"Brad" == Brad Collins <brad@chenla.org> writes:
Brad> Karen Lofstrom <lofstrom@lava.net> writes: >> On Wed, 20 Oct 2004, Steve Thomas wrote: >> >>> [I can't believe that people still think they're doing good by >>> shipping old 486's to Africa -- but apparently its true. I >>> recently donated some old Pentium II's to a charity, and they >>> couldn't believe their luck.] >> My Linux users group installs thin client computer labs for >> schools. We happily accept PIIs, but turn down 486s. We use >> PIIs and PIIIs as thin clients, removing the hard drives and >> installing bootable NIC cards, and connect them to a fast >> server running K12LTSP Linux. We can create a usable 30 client >> computer lab for $3000 or so, since the clients are all >> donations. >> Brad> I can't speak for Africa, but I have spent the last 14 years Brad> living in the deepest parts of China, Laos, and Cambodia. Brad> In the last 7 years I have not seen anything older than a Brad> PII except in a few old government systems and ancient bank Brad> computer networks running OS/2. Brad> And I'm not talking about the big cities like Vientiene, I'm Brad> talking about villages which barely have electricity and Brad> other odd corners with flakey old generators grumbling in Brad> blackend soot covered back sheds. When I started a EU-financed international research project on symbolic computation, some 12 years ago, the computers that we were using were 486. And they were running linux, (slackware) X, and I was able to run TeX, and view high quality output. I am still using and developing the software that we wrote in this project. There should be something wrong if in 12 years what was good for a half-million-dollar research project isn't even good for a forest village. Not only this, but also the following generation of processors (Pentium-I). Carlo