[GTALUG] message from the past

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

I'm typing this on my first notebook.  I bought it in 1999.  It is 
woefully obsolete, but it really does work.

- NEC Versa SX

- Pentium II at 233MHz

- 256M of RAM

- 1024 x 768 screen (actually, I like the aspect ration)

- 16 bits / pixel (oops) and a Trident video chip (support in X isn't 
  100%)

- Fedora Core 1

- ethernet card plugs into a PCcard slot

Via some simplified version of Moore's law, things ought to be better by 
about a factor of 1000 (two to the power of (16 years / 18 months)).

- Processor clock speed is faster by a little more than 10.  The work done 
  per clock tick is perhaps 2 or 4 times greater.

- The RAM is larger by a factor of 100 (the machine came with 64M).

- disk space has gone up by perhaps 250.  It came with a 4GB drive and I 
  upgraded it to 10GB

- screen resolution has gone up perhaps a factor of 2 horizontally and 1.3 
  vertically

- keyboards don't seem better.  Trackpads do.

- price has gone down a bit.