On 2/18/17 7:50 PM, Paul wrote:
Ken Springer wrote:
On 2/15/17 12:34 PM, philo wrote:
I was given a 2ghz AMD machine with 2 gigs of RAM and a bad HD with XP.
In theory that should have been ok for Win7

I replaced the drive and installed Win7


The machine must have been 15 years old and though Win7 would install,
the CPU has no SSE2 so I was not able to install any new browser due to
lack of H/W support.

The machine has now been sent to the recycler

Hi, philo,

This thread has been an interesting read, from my perspective. I not
only learn quite a bit, but I also learn tidbits about those who take
the time to post.

This thread is one of those where I learn about the posters. And
please, no one should take what I write from this point as any kind of
personal attack on any individual. Just observations about their
computing environment.

Not a single person mentioned anything about older computers being
equipped with a modem. LOL And that is still a needed piece of
hardware in many areas. There are places where that's their only
option. Even satellite companies can't see their location.

That just leaves dial-up. And even that can be rather strange. The big
name local phone company tells a friend they cannot offer dial up
service to him. (I'm not sure he understood what they were telling him,
though.) Yet, he's been connecting via AOL dial-up service for years.

After cleaning up his old XP system, and turning off automatic updates
which was slowing the system to a super crawl, it's a snappy little system.

Most importantly, he knows how to use it.

His sister just gave him a Windows 10 laptop. And the Windows 10 UI has
him baffled. Plus, he obviously cannot connect to the internet. So,
for the moment, he has to drive 15 miles to the library to use it on the
internet. We have not investigate the external dial up modem
possibility. If one exists, and you can't connect to it wirelessly, it
would limit the portability of a laptop.

He's also on a fixed income, and it's unlikely the cost of satellite
service, if available, would be an option.

Older systems can be donated to social agencies as well, where they can
be redone and given to families and seniors that in today's world need
to have computers.

If you don't want to deal with XP being unsupported, there's always
Linux, of which I get more and more questions about using. But that's
for another thread.

There is always canopy-net. That's a microwave link, as long as the
topography allows. A tall tower can only do so much, if you're in a
deep valley.

http://www.novawireless.net/services.html

Well, I don't think a signal from Colorado to Virginia will work! LOL

That looks like the way Rise Broadband works. http://risebroadband.com/

My neighbor at the top of the hill is some kind of upper management for
Rise, and he can see the closest tower. I'm at the bottom of the hill,
and cannot. But not so many years ago, maybe 5, the phone company laid
fiber optic cable along the paved road in this area, and I've had DSL
ever since.


--
Ken
Mac OS X 10.11.6
Firefox 51.0.1 (64 bit)
Thunderbird 45.7.1
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"