At 11:45 PM 2/9/06 -0500, D. Keneth Fowler wrote: >This request is OT, but I would like the view of folks using a desktop with >Windows 98 regarding how you rate your machine or the reputation of others >you hear about. I have a Micron (now MPC) Pentium III, now in its sixth >year of service. I feel it is time to move on. Dell and HP have been >mentioned to me in casual conversation. You may well ask, "What do you want >it to do?" Assume a fairly basic machine with no MIDI or more recent Finale >capability enhancements. Any observations you wish to make will be appreciated.
Any box built today will do what you need. If cost is a question, go to Staples or Best Buy or some such and try one out. The value today is incredible. Longer stuff follows... My desktop is also Windows 98, and because it is highly customized to my work habits and has tweaking software that will not run on later machines, and has two large monitors I keep it. It works fine, fast and stable with its 1.4GHz AMD processor, has 4 channels of 24/96 cound, WiFi, pen tablet, DVD/CD recorders, slide scanner, page scanner, printer, etc. In other words, aside from the operating system, it's a fully loaded machine, which I've "brought up" by replacing hardware bits since it was a Windows 3 machine 14 years ago (only the diskette drive is original!). Two things conspired to push it partly away. The first is software that will no longer run under that OS, increasingly the case -- though most of the new features are 'consumer' type features that don't interest me, so I've stopped upgrading many of those. The more important factor is having to upgrade my 1996 Pentium 100 laptop, which, as with most early laptops, couldn't upgrade very well. It's still Windows 95B. So in October I purchased a Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop which I'm almost entirely happy with. It's not much faster than my 2001-era desktop, but it has a big screen that these old eyes need, lots of battery life, and all the connectors I can stand for using it as a portable recording studio, on-the-road Finale composition studio, etc. In fact, I'm typing this email on it right now in the living room, with the screen of my Windows 98 desktop on the laptop's screen (using WinVNC). I'm as happy with the choice of the Dell as I expected to be with a laptop. As for a Windows desktop replacement, I'll probably just continue upgrading the existing machine, so long as there remain slots and drivers for my hardware. This might address your question a little more: My wife's machine (a Win98 Celeron 600) is due for an upgrade, so we're considering one of those $500 Dell deals, or maybe even a docking laptop special (I think Compaq has one for less than $600 now), as she really only needs one machine. With neither special hardware nor software needed for her work, it's a great deal either way. I have stayed away from HP because of experiences with their machines (I do tech support for my friends) having difficult-to-remove utility components that get in the way of some media software. I would have considered other brands, but I liked the warranty the Dell came with and the price (at, ahem, Costco). It also has a technical and repair manual available to the customer, and it comes apart very easily for replacements and upgrades (hard drive, network card, etc.) The built-in audio card is a downside, in that it has stereo output, but only mono input. I was getting an external box for recording anyway, but having stereo input for a quick recording would have been nice. So if that's important to you, be sure to check the specs carefully. It was my fault I missed that one. Overall, I don't like Windows XP, except for its networking. And memory-leaking programs like Finale 2005 don't bother it as they do my Windows 98 box, but all that cheap color and useless graphical stuff is icky. I've totally reconfigured the GUI components to get rid of alll of the clever borders and animations, which, fortunately, can be done. It's also nice to see that it runs all my earlier software so far (except the specialized DOS utilities), including a handful of Windows 3 programs I keep for entertainment (like the NCSA Mosaic browser). Sorry for the long post, but for my purposes, the upgrade was well worth it for convenience, but not much else These days, pretty much any PC will give you plenty of performance. Dennis -- Please participate in my latest project: http://maltedmedia.com/people/bathory/365-2007.html _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
