Preparing for the Incoming Computer Shopper Tsunami

Re:Preparing for the Incoming Computer Shopper Tsunami by dhosek on Tuesday June 06, 2023 @12:24AM (#36208055)

Back in the 90s, my brother actually had a subscription to Computer Shopper (he had a side hustle building PCs for entertainment industry folks). I only ever bought it if I was planning on building something which was rare because computers were expensive back then. The last PC I built literally did not have two components from the same vendor. To be honest, I don’t miss those days. Say what you like about the “Apple tax,” it’s very nice to have one company who will take responsibility for things not working and my experience, at least, has been that they stand behind their products (at least as long as they’re under AppleCare).

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Preparing for the Incoming Computer Shopper Tsunami by sangnoir on Tuesday June 06, 2023 @01:42PM (#36216420)

> Say what you like about the “Apple tax,” it’s very nice to have one company who will take responsibility for things not working

Where's the fun in that? Building your own PC is a thrill - budgeting, chosing components, excitedly waiting for each to arrive or picking them from shelf, assembling everything and then pressing the power button to power everything up for the first time. Followed by your heart sinking when nothing happens "ohfuckohfuckohfuck, did I I just burn something out - there isn't any smoke, but I hope it's not the processor". Reseat everything, reconnect cables, get an some sign of life, but it's an error code - progress. Multiple attempts at fixing the error and finally get a POST screen. Apple can't sell that emotional experience or sense of ownership - self-built machines have a personality.

The extra RAM and/or cores I get from a self-build vs. equally priced Apple computer is just a bonus. Modern standards make surprise incompatibilities less likely than in the past, looking at the specs works 99.9% of the times

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Preparing for the Incoming Computer Shopper Tsunami by dublin on Tuesday June 06, 2023 @06:10PM (#36219736)

The excitement of those old days is still very much alive in the Raspberry Pi community. I just configured a new PiBox server to do some fairly serious work, including serving as the archive NAS for two ne startups. (It's more than capable of doing that work - it has more CPU power, more RAM, and more storage than Chevron's Crays had when I worked there in the '90s!)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Preparing for the Incoming Computer Shopper Tsunami by stewarts on Wednesday June 07, 2023 @12:01PM (#36228637)

Motherboard headers -> Cases have somehow not evolved what feels like at all. Myself and my brother just built from scratch within the past month and both fumbled the Power switch/Reset switch connections.

I honestly had to laugh at the lack of progress in the area.

[ Parent | on HN ]