It is with sad heart and long face that I pronounced the surprising death of a long standing emblem of versatility and team spirited support in my household.
This simple Compaq Presario 5360 held it’s head high when upgraded from 95 to 98 as buggy and flawed as they were, enduring BOSD’s repeatedly and the occasional reformat to eradicate the last infestations of malware. It stood stalwart when replaced by new technology to reign in our household, subordinated to the role of ‘test bed’.
It saw a reprieve restored to full and continuous use when the household grew a new live-in member, though not the glorious position of top-dog it felt it once again had a purpose to fulfill in satisfying the needs of a teen-ager.
Ultimately, as with all things, it grew older. Obsolete was the word. Once again, pushed out of the production line into the shadows. But powers that be saw clearly that the Comapq still had a life of positive contribution once again as a test bed. With memory upgrades to the max, it underwent multiple makeovers and changes. Windows XP, Red Hat Linux 9, Knoppix Live, Ubuntu 5, Ubuntu 6 and Knoppix hard drive install.
Although 8 years old (born 1998) it’s demise was a complete surprise. The tester at the time had been trying to overcome configuration issues and startup hangs through multiple power on resets. Maybe this was an indicator of impending doom? No one will know for sure.
Then, the display refused to show anything. Never a good sign in any pc. Emergency response was called in and mobo diagnostics instituted. Power on resulted in immediate BIOS 13 results with no other result leading to or following after. Time was running out as more research was done. And finally after several attempts to find life on 6 August 2006, CQ5360 was officially pronounced toast.
In true tradition of any technology driven household, it was dismembered for all that was salvageable and desireable. It’s remains have been parked unceremoniously awaiting final disposal for display or disposal.
And thus we honor the passing of a little techno-soul.
21 Buzzards 