formage


i bought the dell PC i am currently fomatting (while i post from what has supplanted it, my macbook) in 2003.

it was a really good slickdeals deal from dell; it's a pentium 4. i don't remember the specs anymore. it's served me well over the years. at some point, it got to the point where you didn't really need to upgrade PCs anymore. for years, i'd upgraded every couple of years -- since i got my first "IBM-compatible" tandy 1000 in 1989.

i'm finally putting it to bed because i've realized the macbook can be everything to me, and actually runs a good deal faster than the PC. it seemed, suddenly, redundant -- in way my last laptop most definitely did not make it. (i actually had to use that laptop as my primary PC for a couple of weeks in 2005 when i came back from japan to find my PC wouldn't boot -- the power supply had died. i was well tired of it by the end, even with keyboard and monitor and mouse plugged in.)

since i bought this PC in 2003, i've added...

1. a bigger hard drive
2. a DVD+R drive
3. a 19" LCD
4. an external 750gb HD
5. a hand-me-down nvidia video card (from zak!)
6. a second monitor (i didn't dig that at all)
7. a scanner and printer (different ones at different times, even)
8. that new power supply

all in all, a lot of stuff has moved in and out of the PC. but it's still been the same thing for years. and the desktop paradigm is one i've been rocking for, well, i guess since i got my commodore 64 in... 1987?

it's funny; given all the time i spend at PCs i don't really develop any connection with the devices themselves. i guess it's because i thought computers were inherently cool when i was a kid that this seems odd anymore. or thinking about those guys who customize and care about their PCs so much. or thinking about people who name their cars. for something i spend so much of my life staring at, it doesn't mean a lot to me. i think my favorite thing about my PC is the industrial design of the LCD monitor i bought in 2005. and the case design is really nice, functionally. i haven't been inside the case in years, of course...

computers.

1987 - C64
1989 - tandy 1000 HX
1991 - PC Partner (yes, really) 386SX-16 (with my favorite keyboard ever, which i sadly broke in 1997)
1996 - pentium 100 -- with windows 95!
1998 - premio (lol @dravenfrost) pentium 100mmx (what a huge upgrade! however, the mmx-ness and some more ram allowed it to play mp3s without making the system chug. wow.)
1999 - my only built-from-scratch PC; a wanna-be iMac style PC case. (here's a slightly more flattering image.)
2003 - the dell

and now, the macbook.

i remember reading that last year was the first year notebook PC sales outpaced desktop PC sales. i can easily believe it, though i'd not thought about it before. even companies are just giving people notebooks now (i was at facebook last week; everybody there gets a laptop.)

i am kinda forgetting what the point of this post is, or if it even has one beyond reminiscence and timekill while my PC's drive formats, so i can install XP on it, so i can give it to goodwill.

dunno. it was definitely time for a change. that desktop is a giant obtrusive powersuck that doesn't really serve a major purpose. certainly nothing the mac can't duplicate... and if i feel like i want a dedicated desktop again, windows 7 is right around the corner (and won't run well on the old dell.) and then there'll be another slickdeals deal from dell...