James B. Byrne wrote:
> On Mon, July 1, 2013 14:03, John R Pierce wrote:
>> On 7/1/2013 10:57 AM, Nathan Duehr wrote:
>>> DRM'ed server hardware. Pure evil.
>>
>> why is that evil? why should you pay for features you're not using?
>>
>
> Actually, firmware control of system features has been part of HPQ's
> business practice for as long as I can remember. The HP3000 series of
> MPE/iX mini computers ran on exactly the same hardware as the HP9000
> HP-UX systems, but were priced considerably higher than their HP9000
> equivalents. However, one could not simply run MPE/iX on the HP9000
> hardware. One had to pay HPQ to come in and run a system utility that
> reset a flag on the processor to enable that. On the other hand, one
> could run HP-UX on the HP3000 hardware without requiring any changes.
<snip>
Just so you know, that's not only in the computer industry. Many years ago,
I was looking at a repair household appliances yourself book, and saw
something
I considered astounding. My late wife and I had a cheap washer - it had been
the best she could afford before we met - that had no load size control, only
one size fits all.
After looking at what the book said, I disassembled the control panel on top,
we were amazed - there *was* a water level control... but no knob for it. I
drilled a hole in the panel, reassembled it, and we used a screwdriver to
set the water level to the <click> size.
It was, apparently, cheaper for the manufacturer to make all of them the
same, but ask about $100 in the eighties to have a panel with the hole
drilled and add a knob.
mark
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