New ‘pyooter

My wife has ordered a new computer, a PC laptop with Windows 7.
Her old rig had only a 24-gig hard-drive, and it was becoming an impediment.
She was driving Windows-XP, and a service-pak maxxed it out — but I guess it was because it was backing up her old XP.
I myself drive an Apple Macintosh with OS-X.
Our choices are a reflection of past employ.
The mighty Mezz went all Macintosh while I worked there. And my wife’s employer was Microsoft PC.
My wife retired as a computer programmer.
I retired doing the newspaper’s web-site, among other things.
I was doing it on an original IMAC, but we had added RAM.
Its processor was ancient (probably a G3, or earlier), so I suppose it was slow, but I didn’t notice.
Of course, what we were doing was very basic compared to the current web-site.
It was iteration number-three; the newspaper’s paid web-site. MPNnow (the current web-site) is free. —Paid in the sense you had to be a subscriber to access it.
My first ‘pyooter was a 386-PC, but I switched to MAC long ago.
At that time Macintosh was trumpeted as the preferred platform for the “Big Three;” Photoshop, Quark and Freehand.
Photoshop, Quark and Freehand are all ‘pyooter software applications (“apps”), Quark a glorified word-processor, and Freehand a drawing application, a point-to-point drawing application.
Quark is (or was) used to generate the newspaper’s pages.
My home ‘pyooter more-or-less mimicked a Messenger ‘pyooter. I had Photoshop 5.5, Quark 4.1, and Freehand-7; the apps the Messenger used.
It allowed me to redesign the Messenger stockbox at home. That was my Quark.
I also had Word-98. At the Messenger I had 6.1 (eight floppies), an antique.
I’d e-mail business columns home so the formatting therein showed up. 6.1 wouldn’t do that.
My ‘pyooter needs have changed since I retired.
I still have Photoshop 5.5, Quark 4.1, and Freehand-7.
But I rarely use them.
Photoshop has been upgraded since; clear up to Photoshop-9.
But I got Photoshop-Elements instead. I don’t need the full Photoshop, which seems to be a graphic-arts application.
Everything I was doing with 5.5, I can do with Photoshop-Elements. I’m not a newspaper!
So now the schtick is to upgrade my system.
The one I’m using is probably at least six years old.
And the OS-X I’m using isn’t the most recent; Leopard.
What I use is 10.4, Tiger.
I use it because Tiger is the last OS-X with “Classic-Mode.”
My Excel, Word, Quark, and Photoshop-5.5 are all “classic” applications.
That is, they won’t run under OS-X.
But the earliest OS-Xs had “classic-mode,” a resident 9.2 Apple operating-system.
When I was last at the Messenger we were using 8.6, which 9.2 was a lot like.
For years I drove 9.2 here at home, but switched to OS-X when 9.2 started getting flaky.
But I still had those “classic” software applications, including also Appleworks-5. (A word-processor/spreadsheet/etc. program.)
So I was using “classic-mode” a lot, mostly with Appleworks-5.
As usual my ‘pyooter requirements are driving my selection.
Last time it was mega-RAM, to prevent “virtual-memory” shoveling, and not being able to do things.
This time it’s portability, which means a laptop that can run on a battery.
With a receiver that can access the Internet from the cellphone network.
I don’t need one of those incredible G5 towers — the rigs that compute the meaning of life. —I’m not a graphic-arts designer.
I still would like a lotta RAM, plus a hard-drive that will swallow three previous ‘pyooters, and still have a lotta free space.
My first ‘pyooter was a 120-meg hard-drive with 8 megs of RAM.
My current rig is a 60-gig hard-drive, with 1.2 gigs of RAM.
The machine my wife is getting is a 500-gig hard-drive, and 4 gigs of RAM. (She coulda got six.)
A 500-gig hard-drive will swallow an aircraft-carrier.
With 1.2 gigs of RAM I have never been shunted into “virtual memory,” even with a 4,800 ppi picture scan. I used to get it with a previous rig, and was getting it at the Messenger before we added RAM.

• “‘Pyooter” is computer.
• My wife of almost 42 years is “Linda.”
• The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired almost four years ago. Best job I ever had. (“Canandaigua” [“cannon-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 15 miles away.)
• OS-X is the most stable operating-system I have ever used. Over four years of use, I’ve yet to have it crash. Sometimes I have to force-quit applications, but doing so has never brought down the entire rig.
• “‘Virtual-memory’ shoveling” is using free hard-drive space as RAM, when there isn’t enough RAM. Placing stuff on the hard-drive is “shoveling,” and takes forever.
• A “meg” is 1,000 bytes; a “gig” is 1,000 megabytes (1,000,000 bytes). —I hope I have this right; correct me, ‘pyooter-geeks!)
• 4,800 ppi is 4,800 pixels-per-inch; way tighter than needed. I usually scan at 300 ppi; stuff displays on the Web at 72 ppi. 4,800 ppi isn’t worth doing; it takes way too long. (Nevertheless, my scanner will do it, an Epson 10000 XL.)