Name the most expensive personal item you’ve ever purchased (not your home or car).
It is funny to think about this… I really tried to consider a personal item that would be expensive. Still, I couldn’t really find something that was too extravagant. What does that say about me? Maybe that I should treat myself more often? Or that I really don’t need things too expensive in life? Whatever the case, the most expensive item I have ever purchased was my MacBook Pro. Actually I am in my third one, so, I have done this a few times already.
This is a good time to pause. I have talked already about video games I used to play in my childhood. I want to consider a list of the PCs I have owned. It’s not exhaustive, but it reflects the progression of PCs in my life. It serves also to illustrate a history of PC evolution. I think this will be entertaining, at least to myself. For those technically inclined, there are more details on the Wikipedia pages for each of the models.
TK 85
TK85, ZX81 clone made by Microdigital Eletrônica in 1983
I was a 10 year old boy when I got my first computer, a TK85. I got so excited. As any child, I wanted to play games with it. But little by little I begun understanding what a computer was used for. And that was mainly for computations. I got some magazines that had printed programs that you copy and have them working on your PC. I was fascinated with that!
TK95
TK95, Brazilian clone of ZX Spectrum
That new model, TK95, was a clear PC evolution from the earlier one. On the new one, I didn’t need to keep typing the programs by hand over and over again. You “easily” did something in it without retyping. You used a cassette recorder to backup the work and retrieve it when you wanted. You also read games stored in the cassette tapes. It used to take up to half an hour to load to memory. Often, it would fail, and you had to start again. We had a lot of patience and perseverance in stock back in the day.
Apple II Plus
Apple II Plus, Second model of the Apple II computer line
Another PC evolution. This one had an external 5 1/4 floppy disk drive. Different from the cassette tapes from the earlier model, this one was much more stable. I used to exchange games with other boys who had the same kind of computer. We would post our availability in newspaper ads and call each other to see what games we had. I would go to the other kid’s house as far as 20 km, 1 1/2 hour by public transportation. Then we would do the exchange.
Compaq Presario Notebook
Compaq Presario 1200 Line of laptops produced by Compaq
This one was so cool! It was after we had internet and it had a modem. It was possible to make a phone call to your internet provider, and voilá, you were connected to the world. No more going by bus to each other’s houses. You would pay for the local calls and that was expensive, though. After midnight you paid the price of only the first minute, for as long as you continued connected. The problem is that everyone in your city did the same thing, and the lines got congested. It was so hard for you to get through, but once you were in, it was all good. I think that is why nerds, like I was (still am?), were normally using the computer mostly during the night.
Mac Book Pro
I had 3 models of this notebook from Apple:
MacBook Pro M2 Notebook computer
All of them were wonderful computers. Its design was thin and sleek. Every time I replaced them, it was an evolution over the earlier model. They were sturdy also. The second one I used for as long as six years. It was starting to get slow with the new functionalities introduced by the software. Still, I think it had a good run.