Butch,
I doubt you can build one for what you can buy them for these days. Never
heard of a Dell Detention, sounds like one they market to the Federal Bureau
of Prisons.
The Studio is an upscale line of desktops, whereas the Optiplex is the
normal home line; they also have Vostro which is tailored for business.
Most newer computers don't have parallel or serial ports any more, USB has
really taken over because it is faster. You can get both USB-to-parallel
and USB-to-serial converters. However, the HP-960 printer you said you
couldn't find drivers for? Check this page
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareCategory?os=4063&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&sw_lang=&product=77146
It appears that there are drivers for both 32 and 64-bit Win 7.
As for some of your other questions:
1. You can probably get boards for floppies, but it's easier to buy a USB
floppy drive for $20 if you really need one. I read that Sony will stop
making floppy 3.5 inch disks next year, so I guess if I had a bunch of
things on floppies, I'd move them to memory cards.
2. You can buy external USB card reader/writers for $15, or you can get
them built in to the PC. My HP laptop has a card reader for SD cards; my
desktop has a 19-in-1 card reader for almost any type of memory card.
3. I kinow some people don't like to consider refurbished units, but I've
had excellent luck with them. Our HP laptop was refurbed but you'd never
know it wasn't new. You can save 50% off the equivalent new laptop.
My wife just bought a refurbished HP P-6230Y desktop. Specs: 750GB hard
drive; 6GB memory; 2.8GHz Athlon processor; DVD-RW drive with liteScribe; 6
USB ports; built-in memory card reader/writer; Wi-fi card supporting
802.11/b/g/n; Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit. I think we paid $470 for that.
The only bad thing about it was the stupid HP Multimedia keyboard which has
a strange arrangement for the keys, so it got substituted with a standard
USB keyboard.
HTH,
Steve, K8SP
----- Original Message -----
From: "Butch Bussen" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, May 18, 2010 2:04 AM
Subject: Re: computer shopping
> Well lets try this again. I should make sure the whole text is copied to
> the blipboard before closing and not saving the file. My sister who lives
> in Eastern Colorado is thinking of getting a new laptop and desktop Their
> present desktop is getting a little old and they had a near crash last
> week I helped them recover from, so she is thinking about upgrading to a
> desktop and laptop. I would assume she Will want windows 7 although I
> have never messed with that at all. If I'm talking main brand, such as
> Dell or HP, Can you get boards with parallel ports any more?
> Her printer is a parallel port, and I think they run quicken for their
> office books. Their printer is an Hp 960, and I looked around on line and
> couldn't even find out for sure if windows 7 drivers are available. Can
> you even get a board that will support a floppy any more? Can anyone
> briefly tell me what the difference between a Dell detention, studio
> desktop, or optiplex? I have a older dell Optiplex and like it.
>
> I guess I'm looking at Hp, or Dell, or could build my own, but I'd have to
> ship and that is another problem. The desktop is pretty much bisiness and
> should have an extra pci slot or two for adding a wireless network and so
> forth. The laptop is used mostly for photos, I don't she does much
> editing, but it should have a card reader. Any ideas, suggestions or
> comments are welcome.
>
> Sorry the first note didn't go through.
>
> 73s, Butch, Wa0VJR
|
