[u-u] Kit recycling

[arocker at Vex.Net]

From:   	"D. Hugh Redelmeier" <hugh at mimosa.com>

> I admit that my sense of the value of computers and the value of my
> time formed years ago.  Now computers are inexpensive enough to buy
> and expensive enough to repair that they really are disposable.

Have you seen the latest iteration of the Raspberry Pi, the Zero, is being
GIVEN away with the MagPi magazine? (It's only $5 at retail.)

Admittedly, a significant amount extra is required to make it a useful
configuration, (though not much for some embedded applications). Some of
the metrics, (like the amount of memory), would have earned incredulous
jeers if suggested at the time for mainframe systems we've worked on.

Other criteria have also changed dramatically. There used to be a
significant dichotomy between "business" and "scientific" computers.
Business machines performed simple processes on relatively huge volumes of
data, hence were optimised for I/O. Scientific ones were expected to
swallow a few parameters and chew thoroughly on them for a while, so
processor speed won over ports. At a recent talk on "Big Data", the
lecturer explained that science was now awash with huge volumes of
possibly significant data, so scientific machines need enormous I/O and
storage capabilities. Business meanwhile is banging away with the heavy
algorithms, (e.g. quantitative finance and trading), consequently needing
CPU speed.