How does this solve the basic problem, namely that hardware vendors and game makers have two opposing interests:

Hardware vendors want to sell new stuff, and forcedly raising minimum specs is therefore in their advantage.

Games vendors want to sell as many copies as possible to a biggest possible potential audience, and keep the specs at the minimum necessary, and might even want to do extra work to achieve this (like providing different binaries for different versions of DirectX).

And finally then there is Microsoft that wants to sell us all a new Windows

Leffler moved on to FreeBSD afaik, and even was FreeBSD Foundation president for a while

Pity they dropped the only architecture I was interested in

Hmm, here in the NL we had quarters (called kwartjes btw) when it was still guilders, and now we have 20 c coins. Can't say that it was really different or hard to get used to.

Do 1 year with a battery.

Graphing, no. Programmable however is something that I do use.

I still use my HP48g from time to time. Mainly the mol weight application (periodic system).

Similarly, I sometimes have to predict timelines in the field, and just ram the formulas in it.

I already thought it was a bit funny to talk about the day before Black Saturday, seeing it is still so long away:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Saturday_(France)
 

IIRC MS Server versions support PAE. 36-bit kernel, but 32-bit userland :-)

True, but even then there are more hidden assumptions.

Namely that base cognitive skills are independent of upbringing and education level. Something that may be assumed for schools, but is harder in an historic context where 50 years ago when only a very small part of the populace had education after primary school.

Or 100 years ago, where even primary school was considered privileged

Maybe, but I'll be the one deciding to upgrade, not google.

That's what I use old HDD's for. Offsite backup. In an enclosure and out of the house.

WHY would anyone program in anything else? Serious question.

Don't forget about Kuru, the other well known Prion disease that once ran rampant under Cannibals on New Guinea :-)

I don't know what this babble is about. I just describe the situation.

And no, what you say is a different dimension, and IMHO unrelated;

As said if you remain in the same company in a non technical occupation (most notably only middle management) you do see steady progression, and you don't have to set up your own shop.

If what you said were true, it would also go for all non-technical staff.

That's the problem in the corporate world. But not every company is a big IT centric corporation

But wages progression also in mid and small companies wages progression for technical (not just IT) staff stalls.

Media have been raving on about the tech/beta deficits for two decades now, but the reality is that a business trainee still gets a starter wages above a tech graduate (whose masters are considered "heavier")