I see what you're saying but I think you're conflating reliability with ability to be repaired. I would expect that your TP will still be working happily for years to come, just like your Compaq. However, if you're unlucky and it does break repairs will be tricky due to parts shortages - again just like your Compaq. There's nothing really that an OEM can do about that if their parts suppliers decide to stop production.
If it's really 12-13 years old, then you can forget being able to replace pretty much any of it with new parts. Back then cards were typically ISA or VESA, both long abandoned. If you're lucky and it has PCI slots you're still facing problems because PCI now is not what it was back then. Of course the CPU (and it's socket standard) are long gone, likewise whatever memory standard it used (30 pin SIMMS?). The motherboard won't be replacable, and you'd need an adapter to replace the PSU (which you may have to make yourself!). Even hard drives will be tricky as small PATA drives are hard to find these days, and the BIOS won't support larger ones (if it's MFM or something like that you're out of luck entirely). However - the one piece of good news is that 3.5" internal floppy drives are still available! -- radish 'HELP ME RAISE MONEY FOR CHILDREN'S CANCER RESEARCH!' (HTTP://WWW.ADAMREEVE.COM/24IN24/) http://www.last.fm/user/polymeric ------------------------------------------------------------------------ radish's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=77 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=71997 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
