Disklavier

Greetings kenmortgages,

the little Dell Optiplex computers were never cheap. they were made
small to fit places like sales counters or in dr's examining rooms. to
make them small they do require custom power supplies and fans. most
of them have CD drives that are also used in notebook computers. all
of these parts are pretty easy to find on E-Bay for now and will
probably be available pretty much as easily as any old computer parts.
don't have any idea if Dell sells something different in Australia.
maybe there is another company making SFF computers.

the main reason i mentioned these is because they all have floppy
drives and parallel and serial ports but are more modern computers in
most respects. you can get decent processors and memory capacity. most
old desktop computers that still have floppy drive capability on the
motherboard are ancient with processor sockets that take only slow
chips and are limited to small amounts of memory. also, they are
ancient and not likely to live much longer unless you are lucky enough
to find new old stock.

some of the optiplex also have ps2 ports which are getting rare today.
fortunately there are converts to USB in case you need ps2 and the
computer doesn't have it.

Sunday, January 31, 2010, 7:58:05 PM, you wrote: >   


> Strangely enough - the PC I borrowed this morning was a Dell -
> cheap office model. The only problem with Dell in Australia is that
> they are made with a lot of non-standard parts. Power supply failure
> is a real problem I've had with clients, as are video card problems.
> I'm going to scrounge one off eBay as a back-up however.

> Ken

> --- In disklavier@yahoogroups.com, "Frank & Gean Evans" <evans@...> wrote:
>>
>> I absolutely agree. The Dells have another "good feature". From a full 
>> format you do not have to activate WIN XP if you use a Dell XP disk. Saves a 
>> lot of time.
>> I have just recently disposed of a bunch of the GX270-280s when the local 
>> Comm. Col. had an auction. The working ones went for $5.00 - $10.00 and the 
>> ones that had "bad" mother boards went for a buck.
>> I think I changed the caps. on about 12 motherboards.
>> Sold them at a big savings for the local folks as well as upgrading my shop 
>>  
>> 

> 
 

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