I’ve been a computer nut since 1974 when I taught myself FORTRAN IV and BASIC in college for an elective I took called “Urban and World Systems Dynamics.” Think of it as the precursor to Sid Meier’s Civilization, only written in FORTRAN IV (eek).

My first computer was an Atari 800 which I bought in 1979. I wrote 6502 Assembly (sorry, this is geek strutting stuff). I even patched the Atari Word Processor to move the key assignments around so that the single quote and the double-quotes were properly positioned. I spent over sixteen years directly in software engineering and managed several $1 million-plus software engineering projects in C, C++, Java, etc. So I am a code-hacking, UML-designing, Java-writing, EX-software engineer.

In 1987 at the Brighton Worldcon, I decided never to be separated from a computer. Since then I’ve been steadily migrating to laptops.

I’ve gone through an incredible number of Sony VAIO’s but, sadly, the Sony’s never seemed to stay the course. The first one’s left shift key went out, the second one decided to lose half its memory controller (seeing only half of the 256 MB RAM).

When my last, lovely and light Sony VAIO PCG-Z1VA lost the ‘d’ key on the keyboard I was faced with a dilemma. While the unit was still under warranty, I really couldn’t afford to be without it for the weeks/months it would take to get it repaired. Not to mention having to back up the data. What a hassle! I checked online and found that I could order a replacement keyboard (and did). But I wondered, given that the original keyboard had failed in less than 5 months, how long would the next one last?

So I decided, with some regret, that it was time for me and Sony to part ways.

My research online led me to believe that Alienware was a good choice. They talked about sending parts and expecting people to perform replacements. That I could do easily. So I ordered it back in August and worried that it might arrive sometime while I was at Dragon*con. Not so. In fact, I’m not sure that the darned thing wasn’t built from the ground up — I mean, from someone picking the darned silicon out of sand and smelting it down to semi-conductors. It seemed to take forever!

However, I now have it. I have some misgivings — I wish it were at least 4 pounds lighter (the little Sony weighed just about four pounds) and the power supply looks like something that should start starships not power laptops but I love the screen, the CPU speed (3.4 GHz) and the RAM (I’m only running 1 GB right now). I’m still getting used to the keyboard and haven’t made up my mind whether I like the old Sony layout better. And sometimes I seem to not get my Shift key and the letter I want to type in sync, so I have to go back and rewrite the CAPITAL letter but, all in all, I’m happy.

Especially to have a computer with a cute little Alien on the cover whose eyes light up.