3/29    A friend wants a PC (no mac). She doesn't want Dell. Is there a
        good place that can custom build for you (SSD, large RAM, cheap video
        card--no game)?
        \_ As a side note: back in my Cal days more than two decades ago when
           having a 387SX made me the only person with floating-point hardware,
           most machines were custom built.
           most machines were custom built.  -- yuen
           \_ did that make you a better programmer/gamer/etc?
              \_ No.  I was writing a pre-emptive multi-threading library as
                 part of an effort to port some floating-point-heavy Unix code
                 to DOS for CS199.  I couldn't figure out how to save the
                 "context" of Borland C++'s floating-point emulation library.
                 The options were to either mask context switching around all
                 floating point operation or get a co-processor.  I ended up
                 getting the co-procoessor.  -- yuen
                 to DOS for CS199 (http://ssli.ee.washington.edu/~bilmes
                 mypubs/bilmes1992-icmcmood.pdf).  I couldn't figure out how
                 to save the "context" of Borland C++'s floating-point
                 emulation library.  The options were to either mask context
                 switching around all floating point operations or get a
                 co-processor.  I ended up getting the co-procoessor.  -- yuen
        \_ Why not Dell? What is it about Dell she doesn't like?
        \_ Fry's? HP? Lenovo? The only place I have done this is Lenovo.