In my estimation, one of the reasons that the personal computer industry is any sales slump is that for vast numbers of users there is simply no compelling reason to upgrade from their present hardware.

For instance, in the Mac orbit, a 233 MHz G3 like the WallStreet PowerBook I'm using right now is plenty adequate for what they want to do with computers. While more speed is usually welcome, you just don't miss it very much doing word processing, using e-mail, a web surfing on a dial-up connection where slow phone lines and poky remote servers seem to be the speed bottleneck rather than processor speed on your own computer.And that is the sort of thing most people do with computers.

For most people, the only reasons to upgrade are wanting to have the latest bells and whistles, or, in a minority of cases, the need or desire to use software that really does work better with more processor power. For me, that would be dictation software; for others it might be Photoshop or a digital video editing.application. Another potential reason to upgrade your system might be they need to use peripherals that are not supported by your machines connection ports, but in many cases this can be worked around with upgrade cards and adapters. For example, I have PC card USB and FireWire adapters for my PowerBook, a and a USB PCI card adapter for my desktop SuperMac S 900.

Even older Macs can still be useful. My old LC 520, a 25 MHz, 68030 machine running Mac OS 7.5.5, still serves my wife as an emailbox, and is also the computer I have hooked up to my scanner. It scans slowly, but is very reliable for that purpose, and I don't do much scanning anyway, so I've never bothered looking it up to one of the newer, faster machines in the house. For e-mail, the LC 520 is for some reason faster at sending and receiving then even the G3 PowerBook .

In an essay published by PowerPage this week, Bob Snow notes:

"I paid a huge sum of money about ten years ago for a MacIIfx. I'm an Architect, and Computer Aided Design required serious horsepower. Personal computers were barely up to the task, so I bought the newest most powerful machines every two years. Not so any more. I am content to use an upgraded 8600/400MHz G3 and live comfortably on the trailing edge of technology. Replacing this machine would be hard to justify for any practical reason. My wife replaced a Performa 6290 about a year ago with a 333MHz iMac, which should meet her needs for years to come. Thankfully, she's retiring a three year old WinBook for a new Titanium G4! My laptop is a 2400/240MHz G3 which suits my needs just fine. I'm writing this on a Twentieth Anniversary Mac/300MHz G3 with no plans yet for a replacement. Who says Macs aren't upgradeable?"

Bob suggests, and I agree, that the Personal Computer market is reaching a saturation point. "The performance gains continue, but these are becoming irrelevant to more and more people."

Low End Mac's Charlie Ruggiero also addresses this same general topic, noting that even if you have the latest G4 hardware, there is always something you can do with an older PPC Mac, especially one with PCI slots. He suggests:

"My recommendation is to put an older System on it, such as System 7.5.x, and use it to run programs that no longer work on newer Macs. I personally find some of today's newest software to be bloated and slow, even on new machines. I miss the days when there were programs like Aldus Superpaint 3.5. I still use that program and find that I get simple graphics work done faster and easier than in the ever-confusing Illustrator or similar programs."

I agree. SuperPaint was great, and I hate bloat. I still occasionally use the even older version that shipped with MS Word 4.

Charlie advises networking your old computer to your new one with Ethernet. I have my SuperMac S-900 and PowerBook networked with a long Ethernet crossover cable, but the LC 520 unfortunately has no Ethernet card, and I'm not inclined to spend money on one. I just email stuff to myself for most file transfers, although I can also transfer files by floppy to the S 900 and then relay them to the PowerBook via Ethernet if necessary.

You can also use an old Mac as a router so that all computers in your home can share the same Internet connection. My son uses the carcass of an ancient and spavined 486 PC running Linux for this task, but a Mac would work as well.

The personal computer market is not going to die, but it is going to have to adjust the this new reality. A paradigm of buying a new system every two were three years is ridiculously expensive and environmentally irresponsible in any case. Computer manufacturers would be well advised to focus on building modular computers that could be inexpensively upgraded, rather than trying to convince people to buy a whole new system in order to get the latest processor or new killer feature every couple of years.

Charles W. Moore

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