughly
enjoy, and that $2300 computer is darkening some corner in a land fill
right
now..... what I wouldn't give to has that $2300 in tools now,
Funny what we are willing to spend money on.

Just this past week I finally kicked sniff my first 2 computers to the
curb to free up some real estate in the garage.
A Commodore VIC20 bought in 1984 and a clone 286/12 bought in 1988.
Paid $80 for the VIC at Toys R Us and had a loan for 3 years on the 286,
it
cost $3300.
My present machine (I use AutoCAD daily for my livelihood) cost 1/3 of
the
286.

I wonder if AutoDesk is in cohoots with Microsoft?
I was using AutoCAD R12 on Windows 3.11 and then Windows 95, then I upgraded
to Windows 98 and my R12 wouldn't work.
So I bought AutoCAD LT 98, to run with my Windows 98, then I upgraded to
LT2000 which I am still using.
Then I upgraded to Windows XP, 3 months later I find out the upgrade will
expire on my LT2000.
Between Microsoft and AutoDesk, I feel like a ping pong ball, with a
perpetually empty wallet.

"Jon Endres, PE" t wrote in
message news
Sucks, don't it? I have LDDT 2i, and they've given me until June to
upgrade
mine. I can't afford the damn extortion, but it's better than buying
three
new ones, I guess.

Jon E

"Rick Cox" wrote in message
gy.com...
Autocad....sigh.....
Speaking of money down the toilet....we have till the 15 to upgrade some
of
our 2000 seats or they will no longer be updateable....to me that is
extorsion.
I use Land Development Desktop and Civil packages which cost about $8000
for
a new seat...sigh...

"Don" wrote in message
...

"Rick Cox" wrote in message
ink.net...
I am a long time wreck lurker. and a recent post by Jim Laumann
"A
'puter
in the shop" got me thinking.

In 1994 when I purchased my first house I wanted to buy a RAS to
help
with
some of the fix ups needed. My father who lived close by talked me
into
getting a tablesaw because he already had a ras and said it would be
nice
to
have both between us. So it was off to the local sears and I
purchased
a
contractors table saw. I purchased the saw for $449.00 and I could
not
believe that I spent that much on something I didn't event know how
to
use.

About a year later, my wife and I decided to purchase our first
computer.
I
am a CAD tech and I did not want anything less than I was using at
work
at
the time.
So I went to the local computer shop and had one built to try to
save
money.
I had to have that new HOTTT Pentium chip. I was really excited to
get
the
Pentium 90 that ran so hot it needed its own fan. I paid $150 bucks
extra
to double the RAM to 16 megs, and I got a huge 15" svga monitor.
Final
price for that computer was $2300 but man was I styling......AOL at
a
whopping 14.bps ...... life doesn't get any better....


Now 2004, I have a used $449.00 craftsman table saw that I still
thoroughly
enjoy, and that $2300 computer is darkening some corner in a land
fill
right
now..... what I wouldn't give to has that $2300 in tools now,
Funny what we are willing to spend money on.

Just this past week I finally kicked sniff my first 2 computers to
the
curb to free up some real estate in the garage.
A Commodore VIC20 bought in 1984 and a clone 286/12 bought in 1988.
Paid $80 for the VIC at Toys R Us and had a loan for 3 years on the
286,
it
cost $3300.
My present machine (I use AutoCAD daily for my livelihood) cost 1/3 of
the
286.

NOW ya tell me !!!!!
Thats my life story, I hang onto stuff for decades and its just junk. But
the minute I get rid of it, it becomes valuable......sheesh.....


"Jerry Gilreath" wrote in message
news:u0DLb.8051$nt4.13021@attbi_s51...
Damn, have you seen the prices of the Vic20's and Commodore 64's at flea
markets and things??? Collectors are paying a pretty penny for them.
There's
one or the other, I can't remember which, in the Smithsonian. I'm hanging
on
to both my Vic 20 and Commodore.

--
"Cartoons don't have any deep meaning.
They're just stupid drawings that give you a cheap laugh."
Homer Simpson
Jerry© The Phoneman®
"Don" wrote in message
...

"Rick Cox" wrote in message
ink.net...
I am a long time wreck lurker. and a recent post by Jim Laumann "A
'puter
in the shop" got me thinking.

In 1994 when I purchased my first house I wanted to buy a RAS to help
with
some of the fix ups needed. My father who lived close by talked me
into
getting a tablesaw because he already had a ras and said it would be
nice
to
have both between us. So it was off to the local sears and I
purchased
a
contractors table saw. I purchased the saw for $449.00 and I could
not
believe that I spent that much on something I didn't event know how to
use.

About a year later, my wife and I decided to purchase our first
computer.
I
am a CAD tech and I did not want anything less than I was using at
work
at
the time.
So I went to the local computer shop and had one built to try to save
money.
I had to have that new HOTTT Pentium chip. I was really excited to
get
the
Pentium 90 that ran so hot it needed its own fan. I paid $150 bucks
extra
to double the RAM to 16 megs, and I got a huge 15" svga monitor.
Final
price for that computer was $2300 but man was I styling......AOL at a
whopping 14.bps ...... life doesn't get any better....


Now 2004, I have a used $449.00 craftsman table saw that I still
thoroughly
enjoy, and that $2300 computer is darkening some corner in a land fill
right
now..... what I wouldn't give to has that $2300 in tools now,
Funny what we are willing to spend money on.

Just this past week I finally kicked sniff my first 2 computers to the
curb to free up some real estate in the garage.
A Commodore VIC20 bought in 1984 and a clone 286/12 bought in 1988.
Paid $80 for the VIC at Toys R Us and had a loan for 3 years on the 286,
it
cost $3300.
My present machine (I use AutoCAD daily for my livelihood) cost 1/3 of
the
286.

"Jon Endres, PE" t wrote in
message et...
"Greg" wrote in message
...
I always stay off the bleeding edge of computer technology. It saves me
a
fortune.

I sorta have to stay somewhat near the bleeding edge, as I run Autocad on
three workstations in my office. One finally died, so it gave me the
justification (to myself, I guess) to buy new parts for two of them. So
now, what was a Pentium 700 (the dead one) and an old Celeron 350 are now
Athlon 2600+ with 1 GB memory, 80 Gb drives, and new CD-Rw's. Not leading
edge by any means, but they are ssssssmokin' fast compared to the old
ones.

Funny isn't it, the more you have the more you need.
I have 768mb of RAM and a 120gb HD but I want more, More, MORE!

Now I just need to scrape together my pennies for better monitors.

Just bought a Planar 19" LCD and have a 2nd one on order, and moved my (2)
old Hitachi 20" CRTs to another room.
I like the additional real estate on my desk. I had to keep my desk a foot
away from the wall.
Those Hitachi's were almost 28" deep and made my office hot! The Planar runs
cool.

Mark Jerde wrote:

The days of
spending $2300 on a computer are over unless you're a gamer.

Software development machines can be expensive too. Multiple monitors,
dual CPUs & max memory for running virtual machines, RAID for speed &
fault tolerance, ...

Well, yeah, that too. It takes me 50 minutes to do a complete build of
Rosegarden. One of the guys just bought a new toy that can do it in 2.3
minutes. Ouch.

--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/

weird, I have an old Imac(1998), and i've beaten the hell out of the drive,
many force restarts(removing the power cord) and moved huge numbers of files
through it(I have several games which I install, and delete when I get bored
of them, along with zbrush and all my random drawings, so it has a lot of
erasing and writing, and it never died(it died once, but a little
reformatting fixed that)
Mike in Mystic wrote:

500 Gb RAID 0 hard drive set up

My laptop & desktop each lost a hard drive in the past 12 months. Bummer
reinstalling everything, and there were some things I didn't have backed
up... sigh

RAID 0 is "Striped Disk Array without Fault Tolerance." IMO this is too
risky. My next desktop will be mirrored hard drives at a minimum.

My $0.02

-- Mark

In article ,
Tom Watson writes:
And a grand's worth of time invested in going to see furniture that is
worth emulating will pay off in greater measure than either investment
in hardware. Too much of this newsgroups's time is taken up with the
investigation of the "How' in preference to the "What" or the "Why".

Careful, Tom. If that high horse you're on bucks, it's a long way
to the ground.

Anyone who has spent a modicum of time on the wreck will notice that
a lot of people just plane "get off" on the tools. Just try to
wipe that ****-eating grin off my face when I'm blasting away with
a pneumatic nailer. And how many of us will admit to getting a plane
tuned to within a gnat's ass and reducing a board to a huge pile of
curlies? I could go on with other examples, but I think you get my
drift. Sometimes (sometimes, mind you) I don't ask for or desire
anything deeper.

--
Jeff Thunder
The From: header above is wrong on porpoise
To reply, use jeffthunder (at) comcast (dot) net

On Sat, 10 Jan 2004 00:16:51 GMT, "Jon Endres, PE"
t wrote:

Agreed. I recently visited my town's local museum, a place that I have only
been once before. Always thought it was for the tourists. They have quite
an impressive early american furniture collection that I spent not nearly
enough time looking at. Unfortunately, they don't let you touch it.

They don't let "the public" touch it. Try a different approach:

Write-- (write, don't just show up)-- and explain that you'd like to
take some measurements during a quiet / slow / closed time that is
convenient for the curator. Explain that you'll wear cotton gloves
and use only a cloth tape measure to do your measuring. Assure them
that you won't let a ball point pen anywhere near the furniture--
you'll do all your recording with a pencil.

A museum's purpose is not only to archive knowledge, but to
disseminate it. If you show you have a real interest, I bet you'll be
suprised at the positive response a respectful request brings you.

Michael

I built my first computer years ago. At that time, I had to program my
operatg system inmachine language. Over the years, I have rplaced parts
until today, none of the original parts are left.

The experience and learning led me into being a field service engineer
for machine tool builders. After fifteenyears of getting on a airplane
every Sunday, I took a job in R&D at McDonald Douglas. I acquired
severl patents with machine tool modeling software programs. The sent
me to colleg where I earned a BS degree in Computer Science. I retired
after 10 years there.

Funny isn't it, the more you have the more you need.

I am on a P166 as we speak. I do have a faster machine but this is my internet
cruiser.

Sumner Sargent said:

I built my first computer years ago. At that time, I had to program my
operatg system inmachine language. Over the years, I have rplaced parts
until today, none of the original parts are left.

The experience and learning led me into being a field service engineer
for machine tool builders. After fifteenyears of getting on a airplane
every Sunday, I took a job in R&D at McDonald Douglas. I acquired
severl patents with machine tool modeling software programs. The sent
me to colleg where I earned a BS degree in Computer Science. I retired
after 10 years there.

Spelling apparently wasn't a criteria for employment... g
Nah... I didn't just say that...


Greg G.

The price of a well equipped fault tolerant and secure web server makes
gaming machines look cheap. I'm setting one up now. It sits in my office
so I need to design an attractice--and sound deadening--hardwood cabinet for
it, getting back to the subject of this group.

Pete
http://www.Pistoleer.com - Retail & Wholesale (PH/FX 618-288-4588)
__________________________________________________ ________________
A-Zoom snap-caps, Bore-Stores cases, Kleen-Bore gun care products
Pachmayr grips & pads, Targets, HKS speedloaders, FREE classifieds


land fill right now..... what I wouldn't give to has that $2300 in tools
now, Funny what we are willing to spend money on.

The bright side is that the $448 Wal-Mart POS Xmas special computer is
three
times faster than the one I use every day. The days of spending $2300 on
a
computer are over unless you're a gamer.