Re: Ridin' Through Gateway Country, Roundin' up details....

["oh no, not HIM again" <frogfarm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Quoting Robert G. Brown (bob@acm.org):
[snip]

> >As you note, the mark of a good salesperson is to find out what the
> >customer wants and then move heaven and earth to give it to them....
> Which in no way resembles what I was party to during my foray into Gateway 
> Country. The one perosn I had contact with DIDN'T appear to want to know what
> I wanted, and she didn't want to try to find out. As for moving heaven and 
> earth....hmmm..

Gateway just hasn't learned the lessons IBM, DEC, NeXT, et al, learned
before them: namely, that it is not some great privilege to buy your
product and you should never allow any representative of your company to
act in any way as though it is.

[re 99 bucks for bundled NT]
> Sorry, I'm not blown away by the price. Given the volume NT must ship, it's
> all profit to someone (either M$ or GW). Remember, the marginal cost of the
> NEXT copy of software tends toward zero.  Also, any of these computer shows
> (see our links page for one) will bring you an OEM shrink wrapped version
> (with licence and disk keys) for about $70-90, depending on ???

That's about the going rate on auctions at www.ebay.com and the like. You
can usually pick up a 5 or 10-user license for pretty cheap at places like
that as well. My experience with 95 confirmed most (but not all) of my
negative expectations regarding it, but as I said was more pleasant than I
had been hoping, overall -- as it has been so far with NT, but my
experience with NT is more limited since I don't own a copy myself yet
(although I work with it on a semi-regular basis, I haven't really thrashed
it sufficiently to know if it's worth integrating into my overall setup at
home or elsewhere). Hence my interest in acquiring a copy.

> I am also a salesperson for minimal computing, but more on principle than
> anything else.

Oh, I argue it just as much for the principle as the practical, and I think
everyone should take both into account as much as possible. I'm with you; I
have always been mystified as to why anyone would ever exert more effort,
spend more money, etc., than is necessary for the task at hand. (Of course,
anything worth learning requires at least a little effort.)

> >Too many people end up like my stepsister, who bought a "loaded" Gateway
> >box and has come to realize she could have gotten by with a lot less....
> There are 'way too many of those. One guy who I talked out of a 133Mhz 
> P5 about 2 1/2 years ago (and into a 150.00 AT special) has now bought a state
> of the art machine for 3D modeling and raytracing.... using the money he saved
> on the first purchase, plus interest!

A particularly nice example. I have so many old 486/33's, I'm practically
giving them away to people right now; monitors are the most expensive part
of the equation, but my friend I mentioned in the previous message with the
OS/2 system is running it with EGA <cackle>. I found the monitor in a
dumpster! And 486/low end Pentium motherboards are so much fun to cram into
those old XT-style cases (as long as you don't overload the power supply,
usually a 150 in those older ones).

> >(Regarding [uninformed] consumer-level computing, the iMac looks bad in the
> >expandability area unless USB takes off in a big way.....
> How does all this effect Linux (Question for everyone)?

Since there's varieties of Linux that run on Macintosh hardware, it might
be feasible and/or desirable to see if it could be done on this model. I
also know that Amiga owners who use Linux seem to be quite happy with its
performance and reliability, although that version doesn't receive as much
attention. Heck, someone was working on porting Linux to the Vax (although
that project seems to have stalled... bummer, I've got a roomful of 3100's
that could really use it!).

My current Burning Desire as far as hardware to run Linux on would be an
Alpha. Anyone know anything more about DEC's acquisition by Alpha? I was
surprised to learn the Alpha was still going at all after the big to-do
with Intel some time ago.

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