It has reached the point where, unless one is a poor student with even less income than I, not upgrading begins to appear suspicious. For my first x86 machine w/40Mb HDD, 1Mb RAM, and a 22pin Okidata printer, I paid more than $100 per MHz of speed; it ran at 20MHz. In that price I also got some really cheap software and a VGA monitor. No modem. For the next x86 machine, 300Mb HDD, 8Mb RAM, no printer, it cost over $100 per MHz; it ran at 33MHz. No software, no monitor, no modem. Now Wal-Mart is selling an HP 730MHz [Intel inside] with 15" monitor, speakers, 20Gigabyte HDD, 42x CD-ROM drive, w/WindozeME & FAXmodem [win modem I'm sure] for $698. Since ME sells for $395, that means the hardware is selling for less than 50cents per MHz. When one is generally house-bound most of the time, and the internet is the way shopping is done, mail is exchanged, research is completed, and projects presented/maintained, it appears to indicate absolute stupidity to NOT change. As someone pointed out, actually *using* Linux is more difficult than dozerware, and once one switches to Linux one *must* learn it to do the things that one who knows DOS can do despite dozerware. My kid lost out on a cool job with an ISP because he didn't know WinME ... and we don't have a system that can be "updated" to ME, and I'll be damned if I'll pay nearly $400 for the software. I *had* to use first NetT and then Arachne because I didn't have a dozerware machine, nor the bucks to buy even Win3.x I've loved the way Arachne kept getting better & better since I installed it. But I think it's about reached as far as Michael is going to take it for DOS; I fear that even his Linux work may be for nothing, since [as someone pointed out] there are many many Linux overlays out there already which are as easy for the user as dozerware. And as for my move to Linux, I'm not sure I can make it now since I still don't have use of the internet that I need .. and my little penquin on top of my monitor keeps falling flat on his back. Maybe he's trying to tell me something? l.d. -- Arachne V1.70;rev.3, NON-COMMERCIAL copy, http://arachne.cz/
