For what it's worth, I knew exactly what you were trying to get that when you said "think about that statement for a minute" the first time.

But you *do* get the backup for free, it's the restoration you pay for. I'm aware that you probably think this sounds like disingenuous pedantry, but the evidence that the "free" backup isn't valueless is that... you try getting your data back from a faulty hard drive *without* a backup and you'll be damn lucky to get some (or any) of it back for $25!

I might be wrong, but I'm not aware of player-only machines having been a significant percentage of the market, at least not when the mass market was taking off in the late 70s. I'd have thought that- aside from the fact that the mechanics would be almost the same- that the technology required to create a playback-only head would be only marginally less complex than one that could record.

DVD players aren't as good a comparison because they were *much* cheaper than late-70s/early-80s VCRs (in real terms) during the early-2000s, which was around the time they *really* exploded in popularity (i.e. sub-£100 in the UK, and rapidly falling even further versus around ten times that price for a VCR in late 70s terms).

Interesting that you mention DVD recorders being bought by old people because they worked like a VCR, because I made a similar comment about how (and why) they had some popularity a few years back but were ultimately a red herring. Namely that DVD recorders were based on a new, digital technology yet the mode of operation was similar enough to the VCR that anyone used to that way of doing things would see the DVD recorder as its natural successor. But this misses the point that in the digital age you only really need DVDs if you plan on archiving and 90% of VCR recording was just timeshifting, so the PVR is the better choice for those people- they just had to have time to make the paradigm shift of not having lots of tapes and discs and the like.

It didn't help that in practice, DVD recorders had annoying (and pointless) complexities that VCRs didn't, like media compatibility, finalising discs and the like.

This assumes that people would have been willing to pay the same (or very close) for a playback-only videocassette machine instead of one that could record. I doubt removing the latter facility would have decreased the cost by that much.

Remember that when they first came out, home video recorders were very expensive by modern standards, and in part it was probably the mass market that helped to drive the price down in the first place. Chicken and egg. A playback-only machine, even if marginally cheaper, would have been a much harder sell.

They reported that a bus had been found at the South Pole, but I couldn't find one about a bus on the moon. Perhaps you're confusing the two somewhat similar stories, or maybe they did another?

Speaking of "don't mess with our stuff", was it Superman II (Zod and friends) or Superman IV (Nuclear Man) where he had a fight with the baddies and the American flag got knocked over, then (spoiler follows *cough*) when he inevitably won, he put the flag back up?

Of course, let's not also forget the World War II bomber they found up there.

Hmm. I don't understand why you'd want to sabotage their mission by handing them BASIC though. :-(

Some guy called "Eck Zibit" or something just called. He was saying something about "yo' dog"... do you know anything about this?

Except that this is Doom we're talking about, and despite its x86-centric origins, it's been ported to just about every damn platform in existence. So there's probably a version out there for a 6502-based machine, along with others for the Intel 4004, the the Colossus and for a half-broken abacus some guy found on a skip.

Though in the case of the abacus, you do need floating-point beads apparently.

Well, they released a motherboard around a decade back with integrated vacuum tube based audio.

I remembered this as being a separate soundcard, but I couldn't find reference to anything like that online, so I might have been wrong. Still, given that onboard audio isn't- or at least wasn't back then- generally considered to be the best (i.e. not what the audiophiles would have gone for), this seems like a strange mix. As if the valve/tube-based PCI card wouldn't have been weird enough, mind you. :-)

*I* started out by pointing out the flaw in the "monopolies don't last forever, therefore monopolies aren't a problem". You were the one who brought up the issue of monopoly legality and other issues in your reply that weren't directly relevant to my original post, and now you're complaining that *I* don't have all the answers?!

I do know what you want apparently- you want us all to accept that "monopolies are not anything other than good" (even though you yourself had to qualify this assertion immediately after you made it(!)).

Well, maybe you would. Of course, if you were the only "viable" company, then there would be no competition and nothing pushing you to stay "one step ahead".

You're telling me how I *should* think about your desire to be a monopolist? This does come across as a little preachy and egotistical.

My feelings towards capitalism is that it works best when it's not tied down too much (giving it no reason to make the effort nor space to make the effort it)- but also when it's not allowed to run amok with no check on its own self-interest. I don't trust anyone that far, even if *they* think (or claim) that they're entirely benevolant.