FBSL Website

[Mike Lobanovsky]

Last November my wife decided to refurbish the closet in her room. I was out of town for a few days then and by the time I came back home, the work had already been done. "Look", I said, "I recon one of my old notebooks was supposed to be there somewhere on the shelf in your closet. Where did you move it to, darling?". "Oh," she said, "That iron box really didn't look like anything you have in your study. I thought it was some toolbox incidentally forgotten by the workers who had done refurbishing three years before. So I told the taskmaster he could have it if he wished".

There on the spot I remained frozen and speechless for quite some time.

Suffice it to say the "iron toolbox" was in fact an IBM PC Convertible, a museum rarity item in perfect working order and near mint cosmetic condition quotable on eBay at around $800 in Europe. (Just FYI, the medium salary in my country is currently under $200 per month)




So, what I am left with is an original 15V DC IBM power supply with cables, two 720KB diskettes that booted the laptop into BASIC, complete user documentation, and of course, my beloved wife. 

[Charles Pegge]

All my computers died well before they could become collectable antiques. I think our damp marine climate and lack of central heating  makes them go rusty or mouldy inside

I miss the old keyboards. They were so solidly engineered.

[Mike Lobanovsky]

What I miss most of all are those transparent plastic top covers for the keyboards they used to supply even the cheapest brands with, to protect against dust accumulating in the slots between the keys. I hate having to vacuum clean my modern keyboards once a week of all those bread and chip crumbs and also hairs from my occasional beard.

[Kuron]

I am with Charles, I miss the old keyboards not only for reliability, but my typing speed and accuracy was much better on them.

When I went to move to Nashville and was packing everything into the truck, when it came to all of my old computer systems in the closet, I said there is no way I am taking these with me, even though I had some semi valuable stuff.  I tossed them all in the dumpster.  The only old systems I kept are my old TI-99/4A computers.  One beige one silver.  Also kept my old Palm Pilot and my Psion Series 3a.

My normal computers, are still packed in boxes.  After a year of not being online or touching a computer, I simply bought a couple of budget notebooks to hold me over until I can get things unpacked and get my studio set up.

I still buy keyboard covers for my laptops if a cover is available for them.