Eulogy For a Little Magic Box

I'm typing this on my second laptop (and my fourth ever computer, but considering the first two were a Timex/Sinclair 1000 and a Commodore 64 that I never really used for anything at all, I'm not sure how much they count). I got it ten years ago, after its 2-y.-o. predecessor's hard drive failed on either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day (I'm pretty sure because I accidentally whacked it really hard with an external mouse while the hard drive was spinning. But I never told the extended-warranty people that). Within three years this 266MHz Pentium 2 with Win98SE, 96MB, 4GB hard disk, 1 USB port, and a 12.1" 800x600 passive-matrix screen (all, save the screen and OS, more than double the specs of the predecessor machine) no longer met the minimum specs to run junk CDs that were being given away in boxes of microwaveable popcorn. But I continued using it for seven more years, certainly wishing I had a better machine but never feeling able to justify it (and even so, still being amazed by its contrast to my college friends' B&W Mac SEs — with, for some, a 3" high external HDD having the exact same footprint as the Mac itself, holding 40MB). I did my dissertation on it, and I mean everything from data collection through analysis to writing. I had a little utility that let me connect my electronic scale directly to my database through the RS-232 port, so that when I tabbed into the Weight field it would automatically import the scale's reading. For seven years I internetted with a 56K modem and dial-up ISP, although I could use a 10MBPS connection at work; for three years I was able to use an 802.11b wireless connection. All those comms connections were provided by PC cards. In time I got a USB flash drive that I could use if I plugged it in before startup and didn't remove it until after shutdown and that, at 2GB, increased the storage capacity of my system by 50%.

But then a couple of months ago something happened so that the poor thing only runs in Safe mode now. Whatever it was happened when I was taking a nap while the machine was still connected to my dial-up ISP. I think it's something to do with the power management hardware. At any rate, in Safe mode I can't use the USB port, PC card slots, or CD drive. There's no internet now and the only removable media I can use are 3.5" floppies. So I have to get a new machine.

The one I hope to get is a bit different from this one: 2.12GHz dual-core CPU with 4GB and a discrete GPU with 1GB dedicated memory, Win7 64-bit, 500GB HDD, CD/DVD-RW, 5 USB ports, a 16" 1366x768 backlit TFT screen, and an integrated SD card reader. What it lacks compared to this one is a 3.5" floppy drive (like, apparently, all laptops today; I can't even find external 3.5" drives); but more importantly, an eraser-head micro-joystick mouse controller, which I really like because I can mouse without moving my hands from the home position on the keyboard. Instead it has a trackpad below the keyboard. (I had a colleague in grad school who called those eraser-head micro-joystick mouse controllers "clitorises." I know most people hated them, but they're morons. Yes after a while the little cap got sticky and gummy, but if, like me, you put on a silicon keyboard protector, you'd've never had to replace the mouse cap, either. Plus you'd see all the crud that didn't get down inside the keyboard.)

The SD card reader is particularly interesting, because 4GB postage-stamp–sized SD cards are $10. Since I can only extract data from this machine with 1.44MB floppies now, I've been thinking about how I'll be able to save what's on the 4GB hard drive. There are boxes that can be had to use internal HDDs as external ones, but most HDDs now are SATA whereas this machine's is an old IDE-standard, and a 2.5" laptop rather than 3.5" desktop one, at that. But I think I've found similar boxes for turning internal 2.5" IDE drives into external USB ones. So, wouldn't that be a laugh: I'd have me a 4GB external HDD. Shake it, baby!

This machine, nicknamed Homer, is tricked out with all sorts of Simpsons themed stuff: icons, wallpaper, even the event sounds are appropriate lines from The Simpsons. I cobbled together my own Startup sound file from several others. I don't know whether the new machine can or will get "simped." I'm fond of this little thing, and machines these days are too sleek. Still, I am looking forward to driving the new one. OK, OK, I'm impatient. Today is Sunday so the library is closed so I have no internet access so I can't check my order status to see whether the order has been confirmed so that maybe it'll ship tomorrow, and then I don't know how long it'll take to arrive because it looks like it'll ship from the west coast and I'm on the east and it's coming by ground transportation. Bugger! I wants my 'puter!