Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Rest well old friend....


I guess the old computer that I have had here for the last 5 or 6 years has decided to extend the vacation I gave it when we left for the states awhile ago. Returning yesterday I pushed the power switch to energize the power supply which then sends power to the fan, which I did hear come back to life, but that was about all I was able to experience.
Off with the cover, there must be something that I can cajole to it to do, maybe a sharp rap on the side?

I remember that we use to fix a lot of things in the old days with a swift kick or slap on the side of the cabinet.
Nope, not this time, I tried several times to cycle the power, maybe the mouse in the squirrel caged needed to be woken up to start the 0's and 1's to start forming a parade through the processor.
Nada.
Well at least my laptop is still working, maybe now is the time to simply get a docking station and say adios to having two machines. After all, that's twice the exposure to trouble.
But what about my obsession with redundancy?
Ok, well maybe just this last time we will see what the computer guru in town will say.
Computers are so cheap nowadays that they are indeed a throwaway item. My first Radio Shack TRS80 was about 1000 bucks and it had a total of almost nothing. I remember paying about $3000 dollars for a 5 megabyte hard drive for it.
It wasn't that long ago, well maybe it was, that was about 25 years ago, I think.
Gigabytes have changed since then.
What did we do before these narcotic devices, I think it was reading books, magazines and anything that had printing on them.
I kind of enjoyed the newspapers, they were real multitasking products. From reading to lining a bird cage to starting a fire and to washing windows.
The glass kind not the Bill Gates kind..............

4 comments:

Bob Mrotek said...

Ken,
Just for the heck of it remove the back or side of your CPU and see if there isn't a little battery that looks like a watch battery tucked away in a little holder. Sometimes that is all that is wrong with old computers and it only take a few bucks to fix them. I forget what this battery does but someone will see this and tell you. Good luck :)

Tancho said...

Thanks Bob, That was one of the first things I checked, it keeps some of the memory alive in order to boot up, I got word today that the CPU took a dive. At the price of new ones, I think I got my moneys worth for all those years, so it will be my belated Christmas Present...Thanks for the input!

Don Cuevas said...

Oddly enough, the same thing happened recently to an iMac of friends living in Pátzcuaro.
It was dead on arrival when they returned from a trip to the States.
Micro House in Morelia was unable to revive it.

I don't think they'd backed up anything, but I wasn't told that. I suggested that the hard drive be removed, placed in an enclosure, and they ought to be able to recover their data.

I advise not leaving a computer plugged in when you leave. (I'm sure that you didn't.) Dust can be a big problem here.

I generally take my laptop with me when we travel. But it would have been difficult for them to schlep an iMac (the "Desk Lamp Edition) along.

Saludos,
Mike

Frankly Ronda said...

Bummer about your computer.

I have been using laptops with no docking station for so long that not sure how I would like a real monitor and real keyboard.

As my eyes go though - I think a bigger screen is in my future!