Chapter 10. Working with Hardware

The computer system you use today won’t be the system you use tomorrow. A PC is only as good as the next upgrade that makes it obsolete, in the eyes of a computer industry bent on constant upgrades. According to many of the surveys that abound in the PC industry, your system will exist in one form or another for about three years. At which time you’ll dump it and get a new one. That is, if you believe the polls.

Part of the reason for this view of hardware is the corporate strategy that says it’s less expensive to get a new system than it is to upgrade an old one. (Many of these systems are $2,000 or less.) In fact, given that many corporate machines use mediocre components to save on cost, this idea is probably ...

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