who has ditched a desktop permanently?

[tommu56]

I cannot see pushing a cart around with a PC and monitor on it if you have access to a laptop. That's a good way to bring the attention of the "efficiency experts".

They are the guys that rise to their of incompetence and wouldn't be able to figure out were the short is in a machine with 10 miles of wire in it.

With not much stuff networked no place at the the panels to hold a lap top its the best choice for me.
Like today working on a press with TI505 plc with my machine and the factory serice tech's lap top sitting on the other end of my cart on the S7-300 that was suppose to be sending me 100 words of data and it wasn't getting through profibuss maze we finally found an bad profibuss repeater causing the problem its being couriered in tonight so we can install it tomorrow and make sure its working properly.

tom

 

[DavidVT]

The laptops rule now. I echo the blackberry being my new 'laptop'. I don't bring the laptop home from work much any more due to the blackberry. Work has a simple docking station with a large flatscreen. I enjoy using both screens when working.

At home my wife and I often sit at each end of the couch watching TV, each on their own home laptop. (Lately I learned about Hulu and started watching another show when she insisted on some chick flick... good stuff, check it out) We both have fairly cheap home laptops bought in 06 for maybe 500 each. Good enough for the web and watching Hulu!!!

Hint to buyers, do your homework on the accident damage insurance the dealers want to sell you. It sucks to see what happens when you dump a drink on a 2 day old laptop keyboard, especially if you decided you did not need the extra coverage because you have carried laptops around the world since the late 80s with no damage.... fateful words those were.... argggggg

My favorite old laptop was the one that had the built in inkjet printer. Canon maybe? It was real handy. Especially with the extra acoustic couplers in a Japanese payphone trying to send messages before the internet really got going.. Great stuff back then.

More if you have the patience to read:

I've been a heavy duty overseas traveler for the last few years. This has forced me to put my life in a corner of my company laptop as I travel. My computer hobbies used to be spread around my home office across at least 10 running computers over the years.
Now that I was forced to pack it with me (vmware worked well for me), I realized that the laptop is plenty for most everything.

The old computer 'lab' upstairs is still there but only one new Dell quad core desktop ($700) chugs away running free VMware ESXi4 with most of the other boxes virtualized inside it. Router, fileserver,numerous webservers in linux, webcam, some Win7, VPNs, etc.

The old $3500 PIII Dell bought new many moons ago and running win2Kpro is turned on from time to time just to prove to myself that it still works. I finally tossed the 486box that weathered the early win versions after using it as a floppy based router for years.. I saw a C64 in a packing box but never found the power supply..

Wow this stuff got cheap over the years....... Interesting how many geeks have tractors.... Hmmmm

 

[2manyrocks]

I don't think the local farmers have heard of TBN, and I don't think I will bring it up at the local Farmers Coop, either.

C64--right next to the Osborne or whatever it was called.

So we all think the young generation is techno hip, right? I met with the director of a community theater a year or so ago, and he was telling me about his sound system. He particularly proud of having wired up an old dial telephone to ring from center stage, but then he said one of the youg actors was supposed to dial it during one of their shows, but didn't understand how to use it.:laughing:

 

[dmccarty]

I like to watch old movies from the 30's. Maybe the 40s and 50's at the latest. Not so much for the plot of the movie but to see how people lived back then. Lucky to have ONE phone. Rotary of course and likely a party line. HAVING to talk to an operator to place a call. And instead of numbers speaking in code.

Or seeing how little space people lived with. How few possessions they actually owned.

One of my favorite movies for this is Hitchcock's Rear Window with Jimmy Stewert whose character is a photographer. I love it when he picks up a 35mm camera and plays with the lenses. But he is living in a very small apartment in NYC. No AC of course. No TV. Maybe a radio or a phonograph. VERY few possessions. The neighbors don't have much either. And a rotary phone of course.

I have pointed out to my kids records and phonographs so they would at least now about the technology.

I have most of the Hardy Boy mysteries. I need to go back and reread them. :laughing: They are going to be so outdated because of the technology. The books USED technology as part of the plot but that technology is just not interesting anymore. Instead of HAM radios today the plot would have to use texting, cell phones, and cameras in the cell phones.

I am sure my next cell phone will be Android based. The spec on the Nexus looks like it has the CPU and memory of my tower PC from 10-15 years ago.

Later,
Dan

 

[Soundguy]

I used to have an old ibm laptop that had an attached thermal printer. heavy.. had a slide out solid metal handle.. and the thing was like 2' long with printer, 1' wide, and about 3" thick..

soundguy

The laptops rule now. I echo the blackberry being my new 'laptop'. I don't bring the laptop home from work much any more due to the blackberry. Work has a simple docking station with a large flatscreen. I enjoy using both screens when working.

At home my wife and I often sit at each end of the couch watching TV, each on their own home laptop. (Lately I learned about Hulu and started watching another show when she insisted on some chick flick... good stuff, check it out) We both have fairly cheap home laptops bought in 06 for maybe 500 each. Good enough for the web and watching Hulu!!!

Hint to buyers, do your homework on the accident damage insurance the dealers want to sell you. It sucks to see what happens when you dump a drink on a 2 day old laptop keyboard, especially if you decided you did not need the extra coverage because you have carried laptops around the world since the late 80s with no damage.... fateful words those were.... argggggg

My favorite old laptop was the one that had the built in inkjet printer. Canon maybe? It was real handy. Especially with the extra acoustic couplers in a Japanese payphone trying to send messages before the internet really got going.. Great stuff back then.

More if you have the patience to read:

I've been a heavy duty overseas traveler for the last few years. This has forced me to put my life in a corner of my company laptop as I travel. My computer hobbies used to be spread around my home office across at least 10 running computers over the years.
Now that I was forced to pack it with me (vmware worked well for me), I realized that the laptop is plenty for most everything.

The old computer 'lab' upstairs is still there but only one new Dell quad core desktop ($700) chugs away running free VMware ESXi4 with most of the other boxes virtualized inside it. Router, fileserver,numerous webservers in linux, webcam, some Win7, VPNs, etc.

The old $3500 PIII Dell bought new many moons ago and running win2Kpro is turned on from time to time just to prove to myself that it still works. I finally tossed the 486box that weathered the early win versions after using it as a floppy based router for years.. I saw a C64 in a packing box but never found the power supply..

Wow this stuff got cheap over the years....... Interesting how many geeks have tractors.... Hmmmm

 

[aczlan]

With not much stuff networked no place at the the panels to hold a lap top its the best choice for me.
Like today working on a press with TI505 plc with my machine and the factory serice tech's lap top sitting on the other end of my cart on the S7-300 that was suppose to be sending me 100 words of data and it wasn't getting through profibuss maze we finally found an bad profibuss repeater causing the problem its being couriered in tonight so we can install it tomorrow and make sure its working properly.

Why not put a laptop on the cart and push that around? Then you don't have to plug in before powering up.

Aaron Z

 

[Soundguy]

how about one of them flat panel touch pads with a lanyard and body strap

soundguy

 

[MossRoad]

how about one of them flat panel touch pads with a lanyard and body strap

soundguy

Substitute the I-Pad for a baby? :laughing:

 

[Soundguy]

yikes! not me!

soundguy

 

[dmccarty]

I used to have an old ibm laptop that had an attached thermal printer. heavy.. had a slide out solid metal handle.. and the thing was like 2' long with printer, 1' wide, and about 3" thick..

soundguy

I think that is the PC Convertible. I have one. Heavy as heck but tough. TWO 3.5 floppy drives with a built in 80 column LCD B&W display! Battery life was pretty good.

I think the printer attached to the pack of the PC.

I still have the Convertible and the P70 luggable. The P70 was a 386 either a 16 or 20mghz CPU. I think it has 1 or 2MB or RAM. It has OS/2 installed on I think a 60MB hard drive. I should go power that thing up and see what happens......

I know the convertible would work. Just don't know if my floppy diskettes would still work... They are a bit old....

Later,
Dan