RIP, Lisa Electron.

I did a search for “Lisa” in my diary, and I realized that I never officially announced her death. I was having issues with her all last winter, but she finally croaked last May. I’m having a hard time remember precisely when. Did she die before I left the dorm? Did she live here for a few hours, only to refuse to come out of her powered-down coma?

It’s like a friend died and I can’t remember the circumstances. As if I’ve done her a disservice.

I loved Lisa Electron. She was my first major purchase. I felt proud to own her. It felt good to know she was mine, and I could do whatever I wanted to her. She was my girlfriend through all my horrible college trauma. She never judged me, she never scolded me. Always accepting of whatever I wanted her to do. If I didn’t have the social contact through her, I don’t know how I would have made it through my first year of college in the dorm. It’s awfully lonely when I don’t make a single friend.

She was a little bit flawed from the start, but I loved her anyway. Like a child you know isn’t perfect, but you love anyway because it’s yours. Don’t think too hard about how Lisa was simultaneously my child and my lover. *snickers*

She got a new hard drive after her original one crashed. The video card I gave her was the single-best upgrade I ever gave her. The extra RAM I gave her, to boost her to 384, resolved all memory problems. Mere months after I bought her, I upgraded from Windows Millenium to Windows XP Pro. Gotta love pyracy. XP Pro fixed all windows-related issues, and Lisa truely went 24/7 after that. She refused to crash. I could easily have her stay on for months straight without restarting.

But towards the end of her life, things got weird. I remember having to format the C: drive a couple times so I could reinstall Windows. (That was precisely why I partitioned the (new) hard drive, so I could format the C: while D: and E: would remain uneffected.) I think the video card died. I don’t know how, it just.. stopped working. Windows refused to recognize that my CD burner was, in fact, a burner. Querks, I tell you.

On her deathdesk, she refused to boot. I stared at the LCD, praying for anything to show up. I heard some beeps and checked the motherboard manual for what they meant, but couldn’t make sense of it. I took things out and put them back in. I restarted numerous times.

And then, nothing. I’d hit the power button and nothing would happen. It was at that point I declared the motherboard fried, and the entire system unusable.

I have been without a personal computer for the past nine months. Has it been so long? Oh, dear Lisa, please forgive me. Simply upgrading Lisa never crossed my mind. Her casing is a piece of shit. The PSU is too weak (300W) to be canabalized. The CD drives need to be replaced. Just about the only things that can be reused are the modem, network card, and the *drumroll* 1.44 inch floppy. Oh boy, there’s ten bucks I’ll save right there! *snickers*

I disassembled Lisa last week. The spare drives and expansion cards sit in my desk, and the motherboard is hanging on my wall. Very “modern art”. I took out the 1000 Mhz Pentium III processor for fun, and left it out. All it’s worth now is maybe as a coaster for shot glasses. I want to go up to somebody at least once and say “Maybe you need the POWER of the Intel Pentium III processor.” *smirks*

With my next paycheck, I will begin purchasing the pieces of my next computer online. And with that, the era of Lisa Electron will come to a decisive close. In memory of Lisa, I have given her a chapter in my diary. She may have been a bunch of silicon, copper, and steel, but she was a big part of my life. I will have many other computers in my lifetime, and I’ve had other computers in my past, but in my heart, she will always be my first.