My portable data needs, were, until now, fulfilled by a 256 MB USB pendrive-cum-MP3 player, which I got as a present once. It sort of was better than others of its breed, having funny glowing lights et al. At least, it doesn’t feel that hard losing it now, unlike iPods which kick their heels and give you a dead battery within a year.
But the pendrive was USB 1.1, which made it damn slow. Even that wouldn’t have been a problem, but it was SO thick that didn’t even have enough space to reach the ports on the stupidly-designed IBM PCs at school. I hope Lenovo drives some sense into design these days. That also meant I had to lug around (horror of horrors) a USB connector to use it most of the time.
So I didn’t shed too many tears when one fine day it was no longer recognized by the PC at school. Well, I did shed a few tears maybe because I needed to transfer something important, but what the hell. And neither did Linux recognize it at home. Out I whipped the CD which had the firmware, and apparently it had an error too while copying. The fun reached a crescendo when the manufacturers site (in Dutch, that too) didn’t have a download. I got fed up, threw it and smashed it.
Good for me, I got something to mess around with. I pried it open, and you’ve the pic at the top.
Trivia: USB uses four pins – I found that when I broke my pendrive open.
There you can see the processor, and the two memory chips, and the LCD screen. The rest all protruding thingies at the periphery are various buttons, Note to people with LCD screens (like Boris) – take GOOD care of it, because I tried to have some fun and stabbed the LCD screen with a knife. At at slightly high pressure, the liquid crystal containment breaks, and stays like that permanently. Happened to my friend once – he’d punched his LCD monitor, and it never ever after showed a picture surrounding that spot. Cathode ray still rules dude, LCD and plasma still have a bit of road to travel. Nobody can beat the cost-effectiveness, non-ghost(liness), non-I-can’t-show-black-color-properly property like good ol’ CRT.
No need to pine for me though, I’ve got a brand new 2 GB Kingston DataTraveler for drumroll please Rs 800 ONLY (yes yes, you read that correctly) WITH a bill and warranty card. Here’s the point I leave you to burn green with jealousy (incidentally, also the color of my new Kingston – maybe I’ll buy you as a decorative accessory for it one day). As for my (not so) super-ex pendrive, may its circuits rest in peace, along with the rest of the bullshit.