The TS-1000 pictured here was my oldest computer. Not my first, mind you – I bought it at a garage sale for a laugh. And a laugh it was. Like the picture, mine not only had the 4KB of built-in memory, but the 16KB expansion module. At the time, 4MB was standard RAM on a new PC. Guess what, that’s now laughable.
I distinctly remember purchasing a 1.2GB external hard drive (SCSI no less!) to expand my overstuffed 120MB hard drive on my old PowerBook. At the time, I thought, I’d never be able to fill that. (iTunes didn’t exist, RealAudio was just appearing, and MPEG video was still at layer 1). Again, I look back and laugh. By comparison, my iPod is a clown car base – I’ve forgotten about more music on it than I actually listen to and I just keep dumping stuff in there. But I no longer think I’ll never fill it. I had a moment around the time I bought my Xbox 360 when I knew from day one that the included 20GB hard drive would not satisfy the expected life of the machine (let’s not count the 3 red-ring-o-death unit replacements). I still have an Xbox, but that 20GB drive has been full for a while. I no longer purchase my electronics with the notion that they could hypothetically fulfill their purpose indefinitely (assuming they were made out of indestructable unobtanium instead of dissolvable childrens’ multivitamins or whatever crap it is they make gadgets out of these days).
When or what was it that made you resign yourself to the notion that no matter how many gigabytes or gigahertz your new whatzit has, it’s a forgone conclusion that the specs will turn into limits that will force you to replace it?
["User Input" is the AtomicToasters Question of the Day™ asking you, the teeming millions, to answer our pressing questions.]
Interestingly I first thought of a paradoxical example. I have had the same TI-30X IIB scientific calculator for almost 10 years. First bought for 6th grade math class, it hasn't failed me yet, even through my entire College math sequence [with the exception of one F :-]. All my friends laugh when I whip out the slim little device compared to their clunky and arguably 'better' TI-whathaveyou graphing calculators that I never found a need for. Of course, calculators haven't changed a whole lot in awhile and likely won't because there isn't much to improve. Pretty much all of TI's graphing calcs have looked and functioned the same for a long ass time.
<img src="http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/1996.png">
I'm pretty sure that if you can comment about it, XKCD has a comic about it.
Believe it or not I actually thought of this as I was writing. That's great haha
I've had a TI-30XA for years; it's my main calculator when I'm not at my computer. I've since adopted a TI-82 as well – the Volvo 740 of graphing calculators – but rarely actually find a use for it. Most things I need to do, I can deal with in a simpler way with the '30; worst case, I find a sheet of graph paper.
I had a Commodore Vic 20. They had a magazine you could subscribe to, that contained programs of interest. You were expected to type in the code as printed in the magazine.
I learned to code on that thing. You had to be efficient, lest you fill the 3K of memory. Magnetic storage was available via an optional audio cassette based device. Ah the memories!
I think I got about 9 months of use out of it.
I think I finally may have reached the point where everything is at least sufficient for a while. I have a 2.5 GHz Core 2 Quad Win 7/64 box with 6 GB RAM and two 1.0 TB hard drives – one internal and one external, with the exterior drive as a mirror/backup. Right now, the drives are around 20% full, and I have pretty much all the programs and media I want already on them. I also have a 500 GB backup in a drawer. Since I'm not a gamer nor do I run heavy duty video/rendering apps, I have enough performance and storage to last for…OK, I know better than to be rash and say "a long time".
Aw, I remember saying almost exactly the same thing about two years ago about my 2GHz Core2Duo. Turns out, the more power and capabilities I add, the more I learn to do new things to use those capabilities.
You only have 2TB of storage?
How can people live with that little? Where do you store your copy of Geocities? http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5923737/Geocities…
My downfall was torrents. I'm not even that in to downloading torrents…just V8 Supercars, WRC and Dr. Who. But my poor 80 GB hard drive was filling up fast. Now I've got a 1TB drive and I'm working on filling it up. I know that will happen. A few years ago, though, I though 1TB was way too much.
i've d/l a lot of stuff over the years… i invested in a nice d/l dvd burner and started cataloging the stuff and burning it off… 8 GB at a time…. haven't done that for a while though… i started to realize that i don't need to hang on to everything… though i definitely understand wanting to keep some stuff (certain races that were just awesome) etc… but a lot of it gets deleted after a while now… unless i think it's that good…. —- and yes.. i have played the 'data transfer game' (having multiple computers.. some with larger HDs than others) where i don't want to get rid of something.. but i don't need it on the main computer.. so i send it via home network (or direct link or something) to another one.. until i want it again.. then i have to remember where i put it… arrrgh
I'm a bit of a packrat myself, and my hard drive purchases have been thus – 40>80>160>250>320>500>1TB.
The terabyte now only has 320GB left, and falling fast. I do try to burn off when I can, but when I bring out the disks (for whatever reason) there is a 30% chance that the disc has degraded (stored in sealed box, temperature controlled area, blahyada), so I get paranoid about even doing that.
When I got the terabyte, it took me several days to cleanly transfer all the data from the 500 – [deity] only knows how ugly it's gonna be when I inevitably get a 2TB or 3TB model.
*sigh*
In 2007 I bought a Media Center computer to use as a DVR. It had a 500Gb hard drive. My son figured out to record Sid the Science Kid and Curious George, and filled that drive up. I added a 1 Tb second drive, then a couple of half-gig USB drives. Last week I bought a 2TB drive to replace the original C: drive.
Digital photography. The more megapixels on the camera the more storage I need on my hard drive. I really bad about not culling out the bad shots too. As digital cameras get more resolution the files become bigger. Although I think some of the newer 20+MP units might be reaching a realistic max.
What I want to know is when can I EASILY e-mail files bigger than 5-8MB without jumping through a bunch of hoops or using a 3rd party service? For business communication I usually downgrade picture resolution to about 3MP. But 3D CAD data can't be easily or practically downgraded.
Our email system is limited to 10MB, and some of our clients are smaller than that. So, our IT department set up a secure FTP site and a nifty utility that lets us post drawings, design data, etc. to it and our clients to grab large files. It's worked out pretty good and keeps the load on the email servers (ours and our clients) reasonable.
I do similar things, but it still isn't as easy as just hitting the attach button, unless your nifty utility does that. We don't have the nifty utility part.
It's almost as easy. We load the data to the FTP site and tell it who that data is intended for. It sends an email to the client with a link to the data.
My 4.5 year-old Sony laptop has met its Waterloo with the release of Civilizations V. It works fine for everything else I need it to do, and I constantly move stuff into an external drive because of the crappy little 50GB hard-drive, but I need to play Civ V. Dammit.
Wait… Civ V is out? How did I miss that?
This is where my desktop comes in. My real laptop (an Inspiron 9400 – Core Duo, gig of RAM, XP, and so forth with a 17" screen) is plenty powerful for anything aside from 3D gaming – which I do on my aging Giant Scary Desktop. Said laptop needs its power cable fixed or replaced and a new battery in order to be usable again, but I miss it terribly – especially since the machines I've been using as portable substitutes – our 9" Eee and my G4 iMac – are both considerably slower.
"At the time, 4MB was standard RAM on a new PC."
A very telling typo: That should be KB, not MB.
But read it in context – "The TS-1000 pictured here was my oldest computer. Not my first, mind you – I bought it at a garage sale for a laugh. And a laugh it was. Like the picture, mine not only had the 4KB of built-in memory, but the 16KB expansion module. At the time, 4MB was standard RAM on a new PC."
I read that as 4 MB being standard at the time the author bought the TS-1000 at a garage sale.
Ah. Fair enough. I took it as intending to say that 4K was standard for personal computers in general at the time the Sinclair was new, emphasizing that the Sinclair was not some sort of undersized freak (except physically– that keyboard is compressed almost to the point of inutility). Your reading makes more sense.
His reading may make for more sense, but I'll admit that my writing rarely makes sense.
<img src="http://www.myconfinedspace.com/wp-content/uploads/tdomf/161473/Windows 7 Floppy Disk Edition-700×525.jpg" width="400">
Oddly, I know people who would actually try to do it that way.
I can't remember a time when I thought I'd never "outgrow" a system.
But then I subscribe to the philosophy that, aside from cost, there's nothing wrong with overkill.
HAHAHAHA My boyfriend JUST got one of these from the salvation army for $5! along with Space Invaders for his atari… I love living in the 80s.
really good article…
I have spent a bit of time going through your posts, more than I should have but I must say, http://friends.elabonga.com/dating/UPLOAD/blog_entry.php?user=dionne&entry_id=10835, many Thanks….