More vintage computing
09 March 2005 @ 13:26 in Life
Yahoo recently celebrated its 10th birthday, and to
celebrate made a page available showing what their
site looked like 10 years ago. To complete the
effect, you should be looking at it on a computer
from a similar vintage:
Yuk.
I'm also seriously considering bidding on this ancient piece of computing. I was trying to justify to someone the other day why I spend so much on computer equipment which is effectively obsolete, and it's actually a very simple answer. As a kid, I yearned to own so many gadgets, but they cost thousands of pounds. Now, the ridiculous rate of change in the world of computing means that I can at last own them all, and all for pennies. It's a mildly ludicrous justification but then it's a fairly harmless hobby.
That particular computer is the fancy version of the first laptop I owned, the Amstrad NC100. Both computers were marketed with the slogan "If you can't use this computer in five minutes, you'll get your money back". The NC100 was a fantastic piece of equipment, and I remember writing a manual for connecting it to my desktop computer using a system called, I think, ProLink Plus; I wrote to PCW Plus (edited by the redoubtable Alex Summersby, who I believe is still working in the industry) about it and got a ridiculous number of orders for it from the letter they published. Is there anything more adorable than a tale of a young geek?
Incidentally, it was in this same journal that another letter I submitted was given the 'Best Presented Letter of the Month' award, printed as it was on paper I was selling at school for a project under the brand 'Skoosh'. This all sounds a bit trippy, doesn't it?
Anyway, I worked pretty solidly over the weekend on magazine stuff so was very kindly given today off. I'm currently sitting in Patisserie Valerie in Soho sipping loose-leaf Earl Grey and stuffing myself with toasted fruit scones with jam and clotted cream.
Yuk.
I'm also seriously considering bidding on this ancient piece of computing. I was trying to justify to someone the other day why I spend so much on computer equipment which is effectively obsolete, and it's actually a very simple answer. As a kid, I yearned to own so many gadgets, but they cost thousands of pounds. Now, the ridiculous rate of change in the world of computing means that I can at last own them all, and all for pennies. It's a mildly ludicrous justification but then it's a fairly harmless hobby.
That particular computer is the fancy version of the first laptop I owned, the Amstrad NC100. Both computers were marketed with the slogan "If you can't use this computer in five minutes, you'll get your money back". The NC100 was a fantastic piece of equipment, and I remember writing a manual for connecting it to my desktop computer using a system called, I think, ProLink Plus; I wrote to PCW Plus (edited by the redoubtable Alex Summersby, who I believe is still working in the industry) about it and got a ridiculous number of orders for it from the letter they published. Is there anything more adorable than a tale of a young geek?
Incidentally, it was in this same journal that another letter I submitted was given the 'Best Presented Letter of the Month' award, printed as it was on paper I was selling at school for a project under the brand 'Skoosh'. This all sounds a bit trippy, doesn't it?
Anyway, I worked pretty solidly over the weekend on magazine stuff so was very kindly given today off. I'm currently sitting in Patisserie Valerie in Soho sipping loose-leaf Earl Grey and stuffing myself with toasted fruit scones with jam and clotted cream.
