My New netbook

[ChrisGreaves]

I bought it yesterday.
I am struck by the closeness of size to the first microcomputer I bought - a Radio Shack MC-10 back in 1984 or thereabouts.

MyFirstNetbookHPIM3399.JPG

Above is a photo of the MC-10 sitting atop the dark red Acer netbook. (Ignore the metallic "IBM" sticker; I was young and foolish back then ...).
If you are bored, there's a diary at My First Netbook.
I got taken in by the bait-and-switch technique at BestBuy. I was determined to buy the cheapest they had, sufficient for my needs over the next 6 months.
The cheapest price on display was $229.
Ooops! Out of stock and they're not getting any more in.
Next cheapest $269.
Ooops! They only have one left, and it's an opened-box model (returned by a customer and checked over by the technical staff)

The pressure to purchase the inhouse setup and post-house extended warranty was so great (and fear-based) that I decided against the opened-box deal; after all, he's just spent five minutes describing all sorts of terrible things that can go wrong in the first year ...

So I ground my miserly way up to the $279.95 model and they won $50 off me.
But that just made me dig in my heels and spurn the $120-$200 offer to have them tap the Enter key for me during setup.

I installed FoxitReader rather than Adobe.
I installed ImageForWindows and made backups overnight to my 500GB external drive.

[John Gray]

It looks just about as useful as a modern netbook, with the added advantage of lack-of-screen...

[ChrisGreaves]

It looks just about as useful as a modern netbook, with the added advantage of lack-of-screen...

Well, that cassette tape interface might have hurdled the tape-to-MP3 problem!

I wrote a Spanish/English translator on it (crude, but passed muster by my then-wife), and implemented a bootstrapped version of Forth after buying the two Kevin McAbe books.
I remember this time as a time of upheaval. I started the year, as always, wondering wether by retirement I'd have saved enough money to have my own IBM 1401 in the basement (I haven't!), and ended up the year with a computer of my own.
Here's a shot of the Acer opened up. (Remember, you saw it first behind the MC-10)

MYFIRSTNETBOOKHPIM3404.JPG

[John Gray]

I suspect that you have given that netbook the name "Spades"...!

[ChrisGreaves]

I suspect that you have given that netbook the name "Spades"...!

Spades

If you are referring to the Acer Aspire I had assigned it a temporary name, associated with my being unable to type a back-slash from the keyboard.
This Article (Look for "intl.cpl") has set me straight.

[HansV]

Spades

Acer Spades

[ChrisGreaves]

Acer Spades

Oh.
That's IT.
I
I'm going for my bike ride.