Because most philosophies that frown on reproduction don't survive.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Blast From The Past

There's nothing geekier than having fond memories of old hardware, but when I came across my old PowerBook 1400cs (the computer I bought to take to college back in 1996) I couldn't help snapping a picture of it before consigning it to the abyss.
And thus proving I was using Macs well before it was popular.

Still runs! Though that's also a lesson in how passing "having it electronically" can be. It had a floppy drive and CD reader (but not writer -- those were very expensive back then) and this was before USB ports. Plus, I used a word processor (WriteNow by WordStar) which was de-supported back when OSX first came out. So getting old files off that machine a few years back was a major endeavor, saving files from WriteNow format to RTF, moving files via floppy to an old windows box which had a CD writer, writing them to CD, and moving them to my newer systems. All of which was slow enough I ended up only pulling the stuff I thought was particularly good or interesting. Sic transunt verba iuventatis.

2 comments:

Tito Edwards said...

My favorite was the TRS-80.

Though back in the 90's I was using a PC. 5 1/2 floppies and a bad copy of WordPerfect.

eulogos said...

It is difficult for me to grasp that something from 1996 isn't still fairly new! It seems like a very short time ago.

In college I had a manual typewriter. We learned how to use a slide rule. (there were no pocket calculators then; businesses used large mechanical adding machines.)

What I wonder is how it is possible financially to keep up with technology? Computers cost major bucks. My 3 year old white Macbook is already far from cutting edge. I used money from my parent's estate to buy it, which was a one time deal. I can't see having $1000 or so free any time soon to buy another. Other things last a long time. A nice dress and shoes for special occasions can easily last ten years. I used my first washer and dryer for twelve years, and my current set have also been in place for nearly that long. I have used 20 year old refrigerators that worked, and will be offended if my current 3 year old Maytag fridge doesn't last nearly that long. I drive a 1998 Subaru, which is perfectly adequate.
When are computers and software going to reach some kind of reasonable stability so that one can expect a $1000 purchase to last and be serviceable for at least ten years?

Susan Peterson