jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
I know someone who's still using Windows 3.1 on an ancient 386 with I think 4MB or 8MB of RAM. They still back up on an ancient tape drive (the ones with the 50 or 100 MB cartridges). Tape has been obsolete for what, a decade? I've been asked multiple times if there's any way to upgrade the machine so they can use the Internet. They can't accept my answer of no, the machine just doesn't have the computing ability to render modern websites, nor would it have enough RAM. Apparently they don't want to get a new machine for at least 4 reasons:
1) They would need to learn a new version of Windows (no, I'm not teaching them)
2) The software they use for work almost certainly wouldn't run on a new O/S
3) They paid something like $4,000 for the machine in the mid 1980s and are reluctant to not use it so long as it's still working
4) They don't see how a new machine costing well under $1,000 can be as reliable as their old one. In their words, "they had to cut corners somewhere". They think a decent computer will cost the equivalent of $4,000 in 1985 dollars, which would be something like $10,000.
I'm sure there are people out there still using 8086s and DOS 5.1, although I don't know any personally. At some point you have to let go unless you need your machine to do no more than it's already doing. I hate to think of the trauma this poor person will be going through when their machine finally gives up the ghost. My 10 year old Garmin GPS probably has more computing power than that POS machine.
