first post:

I was not an early adopter. I bought a Sinclair, one of the last Osborne 1s and finally learned on a 286. Ten years ago I bought a new machine: A Pentium II equivalent by AMD. By the time I had it a year and a half I was thoroughly disgusted with Microsoft. I found a remaindered copy of Mandrake Linux. I did not get that installed but did install the next but one release. I run dual boot and Linux boxes and a Vista Laptop. The Vista because the Auto cad I depend on insists on Microsoft.
Toasted CD ROMS last twenty years in the cool dark. A hard drive can fail at any time and is usually replaced every five years as I have learned by bitter experience.