[LINK] Hard disk storage: 8 GB costs as much as a roll of toilet paper

[Robin Whittle]

Hi Rachel and Fernando,

Considering that integrated circuits are so small, I would be
surprised if their ingredients were seriously depleting the
accessible reserves - but I haven't researched it.

I think shortages of lithium, nickel and neodymium are much more
likely because of their use in batteries and rare-earth magnets.  I
read somewhere that all these big wind turbines use tonnes of
rare-earth magnets - so I suppose they have a gearbox and an
alternator with a permanent magnet rotor, running at the exact speed
to create the grid's 50 or 60 Hz.

Regarding total cost of ownership, I should add that for people whose
teeth grew up without fluoridation, the TCO of a Freddo Frog can
vastly exceed the initial purchase price.  The money spent on dental
work could pay for a handsome personal Beowulf cluster.

Fernando, I don't know enough about the history of OS/2, but a quick
look at:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS/2

made me think that the dominance of Windows was sealed once it was
being sold already installed on PCs, and with most peripheral
manufacturers creating device drivers for Windows rather than OS/2.

Nonetheless, different arrival times of cheaper RAM and better CPUs
could have changed computing profoundly.  I often wonder what would
have happened if the IBM PC had used a (32 bit) 68000, rather than
the 8086 (really 8088) chip, which I understand was chosen in part
because it was easy to recompile 8080 / Z80 assembly language
programs such as Wordstar for the 8086.  I think this may have been
the biggest wrong-turn in computing history other than using 32 bits
rather than 48 for IPv4.

Also, I wonder what would have happened if Apple made its initial
Macs - the best mass-market graphic-interface computers by far at the
time - with a bigger screen (and in colour) than the piddly little
monochrome things they had then.  Likewise if Apple let its OS be run
on hardware made by others, or if the early Macs had plug-in
interface cards.

  - Robin