I Think I’ll Wait Til Next Year To Buy A Computer
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IN THE PAPER– Hey, I noticed in the local advertisements that the newer Pentium 4′s have dropped in price. No, I’m not going to take advantage of the lower prices–not yet–because I know that there will be something faster on the market very soon. I’m just being cautious, because if I bought that high performance state-of-the-art machine right now, I would just kick myself later.
I’m not going to get a new computer now, because next year, I’m sure I could buy one that has double the processing power, and with twice the storage space for exactly the same price.
No, I’m not going to get caught in that consumer trap when in six months the machine I buy today will be completely worthless tomorrow. It makes better economic sense for me to do my taxes with an adding machine, write letters to my family by hand, and play solitaire using an old-fashioned deck of playing cards.
‘, ‘
You see I know, that as soon as I give the hardware vendor my VISA card (if I had a VISA card), the computer system I’ve just purchased will already be incapable of running the latest-greatest must-have must-play games. I’m far better off with a chess board and a well-worn Monopoly game.
No sir, you’re not going to get me to buy-in on last year’s technology dressed up like tomorrow’s solution. I might as well buy a used machine–but I’m not stupid enough to spend money on obsolete technology. Where would that get me? Microsoft Windows ’98? I might as well severe my arm at the elbow!
Believe me, I’ve been watching this play out for some time. It began way back when, when I considered buying that innovative XT computing machine. I held out then, because I heard they were working on the vaunted 286 machine–a much faster and just-as-affordable computer. And again with the 386. Sure enough, right around the corner was the 486. And then along came the Pentium. Was I going to buy one of these fancy machines with the screaming processing speed and the enormous 20meg hard drives? No. Because I already knew that the P-90 would be replaced with the P-133, and then the P-166. You realize how much money I saved by not getting suckered into that stale-dated piece of silicon crap? I could probably have been more productive with an electric abacus!
But oh, I was tempted to spend $2,000 on the Pentium Pro, because they said it was the fastest machine that there would ever be. But I didn’t! Because I knew, oh I knew, that the moment I plugged that machine in at home, I would be ready to sell it for ¼ of the price I paid, because somewhere the Pentium 2’s were already getting ready for the assembly lines. And did I buy one of those? Hell no! As sure as the sun goes down at night, so would the value of that P2, because there was going to be another faster machine with an even higher speed processor waiting in the wings. And you know, I was right again! That 233MHz machine was nothing compared to the 266MHZ and then the 300MHz. Boy was I pleased with myself and my consumer acumen.
The years went by and new machines continued to appear. I watched everyone else pick up their new Pentium 2 computers, and while they were smiling on the outside, I smiled on the inside. Patiently I would continue to wait, because those too would become worthless in a blink of an eye. Yes, I was right again. The Pentium 3 swooped in and turned the Pentium 2’s into landfill. The P3 seemed like a marvel in technology, but I wasn’t to be fooled. I had seen this pattern all too many times before. Lurking in the shadows was a faster machine, with greater bus speeds, bigger caches, and enormous super-mega-gigabyte drives. I didn’t own a computer, but who was the smarter one?
I could wait some more. I could be more patient than the wolf spider I had read about in a book. No sir, I wouldn’t be wasting my evenings surfing the Interweb, listening to music, or learning how to use Photoshop, not when my machine would barely be able to keep up.
Had I bought that P3, I would have surely been the fool, because the Pentium 4 had already arrived. My brother scoffs at me for being too cautious, too thrifty, too prudent. But he is the fool you see! He is the whetstone that grinds himself against the cutting-edge. For since 1988, he has been buying a brand new machine every two years, pouring thousands of dollars into hardware that becomes worthless faster than politician’s promise.
All those countless hours he has spent playing games, learning programming languages, reading, writing, and mastering software applications could have been put to better use. Oh sure, I only have a Hotmail address that I access from a terminal at the public library, and I work in a dead-end job writing ad copy on an IBM Selectric, while by brother thrives in a tech-savvy industry. But who’s the wiser one?
No I have never played Doom, or Quake, or Everquest, and no, I don’t know the difference between hot-swapping and wife-swapping, but the money I have saved by not ever purchasing a computer has helped me get almost slightly closer to becoming rich as he has spent becoming enriched. Maybe I’ll buy a computer next year because Moore’s Law can’t fight me forever.
This story about Moore’s Law and computers is brought to you by The Toque,
the world leader in Moore’s Law parody, Moore’s Law satire, and other Moore’s Law humour.
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