Peter Cochrane's Hard Drive 1997
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Remember me to the future
THIS is the last time I shall sit at this laptop and type. Over the past three years this machine has been a faithful companion, has travelled more than 500,000 miles, participated in more than 1,000 presentations, processed more than 12,000 email messages, documented innumerable meetings and visits, and recorded all of these Connected columns. But time has run out and it has become a museum piece, overtaken by technological advance, and, sadly, old age. It is worn out by use to the point where all the connectors are sloppy, and even the plastic hand rest is polished by the abrasion of my moving palms.

During our three-year partnership this machine never failed me, always got pictures on to projectors, always got online from any point on the planet. It did everything I demanded, and has been the personification of good design and reliability. To me it has not just been a tool and a third lobe, but in a curious way, almost a friend. And now we have to say goodbye.

What to do with this machine? Having pondered this for some time, I have decided to turn it into a time capsule, a message from the past for future generations. As I switch off for the last time I will leave it looking like a computer version of the Marie Celeste. Completed files, half finished work, applications and a few pending mail messages in local folders will all be left as they are at the end of this 600 words in late September 1997. It will be a true snapshot of the late 20th century life of an online technologist, to be mounted in a perspex display box hung on my office wall.

Later, when the emotional bonds are weaker, and I feel we can part company, I plan to consign this friend to a vault to be interred for at least 100 years, sealed for posterity. Imagine the reaction when it is discovered 100 years on. No doubt many of the components will have died, but the technology of that time may be able to power it up and access this electronic vault.

How will the technology archaeologist of that time react? Look, only 0.5Gbytes of memory on a rotating disk, 20Mb of RAM and a 36MHz clock, a keyboard and a mouse, a two-dimensional screen of such small size and poor definition, and a combined operating system application pack of less than 80Mb. Wow, how did the owner work, how did he get anything done, how heavy, and how did he wear this thing? Oh I remember, in those days they used to carry them in bags - wonderful. But look at the craftsmanship, hard to beat the old technologies, all hand-assembled you know, not like the machine-built wearables and micro-implants today.

In 1997 a new market has been established for antique computers, and I suspect that this laptop will very shortly enter the same category. Old Atari, Apple and Sinclair machines can now be worth more than their original purchase price to dedicated collectors. Houses, furniture and cars take 50 or more years to achieve antique status. But because of the accelerating speed of technology development, the time required to achieve this badge appears to be falling exponentially. So on second thoughts, perhaps I need an active vault that powers up my laptop from time to time and keeps it in working order. And perhaps I should also visit my old friend from time to time, just to recall a past electronic life.

Peter Cochrane holds the Collier Chair for the Public Understanding of Science & Technology at the University of Bristol. His home page is:
http://cochrane.org.uk

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