Until recently, putting things into The Attic involved a modest ISDN connection. Not fast, not even as fast as it claimed to be, but rich in additional software-supported features such as fax, telephone answering and the like, it was entirely satisfactory to our purposes and, above all, cheap. So cheap, in fact, that ...
Our IS(and telecomms)P announced that the ISDN service was to be withdrawn, on the grounds that "nobody wants it". We must transfer to a broadband account or make other arrangements. But the monthly charge proposed for even the narrowest of broadband connections is, well, outrageous. A quick check reveals that none of the opposition has cabled our area yet, though several promise in enticing terms to do so. That many believed such promises is attested to by the fact that the Consumer Ombudsman - the office that protects a gullible public against naughty commercial practices here - is even now assembling the evidence. Anyway, there's nothing to be done but to keep our heads down, in the hope that a better offer will emerge. A better offer emerges in double quick time and we sign a broadband contract.
When the kit arrives - high speed modem, installation cd and what purport to be instructions on how to proceed - we learn with horror that the URL of The Attic must change. We further learn that our ISDN account no longer exists; we can't even ftp a message to the old site that we're moving! So congratulations to those who've arrived here, even though at the time of writing the old site is still accessible - frozen in time, bereft of the present ration of wit and wisdom and everything (?) to follow.
The installation goes smoothly despite the instructions. The anti-virus package and firewall protect us from all evil, the email accounts work and we can bring the world to our door at five times the speed of the ISDN connection. Which is astonishing because we were promised four times the speed and didn't really expect to achieve it. But what's this? The system is now sluggish, to say the least, and fails to complete the power down sequence the first time we switch it off. Next morning, it rapidly becomes apparent that ScanDisk will never get its job done the way things are.
Your host learned programming many years ago on a 16000 (not 16384) byte machine with, if memory serves, an 11 microsecond cycle time, so 128MB of main memory (sometimes 256MB, but the second block is el cheapo and blue screens far too often) feeding a 733MHZ processor is a lot of computer in our philosophy. But the virus/firewall goodies seem to have unpacked to around 80MB, so perhaps more memory is needed. Let us therefore give thanks to eBay, because the 512MB DIMM arrived in no time at all, worked on installation, let its speed be jacked up to the full 133MHZ without protest and, with everything in place, still has around 200MB free for the paying customer to use.
Which is a bit sad, really, because at the very moment of triumph, the fickle finger of fate decrees that precious little time will be available to use it.