AlphaSmart 2000

I've been pretty good about not using this as a journal to talk about what's happening (or not) in my life. I've failed a few times lately, succumbing to the overwhelming immediacy of the moment, and I regret that, but nobody's perfect.

Today another lesson in how a wonderful morning fizzles and dies, leaving me wishing I were dead.

So, I got the AlphaSmart I won on eBay and it was exactly as advertised and pictured. It came with the claimed Mac Y-Connection, but I hadn't realized the AS 2000 used a PS/2 connector instead of the UBS connector that my broken AS 3000 uses.

AlphaSmart sells the necessary connector for $30, but by this time I'm already dreading another in a long line of expensive fuck ups. I went to Fry's this morning, and bought the necessary cables for less than $10, then the fun begins!

First, I looked at the files that were still stored on my new old AlphaSmart. School things from 2001, notes from some meeting of an entertainment committee (they had $72 in the metal cash box they authorized purchase for) and were going to use leftover pretzels from one celebration for the Christmas party, to be held in January. The only other file was one student's (couldn't determine the gender) wrestling story, a touching story of his or her first match, which was a win! There were plenty of exclamation marks, so you know it was exciting! Also, he or she had managed to shed six pounds in a week to make the fighting weight of ninety pounds!

Anyway, hooked the AlphaSmart up to the computer and fired up WXP. Opened a blank Rough Draft document and hit send and all hell broke loose. Rebooted the computer in *nix, with the same result in AbiWord. Lost use of the mouse, rebooted, and the mouse was completely gone.

Got the mouse to work again (several more reboots), and felt like shit. Realized I'd used the mouse port instead of the keyboard port, and felt dumber, but hopeful. Tried again in the right port, and I can get the AlphaSmart to work, but not as I'd hoped with both the keyboard and the AS plugged in at the same time. I need to switch cables, and also discovered that at one point the 'puter refused to boot at all.

When my system cannot find the correct booting info on the hard disk, I panic. The Master Boot Record is something I screw around with way too much, typically with disastrous results.

Anyway, things are working again now, but I'm not as happy as I wanted to be. I rarely am as happy as I want to be. I'm a heat sink for desires that cannot be fulfilled, desires I create just to disappoint myself.