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On 10/15/05, Jeff Larson <Jeffrey.Larson@sun.com> wrote: > Travis Hartnett wrote: > > Nah--hard drives aren't designed to last more than a few years, the > > motherboard and power supply batteries likewise. > > Hard drive, debatable. Motherboard, nonsense. Batteries, yes. > Power cord, no. I've had several machines over the last few years that finally got retired because the system battery, on the motherboard, died (this also happens with some dedicated effects units). They're good for three to five years, and some systems won't boot once they've gone down. If you can find a replacement, you can usually swap it out (unless it's soldered to the PC board), but it does happen. The power cord will of course keep on working, but I've also got a pile of laptop batteries that no longer hold charges. Finding a new battery for a G3 Powerbook from seven years ago is a pain in the ass. Plus, the motherboard battery is dead on that unit... > > > A PCM-42 holds its value far better than any laptop running a PCM-42 > > emulator. > > Until it breaks. That emulator will run fine for the next hundred > years on increasingly powerful hardware. In theory, possible. In actuality, no way. Any current VST plug-in you've got running today will not run on a system manufactured ten years from now. If the developer updates the plug-in for a decade, sure, but I'm skeptical that's going to be a widespread practice. You can't run Word 1.0 on any system for sale (new) today. > > > "...runs Windows 95 as well as the day it was born." > > > > Left-handed praise if I ever heard it... > > If you're willing to freeze your expectations, there's no reason except > hardware failure why you can't use a computer for more than 10 years. > Sure they break, they depreciate in monetary value. But they do not > depreciate in function. A willingness to freeze expectations is not what leads most people towards computer-based solutions--it's the perceived ability to do practically everything on one box with lots of software updates rather then being tied to a fixed feature set available at time of purchase. Yes, if you're willing to dedicate a computer to running only a certain set of audio apps and willing to forgo any system updates, you can keep one running for quite a while. But like I said, denying oneself new features and updates isn't the driving credo of most computer users. I've got a dedicated machine for ProTools and audio work, and I've screwed myself a couple of times by adding in Mac OS updates without waiting for Digidesign to certify the current version of ProTools with the latest system update.