YSaC, Vol. 515: Wanna grow up to be a De Acer.
I’m sure there are great deals to be found in the Computer section of Craigslist. These, however, are not two of them.
Sony Vaio laptop,windows xp, wireless,dvd/cdrw,office – $275
fabulous sony vaio laptop, with windows xp, wireless built in, dvd/cdrw, has office programs, antivirus
works great , battery lasts close to 3 hours too !!!
Sony Vaio laptop, you say? Does Sony frequently advertise their products with their competitor’s name emblazoned across the screen? That wouldn’t happen to be a random screenshot you yoinked from a website, would it? No, of course not.
Or how about this:
HP 2Ghz Tower & Flat Panel System – $150
2.0 Ghz Pentium 4, 1GB RAM, 80GB Hard Drive, DVD read, CD read-write drives, matching keyboard and mouse, 15″ LCD flat panel monitor, Windows XP Pro.
Michael sent this one in, saying, “Ok, I’m all for trying to make your posting look good, but… when the headline says “Flat Panel System” I expect a flat panel monitor. I don’t even see a flat SCREEN there. It’s not an LCD, it’s a CRT, with a curved surface. I’m not sure if I should flag it for false advertising.. but anyone who will see that picture and think “flat panel” deserves it, I suppose.
Also, that’s not an HP. I don’t know what it is, but it’s not an HP. If it IS, it’s FAR older than a 2ghz model, more like 200mhz model. And for $150? I can go to walmart and buy a laptop with a dual core Athlon and 3gb of RAM, double the hard drive size, and an actual FLAT PANEL (it’s a laptop after all) for $250. Why…
My head hurts. Remind me to never look for computer parts on Craigslist again :(”
I’m going to have to trust Michael’s commentary here, since I’m a Mac girl myself. (Dan is a PC, which means we’re a mixed marriage. We’re raising the cat platform-independently. She can make her mind up by herself when she’s ready.)
But this is Craigslist! The ads are always 100% true and correct. The posters are always honest and good. And the buyers are always– Oooh, shiney!
That monitor doesn’t look like it’s 15 inches either, but hey, us guys have been known to exaggerate a little.
Screen dimensions are usually measured from one corner to another diagonally. Maybe they measured from the outside of the bezel instead of the outside of the screen.
Or from way underneath, like most men.
You mean you don’t count the taint????
Spot on there, Lola. Guys like to make themselves feel better. Something tells me, however, that if one told that lie to you that you’d know instantly using your spidey senses. 😛
I’m thinking they started somewhere near the back of the monitor and measured it to somewhere under the desk.
That second one looks like the second home computer we had when I was younger. We got it in 1995, and upgraded the hell outta it until the motherboard killed itself in despair in 2002.
We then proceeded to destroy it with fire (well, sledgehammers and axes; I personally don’t like breathing in plastic and lead fumes). That computer deserves no less.
I left mine on the doorstep of a local Goodwill in the dead of night and ran as if it were a flaming bag of dog excrement.
The Goodwill people probably wished you’d gone with the flaming poo-bag when they found it the next day.
Probably. It was right before they started putting up big signs about leaving donations after hours and long lists of what they would not accept. Wonder why they did that.
The original plan was to smash it into tiny fragments after eating countless documents, but that seemed too much like work.
*caution, off topic mini-rant to follow*
I was leaving some things at a small independent thrift store on Saturday and they would not take one of my items, a small metal cabinet that mounts on the wall. They said they no longer accepted household items. They accepted an old vacuum cleaner, boxes of books, a rug, and other sundry items that could be considered “household items”, but not that cabinet. Ticked me off to no end, I could barely enjoy watching “Paranormal Activity” with my nephew. I could feel that cabinet mocking me from the back seat of my car in the parking lot like it was my own personal demon.
deep breath
I feel better now.
*end off topic mini-rant*
sarajean80, you may want to see if your local Habitat for Humanity has a resale shop. My community has one and they accept everything from appliances to cabinetry and hardware.
Getting further off topic I just want to say that even though I rarely comment, I am addicted to the comments on this site as much as the postings themselves. You guys don’t suck at all!
I’d comment more but I typically read this site through my phone which has does not have spellcheck but does have tiny hard to press keys.
My family has a history of smashing things into tiny fragments as sport. If we had guns, I’m sure we’d break apart computers to use for target practice.
Though I must say, the computer was one of the more fun ones to use a sledgehammer on and I’m sure it would have given you much satisfaction to destroy.
Here I’m having a mental picture of the fax-machine “execution” (staging a la “Casino”) from “Office Space.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9e5Ky7CXPA
I think anyone who has ever hated a piece of office equipment enjoys the emotional catharsis of this scene.
What the fuck is “PC Load Letter”?
I did that with a phone from work. It had been screwing up big time so they ordered a replacement. I fished the old one out of the trash and took great pleasure in reducing it to a pile of rubble with a baseball bat and a ball peen hammer, and then sneaking over and adding it to my neighbor’s burn barrel.
you must be a distant relative…my mother does that, too! after her nearly-new Nikon camera malfunctioned one too many times when she was taking pics at a park in town, she drove to my grandparents’ house (also in town), walked into the garage, came out with a sledgehammer, set the camera on the drive and proceeded to smash the living hell out of it. my grandparents just watched from the house, aghast.
It sounds weird, but you feel so much better afterwards.
There is actually a popular fundraising activity around here; a group will get a very old clunker and sell tickets for a dollar a hit. You buy your tickets, stand in line, then whale on the thing with a five-pound sledge. Extremely therapeutic.
If you stare at the second posting long enough the monitor starts to look like a flat screen… oh wait a second, that’s just because the picture is two dimentional.
Carry on.
Matching keyboard and mouse??? Sign me up! Here’s my $150! Can you find me a few more?
I know, it’s so rare to find a matching set. I use a miss-matched pair for my normal, every day use, but I keep the matching set passed down from my great-grandmother for special occasions…
ZOMG I just realized I wrote “miss” instead of “mis” and hyphenated it. Oh, the horror. I apologize to all those I offended.
I sometimes come back here and read things that I posted hastily and cringe at the misspellings. I can cast no stonse.
Aww, I thought you meant it had been picked out by a young girl. I have been picturing you with a pink set with little lavender hearts and prancing unicorns on it, with the cords trimmed with white eyelet lace dotted with tiny rosebuds. I am very dissappointed.
“We’re raising the cat platform-independently. She can make her mind up by herself when she’s ready.”
*snort*
As a Mac who seems to date only PCs (not on purpose), I find myself nodding wisely at your decision.
I love you people because you are my kind of weird.
So the cat uses Linux?
Felinux.
In my heart I’m a Mac, but in my wallet I’m a used PC.
I’m trying to raise my kittens platform-independent too, but then they went through a rebellious phase and installed Ubuntu on my system. Now I hear drums everytime they log on in the middle of the night to surf illicit kitty porn.
The joke’s on them — Flash video is so jerky on Ubuntu that even cat porn becomes unwatchable.
I love them dearly, but the little darlings are not exactly MENSA material. I have to hide my credit cards from them so they don’t waste my money on “sure thing” penny stocks and imported catnip.
I have dissociative personality disorder. My computer has all 3 OSs installed on it.
Getting OSX on to make it a tri-boot was about as fun as stapling your toung to an irritable skunk.
My head hurts just thinking about that.
I would rather do the skunk thing, if I could find out where my “toung” is located. You sound like you’ve had experience, TM – must have been a hell of a party.
So were you blacked out when you installed the other two?
Toung: Part of the body used to develop rolls of black and white film.
It’s right next to the splen, under the livar.
I’m a dual-booter. I got out of Vista as soon as my half- sister gave me her dead father’s laptop. Straight to Linux, but I still go back on Vista every now and then. To watch porn, and look through old items. I feel like porn sullies my good operating system.
That seriously made me laugh Igor. My best friend does that, but with two different computers, and mostly because he hates his Mac with a passion.
Yey! I was hoping someone else would comment on that. I’m a Mac and my husband is PC. We’ve kind of been avoiding the issue, though secretly, when he’s not looking I give them special treats in attempt to coax them over to Mac world. However, when they’re in a playful/chewing cords mood.. I hint to the PC.
TigerShark:
Cat Brainwashing: You’re doing it right.
Hehe, yep! Gotta start young. Wish I could say the same about my dog, though. She’s 2 now, when she was about 6 months she decided she is definitely a PC girl, by chewing through 2 of my laptop chargers. Never once touched anything PC related.
If it isn’t running Windows ME, I’m not interested. (In Soviet Russia, ME runs you.)
In Soviet Russia, Stephen King runs ME.
Hurry!!1!11 Stat of the arts Computur for sell!!!1
Buy my laptop – this is not actual fotos, but looks just liek my laptop for sell:
http://oldcomputers.net/trs80ii.html
Wow 8″ diskettes with 500KB storage, sign me up! It would take a 70WPM typist 24 hours to fill this disk. If my math is accurate, that means it would take me at least a week to fill it.
In Soviet Russia, diskette fills you!
I remember using these at school. In about second grade – no, wait, by the dates shown, I was in fact using an earlier model than this in second grade. *feels a little old*
I love that you have to buy the desk so that you have proper storage for all of the peripherals, including the hamster cage that powers the disc drive …
Hamsters are an underutilized energy source.
They’ve been running my Acura reliably for 20 years.
*You* feel old? I bet there aren’t many here who remember magnetic-plastic-coated hard disks about half a yard in diameter. They installed into large cake box-like containers called disk packs, which fit down into disk drives that looked like washing machines. I once took some ruined disk packs apart and got the cute little bearings. Had them around for a long time.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a computer that old before. I would suggest using it as a boat anchor, but the little men with chisels inside might drown.
“I would suggest using it as a boat anchor, but the little men with chisels inside might drown.”
-Hears tiny voices yelling at him “Yer damned right we would! That’s just inhumane, Igor!”-
Oh, Waily, waily, waily! The Wee Free Men deserve better than drowning! 8)
I would totally buy that, if only because I have a strange nostalgia for computers taht are older than I am. I actually put a 5″ floppy drive in my (mostly) modern Windows XP machine.
Does the second computer come with the punch cards, or do you have to purchase those independently?
At least it looks like it’s been converted from steam power.
Yeah, but they left the crank on. When you turn it, Thomas Edison’s voice comes out of the speakers.
I turned the crank a few times but just got this weird staccato beeping noise.
Is that a ZIP drive on the top??
It looks a little like an old 3.5″ drive.
<=== Whew, thanks for responding. I divided by zero and got stuck in a strange loop. Thanks for breaking the cycle!
Trying to give benefit of the doubt, maybe “flat panel system” refers to the fact that the tower is flat on top?
Anyone?
No?
Sigh…….fine, see this is what happens when computers interbreed. You get this HPAcerDellVaio mongrel, and society is left to deal with it.
That’s interesting. My elementary school used to sell all their outdated computers at community yard sales just to get rid of them after they’d buy new computers. I think I could find something pretty similiar to that second posting for about $5 – although I don’t know if I’d be guarenteed that the keyboard and mouse would match.
It might just be me, but aren’t most computers and their assorted peripherals usually either black, white, or that odd beige-ish putty color that turns yellow after a few years? It would not be a big deal that they match, unless they were adorned with, let’s say, dancing kittens or flaming skulls or something like that.
I would like to mention that my first computer was a very old one my mother bought from her workplace (for I think $50) back in the late 90s and it looked very similar to the second one. Mine had some sort of car part inventory summary burned into the monitor, though. When you booted it up it made a noise like someone shoving mice through a paper shredder and it had both the enormous floppy drive and the slightly more petite 3.5″ drive.
Ah, the good old days.
*feverishly embraces LCD monitor and flash drive*
Well, with a deal like this, I can update my Commodore 64. You have no idea how much tape drive space YSaC takes up.
My first computer was a Commodore 64. I used to write programs and save them onto a cassette tape … which I would then stick in my stereo and listen to. Yeah, there’s something wrong with me.
You just surpassed my Geek Quotient drmk, I bow to the superiority of your geekdom.
Man, I was thinking about those tapes earlier (re the Radio Shack I refer to above), and thinking, “Do I remember that right? Cassette tapes? For data storage?”
Guess so. But I don’t remember ever playing them …
If you play them backwards, you get a divide by zero error. OH SH-
Really? My guess would have been an unearthly, computerized voice intoning, “You will go through the Windows to Bill” and other infernal portents of the future.
I think GrahamT just vanished into a black hole.
That or he tore the space-time continuum a new one.
Dang, and I like his comments, too. Now he’s just a haunting presence in the cyber-ether.
*sniff*
Listening to software saved on cassettes is almost identical to listening to Yoko Ono albums.
But more coherent and with less screaming. And you don’t bleed from the ears as often.
The software and Yoko both sound better when played backwards.
The question is, if you put a Yoko Ono into the computer, would you find usable software? My guess is yes.
In fact, my first spreadsheet program was “Approximately Infinate Universe” now that I think about it.
Just don’t “play” Yoko when you’re online. She’ll likely break up the band … width. Then you get shit like “Plastic Ono Band,” which would be more properly named “Plastic Oh No, Don’t Play.”
Commodore 64?
Now I can’t get Brick House out of my head.
Mud, you’ve officially reminded me of my 50 year old, 6-foot tall 200 lb father singing Brick House unbelievably low… Karaoke machine for Christmas was DEFINITELY a great idea.
Igor:
If you don’t watch it, I’m going to send you to your room and take away the mouse that matches your keyboard. If you’re laptopping, I’ll duct tape your scroll pad.
But seriously [yeah, right], you can’t sing Brick House without singing unbelievably low and sultry. And of course without pronouncing “house” as HOW-sah. No duh.
Good to see you back!
Wow, drmk, you brought back some memories! My Dad worked at Radio Shack back in the day, and my sister and I did this same thing (listening to the data tapes). We’d also pester my Dad endlessly to hook up the generic version of Pac Man to the Comm. 64 and then we’d be bored after two minutes. Heh.
-Begins working on drmk’s Valentine present early, so the mail won’t be late-
-Works on Dan’s too, so he doesn’t feel left out, while praying his nerd level is as high as his significant other-
Dan’s is even higher.
I just got a cold shiver up my spine.
my DH and his brothers started on a TI-99/4A. I started on an Apple Macintosh. I’m a PC now, though…I converted when we married.
My computer progression has been a bit odd. Commodore 64, Tandy T100, IBM 80/86 XT, an Intel 286 (which had a “Turbo” button), 386, 486, and then into the original Pentiums, and then a normal progression from there. It’s worth noting that I am 28 years old too. Also, my dial up for gopher servers was 9.2kbps. I had the benefit of a dad in IT my whole life.
I remember having a 286 with a Turbo button.
‘What does a Turbo button do?’ you might ask.
Why, it turns on a green LED which magically flashed amber asynchronously with the red hard disk LED. That’s it. Nothing more.
I had a 286 with a clock speed read-out on front. When you pushed the turbo button, the clock speed went from 12MHz to 15MHz. Hold on to your seat as BASIC Nibbles goes into warp!
I’m guessing I began using a Mac in 1983 or 84, long before many of you were born. I had it upgraded to 64k and everyone laughed at me because no one would ever need that much memory. *doesn’t feel old, feels ancient*
Thank you! I was beginning to feel not only superannuated, but lonely up here in the rarified atmosphere of advanced age.
These people had computers in elementary school? I remember taking a field trip to the university to see a computer when I was in junior high. It was in a special, sterile (?), climate-controlled room with huge tape decks and people in white coats here and there. The key punch operators were in another room.
The guide told us that one day there would be computers that fit on a tabletop! We scoffed.
I think I wrote my first program (balancing a checkbook, of course) in BASIC in the early 80s on an Apple. I don’t remember it being called a Mac then, but it might have. My memory is not what it used to be…
My earliest Mac/Apple memory is confirmable to 1981; I was not yet 10 and it was probably an Apple IIe-ish type. Our school did not have a fantastic budget, but they did manage to have a computer budget that in retrospect was fairly impressive. We didn’t get a ton of time on them but they weren’t unfamiliar.
My earliest computer memory in general was visiting my mother at the hospital where she worked; she took me to visit someone in one of the admin-type departments and I was impressed that one of the ladies was working on a contraption generating a large quantity of paper tape! I didn’t know what that paper with the holes in it was or what it was for, but it looked really cool! I’m a little hazy on the date but given where we lived at the time it was likely ’78 or ’79.
It wasn’t a telex? I held a number of jobs in my student days as a telex operator. You typed the message (greatly abbreviated and with very few vowels) and the typing produced a perforated tape. To send the message you had to detach the tape and then feed it through a special input device once you were connected to another telex machine. It was state of the art!
Cled, it may well have been. At the time I thought it was a machine for generating interesting paper and it wasn’t until rather a long while later – possibly during the info science part of my library science degree – that I recalled it and understood what it really was. I was approximately 6 or 7, and all I remembered was that it looked like it would be fun to use.
It was a royal pain to use but the paper was a great deal of fun, even (particularly?) for students a good deal older than 6 or 7!
My *second* computer was a Commodore 64. My first was a 4K Commodore Pet. Chiclet keyboard, looked like a gargoyle squatting on the desk. My first IBM PC had a Turbo button, which actually worked. (Roughly doubled the CPU speed.) This was the ancestor ov overclocking….
steals “gargoyle squatting on a desk” for her novel
Obviously the reason for the $150 price tag on the second item is because it is clearly an antique. The “flat panel” is a typo, the poster meant to say it had a fat panel monitor because he did not know the term CRT.
Did he mean a phat panel monitor? “Phat” is soooo 90s’, like the computer.
Yo, dat be a phat system, dawg. Straight up. Word to ya mutha.
We laugh at these lame ads, but if you’re careful you can get a great deal on Craigslist – I just bought a 52-inch Sony Bravia LCD flat panel TV, 1080p with Motionflow 120Hz refresh rate technology, for only $899. Sweet!!
(photo – June, Wally, me, and LeBron.)
Computer, shmooter – I am just jazzed about the word “yoinked” used in the commentary.
It takes very little to make me happy.
Man. That second system is so welcome to 1996.
Brownie points for the Pixies reference.
Yay! Someone got it!
Wow. I really didn’t peg you for Pixies fan material, drmk. So here’s a little trivia! Which album was “Debaser” released on?
They’re one of my favorite (real) bands! My iPod currently has eight Pixies albums on it … of course, including Doolittle. I was lucky enough to see them live on their last tour, though I didn’t make any of the recent Doolittle tour dates.
But what about my Pictsies reference? 8/ (Blatant self promotion)
thanks! i already have a 6 year old dell – with a real flat panel. small by today’s standards. i’m a PC gal.
so, good luck with that…………….
Linuuuuxxxx, Go!
Although if forced, I’d side with dan, Drmk…. 😉
I’m an Ubuntu girl…
I am glad that the important (but touchy) issue of how to raise cats in regards to operating systems has been broached. Too often in today’s society, parents don’t talk to their cats about how to choose an OS, and leave it to the schools to teach the options available.
We need to become more proactive and realize that if we leave it to the schools, they’ll steer the cats down roads that we may not endorse, and even though it’s an uncomfortable conversation, it need to be had!
Hey, it’s still better than EBay… (that article is from the seller’s point of view — I’d bet buying is worse).
Yikes! So many comments, so close to bed time. Must.not.stay.up.all.night.reading.YSaC.
Did want to say that I’m pretty sure that top picture is not a Sony, but an acer. I know because that picture is of a laptop identical to the one I am using right now. And, you know, it says acer on it in big letters.
I am a Red Sox fan and Mr. LRC is a Yankee’s fan. We don’t have a cat, anymore, but I think he is subverting the house plants. We live in New England; they’ll never be able to go outside and mingle with the “normal” plants, if he keeps it up.
Oh giggle. That isn’t comment spam. No sirree, Bob! That is an honest, heartfelt reaction to hard-hitting, though-provoking, no-holds-bar journalism.
Just more reinforcement to my near-total dislike of Uggs. Comment fail! 😛
Just a quick note: deleting the Ugg-boot-promoting spam promoted all of these comments — so the comments below refer to a no-longer existing craptacular spam on the part of Ugg boots.
As if I needed another reason to detest those things.
I think that’s what Ugg boots are made of: Spam!
Spam in a can, Sam I am.
Grazie
Wow, I am inspired by the commenter’s point of view and want to buy a pair of overpriced, hideous boots that will make me look as if I am a cavewoman who has wrapped my feet in freshly cured sheepskins. But obly if you can ship them internationally, since I’m on business in Nigeria.
Fellow Non-Cavewoman:
I recently went through this “boot shopping experience” two weeks ago. After trudging to 3 shoe stores looking for a pair of Merrell hiking boots, it became excruciatingly apparent that my college town cared NOT that I wasn’t a 21 year old who wasn’t interested in the myriad of Ugg styles they were trying to force feed me.
Long story short; I ended up at the local outfitters, plunked down $180 on a $250 pair of Garmont boots that were on sale [yeah me!] and am hoping to Zeus I don’t have to go through that again anytime soon.
Yay you! That’s a great deal and you did better than I would have. Normally after the second or third store in a clothes shopping trip I wander off to look at books for a few hours.
Your shopping style is rather similar to mine.
The second ad is way off on the ‘flat panel part’ yes. But that’s probably an HP machine from the P4 era. It won’t be anywhere near as fast as a modern 2Ghz machine, it’s not worth near that much, but it’s probably actually an HP. Those are certainly HP drives in it. Here’s a similar-era HP (a little newer) http://www.websitesolution.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/049b.jpg