[Duo2400] Re: Expanding the list -- not closing it.

[Ivan Drucker]

>I remember a debate over 2400c's and Duos being on the same list. The 
>principal issue raised by the splitters was how different the 2400c was 
>from the other sub-notebook Duos. Eric decided to not split the list, 
>partly as I recall because so many 2400c owners also owned or had owned 
>Duos, keeping that expertise a part of the community. The 12.1" iBook 
>arrived after there already was an iBook list [P1] and the original 
>iBook was far from being a sub-notebook. But many 2400c owners bought 
>12.1" iBooks so it is reasonable that they be considered to be added.

Good points, Bill. I think part of the problem that we're facing is that 
this is a "connoisseur's list" -- the Duo and 2400 may be different, but 
they're both unusual, elegant machines which cost as much or more than 
their larger counterparts that did more out of the box, but which we all 
bought because we knew they were cooler (and smaller, but that's part of 
cooler too). The Duo was never as popular as the 1xx, and the 2400 is 
pretty rare.

The fear I have is that the 12" G4 will be a commodity item, like the 
iBook, and expanding the list to include it will change the feel. Many of 
us may buy a 12" G4 (or have already bought an iBook, as I have), and 
would continue to enjoy talking to each other about our new machines, but 
we don't want to join the iBook lists because we have found them to be 
unsatisfying in some way (myself included). Personally, I'd love to talk 
about my new 12" here, but I don't want it to turn into the iBook list.

I am not at all xenophobic about new list members. I just want to 
preserve the nature of the list. To me, it almost seems like less of a 
reach to expand it to other unusual Macs (PB 100, 20th Anniversary, 
MacTV, even Cube), because those are all products that stand apart from 
others, and the people who bought them (or are still using them) 
deliberately made the same sort of decisions we did when we bought our 
Duos or 2400's. (I know, we mainly bought our machines for size, but I'm 
guessing at least some of us wouldn't have bought them if they weren't 
also elegantly and interestingly designed.)

Anyway, I'm not advocating a position here, other than to say that if the 
list DOES expand to include other products, I hope it can do so in a way 
that preserves the collector's interest that we have here.

Ivan.