COMPUTER CRIME? (20 october 2004)
There are hardly any market segments that change as fast as the computer trade. A chip that is state-of-the-art today may soon be very hard to come by because it has become obsolete.
A few years ago, I worked at a school as a teacher of programming. One of my students was looking for memory chips that were so antique that he could not find them in the shops any more.
Quite accidentally, I had a few chips at home of the type that he needed. I told him about this. I didn't like the idea of selling anything to a student - people might think I was trying to be bribed. So I inquired if he had any computer parts in exchange.
Yes, he did - an old CDROM drive. Since I happened to need an old drive, I consented, gave him my memory chips and received his CDROM drive in return. After a few months I tested the drive. It did nothing at all. But alas, the student had already left the school ...
Well, have your own ideas about this. Quite some people seem to have their particular frustrations about teachers, so feel free to rejoice in my misfortune.
PC Dumpdag
In Amsterdam, there is a bimonthly computer market called PC Dumpdag. Goods are sold so fast there that salesmen can often sell at very low prices.
What you also see is stuff which is so old that it can be sold at dump prices. Hence the name PC Dumpdag. One day there was a salesman behind a table that was stacked with second-hand CDROM drives at five euros each.
Since the drive mentioned earlier had been no good, I decided to buy two drives: if one was a dud, I still had the other one; they couldn't both be bad, could they?
Well, you may already have some idea how this went on, don't you? Yes indeed, both drives were useless!
It was no use to protest. The man who had sold me the drives was not a regular tradesman and not to be traced back.
Last weekend there was again a PC Dumpdag. I needed an old videocard for an older computer that would not take any modern video cards.
This time I didn't search the tables of any "irregulars". No I would buy from a trustworthy shop. There was one shop by the name of PC-Oké which had rented a stall.
It had a box filled with old video cards. Well, with a real shop I expected to buy cards in working order. But still I bought two of them, again reasononing if one was a dud, I had the other one; they couldn't both be bad.
And ... again, yes - you've guessed right: both were duds!
Well - at least I learned another lesson: not even official shops are to be trusted.
