Goodbye old equipment...

PE4BAS shack 2006/2007

 

 Can your imagine in 2006 touchscreen was still something that was just in development. Yes, some computers had touchscreen. But it only worked with a special touch pencil. I had a dream about a touchscreen controlled radio. Something that would be common in the future. I already predicted that at that time. In 2006 I bought a touchscreen laptop which I used to CAT control my Icom IC-706. I have no video about it but found one photo on which this setup could be seen. These days almost all new radios have touchscreen control. A cellphone or a tablet is all touchscreen controlled. You don't even need to have a separate CAT control modem and audio modem anymore. New radios require just one USB cable to your computer controlling everything.

So, it is time to say goodbye to this old laptop after almost 20 years. It still works but it is so slow compared to todays computers. I made good use of it. It was brought with me on several trips on vacation. It did well in several contests using N1MM software. It did well on several digimodes. And it had an excellent WiFi receiver, much better as other laptops and computers I had. But now is the time to leave it and go on with new technology. You can't keep it all.

Look at the specs. This was really a good laptop computer 20 years ago. It had a separate DVD/CD-RW player with firewire connection. Included in the package was also a USB floppy for 3,5" floppy discs. I keep that because I still have some 3,5" floppy disks with ancient software. You never know...

Abandon all the old stuff is difficult at times.