No one has commented on the spec of these machines . . .
pentium and above is acceptable, if you are doing gui things then pentium 133 . . .
Good. I hadn't intended to go below Pentium level.
If I take on holding a small stock of kit then it will have to be organised - a published list of the items held, date, model etc., otherwise this could get out of hand quickly. My plan was to get a small stock, then from time to time ask if anyone has newer kit, and progressively update as time went on. The old kit would either have to be dumped at my local tip, or given for free to some local group or charity. The whole operation would have to be cash free. Does that sound reasonable?
The 'Computers for Africa' scheme has received a bit of criticism (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2989567.stm) and I think what they'd prefer is masses of similar machine when a large company upgrades. Nevertheless, I'll check it out when the time comes.
Colin
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On Mon, Jul 14, 2003 at 09:48:15AM +0000, Colin Hards wrote:
The 'Computers for Africa' scheme has received a bit of criticism (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2989567.stm) and I think what they'd prefer is masses of similar machine when a large company upgrades. Nevertheless, I'll check it out when the time comes.
There is far more than just 1 scheme doing similar, I still feel that just because these people have made bad calls with their scheme doesn't mean the idea is a bad one. Anyhow the main problems listed from that article appear to be software related and not supplying consistant applications which I must say is rather dumb. I know students in south africa would be quite happy having people donate them old+slow hardware with no software for them to use.
Anyhow I certainly wouldn't want to see any machines dumped in landfill or "recycled" by sending them off to china where people get paid pennies to strip materials from them for recycling. Many of these places are now suffering from heavy metal contamination and rapidly rising cancer rates etc. which is a really nasty legacy for people to deal with. How about we just give them to people in the group who want them first, then try and offload them elsewhere to local groups like you suggest?
Adam
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abower＠thebowery.co.uk -
Colin Hards