PC users urged not to upgrade, for planet's sake

PEOPLE SHOULD BE USING their PCs for far longer rather than upgrading them every three years, according to a report on the cost of the ubiquitous machines to the planet.

Boffins at the UN University of Tokyo reckon that making one PC requires ten times its weight in chemicals and fossil fuels, and gallons and gallons of water.

And once PCs and monitors are finished with, they impose an environmental burden on the planet which is hard to cope with, the scientists say.

Rather than upgrading to, say, an Intel Prescott machine running DDR-2 memory, using PCI Express, ingots of heatsink, and a super duper graphics card, people should make do with their existing PCs for much longer.

Fridges last 15 years and PCs should last much longer.

Unfortunately for hardware and semiconductor manufacturers, there's more than a grain of truth in this.

Thanks to the Internet, it's possible to have a minimal amount of memory, enough to boot a browser, and even store your data not in your home but anywhere in the world. Unless you're multimedia crazy or a gamester, an 8MHz AST 286 machine should be more than enough for you.

So it seems like Oracle's Larry Ellison was years ahead when he proposed the Net PC. But the very idea is not going to be welcomed by Intel, Nvidia, Microsoft or any other member of the industrial-hardware combine. µ