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On Mon, 22 Sep 1997 Stefan.Tilkov@mlc.de wrote: > Will an IBM DVD drive for a 770 also work in "older" models, e.g. the 765? why on earth could anyone possibly want a dvd drive?? if you travel internationally, to europe, to asia, anywhere else (as i suspect a higher proportion of thinkpad owners than others do) you can pick up a local cd-rom - perhaps language, perhaps cultural, perhaps on some other topic of interest to you, or with some other functionality not locally available to you - plop it in to your cd-rom drive, and away you go. ... the cultures of the world, not subject to prior censorship on the basis of what someone else thinks your interests are (or should be), what someone else thinks is suitable for you, what someone thinks is marketable in your home country, are at your fingertips. ...or, at minimum no farther away than your mailbox. now, along comes dvd, and all this changes. dvd disks produced in one global area will not work in the dvd drive sold to you in your area. so ... you buy a dvd drive for each area for which you wish to sample the language, culture, or other offerings? you carry several dvd drives when you travel? how can i put it?: buy a dvd drive and support international censorship! of course you are really supporting the ability of corporations to charge the price that earns them the highest profit in each market area. when markets are geographical distance, when the cost to the prospective buyer of transporting or converting for local use the product of interest exceeds the differential sellers earn, then differential pricing to maximize profit is easily maintained. with a global electronic economy, with high value items in light, small configurations, transport costs are greatly reduced, and differential pricing can only be maintained by articfical means, eg, geographical coding of dvd disks. in short, the global electronic economomy is fine, so long as it benefits sellers, whatever the adverse consequences for buyers. alternative views welcomed! off the topic? probably. can individuals make a difference? probably not. but something to think about when/if you buy a thinkpad again. regards, al Alden S Klovdahl / alden.klovdahl@anu.edu.au / fax: +61 2 62 49 05 25 Sociology Arts / Australian National University / Canberra ACT Australia 0200