Ok, now I'm feeling inspired. On some of these, I'm unclear how many microbrocessors are in the box. Desktop (Phenom II), Former desktop (Dual Opteron), Former former desktop (K6), Former^3 desktop (486) Fileserver (Via nano), Former fileserver (Via C3), Former^2 fileserver (PPro, why do I still have this?) Fanless HTPC with X-Fi, I'll count that as 2 Laptop Axim PocketPC, Casio PocketPC, Palm III Lyra II (shooting practice anyone?) 3x Gameboy Advance (z80 and ARM7 each), Nintendo DS (ARM7 and ARM9), PSP NES, SNES, n64, Gamecube, Wii, Sega Saturn (2x SH-2, VDP-1, VDP-2, geometery DSP, 68EC000, FH1 DSP, SH-1, MCU, who designed this thing??), Dreamcast, Playstation(R3000, Geometry, Decompression engine), PS2 (confusing, at least 3), PS3 DSL router, wireless router TV probably has one Bread machine There's a shelf of my bookshelf with CPUs I have collected (8088, Cyrix 2, 4x Pentium Pro, K6-2, Xeon DP, Athlon X2, Pentium 4, Pentium D, R5000, R10000) ...and a sliderule. What is that? 64? I am surprised how un-modern my kitchen is. The fridge and oven are both mechanical, the microwave has a dial for time and temperature, and the dishwasher control uses relays (!!!, hey, it still works).

I fell in the earliest numbered slot. "1980 - 1984". I have files I put on floppy from a TI-99. I was four years old! The poll results are interesting. When I first moved away from home in 1997, more than half the people in the dorm had no computer. This was in a math/science school. By the end of 1999, nearly all students had computers. The poll above included employed adults, but if we assume poor students lagged the population by a few years during this time, the data fits rather well.

In working for the government, we are routinely forced to use GSA for purchases. GSA is often far higher than the open market price. As a GSA contract is often good for over a year, prices that were good for a Core2 system last year are painful today. Modern systems aren't even available without circumventing GSA. GSA was intended for cutting grass and painting buildings, not IT purchases.

I feel I need to respond to the parent and several of the other mostly absurd policies presented here. As a user on the short end of the stick, I feel a few results need to be pointed out.

First, let me start with the good. A forced VPN is an excellent idea for laptops. Their wireless connectivity will often be used in airports or other places where open wireless is the only option. Having an encrypted transmission going through the corporate firewall can only be a good thing.

Now the worst: "Policies also restrict the user from installing software that isn't deployed via SMS." If you intend to use this at all, you will have to heavily tailor the policies for different users. Developers will need one, or often multiple compilers installed, as well as tools for every piece of the development process like Java runtimes and Cygwin or Rendermonkey and model loaders depending on their job at the time. Content creators may need to add arbitrary plug-ins for software that the company may only own one or two copies of. Modelers may need Pro-E on one machine and Maya on another. Look at who your users are and consider what they need before forming a network policy.

A company exists to get a job done in order to make money, not to have perfectly secure useless little clone computers.