History:

• 1982: Texas-Instruments TI 58C, 480 bytes RAM (fun rating ***)
  My first programmable "thing". It did not have a huge amount of memory, but it was not so bad, and it had indirect addressing and continuous memory.
  
  
• 1984: Hewlett-Packard HP-41C, 896 -> 2240 bytes RAM (fun rating *****)
  Would this be my best machine ever? I am not sure, but I have never mastered any "machine who thinks" as much as this one. Mine is out of order now, and nobody wants to repair it. That is really too sad. Could anybody send me a working one?
  
  
• 1987: Canon X-07, 12 -> 20 kb RAM (fun rating **)
  My first (and in fact only) BASIC machine. At this time, I liked the amount of memory. But if the machine itself was fine (mine still wakes me up every morning switching on my CD player), its BASIC language was really poor and slow. My first "Merdosoft" experience...
  
  
• 1989: Commodore Amiga 500, 1 Mb RAM (fun rating *****)
  Any non-brain-damaged former Amiga user will tell you: THIS is the best personal computer ever made. The only thing that can compare to it is the intense amount of mental illness Commodore put in their Amiga marketing. Have a look at the true possibilities of an Amiga in 1985, and you will immediately understand why there should not be any "Mac vs. peecee" war today. By the way, among all the software included with the A500, only one part disappeared in the later versions... go on reading, please!
  
  
• 1992: Wozzeck I -- Commodore Amiga 4000/030, 4 -> 18 Mb RAM (fun rating ****)
  When I got this one, I was happy to keep all the advantages of the A500, with a really increased power. But here begins the problem: the system software had reached a level some editors will never get close to, but the hardware was not so new, and in fact was quickly getting old. At this time, it became difficult to find good drivers for printers, some HD did not work properly, etc... And Commodore were beginning to die, trying to sink with their custommers. At the time I am writing this, the story has not finished yet, but no new system software has been published since 1991. Do you want the answer to the A500 puzzle? The only "system-compliant" software sold for the A500, and that was ill-formed enough not to work on an A4000 was the AmigaBasic, developped by... Microsoft (tm)!
  
  
• 1996: Wozzeck II -- Cyrix P166+, 32 Mb RAM (fun rating *)
  A PC, trying to run under Win95. Crashes several times a day. Any attempt to write a tiny C/C++ programme resulted in multiple crashes, internal trash, etc... But I am compatible, my daughter can play with compatible games, I can plug-n-pray compatible devices. The only positive feature is the possibility to run POV-Ray 3.0 in a so-called multitasking environement, at 30 times the speed I had on the A4000.
  
  
• 1997: Wozzeck IIa -- Intel P200, 64 Mb RAM (fun rating *)
  The same, 77% faster at POV-Ray rendering.
  
  
• 1998: Wozzeck IIL -- Intel P200, 64 -> 96 Mb RAM (fun rating *****)
  The same? Would L stand for Linux? It seems so :-) The box remains a dual-boot system, as windoze remains mandatory for the girls' games.
  
  
• 1999: Doktor -- Intel dual PII 450, 128 -> 512 Mb RAM (fun rating *****)
  A blind and deaf computer, without any keyboard, mouse, display and the like, a small HD, but with fpu power. It quietly runs Linux SMP with several weeks long uptimes, and is connected with Wozzeck II through a 100-base TX LAN. The best fpu/price ratio at its build time.
  
  
• 2000: Hewlett-Packard HP-41CV, 2240 bytes RAM (fun rating *****)
  It's back! Thanks to eBay, I could buy a (nearly) new one, at a very decent price. The old habits came back immediately, showing the incredible ergonomy of a machine I hadn't used for 10 years. And with it came an ancient HP-35 (1972), the first pocket scientific calculator. A few months later, I added a dream card reader, which just needed the usual "gummy wheel" problem to be fixed.
  
  
• 2001: Wozzeck III -- Via C3/800, 512 Mb RAM (fun rating *****)
  The sequel to Wozzeck II, which remains a dual-boot system for the same reason. The hardware is a bit special: the Via C3 (MB BIOS upgrade mandatory!), the Asus GeForce 2MX and the 5400 RPM HDD will certainly not make this a powerful monster, which will remain the aim of the "closet box" (see Doktor above). But neither the CPU nor the GFX card need a fan, and the HDD is very quiet. Put these into a Landmark 745 case, and you'll get one of the most silent PCs you can build. The next step involves using a low end ATX P/S, which fan was removed. The resulting noise is impressively low, but the temperature increases seriously (10 to 15°C): the system is very stable in winter, but a fanned P/S is better in summer. To get rid of the only remaining noise, coming from the HDD, I also tried the "silentdrive" HD housing. Do not try it: now I have a brand HDD because my previous one died in less than 3 months.

Epson (potential) users, read this!

If you want to buy an Epson device, do what you want. Now you know what seems to be a normal printer behaviour to Epson, and how they manage their custommers.