On 2007/03/10 14:06 (GMT+1400) Horst G. Burkhardt III apparently typed:

If this were 1981 and a 16K chip of static RAM was the best available and cost about $1200 i'd agree. But RAM really is cheap now, so why risk it?

RAM is "really cheap now" only if your system is new or recent. Older RAM types are a combination of: 1-more difficult or impossible to find; 2-more expensive; and/or 3-likely to be physically compatible but otherwise incompatible due to motherboard quirks or sensitivities, or due to faulty marketing of "high" density type as "low" density type -- "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him." John 3:17 NIV Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 Felix Miata *** http://mrmazda.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

It was called 72-pin DRAM, or 30-pin DRAM. before that, it was either chips which held anywhere between 256k and 4M apiece, or propietary RAM modules, and before that RAM wasn't really something you tinkered with unless you owned an Apple ][ ;) -- /---"Horst G. Burkhardt III"---------------------\ | There's no place like localhost (127.0.0.1) | | http://pandora.k9-net.org/ <- My Website | \-----------------------------/ On Sat, 10 Mar 2007, Per Jessen wrote:

Felix Miata wrote:

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On 2007/03/10 14:06 (GMT+1400) Horst G. Burkhardt III apparently typed:

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If this were 1981 and a 16K chip of static RAM was the best available and cost about $1200 i'd agree. But RAM really is cheap now, so why risk it?

RAM is "really cheap now" only if your system is new or recent.

Even 8-9 year old systems use PC100 and that's still widely available. I can't remember what memory was called before PC100.

/Per Jessen, Zürich

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Daniel Antonio Peraza Cedrez wrote:

DDR2 modules are cheap nowadays, but in my country I must pay as twice as the price I would pay in the US for a Kingston DDR I memory module,

OK, cheap obviously depends on many things. But whether you pay half or twice the price of another country is largely irrelevant.

and that doesn't include additional shipping and taxes costs. And my motherboard doesn't support DDR2 modules, it's a Biostar U8668-D.

Which seems to support PC133 or PC2100. PC133 - 128Mb is CHF28, roughly EUR18. PC2100 - 128Mb is CHF25, roughly EUR16. To me that's cheap, but I acknowledge it may not be to somebody else.

And another fact is that computer equipment become obsolete really fast. I bought my PC when Intel's Prescott was the ultimate processor, and now I just must start over again searching for a new one, possibly one based on x86_64 architecture.

But obsolete does not mean unusable. Intel's Prescott was introduced in 2004. I still run production workloads on machines 3-4 years older than that. My workstation is probably from around 2004 - it may be obsolete, but until it dies, it's perfectly usable.

Finally, it is hard to find a PC 2100/PC 3200 DDR I module here, mainly because they have become obsolete with the arrive of the new DDR 2 modules which are cheaper and better than DDR I modules. My only hope it's to find an used module which anyway will cost me twice than a DDR 2 module.

How about ebay? It's one of the best places to find older kit at decent prices. /Per Jessen, Zürich -- http://www.spamchek.com/ - managed email security. Starting at SFr1/month/user. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Horst G. Burkhardt III wrote:

It was called 72-pin DRAM, or 30-pin DRAM. before that,

Ah yes, that's right - in between we had EDO and probably another couple of varieties.

it was either chips which held anywhere between 256k and 4M apiece, or propietary RAM modules, and before that RAM wasn't really something you tinkered with unless you owned an Apple ][ ;)

You should see the 64K RAM module I built for my ZX81 - I think I've still got it somewhere. /Per Jessen, Zürich -- http://www.spamchek.com/ - managed email security. Starting at SFr1/month/user. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

* James Knott [03-10-07 18:27]: [...]

Back in the days when we had to whittle our own chips from wood, a 4K byte memory board was considered a lot!

I recall adding 32 32k memory chips to an add-on board to give my 286 3mb total of system memory at a cost of ~us$300.00. Had a 35mb Seagate hard drive that lasted about 4 months. -- Patrick Shanahan Registered Linux User #207535 http://wahoo.no-ip.org @ http://counter.li.org HOG # US1244711 Photo Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/gallery2 OpenSUSE Linux http://en.opensuse.org/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Horst G. Burkhardt III wrote:

On Sat, 10 Mar 2007, Patrick Shanahan wrote:

...

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Back in the days when we had to whittle our own chips from wood, a 4K byte memory board was considered a lot!

I recall adding 32 32k memory chips to an add-on board to give my 286 3mb total of system memory at a cost of ~us$300.00. Had a 35mb Seagate hard drive that lasted about 4 months.

Hey pops, Could the 80286 even ADDRESS 3MiB of RAM? Oh never mind. My documentation said it could address 16MiB of RAM ;)

Maybe people just couldn't afford 16MiB back then ;)

As for the Seagate, I'm horrified! You should have gone with Quantum and a SCSI controller ;)

I had an old 8088 with something called a Rampat board in it. I can't remember just how much memory I had on it but it was four sticks. I want to say 100M, but don't think that's right. Anyway, the 8088 had no idea what to do with that much memory so I ran a ramdisk on it. When I picked a program to run from the master bat file it would copy to the ramdisk and execute from there. Ram was faster access than the hard drive. Programs executed SO much faster it was unbelievable. The computer didn't have anyplace to hold a hard drive so I found an external SCSI box, but there were no SCSI cards for PC's [ that was something only Macs understood ] so I ripped out the power supply, mounted a 40M hard drive in it and ran the IDE ribbon from the add on card out the back of the computer into the external box. For power I used an old computer power supply sitting behind the drive box. I've still got that rig around here somewhere. It wasn't elegant, but it worked. -- (o:]>*HUGGLES*<[:o) Billie Walsh The three best words in the English Language: "I LOVE YOU" Pass them on! -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Horst G. Burkhardt III wrote:

It was called 72-pin DRAM, or 30-pin DRAM. before that, it was either chips which held anywhere between 256k and 4M apiece, or propietary RAM modules, and before that RAM wasn't really something you tinkered with unless you owned an Apple ][ ;)

Before SIMMS and DIMMS there were individual chips. The PC, XT and clones had rows of memory chips covering a large portion of the mom board. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sat, 2007-03-10 at 14:06 +1100, Horst G. Burkhardt III wrote:

I agree completely with John here.

Linux especially is known to be more sensitive to bad hardware than BSD or Windows or Mac - possibly because tighter tolerances are needed to maintain relative sanity when it comes to the kernel ;-)

Not an argument but a comment here. When I upgraded to XP from ME, I had to downgrade my hardware because XP was less fault tolerant of my RAM, and DVD/DVD-Burner setups. 10.0, my everyday boot, 10.2, my try it and see boot, Ubuntu and LinuxXP had not problems what so ever. Linux-4 Windows -1 :)

If this were 1981 and a 16K chip of static RAM was the best available and cost about $1200 i'd agree. But RAM really is cheap now, so why risk it? Also, faulty RAM will just slow down your computer and make it more unstable anyway.

{.........} -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sun, 2007-03-11 at 18:07 -0500, Doug McGarrett wrote:

On Sunday 11 March 2007 17:46, Mike McMullin wrote:

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On Sat, 2007-03-10 at 14:06 +1100, Horst G. Burkhardt III wrote:

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I agree completely with John here. /snip/ Not an argument but a comment here. When I upgraded to XP from ME, I had to downgrade my hardware because XP was less fault tolerant of my RAM, and DVD/DVD-Burner setups. 10.0, my everyday boot, 10.2, my try it and see boot, Ubuntu and LinuxXP had not problems what so ever. Linux-4 Windows -1 :)

/snip/

I Googled LinuxXP. It looks like all the Windows apps they mention are run under WINE, but I'm not sure of that. Altho I'm retired, and not doing engineering anymore, I notice the supported apps do not include AutoCad, which the WINE website says crashes the machine if you try to put text on your drawing. So I assume it doesn't really run Windows apps directly. I am curious as to the impression Mike has of this OS, which I had never heard of until now, and some more detail as to how it works. When you say it "had not problems whatsoever," what did you do with it, and what did you use it for? I think many of us here would be interested. Also, their FAQ says they use only GNOME, which always looked pretty ugly to me, and some commentators on this list say it bogs down badly if you have a few programs open. A report on your experience in that area would be appreciated.

It's based on FedoraCore3 and is supposed to be able to use and FC3 app. It's slick and polished but immature IMO. At the moment I'm hammering away trying to get a decent version of HPLIP to install without breaking the base, after that it'll be getting my web-cam up and running. BTW this is not "Free" Software, you buy a license to run it, and pay extra for installation support. No doubt I could add a YUM repo or two, and may at some point to see if I can get the apps to dl/install any faster. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org