Cheap PC at Asda

[Rob77]

I was in Asda the other day and saw this PC for £349:

http://www.george.com/browse/schoolwear/technology/product-6477/

Comes with a 17" Viewsonic monitor and looks like a bargain if anyone needs a new one.

 

[Benzowner]

Dodgy operating system, Microsoft Visita,

 

[Sp!ke]

If you buy a PC from Asda, it needs to be a whole lot cheaper than that.

Thats not cheap at all anymore btw.

 

[garystu1965]

If you buy a PC from Asda, it needs to be a whole lot cheaper than that.

Thats not cheap at all anymore btw.

I remember in 1995 buying a PC with 640Mb HDD, 4Mb RAM, dual speed CD-ROM, 32Mb graphics card and Windows 95.

£600 with no monitor !!!

4Mb of RAM at that time was £100 + vat !!!

 

[Will]

Yep, I remember very well RAM being £25/MB and more!

 

[fuzzer]

Yep, I remember very well RAM being £25/MB and more!

ive paid £125/mb before!

 

[nigel cross]

But tell your kids and they will never remember.
I can recall paying 3.9d per gallon of petrol

 

[Ted]

Cheapest I recall petrol was 6s/8d (three gallons for a pound)

And I recall our 3mb (yes I know it was a strange size) memory card listing at 10k.

I also remember repairing 4k (16 bit or 18 bit with ecc) at £250 a time.
Ah, the beauty of magnetic core memory. You could switch off a machine, remove the memory card, put it in another machine, and it would carry on running the program exactly where it left off - even putting the next character out to the teletype.
Now have I told you about teletypes?...........

 

[grober]

I also remember repairing 4k (16 bit or 18 bit with ecc) at £250 a time.
Ah, the beauty of magnetic core memory. You could switch off a machine, remove the memory card, put it in another machine, and it would carry on running the program exactly where it left off - even putting the next character out to the teletype.
Now have I told you about teletypes?...........

You will be waxing lyrical about punch card readers next. Remember when you dropped the card carrier and got the card order mixed up. Or the punch tape reader that literally "chewed " your only program tape. Or having to make offerings to the High Priests (Data processing staff) of the inner sanctum (Computer Suite) to be granted a brief audience with "God" = IBM 1130 http://ibm1130.org/
HAPPY DAYS ???
Aaaaaaaaaaarggghhhhhhhhhhh!

 

[Ted]

Ahhh, The Documation M400 or M600 card readers!
600 cards a minute! That was 10 per second!!!!!
So fast it had to use something only spoken about in whispers - DMA

And yes, I remember paper tape readers, although by my time most of the 'paper tapes' were actually mylar (dark green one side, silver the other)

A little story
The cleaners wern't doing a very good job, so our manager told them "Everything off the floor is ours. Everything ON the floor is yours, and needs to be cleaned up."
Next night the cleaner found a tape that had run through the reader and was mostly on the floor. She dilligently cut it off at floor level and threw it in the bins.

Oooh youve got me going. I'll be talking about how it took two men to lift a 10mb Western Dynex 'winchester' drive next!

 

[R2e]

Personally I wouldn't touch Evesham with a bargepole, had a bad experience back in '99, their products will never darken my door again!

 

[crockers]

I can remember my neighbour showing me his new IBM computer - green dot matrix screen - no idea what was inside it - think 16mg hard drive - took 5.1/2 inch floppies - cost him a cool £2,400....

And no I don't remember the war..........

 

[mw_C32]

Talking of PC's. I have a Pentium P4 3Ghz!!!PC. What is a similar spec in the new dual core pentiums?

Just thinking of upgrading as the kids want my old PC.

Thanks

Mark.

 

[Rose Chap]

With the prices of brand new PCs being so low, its almost getting cost effective for people who only want web/email to buy a new one when the current one slows right down/stops doing things reliably.

My parents have started making grumbling noises about their computer running like a dog, and if 300 odd quid would put a brand new PC on their desk with 12 months warranty then I'd be sorely tempted.

 

[agatward]

Talking of PC's. I have a Pentium P4 3Ghz!!!PC. What is a similar spec in the new dual core pentiums?

The silicon and instruction handling architecture in the new Core and Core 2 chips is completely different so it's technically difficult to compare. However, for office / gaming workloads, a good estimate is a 1.86GHz Core 2 Duo chip giving similar performance to a 3.4GHz Pentium 4 D chip, but use approximately 50% less power.

Given you've said you have a P4 3GHz, I'm assuming this is an older single core chip, so even the bottom-end Core 2 chip will give you a significant performance boost.

 

[Rory]

With the prices of brand new PCs being so low, its almost getting cost effective for people who only want web/email to buy a new one when the current one slows right down/stops doing things reliably.

My parents have started making grumbling noises about their computer running like a dog, and if 300 odd quid would put a brand new PC on their desk with 12 months warranty then I'd be sorely tempted.

You can get a new Dell base unit (without monitor) for £250 inc vat & delivery. Probably even cheaper if you use Dell Outlet (or their ebay shop)

However the main snag right now is buying new probably means taking Vista which could cause all sorts of problems if your parents have got software they would want to migrate to the new machine.

 

[Rob77]

If you buy a PC from Asda, it needs to be a whole lot cheaper than that.

Thats not cheap at all anymore btw.

The web ad doesn't give the full spec. When I looked at the box in the store, I thought the spec looked very good for the money. I've forgotten now what the compnents were but they were pretty good.

I am reasonably aware of the prices of PCs and components, what makes you think its a bum deal?

 

[scotth_uk]

I can remember my neighbour showing me his new IBM computer - green dot matrix screen - no idea what was inside it - think 16mg hard drive - took 5.1/2 inch floppies - cost him a cool £2,400....

Pfft. I had one before hard disks were available! His was modern!

 

[Gollom]

Pfft. I had one before hard disks were available! His was modern!

OK, I'll play....

Can any of you youngsters out there imagine viewing this board via a 1200/300 split speed modem? My elementary grasp of maths tells me that it could be in the order of 10,000 times slower than a 10 MB broadband connection

(Any math wizards out there feel free to correct my calculation!)

 

[Carrotchomper]

With the prices of brand new PCs being so low, its almost getting cost effective for people who only want web/email to buy a new one when the current one slows right down/stops doing things reliably.

My parents have started making grumbling noises about their computer running like a dog, and if 300 odd quid would put a brand new PC on their desk with 12 months warranty then I'd be sorely tempted.

Yes, the young lass I've now started seeing has told me how her 18yo brother's computer is still playing up- He has had it fixed TWICE at £150 a pop apparently. I've made the point that possibly it might not be terribly economic to fix it again should the need arise!