All-out hardware mania

I recently received, as a belated birthday/xmas gift from my very cool sister and her equally cool boyfriend, a MiniDV camcorder. Pretty cool huh? Yeah, she rocks. I'm pretty sure I've never done anything for her to deserve that level of generosity (quite the opposite in fact during our childhood), so I will be guiltily indebted (and thankful) to her for quite some time.

(those who dare dream to rival the coolness of my sister can visit my just-updated-with-the-best-accessories wishlist and give it their best shot)


Well, the challenge of this scenario is that the camcorder has USB 2.0 as its cheif PC connectivity option, and I had no USB 2.0 compatibility in my now 3-year old PC prior to this point. So, knowing that using USB 1.1 to do video is NOT an option, and after much research, I settled on this ("6 Port USB V2.0 Adapter Two PCI Ports, Four 3.5" Bay Mounted Ports") cool gadget from CompUSA. Now for the installation...

As noted in the previous chapter of my personal hardware story, I recieved a DVD+-RW drive for Christmas as well, and had a small ordeal getting it installed in my system. Some in my circles might have thought I'd had enough, but apparently I must be insane.

Also relavent, I recently picked up a DVD-ROM drive for $12 on eBay so that I could dub DVDs that I produce with the camcorder for family, etc.

So, a mere 2 weeks after putting in my DVD burner, with the task of installing my new front-side USB 2.0 ports and the second DVD drive, I was forced to completely undo my previous efforts. Yes, that's right, to get to the free external 3.5" bay, I had to remove my DVD burner. But, all things considered, after a reasonably smooth install of the PCI USB controller and the USB bay, it was no problem putting both the DVD-RW and DVD-ROM in, and getting everything put back together. Now I'm down to one free 3.5" bay and two PCI slots in my PC (out of two internal 3.5", 2 external 5.25", and three external 3.5" total). Here's a quick shot of the final product.

Now, I'm pretty well rocking, and have an easier time using my USB flash drive as a bonus. I was previously having to plug that into my external USB hub, which was fine, but slightly less convenient than the present solution.



All of this got me thinking about the evolution of my PC over the last three years. Here's a retrospective...

Previous (lame) PC setup:
-Compaq Deskpro 5133
-Pentium Classic 133 Mhz
-2 x 1.2 GB Hard Drives
-96MB RAM
-10x CD-ROM
-No frills speakers
-17" CRT monitor
-Barely functional, very low-end, Lexmark printer
-MS Windows NT Workstation 4.0
-Standard P/S-2 keyboard/mouse
-No USB support
-No UPS

PC purchased at the end of 2000:
-Dell Dimension 4100
-Pentium III 1.0 Ghz
-20 GB Hard Drive
-256 MB RAM
-8x/4x/32x CD-R/RW/ROM Drive
-Same monitor and printer
-MS Windows Millenium
-Standard P/S-2 keyboard/mouse
-2 rear USB 1.1 ports
-No UPS

The present state of my PC after MANY upgrades over three years:
-Dell Dimension 4100
-Pentium III 1.0 Ghz
-20 GB Hard Drive
-60 GB Hard Drive
-512 MB RAM
-8x/40x DVD-ROM/CD-ROM Drive
-4x/2x/4x/4x/12x/16x/24x/32x DVD+RW/-RW/-R/DVD-ROM/CD-RW/CD-R/CD-ROM Drive
-17" CTX LCD flat panel pivoting display
-Cambridge Soundworks 2.1 speakers
-Cannon i860 color photo printer
-MS Windows XP Pro
-MS Wireless Natural Multimedia Keyboard and Wireless Optical Mouse
-2 rear USB 1.1 ports (-1, +4 w/ HSB 1.1 hub)
-2 rear USB 2.0 ports, 4 front USB 2.0 ports
(11 total usable USB ports!)
-650VA USB UPS