Not to take anything away from Dell, but the innards of a Dell owe nothing to Dell.  The mobo of your Dimension 2400 is made by
Intel and features integrated Graphics cards and sound card.  Whilst :) this is a desirable feature for a low end, never to be
upgraded PC, it is a design that many people shy away from because you are stuck with what you get at the beginning.  Many PC makers
have offered this format over the years, including Compaq and HP.  Dell didn't invent anything here.  Actually, they never do.

The problem with integrated Graphics is that part of your system memory will be used for the video card.  This reduces the memory
for the system and prevents the video card from having access to fast, dedicated memory.  For instance, these days, the top of the
line video cards from ATI and nVidia feature 128 and 256MB of dedicated, on-board memory.  Your system uses between 32 and 64MB of
DVMT (which means that your system memory will dedicate between 32 to 64MB of its 128MB to the video card.

The problem with the Integrated AC97 Audio card is that it provides very basic sound.  If you want something better, you will need
to add a real sound card.

Your system has an Intel Celeron with 128KB of L2 cache.  The Pentium 4 has 512KB of L2 cache.

All in all, you got a very basic system at a good price.  I would suggest you immediately upgrade the memory to something
worthwhile, remembering that you have started with a bare minimum and are losing up to half of it to drive the video card. You can
get a 128MB module from Kingston.com for $36 or less.  I would consider upgrading that system to 512MB for $143.  But that's just
me.

Again, Dell didn't invent any technology here, they just package at a great price.

Denys

-----Original Message-----
From: HP-3000 Systems Discussion [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of John Lee
Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2003 11:51 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Carly interview - "Dave Packard did fire and his nickname was The Evil One "

(Michael) Dell is very intelligent and very low-profile.  He's making more
money with a company that's a fraction of the size and headaches as HP.  In
some ways, he's the Henry Ford of our era.  He's revolutionized some
business and manufacturing processes.

I just bought a 2.4 Ghz Dell PC for $499 including LCD monitor.  We opened
it up..incredibly simple, efficient design...there's only one board
inside...fan funnels to processor in a very clever and efficient way.  If
it weren't for the CDRW and floppy drives, you wouldn't even need the
enclosure.

John Lee




At 09:35 AM 7/24/03 -0700, Emerson, Tom wrote:
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Chuck Ryan [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
>>
>> http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103_2-5051569.html
>>
>Hmmm... while everyone is focused on how hot the ink is, did anyone else
catch the line
>
>   "All the while, Fiorina is going about the refashioning of HP's company
culture, a process that picked up steam with the Compaq merger. Her
ambition: accelerate the corporate metabolism while still retaining the
positive legacy embodied in the famed "HP Way." "
>
>The phrase "accellerate the corporate metabolism" really caught my eye --
doesn't metabolism indicate how fast an entity burns fuel and produce waste?
>
>Further down, there is a serious "ouch" line -- too bad it couldn't apply
to our favorite...
>
>[CF]   ...(Dell's) a great company, but what they're trying to do now is
not going to be as easy as what they've done for the last five years. And
what they've done for the last five years is tune to perfection a single
way of doing business around a relatively narrow product line.
>
>[cnet] But why does that narrow a product line sell?
>[CF]   Because they do a good job at it.
>
>Taken the other way, it could be seen as admission that HP doesn't know
beans about selling "a narrow product line" :)
>
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