Jim writes:

> Well, being in the market for a PC, I decided to check this out.  A
>  "complete" system (for us, YMMV) costed out thus (in round numbers):
>
>  500 MHz computer $400
>  17" Monitor             $230
>  NIC                         $75
>  MS Office Pro          $500
>                                  ------
>  Total                         $1205
>
>  Calling my local PC supplier revealed these numbers:
>
>  Acer 533 MHz computer (includes 17" Monitor and NIC) $1115
>  MS Office Pro (OEM)
>  $389
>
>               -------
>  Total
>  $1504
>
>  Now that's a difference of $300, part of which is explained by the local PC
>  supplier offering a two-year warranty (1st year onsite, 2nd year depot).
>  Not to mention that if something goes wrong, I have someone to blame, er,
>  talk to.  So, it boils down to "is that worth $300?".

It's important to understand that we have lots of monitors, lots of keyboards
and a few NIC cards here left over from previous machines. These are the
items that seem to outlast the CPUs and inheritable from machine to machine,
so they were never part of our cost equation. This is one of the great
advantages of standardized parts. While CPU power is increasing daily, a lot
of the other parts of a PC are relatively static.

As to the second point, which may not be acceptable to most, e-Machines --
never missing a beat -- now also includes the complete StarOffice office
suite (word processor, spreadsheet, presentation graphics) provided free by
Sun Microsystems. Included also are free copies of AOL, Compuserve, Adobe
Acrobat Reader, IE 5, and Netscape 4.7, plus a few other goodies. We had to
load free copies of QCTerm and HP's JetAdmin network printing software
ourselves, but doggone, at that point, you've got a working PC.

So our starting cost was $399, which was very close to our ending cost: $417
($18 worth of shipping was the only other charge).

Wirt Atmar