Jul 26 2008
For Want of a Floppy
I’m typing this in Wordpad on Windows 98, on a circa 1997 IBM Thinkpad 365xd (40MB RAM and 750MB hard drive). It’s a laptop leftover from one of my workplaces years ago, saved from the trash heap. What more do I need to type out my thoughts? I don’t even have a way to connect it to the Internet, so it’s easier to stay focused on my writing.
This laptop was manufactured before anyone blogged and before most now blogging had an Internet connection at home. Heck, it was made before most current laptop owners had ever used a laptop at all, and if they did it was provided by their employer.
And here I am using it to write words that will appear on a dynamic HTML page while my second PC downloads updates to Windows Vista. Funny how after about 10 minutes the progress bar still sits at 0 KB total, 0% complete. Sounds about right.
Oh, and I’m just about to install Ubuntu Linux on the second hard drive of the Vista PC. Back when this laptop was made, if I had said I was installing Linux, most Windows users would have said, “What’s a Linux?” Okay, so maybe that last one’s still true, but the percentage of clueless has decreased a lot. (the geeks out there might appreciate that I plan to do a “Month with Linux” wherein I do not use Windows at all at home)
In the same room is my wife, using her laptop to play Coldplay’s “Viva la Vida” over and over while she learns the lyrics. It’s her favorite song, she said, so she bought it online. What would computer users from 1997 think if you told them that?
I donated a similar laptop to NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) a few years ago. I like to think that an aspiring novelist somewhere actually laid hands on it and wrote something worth reading.
Wow, the keys on this thing are amazing. They certainly don’t make them like this anymore. Did I just say that out loud?
Okay, now it’s time to post this to Al Gore’s Internet. Oh, wait, no connection. No problem. I’ll just transfer it using a USB drive. Wait, no USB port. Good thing I salvaged that external floppy drive along with the laptop.
Okay, so maybe this whole typing on an old computer is not so good.
Well Mark, IBM’s ALWAYS made the best keyboards since the Selectric typewriter dozens of years ago. I love ‘em.
Now, as to Ubuntu, if you need ANY help with it, let me know. I’ve been using Ubuntu for over a year now on a virtual machine on my work PC, and on a PC’s second HDD at home.
I love it. PC’s should be so stable, although the cryptic commands to make things happen… are confusing. Luckily, there’s always someone online that knows exactly what you need to do, and has the exact step-by-step to do it.
Have fun!
Dave - I’ve run Ubuntu before, but that was two years ago on a PC that’s had the motherboard and CPU replaced since then. With a newer version and more powerful hardware, I expect to have a much better experience. Sometimes the automatic package update would end up breaking something I had working, which is one reason I gave up on Linux for a while. They just didn’t quite have it right yet. I’m hoping now it will be much better.
What’s a Linux??? :-)
No, seriously, what’s a Linux??
Trinity - It’s an operating system. Meaning, instead of a Windows or a Macintosh computer, I’m running a Linux computer. In fact, I’m typing this comment on it right now.
The difference is that Linux is completely open source, so lots of companies and people have created their own versions.
I installed this morning after Shannon and Benjamin left and while watching a tense movie called Supervolcano in HD.
So far, I can recommend the movie and Ubuntu Linux. Stay tuned for whether the latter changes.
Mark,
Ubuntu has broken things for me with their updates, but luckily, there’s always someone who’s figured out how to fix it.
Frustrating though…
Good luck!
ps, I hope you have a good video card in the PC… you have to try out the Cube..! *LOL*
Wow, in 1997 I was getting towards the end of my degree in university, and had only just started visiting a few pages on the internet, via Netscape Navigator. A 30-second page load time was fast!
I will be curious to find out what you think of the Linux machine. I’ll probably be going for a Mac the next chance I get, but I’ll still be curious.
I get the appeal of the other operating systems, I’m just too lazy to mess with it. Sure Windows crashes, slows my system and takes up a mammoth amount of space…but I know how it works and I don’t have to do anything to keep using it. I tend to be a pretty big fan of the staus quo ;)