[GTALUG] Laptop recommendations?

[Anthony de Boer]

El Fontanero via talk wrote:
> <In Palin's voice> Why, we'd 'a given our eye teeth for PCMCIA! In *my* 
> day...

Back in the day a REAL card went 9 Edge First, and you'd best remember to
dump out the chad hopper after punching your program.

I think I still have a FORTRAN deck I did back when.

Meanwhile, addressing the old-media-compatibility issue, having USB
dongles that do the job is probably[0] the third best thing, second best
is keeping an old system[1] around that still has the relevant
readers[2], and the best is to have dubbed all your old media to newer
storage during the era both were current so you'd not have to worry about
whether you can get one more gasp out of the corpse of dead technology.

For a laptop, portability, usability, and not being so stinking
expensive you're afraid to take it anywhere are key attributes. Being
able to leave most of your bag of tricks at home or in the car or in the
laptop bag can really save weight and clutter.

[0] those are never quite the same as the classic hardware they replace.

[1] eventually ancient hardware supported in an earlier Linux will be
forgotten by newer kernels; a software upgrade on your designated
dinosaur can too easily be what kills it.

[2] optical drive or some of the three sizes of floppy[3] drive.

[3] formats were never quite the same; who else remembers the story of
how Apple ][ floppies were written and read based on 6502 clock cycles of
the I/O loop, or ran the disassembler deep enough to comprehend the true
horror of how CP/M on that platform did its disk functions?

-- 
Anthony de Boer