My museum of content related artefacts (4)

1999: De Sony Vaio PCG-C1F

De Sony Vaio PCG-C1F is very dear to me. I am a gadget and notebook freak. I love mobile PDAs and notebooks. This Sony was well designed. It was as big or as small as a lady’s purse (3x13,5x24 cm). It was also one of the first notebooks in the Vaio series and it had a camera on board; a rather unique feature.

The notebook has a special personal story. I bought the notebook as a replacement for a laptop which was stolen from the office. I still remember that day clearly. I was at the Amsterdam airport Schiphol trying to check-in for a flight to Germany. It had been a hectic day with an early appointment in the hospital for a bad news talk. At Schiphol I found out that my ticket had been booked for a wrong flight, so I had to catch the night train to Germany to arrive in time the next morning to honour an agreement. The third bad message that day was that my laptop had been stolen from the office. Soon I realised that I had lost all my data as I did not make regular back-ups; amongst others, I lost a manuscript of a book, which I had finished more than half. As a replacement and incentive for myself I bought this Sony; in fact, it was the first computer which I ordered online.

I enjoyed using the computer. In fact I started to use the camera facility intensively. During meeting I took photographs of the people present. I could look up the photographs afterwards in order to make sure that someone was present at the meeting or not. I printed also the photographs in the minutes and reports. It made reports more alive.

The notebook had also its problems. Hooking up the PC to a beamer caused problems. While most laptops seek the beamer and install themselves, this Vaio refused to get linked. Also the screen size was a difficulty; it was a problem which looked like the HDTV screen problem, seeking a balance between the landscape and resolution.

I have used the computer for some five years with pleasure. It still is working properly, except for the battery.

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Blog Posting Number: 816

Tags: digital heritage