PS -- the stuff I scan, which seems to be enthusiastically received, is often scanned with a circa 
2001 Canon flatbed. Slow and "obsolete," but quite effective. And fully amortized long, long ago.

Technology "upgrade cycles" are mostly a marketing scam -- it's a way for sales and marketing folks 
to play on "gadget envy" among the most insecure (and un-craftsman-like) users and extract large 
chunks of money from them at regular intervals. "New" and "improved" is only the gadget, not the 
user!

-- Tom Fine

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tom Fine" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2012 3:44 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Obsolescence of high technology


> Don's blanket statement really didn't deserve such a thoughtful response as Richard's, but Richard 
> is right on target about allegedly "obsolete" technology.
>
> I'm sitting here still working perfectly effectively on a circa 2005 Dell Dimension 8300. And, in 
> the other office, a circa 2001 Dell 4100 is running our internal file server and Apache webserver 
> super-fast (this computer was swapped in only last year, replacing a circa 1995 pre-Pentium Dell, 
> and that server did its job just fine for 10+ years).
>
> My house is full of "obsolete" media and the machines to play it so I may enjoy it. I'll switch to 
> allegedly "new and better" DTV when my last NTSC set dies. I suppose I should throw all those 
> perfectly working (and full of lead and heavy metals) NTSC CRT TV sets in the landfill because I 
> need to see everyone's bad skin in lurid sharpness on those Chinese-made flat panels.
>
> That camera I gave away will do the new owner proud, it takes perfectly good, usable pictures --  
> better than many all-in-one film cameras from back in the day. And, it happens to have excellent 
> macro capabilities, key for exactly the kind of work done by participants on the ARSC List (and 
> therefore I say AGAIN that my post was on-topic and NOT a sales solicitation). Plus the lens 
> swivels, again perfect for documenting exactly the kinds of tasks and forensics we discuss 
> regularly on this list!
>
> I'm happy for any and all individuals and institutions so well funded as to always have the latest 
> and greatest electronics. I would suggest that many ARSC members, and many participants in the 
> ARSC List are neither well-funded nor likely to turn up their nose at a giveaway of something they 
> can use or want.
>
> To be honest, the more this gets discussed, the more insulted I am by Bryan Cornell's posting this 
> morning. To avoid further irritation, I won't discuss this further.
>
> -- Tom Fine
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Richard L. Hess" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2012 2:49 PM
> Subject: [ARSCLIST] Obsolescence of high technology
>
>
>> On 2012-06-20 2:40 PM, Don Cox wrote:
>>> Digital cameras are becoming obsolete long before they wear out. The
>>> same was true of computers in the 1980s.
>> Hi, Don,
>>
>> I would like to suggest "obsolete for my purposes".
>>
>> A good 3 MP camera if working properly still takes as good a picture today as it did in 2003. The 
>> marketing people would have you believe it's obsolete, but, in fact, in the strive for more 
>> pixels, low light performance (at least) suffered greatly in less-expensive cameras. It all 
>> depends what you need.
>>
>> I would agree with you about computers from the 1980s, but I recently repurposed a 2005 2.8 GHz 
>> Pentium IV machine and it's fine for the audio editing application it has been sent off to do 
>> (clip and  upload sermons from my church ever Sunday--a task I no longer wish to be tied to). We 
>> put a new HDD in it and brought it up from scratch and loaded only a few programs.
>>
>> The machine had become intolerably slow for office use by the family and I wanted to get off XP 
>> anyway and be a Win7 facility (essentially achieved at this point though one XP box is still in 
>> the studio to run the old CD printer and another is on a trolley as an aux CD burning and other 
>> task machine).
>>
>> I also gave them our second 2.8 GHz Pentium IV (w/o HDD) to do as they see fit with (keep as 
>> spares or make another working machine) as they would like more computers.
>>
>> It's really a question of obsolete to whom???? We should not just buy into the marketing hype, as 
>> I'm sure you're not and I'm trying not.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Richard
>>
>> -- 
>> Richard L. Hess                   email: [log in to unmask]
>> Aurora, Ontario, Canada           (905) 713 6733     1-877-TAPE-FIX
>> http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm
>> Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.
>>
>