On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 10:43 PM, Dante Lanznaster <[email protected]> wrote: > I know people that use pentium II 300Mhz to this very day, and it's usable > to them too (me OTOH, having to maintain that crap, it's just absolutely > painful). The concept of usable varies, and draws a very thin line that > nears compromise. It's also a matter of personal standards and expectation. >
I use a Tandy Model 102 with an 8085 CPU clocked at 2.4MHz at least once a week for actual work. It's instant-on, useful for editing text and doing serial comms, lasts about 20 hours on 4 AAs and it doesn't need a mouse. It's lighter than most laptops and doesn't need a fan or even heat up at all. It has no graphics or 'net access to distract me from what I am trying to do. This from a computer that basically dates to 1983 (the TRS-80 Model 100). So yeah, the usability of a computer has very little to do with the processor speed. It is a function of the suitability of the hardware and software combination to the user's use cases, which in turn is dependent on the requirements, design and big fat "quality" factor. -- John.
