My 65 Year Old Parents Want a PC??

[LarryJoe]

Each year I buy my parents a decent gift for the holiday, last year it was a home theatre system. They have been hinting all year that they would like to get a computer to "look up stuff" or go to some of the www addresses advertised on TV. This is mostly my mother saying this.

My father on the other hand is over my house every weekend napstering 40's-80's tunes. He is absolutely addicted. He once wanted me to copy all his vinyl onto cassette. Since he has discovered napster, has the cd changer I bought him and I can burn, he is in heaven. Trouble is he is driving me crazy. EVERY SATURDAY he comes over and pulls up a chair with a list of about 100 songs that he got off the radio or in his cellar by flipping through LP's and 45's.

Anyhow, these are the considerations before and if I buy:

1
Will they really use it? They are not techno savy at all. I walk them through programing the VCR once a week.

2
Do I really want to do this and become Mr. Tech support. I am talking helping them climb a learning curve from scratch. They have zero PC exposure.

3
My father will most definitely use it for Napstering, but this would mean a broadband connection like mine. They will not pay $40 a month and I draw the line at paying it for them. Will a 56K experience be OK for Napsering and web surfing? It has been so long since I dialed in I can't remember? Also, I am concerned about when Napster is gone.

4
If I go the 56K route, should I take advantage of one of these $400 rebates? I am not going to build this because - A. It would put me even more in a tech support role and B. Going to Dell for the $899 P3 700 is just cheaper than if I built it.

I guess the advice I am looking for the most is can you reflect on a similar situation where you bought a retired older person a PC that never used one before? How did it go?

LJ

 

[Dulanic]

NOOOOOOOOOO 56K and Napster BAD! I takes me 20-30 min a song!

 

[Viper GTS]

1) They'll gradually work their way into it.

2) NO! I can't stress this enough.

3) No, 56K SUCKS for Napster. There's a reason I only have two or three MP3's that I've downloaded from Napster.

4) I dunno, up to you.

If it were me, I'd:

Go get them a ~$900 Dell. Buy them a year of broadband, & say "After this, if you want it, you pay for it." Or, make that a big portion of your yearly gift to them: Another year of broadband.

Viper GTS

 

[roc919]

I agree with the two other replies. Dialup for Napster absolutely sucks. I would guess that he would become impatient if you were to get him a computer on a 56k connection b/c he's been "addicted" to your broadband connection. Then, he might start to demand broadband.

It's up to you. If you got the dough, then a broadband Dell comp. sounds like the solution.

 

[roc919]

I agree with the two other replies. Dialup for Napster absolutely sucks. I would guess that he would become impatient if you were to get him a computer on a 56k connection b/c he's been "addicted" to your broadband connection. Then, he might start to demand broadband.

It's up to you. If you got the dough, then a broadband Dell comp. sounds like the solution.

 

[Raincity]

I kinda went through all this last year with my parents. Buying a prebuilt from Dell or Micron is a good choice over building one. You have to go broadband if your father is addicted to Napster as you claim. Paying forty dollars to reclaim your weekends seems like a bargain to me but nobody likes to pay the bill for services they dont personally use. I believe Gateway sells a similer Athlon based system for the same amount of the 900$ Dell system with a year of AO Hell with it. As for tech support, They are going to call you no mater what route you choose because you are their Son and they trust you over talking to some one on a 1-800 number for any questions. Its a Pandoras box you are opening but its well worth it, or it was for me anyway. My parents went broadband via cable in the last month after a visit to my aunt who has a cable modem and they got to experiance it first hand. I would get a Dell or something similer and set them up with Netzero or another free isp and go from there. Good Luck in what ever you decide.

Rain

 

[Zucchini]

65? Wow perfect age for gaming/net surfing I've always thought that old ppl should be heavy gamers, they could kick some serious ass considering they have more free time then anyone else around hehe. Get them a half way decent machine that can be upgraded.
and since your dad likes mp3s, get a really good pair of speakers(klipsch 2.1) and good soundcard '

another area not to cheap out is keyboard/mouse monitor/videocard. You don't want to make it a painful experience for your parents.

 

[Looney]

Get them the system, set your dad up with Napster, and then he'll start complaining about the 56k. If he doesn't, then that's cool... 56k isn't too bad if you have other stuff to do.. just queue a bunch of stuff, come back a few hours later, and voila. But if he is unhappy with it, you can tell them they can get broadband and that'll solve their problem. $40 a mth isn't too shabby... it's about the same price as a phoneline plus dialup service.

OR, you can get them a lowend notebook with an HPA screen. Include both a 56k and NIC in the notebook, and at home they could use the 56k... and if your dad really needs the speed, he can pop by your place and plug it into your network (assuming you have one, setting ICS isn't hard or expensive).

 

[Jeff H]

My dad had a laptop for business use and had to give it up when he retired (three years ago). I kept real quiet and waited for him to come to me w/ the request to get a computer. I, like you, didn't want to get into the build it and support it thing, so I picked up a used AST Pentium system which came complete w/ a printer.

He originally used Juno for email, and last year around this time got set up w/ a local ISP for internet access. He does woodworking for a hobby, and has a ball going to the woodworking sites, getting tips, and exchanging info on the newsgroups. Last Easter I picked up a used 56k modem and installed that for him, and compared to the 14.4k that was in there, it's heaven.

IMO I'd pick your parents up one of the Dell or Gateway cheap systems, get them set up on a dial up ISP and let them do their thing. Let it be their decision to do something other than dialup. Also, get them enrolled in a community computer class. The best thing about it is they'll meet others their age and have people w/ which to exchange help and information.

 

[X14]

Here's what I did, I gave mom my old computer and a got new one for me Now mom is typing up recipes with a Celery 450A/TNT/Monster Sound MX300 rig. She's happy and I'm happy with my Abit KT7/TB800 @945/Geforce DDR/IBM 75GXP/384mb Crucial 7E/SB Live rig.

Something tells me it won't be long before mom is flying with my old KT7/TB800 rig.

 

[ForeverSilky]

Get a cheap Dell with onboard video, sound and like 64 megs of ram. Get a CDRW in it so they can burn the songs to a cd.

 

[AmdEmAll]

LOL, X14. Im the same way. Whenever something gets old or not to my liking in my computer I just replace it and my parents get the scraps.

 

[Syborg1211]

Well, I am one of the few people in these forums that is using 56k I see. For napster, I download stuff at around 5k which is almost the speed of an ftp site or something else. It only takes like 15 minutes or so to download a song and I do have over 7 gigs of mp3s so you see how much time I had to invest. For an elderly person with patience( which most have at that age), 56k will be just fine. For me, I am demanding DSL for christmas

 

[X14]

It's the least we can do for our parents I still remember when I was in college and my parents bought me one of the first IBM PCs with the green monochrome monitors, Lotus 123...damn thing cost nearly $5000.

 

[DOOPYLOOPY]

As far as the computer goes I'd agree with everyone else. Get the prepackaged Dell or Gateway systems. But you'll still probably be called on for support like Raincity said.

As far as 56k on Napster goes, if he comes to your place with a list of a 100 songs to download and can download them then I think 56k will be a big shock to him.

Yeah it takes about 15mins a song at around 5k/s but to download a 100 songs that I think would require some serious time investment. Just from those figures roughly 25hours a week at perhaps 5 hrs a day. That just seems like a hella lotta time to be downloading for. I guess he could queue the songs up before he went to bed though.

Let them try the 56k out. If it is too unbearable then you can present them with the cable option.

I'm lucky my mum has 20 years of Networking and computer experience. She gets to answer all my dads inane questions......heheheheh

 

[etech]

Last spring I gave my 80 year old father my old Micron P133. He useses it for e-mail and surfing the golf sites. He's only had two questions and I was thrilled to help him out with them.

Considering the weekends he gave up to take the Scount troop camping, the money he spent so I could go to college, the car I drove in high school and all the grief I gave him when I was a stupid teenager I can't wait till Christmas to give him the next upgrade.

I wish I could get Mom on there but shes the type that says "I might break it". I keep telling her she can't and I would be happy to fix it if she did. Oh well, Dads happy surfing.

 

[Bartman]

Funny I should read this.. my Dad(58) 2 weeks ago asked me to put together a "cheep" computer for him. I have been dreading this day for a long time. I knew it would come... I knew it would be hell. I coulden't believe it when the first computer system that poped into my head for him was an IMAC!

I HATE Macs.. and now that I work for a company that is mixed with mac and ibm I hate them even more. I can't stand it when my phone rings and the person has a problem with there mac... they totally suck in a domain, there slow, there more about looking cool than function, there just a pain.

BUT.. I took my Dads Imac over to there house, set it on the table and tunred it on... that's the only thing I did. He diden't even know how to use a mouse... The mac played a cute little "I love mac" video then started a tutor/setup program starting with how to use a mouse. He set up the hole thing including internet connection and was surfing the web with out so much as ONE question.. not one!! I sat in the other room watching TV and never got up.I did later sneek a copy of D.net on there

One week later and he still hasen't even had one problem or question for me. Mom says he's been tradeing stocks and downloading games.

So what am I trying to say.. I don't know.. I have a feeling if I sat him down infront of a Windows box it would have been a nightmare of questions and frustration.

The other admins all snickered when I said I was going to get him an Imac but after how smooth it went they think diffrent now.


For what it's worth,
Bart

 

[hans007]

this is what i would do. THere are a bunch of people in forsale trade desperate to sell entire 300-500mhz systems in the $300 range. Buy one of those, use the money you save to get them a cable modem.

 

[bonkers325]

it was fun reading this
my parents want to learn but they dont have time

 

[Eug]

Bartman,

How well does that iMac run with d.net? How fast is the iMac? I just installed the OGR client on a Mac 7600/120, and the multitasking runs like crap. Granted it's just equivalent to something like a Pentium 200 in speed, but our P200 runs better in NT 4 with OGR running in the background. (With OGR deactivated though both machines run well enough, considering I'm used to an 880 MHz Celeron.)

I was thinking of buying a *cough-G3 laptop-cough* but if the multitasking is that bad I may just get a Win 2000 PIII 600 laptop (which unfortunately costs even more for what I want).

 

[lowtech1]

Built them a $300.00 Win95 puter with cable access, and use kios mode to lock down the system so they only see & uses the Word, Browser, email, and some cheap games. (Much more stable than other 9.x OS because it doesn't have Active Desk Top)

Or you could get them an Imac :Q

 

[Bleep]

I love this thread: Everyone here has kind words to say about "old People" and willing to help out there parents or even grandparents. Lots of good will here. I just had to get in here as it is just backwards from me. I am 66 and all my kids have my homebuilts, I even get to do tech support ;( .
Bleep

 

[LarryJoe]

Thanks for all the replies. Great advice from everyone. I think I will order the $899 box from Dell and throw in an additional $80 to upgrade from a 15" monitor to a 17". I think I'll buy the system wrap it and then explain to them their options on internet connections. Maybe we will do one of the 30 day free deals on the dial up so they can exerience how slow it is and see if they can deal with it. Someone said they have the most time of anyone and that is very true. I can see my dad queing up 25 songs and then start cooking or something or watch a movie. The downside for them may be the single phone line and leaving your connection up for hours. This will probably sway them towards a cable modem.

Thanks again,

LJ

 

[Ben88]

That computer nook looks like a great place to escape btw, I think that cable would be your best internet option. If your dad is accustomed to broadband speeds, I dont see him getting used to 56k. Especially since a connection dropping in the middle of a song download will drive him crazy.

 

[Bartman]

Eug

not to good I have it hidden and I can tell when it's running, it feels sluggier. I have a clone 132mhz mac box at home running d.net. it's slow but when you start the d.net clinet the mac almost dies. It makes my p-100 laptop look like a super computer! I was playing Diablo 2 on a 350mhz Imac.. whoo.. what a POS! when 5 guys get on the screen it looks like a freeking slide show, almost unplayable.

but again.... as much as I can't stand using a mac myslef.. I still have to go back to the point that my Dad set the entire thing up and hasen't even had one question to ask me about it! This is from a guy that I know has never even used a computer, I don't know if he's ever touched a mouse b4 this. there's something to be said about that.

Bart

oh.. I did bench client before I left but don't rember what it got...