Way too much hardware! What's going on?

[wizzzer]

The variety of computer hardware was so simple back in 1997, now it has
exploded and there's like a zillion pieces of hardware of every type
and they keep thinking of more variations and options constantly. Why?
It's so insane now. How many different versions of Intel CPUs and 3D
graphics cards do we need? Those engineers are going nuts creating too
much crap, which means there's a lot of stuff that isn't compatible
with a lot of other stuff and it makes it much more difficult to figure
out what you should buy.
On the other hand, I don't want to leave it up to someone else to
decide for me by getting a complete system. Anybody else think this has
gotten out of hand? Compatibility was always important in the PC
business, but now it seems like they care less about that, in order to
make you buy more new hardware and be unable to use a lot of your old
hardware which is still perfectly working.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

On the other hand, I don't want to leave it up to someone else to
decide for me by getting a complete system. Anybody else think this has
gotten out of hand? Compatibility was always important in the PC
business, but now it seems like they care less about that, in order to
make you buy more new hardware and be unable to use a lot of your old
hardware which is still perfectly working.

No, I'm not overwhelmed by the choices, but I probably would be if I
hadn't been looking at this stuff since 97.

I haven't seen compatibility be an issue in years. I think most of the
compatibility issues went away when the Windows 95/98/ME series of
operating systems went away.

Nowadays, the only remaining compatibility issues left are those faced
by Linux. Namely has somebody created a driver for their hardware under
Linux or not?

Yousuf Khan

 

[Anthony]

Called competition. Thank god thier arent 10,000 ps2 variations out thier
I'd be one broke mother

 

[AJ]

The variety of computer hardware was so simple back in 1997, now it has
exploded and there's like a zillion pieces of hardware of every type
and they keep thinking of more variations and options constantly. Why?
It's so insane now. How many different versions of Intel CPUs and 3D
graphics cards do we need? Those engineers are going nuts creating too
much crap, which means there's a lot of stuff that isn't compatible
with a lot of other stuff and it makes it much more difficult to figure
out what you should buy.

It stems from fundamental flaws in the BIG system: the goal is money first,
"the right thing" is secondary or even farther down the line of concerns.
I call it "forced innovation" or "feaux innovation". As long as someone can
market the piss out of it to get a profit on it, it's considered successful.
In a nutshell, that's the way all money-centered businesses work. Your
questions seem to be naive to the motivations of most companies: they're
not out there to "fix it for once and for all", they're just out to make a lot of
money. And one way to ensure they'll be around doing the same thing in
the future is to make things as complex as possible and get the potential
buyer to focus on "new and improved" instead of what their actual needs
are. You simply won't find the "we do the right thing" companies at the top
of the heap because the system, by definition, rewards the greediest: it's
much easier to sell something (anything) than to create something trully
useful. Computers, cars or snakeoil, it's all pretty much the same story.

Caveat emptor.

AJ

 

[keith]

No, I'm not overwhelmed by the choices, but I probably would be if I
hadn't been looking at this stuff since 97.

I haven't seen compatibility be an issue in years. I think most of the
compatibility issues went away when the Windows 95/98/ME series of
operating systems went away.

I think he's referring to the compatability between the various boards,
processors, sockets, busses.

"That's the nice thing about standards - there's so many to choose from." ;-)

 

[Tony Hill]

The variety of computer hardware was so simple back in 1997,

How simple was it? In 1997 Intel had 4 different processors
available: the Pentium, the PentiumMMX, the Pentium Pro and the
Pentium II, all of which were available at a variety of clock speeds.
Add in AMD's offering of the K5 and the K6 as well as Cyrix's 6x86 and
there were quite a few chips. Ohh, and lets not forget that some of
Cyrix and AMD's chips just would not work in certain boards, some of
the older Pentium boards didn't have the split-rail voltage required
for the Pentium MMX and the PPro and PII needed totally different
motherboards altogether.

Meanwhile Matrox was going one way with their 3D capabilities in the
Millennium, while 3DFX was pushing in another direction with their
Voodoo cards, nVidia and ATi were going in a different direction and
then there was Rendition going their own way.

Ohh, and not only did we have both PCI and AGP cards (and some AGP
motherboards that weren't compatible with some AGP cards), but we had
the funky setup of 3DFX Voodoo cards where you had a 2D graphics card
alongside your separate 3D graphics card with an extra cable
connecting the two. And when they brought out SLI cards it just made
things even trickier.

now it has
exploded and there's like a zillion pieces of hardware of every type
and they keep thinking of more variations and options constantly. Why?
It's so insane now. How many different versions of Intel CPUs and 3D
graphics cards do we need? Those engineers are going nuts creating too
much crap, which means there's a lot of stuff that isn't compatible
with a lot of other stuff and it makes it much more difficult to figure
out what you should buy.

Just how is this different from ANY other time in the recent history
of computing? Maybe if you go back to 1980 where you're choice was
either an IBM PC or an Apple, then you might have a point, but
certainly for the last 10-15 yeas there have been LOTS of competing
technologies out there.

Really all you're running into is the fact that the fuzziness of
looking back on things tends to block out all the fringe stuff that
didn't quite stand the test of time. In 2010, you'll probably look
back on this day and think that everything was really quite simple
here as well.

 

[Delbert Cecchi]

I think he's referring to the compatability between the various boards,
processors, sockets, busses.

"That's the nice thing about standards - there's so many to choose from." ;-)

I don't know about those other places, but this is America. Go to the
store there are 17 kinds of ketchup and 50 kinds of barbeque sauce to
choose from. Why should computers be any different. It is a hallmark
of a market for things that are fundamentally the same. There will be
many variations, however slight, as the sellers strive to differentiate
their products.

del cecchi