My Technology is Old

I will admit it... I'm a sucker for old hardware.

For most of my work, I have a ten-year-old generic tower PC, a non-touch (and non-glare) 22-inch display, and a genuine IBM Model M keyboard.

The keyboard (a Model M13, to be precise) is the olds-tyle "clicky" keyboard with a built-in TrackPoint nub that emulates a mouse. It is, by far, the most comfortable keyboard I have used. It's also durable -- at least thirty years old and still going, even after lots of pounding. I love the shape of the keys, the long key travel (almost 4 mm), and the loud clicky sound on each keypress. (Officemates are not so fond of the last.)

For other work, I use a relatively recent HP laptop. It also has a non-glare screen. The keyboard is better than most laptop keyboards these days, with some travel and a fairly standard layout.

I prefer non-glare displays to the high-gloss touch displays. The high-gloss displays are quite good as mirrors, and reflect everything, especially lamps and windows. The reflections are distracting; non-glare displays prevent such disturbances.

I use an old HP 5200C flatbed scanner. Windows no longer recognizes it as a device. Fortunately, Linux does recognize it and lets me scan documents without problems.

A third workstation is an Apple Powerbook G4. The PowerBook is the predecessor to the MacBook. It has a PowerPC processor, perhaps 1GB of RAM (I haven't checked in a while), and a 40 GB disk. As a laptop, it is quite heavy, weighing more than 5 pounds. Some of the weight is in the battery, but a lot is in the case (aluminum), the display, and the circuits and components. The battery still works, and provides several hours of power. It holds up better than my old MacBook, which has a battery that lasts for less than two hours. The PowerBook also has a nicer keyboard, with individually shaped keys as opposed to the MacBooks flat keycaps.

Why do I use such old hardware? The answer is easy: the old hardware works, and in some ways is better than new hardware.

I prefer the sculpted keys of the IBM Model M keyboard and the PowerBook G4 keyboard. Modern systems have flat, non-sculpted keys. They look nice, but I buy keyboards for my fingers, not my eyes.

I prefer the non-glare screens. Modern systems provide touchscreens. I don't need to touch my displays; my work is with older, non-touch interfaces. A touchscreen is unnecessary, and it brings the distracting high-glare finish with it. I buy displays for my eyes, not my fingers.

Which is not to say that my old hardware is without problems. The PowerBook is so old that modern Linux distros can run only in text mode. This is not a problem, as I have several projects which live in the text world. (But at some point soon, Linux distros will drop support for the PowerPC architecture, and then I will be stuck.)

Could I replace all of this old hardware with shiny new hardware? Of course. Would the new hardware run more reliably? Probably (although the old hardware is fairly reliable.) But those are minor points. The main question is: Would the new hardware help me be more productive?

After careful consideration, I have to admit that, for me and my work, new hardware would *not* improve my productivity. It would not make me type faster, or write better software, or think more clearly.

So, for me, new hardware can wait. The old stuff is doing the job.