Subject: Breaking chips To: djgpp AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu (DJ's GPP mailing list) Date: Fri, 5 Feb 93 13:48:43 EST From: Stephen Turnbull Fixing things that aren't broke is a classic ploy in price discrimination by a monopolist. This is exactly what the airlines do by requiring 30 days advance purchase on a Supersaver fare. Those of us who know better are not going to buy an "entry-level" 486SX system; we will pay cost plus monopoly profit to Intel to get a machine that is (after all) worth it to us. Pseudo-power-users (and some others who get trapped by the fact that some software demands the FPU, although their application does not) will try to save $$$ by buying the 486SX at a low price. Intel gets a normal (or slightly better) profit on that chip (since its a very competitive, low-margin market). Then, in the best of both worlds for Intel, the 486SX buyer tries to put up GO32 and fails, or decides to do some CAD or Maple, and gets a 487. Two (or maybe three, if the user gets disgusted and decides after a couple of months to upgrade from the 486SX/25 to a 486DX2/66) chips sold where only one was needed. Unfortunately, there's not much we can do about this except root for Cyrix, AMD, Fujitsu, NEC, Motorola, DEC Alpha, et al. Getting the Federal Trade Commission or the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department involved just screws things up worse in the medium and long terms. (NB: IBM is getting theirs, now, despite beating the Justice Department in the '69--'81 antitrust action.) The moral of the story is: buy twice the hardware you think you need, it's money well spent---you'll be lucky if it's half your actual requirement. This is especially true if you can't afford it. More seriously, do the research or find a trustworthy local vendor/systems integrator. -- Stephen Turnbull The Ohio State University, Department of Economics 410 Arps Hall, 1945 N. High St., Columbus, OH 43210-1172 USA Phone: (614) 292-0654 Fax: ...-3906 Email: turnbull DOT 1 AT osu DOT edu