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I'm so out of touch with the latest technologies

I will have to keep this post for future reference. Thanks for the valuable information.

Right now I have a new computer that I HATE. It has Windows Vista and is currently incompatible with ALL peripherals I have to go with it. It has a surround sound card (like why, I wonder? Am I really expected to sit at my computer chair to watch a surround sound movie on my 17" monitor?). The computer is fast and the operating system is slow. But you get to watch it do pretty graphics (as if I care). I just want it to work.

I had to go to satellite high speed because I could not find a Vista compatible modem, believe it or not. I was dumb enough not to buy the optional built-in modem (after all, I already had a modem), and the sales folks at HP can't even tell me what modem they use in there that really IS Vista compatible. Ah heck, time to dump my dial-up anyway.

I found out I could get Comcast high speed and all their cable services for the modest installation fee of $3900! They have to modify a telephone pole to get the cable to my house (aerial extension over a tree in my neighbor's yard). Everyone in my neighborhood gets Comcast except me because they can't string a cable to my nearby telephone pole without engineering an expensive solution. No wireless DSL in the hills where I am. The lots are one acre and bigger where I am, and full of trees in the way. Ah, but the views are nice.

I truly despise working on PC's. They should just be configured at the store to plug and play and you just go. This is never the case, it's plug and pRay. And Windows Vista (their latest beta version for all new PC owners to have) isn't ready for prime time. It doesn't even load my old Microsoft "Picture It" software, from their own damn software line! So far I have little working on that computer and am using my old Windows 98 computer until tomorrow when I change over to an Ethernet connected modem high speed. They promised they could make Vista work with their high speed satellite modem to the Ethernet connector. I'll be amazed if there's no problems.

So you can see I am not excited by the future of digital music from a computer. I am a DIY'er, and build my own amps and sometimes speakers, but PC DIY is for 8th grade geniuses. I'm just an 46-year-old EE still using vacuum tubes, some from the 1920's. (They don't make them like THAT anymore.) Whiz bang computer technology never really impresses me. I just want good sound and good music and can actually still get up to turn over a record every 20 minutes.

I think the Wintel conspiracy of speedy technological obsolescence for the sake of making max dollars is just a scam. It doesn't make my life any easier, really.

But okay, some day I will go kicking and screaming into the future! They force us. Right now I look at the PC Audio forum and everyone is talking alphabet soup. It looks like I need to go to college again to be able to hook up a modern PC audio system.

Now I'm down from my soapbox. :-)

Kurt


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