The Backroad to Civilization

October 3rd, 2024:

Yaaaaaawwwwwwwnnnn...

This probably won't be my most coherent of posts (are any of them,

really?). I was up past midnight this morning, hacking away on one of my

RetroChallenge projects (my Powerbook Duo 280c), which probably wasn't the

best idea as I had to be up at 5:30am today.

I'm on no sleep. I tossed and turned for an hour, falling asleep for

twenty minutes at a time, with visions of that stupid Powerbook running

through my head. Part of the insomnia is excitement - the idea of

restoring and upgrading this once powerful little machine and making it

useful again. The other part of the insomnia is anxiety - the sheer

amount of work involved to make this once powerful little machine useful

again.

But... meh. I've done it before, I'll do it again.

My wife thinks I'm nuts. Of course she does. I'd imagine that's a common

theme amongst us retrocomputing enthusiasts, spouses who don't see the

point. I've fed her my usual line of "Everything was state-of-the-art

once" and that my older machines are as useful as they ever were... to

which she usually replies "State-of-the-art decades ago".

Well, I won't argue that... but to me, newer machines just aren't as much

fun.