March 8th, 2020:

	I'm back on my ancient Powerbook kick again.  Now that I have 
wired Ethernet going to my lab, I really have no excuse for not connecting 
my old favourites to the net again.

Well, I guess I *do* have a good excuse:  Most of my old machines don't 
work anymore!

Seriously, my old computers are failing faster than I can (afford to) fix 
them, so once they're done, they go in the pile of despair until I can 
afford to fix 'em.

Of the ones that still work, I find my Powerbook 5300 the most capable.  
This is probably due to the fact I've never treated it as a toy or novelty 
- in fact, from 2002 'til 2006 it was my main computer.  I did 
*everything* on it, from updating my now long-dead website to word 
processing, even browsing eBay which, admittedly, took a *lot* of patience 
but could be done.

It's still a pretty capable machine if I stay off the web, although I do 
occasionally worry about security.  Occasionally.

The lack of a colour screen does bug me, but I can always use a second 
monitor connected to my Lapis Ethernet/Video card when I'm at home (which 
I'm doing right now).

I keep telling myself I'm going to have the battery re-celled so I can 
have the 5300 mobile again, but I don't know if I really want to spend the 
money.  It'd be cool to turn heads at the coffee shop again (as we did 
fifteen years ago) but "retrocomputing street cred" doesn't mean as much 
as it used to...