At 10:35 PM 10/4/02 -0800, Mark D. Lew wrote: >$500 is "dirt cheap"? That's some fancy dirt.
Sure, compared to what I paid for 32K of memory for my first computer in 1977! Seriously, building one high-end system that will last 18 months is $1 a day. I work in front of my machine 8-plus hours a day. 12 cents an hour to keep me from being slowed down and frustrated in my work is indeed dirt cheap. I assume my yearly investment in adding/upgrading computer hardware to be $1000 if I expect to be able to work effectively as a composer (dot-music and electroacoustic) and multimedia artist. (How long could I pay someone to do work for me at that price?) I *depend* on these machines. I've used home computers for my primary income for 23 years (this month!), so they're my most important daily tools. In the past year I've upgraded CPU and motherboard (the old ones cycle through to my audio backup machine, then my wife's machine, then the house server, then to eBay), 4 larger disk drives (old ones for data storage or to eBay), 3 CD burners (I worked the old ones to death), memory expansion to 512MB on all 4 machines, 1 dual-head video card (old one to eBay), 1 Firewire card, and 1 power supply to replace one that smoked. About $1000 total to keep all our home machines in good shape -- cheaply because I heavily sale/rebate shop and look for advice in places like prorec.com. The hardware for my primary machine is only half the cost of software upgrades. In the past year alone upgrades/purchases for stuff like Finale, Sonar, Ozone, Real Producer, Video Factory, and AudioMulch, plus codecs, plugins, and a variety of music/sound utility programs were well over $1000. As they become more full-featured and capable, why should I run first-class programs on systems that choke? Yes, I do keep one generation behind in order to keep the hardware prices down, and build them myself so that I don't pay for tech support. Sorry for the long answer -- but I need a fast machine, and a backup machine, and something whose components can be replaced and upgraded as needed. My income is small, but nearly 100% of it comes from using these machines. 12 cents an hour is definitely dirt cheap. Dennis _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
