roundtable: Re: Giving terminals away

roundtable: Re: Giving terminals away

Re: Giving terminals away

jronay@bga.com
Tue, 21 Feb 1995 16:06:37 -0600 

Date: Tue, 21 Feb 1995 16:06:37 -0600
Message-Id: <199502212206.QAA04908@zoom.bga.com>
To: roundtable@cni.org
From: jronay@bga.com
Subject: Re: Giving terminals away


Consider the Fisher Pry curve and think about what we did with our old 
aircraft.  Same thing is occuring in the 286 computer market.  Exporters 
buy for around $20 to $40 and sell for $300 to 1800 or more depending 
upon the state of awareness.  Be nice if our "poor" and our students could 
inherit the equipment but they cannot affort it.  Others ship to England 
where processors extract precious metals, ship them back to the states, 
and resell the "scrap" to manufacturers.   Both hugh businesses.  Very 
profitable.  The 386s are entering the pipe line as well.  

Warmest regards,   

 
James E. Ronay
Synergistic Solution Technologies, Inc.  
(512) 331-2028  :   Fax - same
Technology Futures, Inc.
(512) 258-8898  : Fax (512) 0087
 If your position is everywhere, your momentum is zero.

<jronay@bga.com>
 

>>Re the discussion about giving terminals away -- folks on this list ought
>>to know about the French minitel experiment, started in the early 1980
>>under the Socialists, which had exactly the intention of that and went
>>well towards it.  The idea was both to bring everyone into the system, to
>>identify a niche in the global information economy by developing a
>>terminal so cheap to produce that it could be exported, and to stimulate
>>the emergence of services by putting in the infrastructure. The number of
>>services exploded (though many are pornographic), it took a lot longer to
>>get the terminals around than projected but now they're about ubiquitous
>>-- but the machine isn't exportable and is now quite outdated, for it's
>>dumb.  Traps as well as advantages.
>>
>>Sandra Braman, U of Illinois
>><s-braman@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
>
>
>Sandra cites a very good example why we should be very careful about
>encouraging corporations to dumping their obselete equipment on those 
>who may need easy to use up-to-date reasonably capable equipment to 
>access information. Personally, I applaud the goal of universal access 
>to information sources such as the Internet. But one has to carefully 
>examine all the consequences of each approach to that goal.
>
>Jim Burger
><burger@apple.com>

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