Ah, the lag time; makes sense. Guess I should look into firewire (thought it was fading out, but I suppose that's because most devices don't require that level of throughput).

Or I could just wait; solid-state HDs are growing in size and speed, while the prices are beginning to fall. My first pc ran at 4.77mHz, had 128k RAM and no mouse. A teen-ager, who uses computers, recently asked me, "What's a floppy disk?" I don't think he's even heard of serial ports and DIP switches. Another kid I know had no idea of how to use a phone with a rotary dial.