This is why we struggle constantly to keep computers at least somewhat close to what the developers seem to think that we all use (from secondhand accounts, I have heard that at Microsoft, the typical development PC is a well-equipped Pentium 200 system. Yet the typical low-end computer that is sold these days (which is the minimum system that should be able to run all of the new software they're putting out) is a Pemtium-133. And they wonder why everyone thinks that software runs so slowly on their systems.
Upgrading a computer is a vicious cycle to get into. For every sorely-needed upgrade that a computer gets, there are two more that need to be done, it seems. An example of this was the other day, when me and my dad headed over to Computer Stop (the official computer store of the Sledgehammer) to throw the latest sack of bills down the "Obsolescence Prevention" chute (in other words, we were upgrading Zippy with a new Pentium 133 CPU.) As we headed over there, we got to talking about the future of the den and the next round of upgrades. This upgrade would leave us with an idle Pentium 75 chip, which couldn't be used by any of the other systems without a motherboard upgrade.
Rocky had already received a brain transplant recently and has a VL-bus video card, meaning that this would be $50 down the drain. Lazarus has on-board IDE and video, which means that if we got a new motherboard, we would also have to get a new video card, and possibly a new EIDE controller. No matter how we did this, we'd have almost enough spare parts for an entire system left over after doing this. In fact, about the only practical way to employ the new chip again would be to build a new system around it! Since space in the den seems to be limited (I actually now have a picture of the place here, at one of it's cleaner times,) this means we'd have to find another place to put this system, meaning we'd have to run Ethernet through the walls of the house... And I won't even begin to get into the stuff that I would like to get. As you can see, living on the edge of technology can drive you to drop your wallet right over the edge just to try and get that little extra burst of speed. The question that many of us ask is this: Why do we need all of these faster and fancier computers? One of my friends e-mailed me a possible answer to this question recently. In this message, he says that if it weren't for the rapid rate at which computer games are advancing, we could all get by on systems running DOS with WordPerfect 5.1. It doesn't take too long to realize that in most cases, he's right. I mean, sure that 3D accelerated video card looks nice, but if you're going to be doing little more than word processing and balancing your checkbook with the computer, are you really going to need it? The same holds true of CD-ROM drives. If you're using it for little more than searching textual databases, what good is a 16X CD-ROM? On the other hand, the video sequences coming off the CD-ROM are going to be choppy on that now ancient 4X drive. And cruising down the Infobahn, that 14.4K modem that was just fine a few months ago is starting to seem really slow. You might consider getting a new one right now, or you could just suffer until the 56K modems start coming out... But even if you get one of them, will you be able to get a speed any higher than 28.8K?
With all the hoopla over some of the new technologies out there, most of these things you can throw into your computer to make it either faster or cooler-looking have no real purpose for most of us. We buy them anyway, because if we don't, how are we supposed to survive the next wave of technology? Not only are the developers driving Indycars up front, but someone has also decided it would be fun to follow us with a turbocharged steamroller. And all of this over a few games that people throw into our faces. Pretty soon, they'll be telling us we need a "limb upgrade" in order to handle the 27-button controller... and we'll all buy 'em too.
