Yesterday was IT-support day. First on the list was an organ transplant from of a several-years old, recently comatosed laptop (starting the computer resulted in a slight hum, a blank screen, and nothing more) that had seen some rather hard times in the hands of a somewhat physichally and verbally abusive user, to an equally old (though updated), but nontheless functioning stationary computer, in order to transfer what data there was on the transplanted hard drive. Extracting mentioned organ turned out to be surprisingly easy and did not even require the use of minimal violence. However, upon implanting the drive into the receiver it turned out that they were of different blood types (2,5" disc drives are not compatible with 3,5" IDE cables, duh), so an adapter had to be aquired (after failing to get one using medium violence upon the corpse of the laptop I eventually went to the store, at which point the salesman tried to fool me into buying some pointless USB-connected adapter for 400 kronor, when all I needed was a small thing for 70; "But then you have to open up the computer" - yes, I KNOW you imbecille, why the hell do you think I'm HERE?) in order to finish the procedure. After a few trial and errors (cables could be combined in many ways but only functioned in a specific one - imagine seeing the doctor doing that when transplanting a heart: "I think this is supposed to go here... ooops, no, that was wrong, let's try this instead - oh my, that's not supposed to happen is it? How 'bout this? AHA! There you go, as good as new.") I eventually got it working, and could procede with the transfer of all the necessary data - a timely but simple procedure. Once the operation had finished (it was quite the success - the owner was immensely happy over getting the data back) and the computer had been restored to it's old self (without foreign hard drives), it was time for the next item on the list: backuping one file and two folders from an even older Macintosh. And when I say old, I mean old. It's the equivalent of a 100 years old man still going strong, but not really knowing if he'll live to see another year or decade. I mean the machine is running Mac OS 8.6 for Chrissakes (an operative system hailing originally from 1997, with the .6-update being from 1999 - and has been followed by two generations of new operative systems since), and the computer itself is even older and originally came with Mac OS 7 (introduced in 1991) I think. The task was seemingly easy, except for these following facts: 1) A floppy disc was too small for any of the files, and no other computer in the household has a floppy drive anyhow (well, the stationary one mentioned above does, but that drive doesn't function either way) 2) Due to it's age it has no USB or firewire ports (hence no moving the data to a USB memory stick or the like) 3) The optical disc drive does not write cd's (dvd wasn't even invented when it was built), and even if it did, there still wasn't any software supporting it 4) It has no support for ethernet file sharing (only apple talk (excluding communication with any and all PC's very effectively), a protocol that Mac OS X (which the other two Apple computers are running) abandoned long ago, and indeed, I do not think it ever supported it). Luckily enough, I had long ago been foreseeing enough to install a functioning ethernet card in the computer thus enabling communication through the internet (mail attachments for the win!). However, two new problems arise. 1) There is no e-mailing client, and I sure as hell don't know of any current e-mail clients supporting Mac OS 8. 2) The web browser installed is Microsoft's Internet Explorer 5 for Mac, and a damn old version of it too; a browser not supported by gmail, and one that crashed the computer when I tried accessing another mail. After some rummaging around on the internet, I eventually found my way to Netscape's archives, and could download Netscape 7.2 (the last version of the browser that supported Mac PowerPC), only to be fatally let down as it didn't work to install it. Trying with version 6.2.3 instead surprisingly worked, and even though it was running morbidly slow and crashed the computer the first time it started, it still worked - with gmail as well! I quickly mailed the single file to another computer, and came upon the next problem: I had no idea how to compress the two folders into zip-files on such an old system. Around the same time someone boots up the recently operated upon stationary PC, which has suddenly decided it does not wish to boot as it should and complains about the Floppy drive. So I have to haul out and open up the PC all over again while at the same time trying desperately to find some kind of compression tool in the Macintosh, resulting in me running back and forth like a slightly confused hen. In the end, I did however find a program called StuffIt on the Macintosh, and after having shut down Netscape because it ate up all the memory, I successfully zipped the two folders, and mailed them to another computer. Left with only one problem to focus upon, I quickly found the solution for it: plug the power cable into the floppy drive (it had apparently come loose during the operation - pray to God I don't decide to become a surgeon ("oops, forgot to connect the aorta - okay guys, open him up again before he dies again"))... So, what do we learn from all this? Absolutely nothing.
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