I made a media center (just audio used) for my brother-in-laws lake house (at the dock). Works beautifully. 100 W/ch amp, PS and PI in a sealed box.

These things are just amazing.

Why do use a rotary dial instead of the tried and true crank you turn to ask Mabel to connect you by first name?

Yep. My son has one that he has alternatively transformed into:

- a battery-powered robot with wheels driven by a wireless keyboard
- a Java platform displaying several drill-in fractals including the Mandelbrot set
- a video game emulator for all the old eight-bit Nintendo games
- an interface for my Ham radio for digital transmissions

Funny story. I worked in an IBM 370 Mainframe shop as a co-op in the 1980s. It has been interesting watching PCs, GUIs, networking, the internet, et all unfold.

I'm dead sure a $35 Raspberry PI would smoke the HP, DG and a 68000 all at the same time. The damn thing can do video transposition.

You can use any search engine you want.

Yep, worked with them, too, and you're absolutely correct. In fact it was chips like those that killed DEC, Data General, CDC, and some of the HP mini lines. I've worked on them all. By golly I figure a Raspberry Pi or two could outrun some of them systems, LOL!

Funny story here... The lower management of the company I worked for spent a small fortune on a Data General Eclipse system without consulting us techies and then found out later it wouldn't do what they bought it for. Oops. They spent another fortune on an HP 1000, that we recommended, that did the job, but were still stuck with the Eclipse, which they had to hide budget-wise from upper management. Now the Eclipse had a real pretty blinky-light display so one of my coworkers suggested it be mounted right next to the HP in the computer room and we could program it to constantly run diagnostics on itself to keep the blinky-lights working like mad to look like it was an integral part of the project. When upper management visited the computer room they thought the whole thing looked really cool and, since the project was very successful, were satisfied that all was well. About a year later, another smaller project came along and one of the lower managers (whose ass we saved) asked me if I could get it to work on the Eclipse so they didn't have to buy another HP. Furthermore, I'd get a steak dinner if I could get it up in less than four months. With lots of overtime and the aid of a very sharp co-op student we got our steak dinner and the Eclipse was finally earning its keep.

Looks a lot like their Fusion product. I think I'll get it when I upgrade this Mac to a PC.

I installed VMWare under Win XP Pro and Win7 (Ultimate and Pro) and I ran Linux and Win XP in VMWare virtual machines (with mini-tower i5-2500k cpu o/c at 4.5GHz and on a couple laptops, iirc.)

I typically play with the server VM products (we currently use Hyper-V :( not my decision), but my experience has been that VM Ware is a far more mature, flexible product. We've had a lot of problems getting backups of our Hyper-V environments up to our replicated site simply because not many products work well with Hyper-V while they all support advanced features on VM Ware.

Which product? Workstation Pro?

Yes. IMO it's a better VM engine than Hyper-V and far more flexible. Hyper-V tends to choke when not using Windows.

Can you install VM Ware under Windows, or setup VMWare as the base OS?

imo, the MSFT view is not to support the competition out of the box when most customers get no benefit from it and it may drive a few to switch. For those who can benefit they either pay a lot more (Mac) or install VMWare themselves (perhaps with a more experienced friend;^) VMWare installation isn't too bad but with a system that's open to a zillion different hardware possibilities under Windows or Linux, it can become complex. Apple deals with that by limiting the hardware to very few choices at high prices. For their target market it works. I'm not their target market and since they aren't the federal government, I have a choice. I like having the choice of hardware, too, and Apple has never included that option. (I also have a lot of accumulated knowledge using windows that gives me a reason to keep using it until MSFT completely chases me away. W10 has done that, but W7 is still a viable option for me at present.)
Apple's way of doing things is a continual irritation on the iphone and if the service wasn't given to me, I'd be using a different smartphone; one that doesn't require me to get permission to do things from Apple because their software is in the way by design (to make more money for Apple by picking my pocket. Definitely reminds me of the feds in that respect.)

I'm not really the target market for the feds either, but I don't have a practical choice, dammit.;^)

You are quite right about Moto vs Intel, and where Apple is now. (See note to mccannon above). The only thing I really like about Apple now is the Unix underpinnings, and the ability to run Windows/Unix/Mac simultaneously with VM Ware. Doesn't seem like anybody puts VM Ware on a Windows box like that yet.

Yes and now they are playing games with upgrades: "Not new HW, no SW updates". Clearly a ploy to force new HW sales. Not a good strategy.

I had given in to Windows after NT, and work required me to be Windows. Then my wife needed a system for school. She is not computer literate, so I put her on Apple in ~2005. That worked well. My son ended up with her MacBook, and I wanted to teach him some coding. I bought the Apple Developer Workshop and my own Mac. When my PC finally died. I switched to that Mac that I had. Works great. Can read PC disks and manage them better than a PC. Runs Windows with VM Ware very well. Now is is aging, and no longer updatable.
THe HW gap is ridiculously wide now. A good PC is $2,500-3000. A very powerful PC is ~$5.000 (w AMD2950x or Intel 7890 etc and Nvidia). A Mac variously matching the middle PC is $10,000. I can afford any, but don't see wasting that kind of money when, one thing I want to do is run Windows on it.

There was a lot of that then (and now.) The Moto chips were very cool, but its all water long gone down stream. Today Apple hardware is still overpriced and no longer offers the advantages that were true back then. Now they get rich off those addicted to the brand. I've never been brand conscious unless there was a real tangible benefit for me in the product itself. I saw it in the mac products 20 years ago, but in a narrow niche that didn't include me as a beneficiary.
I have an iphone because it was given to me. It's a PITA to use sometimes. So are other brands of smart phones. But they are most of the time very good devices that assist my productivity.
For my computing needs, I buy 3-7 year old used intel/windows (usually Dell) and they work just as well as newer gear regardless of the brand. Much less expensive, too. But I have lots of experience with computers and don't need hand holding. The internet is a wealth of information for people who can learn to read the tech jargon and use a screwdriver.
Gates was a very bright entrepreneur years ago. I think he lost his way as many do when beaten down constantly by statist rubbish and government meddling. He's certainly not Howard Rourke or Hank Rearden.

Like a PDP11 on a chip.

Did a lot of assembly coding on the Motorola chips back in the '70s and '80s. Awesome hardware.

I switched over to an iMac in 2010 and, after a very short learning curve, was glad I did. By 2012 I also had a Macbook Pro, iPhone, and iPad. However, things seem to be changing. Bootups and program loads are getting slower, just like the old Windows systems (I do not have virus or malware running - I checked). What I dislike the most is, without warning, Apple did an update to Numbers on the iMac/Macbook and I can no longer read the spread sheets on the iPhone (spread sheet is kept in iCloud). I get an error saying I need to buy a newer model iOS device. Is this a ploy by Apple to force people to buy new EXPENSIVE hardware? My application is simple in all I do is maintain lists of items in a collection and while I'm out shopping I can check the list on the iPhone to see if I already have the item. I do have a work around that is simple enough, but why should I? I don't think Jobs would put up with some of this crap going on.

I'm still happy with my Apple products, but that is starting to change because if Apple starts becoming more like MS, then why spend the extra bucks on Apple when MS would be just as good?

I didn't mean be philanthropic with Windows, but he was rulthless and the community rallied around his stuff like the AGW zealots do today, disbursing lies and crap.
I'll never forget the John C Dvorak article on "Power Users don't use a GUI" What a load of crap. In addition, the 68000, particularly 68020/881 and 68030 were vastly faster than the 80286/386 processors, and 68000 series math was extended precision in HW, not even single precision. It wasn't even a race. However, ass-munching liars like Dvorak would dismiss the Mac as a graphics machine, not for number crunching. Then why did the Mac use the same processors as Apollo and Sun workstations?

"Now Gates is trying to buy a place in heaven with philanthropy and politics he never practiced."

If Gates had been as philanthropical with Windows as he does with his Foundation money, we'd have...

Nope, we'd still have some trying to force his will on everyone else. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has a lot of money, but they use it to try to tell other nations what to do - especially birth control.

I really hate BING, and MS. Wish there was a good alternative.

MS was the original monp-u-la-tor and hasn't innovated a single thing. Macs were completely superior in every way, particularly any measure of productivity, but people kept putting up with MS until finally after IBM helped them develop a real OS (OS/2), did Windows NT emerge as a non-segmented memory, pretend multi-tasking pile of crap. Now since Windows 7, PCs can pretty much do anything Macs can, but Macs could do it 30 years ago.
Jobs was an idiot about some things, and Jean Louis Gassee was a real moron. Do you know that Apple had a Mac OS that would run on a regular PC back in the 1980s, and Gassee killed it after it was complete?

Now Gates is trying to buy a place in heaven with philanthropy and politics he never practiced.

I don't have a home computer. I have been instructed in the library to use Google Chrome. Internet Explorer was used before. I don't really understand why the change came about. But the symbol is still visible at the bottom of the screen.

I basically think about the same way Zingales does.
Private people can get in private associations and start their own companies. I do not, however, think that government should intervene and bust up the companies that already exist.
Of course, personally, I do not make that much use of computers; I do not even have, at this time, a working cellphone; my phone is a landline, rotary dial. As to personal information, I have long held to the policy that if you do not want something to be seen by everybody in the United States, don't put it on the Internet.

govt is not the solution...govt is the problem...trust free enterprise...liberty and freedom...the only safe way to proceed...