Date: Mon, 22 Nov 1999 17:20:00 -0800 From: "David Schwartz" <davids@webmaster.com> To: "Terry Lambert" <tlambert@primenet.com> Cc: <chat@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: Judge: "Gates Was Main Culprit" Message-ID: <000101bf3550$dcc5a760$021d85d1@youwant.to> In-Reply-To: <199911230105.SAA03973@usr02.primenet.com>
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> > > The answer is that, so long as there is an ISA bus in my machine, > > > I will be paying for it. > > > > Bullshit. This is a clear case of why we don't get locked in. > > I don't understand this statement; when I buy a PC, do I not pay > for the ISA card edge connectors and copper cladding on the PC > board, as well as the resin that makes up the board? > > If you can tell me how I can aboid that (point me to a vendor of > competitively priced machines which omit the bus, please!), then > let me know. You just keep getting more and more ridiculous. Look, suppose your motherboard manufacturer made a motherboard with no ISA slots. This would cut the base cost by some small amount, but it would also reduce the volume because the potential market would be smaller. So because those ISA slots are on your motherboard, the volume of the sales of that motherboard goes up. This reduces the cost of the motherboard, which you benefit from in the form of lowered prices. Imagine if this was not so. If the benefits of doing this (lower cost) outweighed the costs (lower volume) some manufacturer would make a motherboard with no ISA slots. Its lower base cost would allow it to corner the majority of the market. (Unless you want to attribute this too to Bill Gates' mind control.) Now, over time, the cost of the ISA slots has been dropping because there tend to be fewer and fewer of them, but this cannot keep up forever, you cannot have less than one slot. The advantages of them are dropping too, since fewer and fewer people want them or need them. As a result, they 'harm' they can do keeps dropping and dropping, and eventually they will be overthrown. This is an example of the free market triumphing over what could have been lock in. All the 'lock in' does is increase the amount of time that compatability is maintained. And in any event, this is _beneficial_ lock in. Would you prefer being forced to throw out all your old cards everytime a better slot standard comes out? DS To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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