There are alternatives to IE and even Windows, you know. I use Netscape 7.0 and WordPerfect, for instance -- and I find WordPerfect to be far superior to Word (e.g., WP will open Word documents, but Word won't open WP docs without installing a special plugin from the Word disk AND WP will save a document in Word format if you need to). Likewise, Quattro Pro (part of Corel's WP family) does more than Excel.

Want a new OS? Try the Linux family. Lindows, for instance. The graphical interfaces (such as the Windows desktop) and just as good as anything from Microsloshed. Yeah, you might have to learn something new if you want to fool around at the OS level, but what's wrong with that? Linux is Open Source, too, and if you are really anti-bigness, why aren't you using Open Source stuff exclusively?

Oh, yeah. Opera is a pretty good web browser as well.

My point is that there ARE alternatives to Microslash. And the alternatives will run on things like 386s, which means that old computers can be re-used instead of tossed. As I said, old dogs would have to learn new tricks, but hey! I wrote my first webpage at 55.