Old pooters

[BOB BRODY]

Well, I'd like to say I agree with you but I can't because you're
agreeing with me in which case I would be agreeing with myself and it'll
get too confusing.

There are oft-viable alternatives short (way short) of buying a new PC
if just for power. They should be explored before making a decision.
Of course, more is more (including price) but without buying a new PC if
one has heavy duty spreadsheet needs as a for instance, a few hundred
dollars invested in a math coprocessor (MCP) chip will deliver excellent
results. Superior in fact to merely buying a faster PC because the
faster PC's CPU will still have the same limitations as the slower
machine in math, floating point (decimal calculations), equations, etc.
(The '486 CPU has math coprocessing built in. The considerably less
expensive '486SX is, as I understand it, the same puppy sans the built-
in math coprocessor; thus if one doesn't wish math coprocessing support,
a '486SX may be quite enough.) There are some graphics benefits from a
math coprocessor as well and is why users of CAD software plug in a math
coprocessor chip (AutoCAD, for instance, gets a 30% or so boost in speed
via MCP; due to certain kinds of math intensive internal operations,
number crunching ala spreadsheets isn't the sole province of math
coprocessors. Graphics are math intensive processing-wise as well.)

So an MCP is one example of boosting 'puter power, at a modest expense,
and one gets to keep their current computer (and a few thousand
dollars). Not that an MCP is the answer, but it's an alternative that
usually goes unexplored and may very well be the answer.