January 10, 2006

You know you're in trouble...

...when I'm your go-to guy for computer technology.

And thus it is for my father-in-law, who just purchased a new computer and had it delivered today. Being that I am the tech-savvy guru in our family (which consists of my knowing to turn the computer off then back on again when it locks up, rather than waste a call to the toll-free tech support line), I get to set it up for him.

Thank heavens it's gotten to the point where the hardest part is finding a place to put the empty boxes.

His old one? I think it's a Korean-made 286 clone. I seem to recall him getting it while Reba and I were courting, which was fifteen years ago, and even then, it was hopelessly useless. It didn't even have a hard drive--you shoved in a 5 1/4 floppy with DOS on it to operate it. It did have the luxury of TWO floppy ports, however. And a dot matrix printer. And a 13 inch monochrome monitor.

Ahh, the good ol' days.

Anyway, it's not like I had anything to do tonight. Or that the kids might have school tomorrow or anything.

Posted by Terry Oglesby at January 10, 2006 03:35 PM
Comments

Today at the factory I'm visiting I saw a dinosaur that was still working. It had the old "TURBO" button and the LED readout indicated a whopping 80 MHz clock speed. I couldn't believe it was still running.

Posted by: Skillzy at January 10, 2006 04:18 PM

I wonder if it has a 300 bps modem hooked up to it?

Posted by: Terry Oglesby at January 10, 2006 04:30 PM

Heh, I used a 300 baud teletype in the AF for parts ordering, now I video to my grandkids in realtime. BTW Mr Jobs showed off a bunch of new Macs today, RSN one will have my name on it.

Posted by: Tony von Krag at January 10, 2006 08:28 PM

I remember several years back when my dear departed and technologically illiterate aunt decided she was going to shop at a local grocery store because she'd heard they had a program to give a portion of their profit for a certain period to a program they called "Apples for Students." She thought it was so nice of them to give fruit to children.

I hated to tell her they were buying and equipping computer classrooms.

Posted by: Terry Oglesby at January 11, 2006 08:18 AM