Dilemma

[dwellman]

you know what I would do in your postion compn00b ? I'd wait till the A64 comes out and then buy yourself a dirt cheap Athlon XP / Nforce2 system as AMD are bound to slash prices on them, likewise for Intel/Prescott...go buy a Top Spec P4 system when prescott it released. That way your money will go much further

I'd have to totally concur with that assesment-- I would have written it if you haven't. Basically immune to technology creep.

Probably becuase you and I have similar computing experiences. I used my 486 SX 25 from 1993 to 1999. Then I happened upon a P166 based desktop, which soon had a k6-III 450 (running at 400 with the 2x multiplier) That i430VX (thankfully) soon gave up the ghost and now its a K6XV3+ /66.

I had to switch to a faster machine because, well, faster CPU's compile code faster and my tuner/capture card didn't play nice with the VIA MVP3 chipset, plus my wife insited (can you imagine? What a girl! <i>"We need a better PC! You need to build us a better PC!"</i>).

I still use the K6-III as my PC to do dangerous things on (trying out software, occasional P2P, all my games (The most recent game I own is Rollercoaster Tycoon, so that tells you what kind of gamer I am).

Epilogue:
Now, I have 5 computers.
The K6-III 450, a K6-2 500*, a Celeron 466*, a Duron 1.1 GHz (its waiting for a Barton), and a P166* notebook (my firewall/router/WAP). Maybe I should mash them all into a cluster. . .

* Some parts from upgrades where customer did not want the original part, but mostly salvaged (like the notebook). Its amazing what people throw away these days..

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<b><font color=red>Three great virtues of a programmer are: laziness, impatience, and hubris.</font color=red><b>