My first foray into cheap tech was with my first 'laptop' - which was also my first computer purchase in general. It was about ten years ago and I was a frugal college student flush with savings from previous employment. I was looking for the Cadillac Bentley of laptops. Of course, in hindsight, they all sucked but at the time big screens were better and smaller form-factors were still huge. Exhibit A: my AMS Tech Rodeo 3010ECX with it's 14.1" screen (that I don't really show). You may be saying to yourself, "AMS Tech... whaaa?" They were somewhat like the 90's version of http://powernotebooks.com, which basically sells ODM (original design manufacturer) computers as something you've never heard of rather than Dell or Compaq or whatever. And they don't tack on the brand name price either. So I got the best 1998 money could buy for as little money as possible. I think it was about $2100, which was cheap for the very exclusive 14.1" TFT screen and pentium MMX processor. HA!

It actually turned out to be a pretty reliable computer, all things considered. It still works and these are current pics. Sadly, it's pretty useless 10 years on. The power supply has to 'warm up' before it will hold a charge, and since the battery is obviously shot after all this time, there's no buffer anymore.

It's a portly 2.5" from the table to the top of the lid. You can s see in the pic to the left the modem dongle port, the door for the two PCMCIA slots
, the whinny little fan , and power plug.

cd drive and floppy... not sure cd writers even existed back then.





It has this odd little flap that allows for access to just the LPT1 printer port. They also hid a USB port behind
one of the legs... odd but functional.




I don't even know what all these ports do anymore. The only one we need these days from this selection is the USB, but this one is a 1.0 version. I imagine in another 10 years our laptops port line-up will be similar to the Macbook Air's - but with functionality.


It even came with a 'handsome' case. A little IBM red-look there.

Honestly, it was the biggest waste. I guess I used it for about four years. What a time-suck. I guess I got mild value out of it in that I could work at home, but I could have saved massively had I just gotten a desktop. I never took it anywhere. I actually packed it up every day and put in the closet so someone walking through the house wouldn't be tempted (we left our doors and windows open 24/7, even with the house empty for the day - and never had a single thing stolen).

It was the first misadventure, but definitely not the last...