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Paul Dilley wrote: > I agree that the end result may be a better machine all round, but > where does this leave us with recommendations for DSA students who > are starting their first year in September? > > As the 'technical person' in the department I'm supposed to make > recommendations for machines that will (hopefully) see the student > through their course. In some cases, where course s/w is needed at > home, the case is clear cut. However, with a student who needs > Wordprocessing and maybe some utilities, it is less clear. Will the > cost effective option be aim low (P133/150 say, a perfectly capable > machine for current WP) with a chance that changes in the > University sector may make a replacement necessary in 2 years? Or > would it be better to convince the LEA that purchasing a PII 233 is > a more cost effective solution in the long term? > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ---- If you look at the computers recommended three years ago, they would probably be around the 486DX33 (or DX2/66), 4Mb RAM, 14" monitor, 320Mb hard disk (maybe less), no multimedia. The cost of this equipment (with a word processor and printer) would have cost about the same as a Pentium 133 or 150 costs today and would have been classed as a perfectly capable machine for WP. In fact the 486 running Windows 311 and Word 2 is still a reasonable word processor. Add a sound card and another 4Mb and it's capable of running TextHelp. If you were to upgrade to Win95 though, it will start to show it's age and struggle, but the PC was bought to help the student through their course and it has succeeded in that task. No computer is future proof and if you look at recommending PII 233 computers now, they will still be out of date in 3-4 years. Why would a student need such a powerful PC to word process with now or in the future? I'm currently recommending Pentium 133 or 150 computers with 16Mb RAM, 1.5-2Gb hard disk and a multimedia kit. My main dilemma at the moment is whether to suggest 14" or 15" screens since the latter tend to be better quality, but is this a luxury for word processing? Heath Boffey Special Needs Technical Support Officer Lancaster University %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%