Dell Latitude 433

Happy Easter everybody I have been so very tied up the past few weeks that I almost forgot about Easter! The work load has subsided somewhat but I still have a lot of work to get done and as I am back in Kent for a week or two I require a computer to get my work done on. As the majority of what I am doing is simply word processing so long as the computer had some form of word processor on it I didn’t mind what it was so I dug up a laptop older than myself that has been quietly collecting dust underneath my bed.

Upon plugging in this granddad of laptops and booting it up I was presented with the windows 3.1 boot screen in all the laptops monochrome glory followed by the all too familiar desktop. The last time this laptop had been used was by Weeble during high school and oh my does that bring back fond memories. You could tell that he was the last to use it because the desktop background is a hand drawn image by him stating “Mackenzie can’t sing!” oh yes, fond memories indeed. Anyway back then the main reason the two of us used the laptop at school was because we where both dirt poor so far as buying expensive consumer items went and because using something so old and retro was cool – even now I feel a slight pride in owning something so old and dusty that is still of some use to me. Anyway enough of the historic tangent the laptop itself has an ancient version of Microsoft Works that includes a word processor that saves in word 6 format, which is good enough for my needs.

In the past people have argued that such a device is useless in a modern world rotating about interconnectivity and the world wide internet, but the fact that this old piece of hardware doesn’t even have a eithernet port is part of the attraction for me. The internet is a huge distraction from work, it is nice to sometimes just have your focus on typing and even though the Dell Latitude 433 in all rights is a museum piece or at least will be by the end of this decade it is something I can be most productive on when away from my Mac Pro which is something that those of you who own one will agree with me saying it’s not that portable and way too expensive to haul home every time I make a visit.

I am quite sure that if you search for Dell Latitude 433 in a few weeks time this page will enter somewhere near the top of googles top listing simply because there seems to be absolutely no information on this computer anywhere on the internet. The laptop itself is in good condition for its age, however the battery is dead and every time I close the hood of it it beeps every three seconds. I think the two may be connected but I don’t wish to buy it a brand new battery because I use it at all times plugged into the wall; fore-fitting the need for a working battery. Other than overpriced websites selling extra memory and battery re-chargers there seems to be absolutely no information on the system at all. It is like it never existed in the first place which I think is a shame because it is a really nice system for word-processing needs and playing the odd dos game