HAVANA (AP) -- Cubans are getting wired. The island's communist government put desktop computers on sale to the public for the first time Friday, ending a ban on PC sales
While few Cubans can afford that, dozens still gawked outside a tiny Havana electronics store, crowding every inch of its large glass windows
"Look at that!" murmured Armando Batista as he pressed against the window. Although he can't afford to buy one, he said, "these are good for a start."
The Cuban PCs have Intel Celeron processors with 80 gigabytes of memory and 512 RAM and are equipped with Microsoft's Windows XP operating system. Both could be violations of a U.S. trade embargo, but not something Washington can do anything about in the absence of diplomatic relations with Havana
Clerks said the PCs were assembled by Cuban companies using parts imported from China
most Cubans are banned from accessing the Internet at home. So many of these new computers may never be connected to the Web.
clipped from: hosted.ap.org 