Computers are fun

Friday December 28, 2007

I decided to plug in my new Lacie 500 gigabyte external hard disk in and give it a spin. Work of a moment to do so, and I sat back while Windows Vista whizzed for a bit ‘loading device drivers’ and generally satisfying itself that the new device was suitable. It was.

“What do I do now?” I asked.

“You’d better copy something on to it to be sure it works.”

“Ok. That I can do.”

So I highlighted my entire documents folder setup–about 3.50 gigabytes of my stuff–, did a ctrl-c, opened the new disk, created a folder, switched to it and did a ctrl-v.  Windows Vista liked that, and started whirring away, copying files willy nilly.

I left it and went back down to the living room to join Dolly and Graham for a Buffy session.

“How long’s it going to take?” Graham asked.

“It says a couple of hours.”

“That doesn’t sound right.”

“Not to worry.  I’m happy. Let’s do Buffy.”

A lot later I wandered back up to find the copy just about to finish.  Three hours in all.

“That’s USB1 speed. Something’s making it run at USB1 speed. But I didn’t know you had anything left over running USB1.”

“I suppose it could be my IBM clickety-clack keyboard.”

“Of course. Wait a minute.”

Cables, keyboards and all my lovely tidy desk disappeared in a tangle.

“There. Try it now.”

I repeated the copy, into another new folder. This time it took eleven minutes.

“Oh dear,” I said. “Does this mean my lovely old IBM keyboard is no more?”

“Probably. Leave it with me.”

And the upshot of it all is:

• USB2 runs at USB1 speed if a USB1 device is plugged in.
• If you want to keep going with a sprung keyboard like the IBM beauty I’ve been using all these years you have to buy a new one, from an American company that’s bought the license for making them from IBM.

And the moral of the story is that PC life is never as simple as they’d have us believe.

I’ve ordered a new keyboard, to be shipped air express, and I’ll resume the saga when it arrives.