Old PCsenvironmental hazard 3230

John Savard

"Can't" or "Won't"?

The design and tooling of a 486 hardware and buttociated software are done. The incremental unit cost of manufacturing them in mbutt production should be pretty low.

Indeed, while IBM used it newest semiconductor circuits for the CPU of System-360, it continued to use older transistor printed circuit cards for peripherals where they worked fine. Big cost saving for IBM. Indeed, IBM recylced old 2314 disk drives for later generation machines.

I can't help but suspect the profit margin for still making 486 machines would be pretty low. They would take away from bigger profits from larger machines.

In the 1960s the US automakers pushed the yearly model change (mostly cosmetic) very hard. They didn't sell cars, they sold dreams that the car would deliver. Very profit business while the glory days lasted. The automakers and customers would've saved much money if they kept designs more stable and used the tooling and design longer than they did. But flashy cars are where the big profits are.

Geez, I remember when DOS 5.0 came out and my coworkers were rushing to the computer stores to get a copy. When Win-95 came out people went even more nuts, camping out overnight like at a rock concert. That is a marketing man's dream come true. And I remember in the old days people bragging about the CPU type or memory "Oh, I have a 386 DX, you only have an SX".

The micro computer industry studied Alfred Sloan and his work at GM very carefully and learned well.