On Tue, Mar 13, 2007 at 04:53:05PM -0500, Robert Citek wrote: > Theresa Kehoe wrote: > > Great! I figure the more hardware we can pre-screen, the better. > > We need to be a bit careful, though. While I agree that the more we > have, the better, I believe that is true only up to a point. Imagine > an extreme case of a really big number (e.g. a billion). I don't think > we would want a billion modems or anything else (unless it's cash). > Where would we put them? What would we do with them? Who is going to > carry them? Clearly there is some optimum amount between nothing and a > billion. The question is, what is that optimal number? Frankly, I > don't know what the answer is. But I think it is important that we try > to discover what it is, even if we just approximate. > > As a first-pass, I would guess that the right number for tested hardware > is one class worths, i.e. 16.
Adult classes too? Maybe 30 would be a good number. > Once we have 16 whatever tested, we stop testing that type and start > testing the next type of hardware. For example, let's say we need > monitors, modems, and CD-ROMs for the next batch of student computers. > We would first start testing monitors. Once we get to 16 monitors, we > stop testing monitors and move to modems. Once we get 16 modems, we > stop testing modems and move to CD-ROMs. In that way we spend more > time testing hardware that we need right away and less time testing > hardware that we do not use right away. > > Keep in mind that the number 16 is just a guess. Maybe the right > number is 20 or 30 or something else. But I figured we should start > with a relatively small number and work up. And the class size seemed > as good as any. I agree we should keep it a small number though. Even though we seem to be getting more organized, if we get too far ahead of ourselves then we might not trust that a tested piece of hardware was tested correctly or was labelled correctly or etc. The week before last I pulled a RAM stick out of one of the **tested** bins and had issues getting the computer to start. When I replaced the RAM, the computer started fine. sean
