🚀 go-pugleaf

On Monday, April 16, 2018 at 9:18:48 PM UTC-4, Dave Garland wrote:

> > And while an adding machine would find multiple uses around
> > the house, especially for balancing one's checkbook and a few
> > other household chores (and sometimes for kids' homework*),
> > a computer would also have plenty of uses around the home,
> > such as email and word processing. 
 
> But note that email probably incurs a monthly charge for Inet access. 

There are several free email services.


> Maybe that can be rolled into the cost of your phone (which will 
> probably be far higher than it was in 1967). 

Basic telephone service (if it is still available) has remained
the same, adjusted for inflation.  But not many people get it.

Most telephone services today include free national long distance.
Obviously long distance usage varies by individual, but generally,
most people are saving money.  (Note that "long distance" include
regional calling, or "short haul toll"; that costs can add up if
one is a suburban subscriber.)


> Or the cost of cable TV 
> (which will certainly be far higher than in 1967). 

The television aspect of cable TV certainly has dramatically
increased, yet, they have also dramatically increased the
number of commercials in a show.  For instance, I timed it
and years ago it was roughly 25% commercials while now it
is 40%.

However, if one gets telephone service with their cable TV,
I believe the price is fairly reasonable, and it includes some
special features (which used to cost extra) as well as national
long distance.  One downside, at least in my area, is that
cable-TV telephone service has no power outage backup--if the
power goes, so does your telephone service, and it remains out
for a while even after power is restored.  Cable TV phone 
requires _both_ power in your house as well as power for the
junction boxes.




> I'll acknowledge 
> that these days, the various softwares can be found for free (whether 
> PD, free, open source, or pirated). For the WP, don't forget to add in 
> the cost of a printer (though if the number of clogged ink cartridges 
> I've seen is any indication, it's rarely used).


>   If someone is a collector,
> > the computer can be used to index the items within a collection,
> > allowing sorting by different keywords (e.g. date, description,
> > origin, etc.)
> > 
>  From the day's of the first HP(?) "home computer" long before PCs 
> appeared, this has been one of the suggested uses. And I'm sure it 
> would work fine for that. But in over 3 decades of providing support, 
> I've yet to see anyone actually do it (for long, anyhow).

FWIW, I know lots of people who do it.  I do it for myself, though
I just use notepad and plain text files.  But being able to 
easily search the text file is a powerful tool.


> Now, I'm not arguing against the computer. I've got a bunch of them, 
> and some are in daily use. While somewhere I have an adding machine, 
> I'm not sure that it still works (I do know the Selectric stopped 
> working).