[Imc-tech] Prioritizing Tech Needs

[stephen seth davis]

> I like the idea of iMacs as our public use stations -- they're quiet,
> compact, and relatively easy to maintain.  For other things like DTP,
> server, a/v editing, I think we need good, cheap, powerful PCs with basic
> interchangeable parts (they could all have the same basic motherboard,
> videocard, etc.), that can all run linux or win2k, depending on application.

  (Kindly excuse a newcomer for pestering the list with questions, as this
   may already have been given some consideration...)

  What is the range of services to be supported on the public use
machines?  It makes a world of difference as to what needs to be taken
care of in the hardware and software domains.  Is the idea just to provide
a number of public internet terminals for people to use inform themselves,
or is the expectation here to provide a full-service lab where people can
come and work on stuff from the outside?  (Like MS Word/Excel/blah...)
If you go with all Macs, aesthetically keen as they may be, there will
be the annoyance of having to explain to users why MS Whatever2KX is not
installed/available/supported.  But on the Windows side, a lot of the
prairienet donations (that I looked at, anyway) would be hard-pressed to
run modern Microsoft OSes - maybe 95/98 would be okay on a few.  They
might, however, make decent diskless X terminals, with all apps running on a
big(ger) linux machine hidden in a closet - but this is only really an
option if the intent is to concentrate on internet access.