What would you do with this laptop

[imagineaudio]

I had someone contact me to help set them up with a very simple DAW and also give them hands-on instruction on how to use it.

He just wants to record midi drums from his motif and DI bass parts. He's going to then put them on minidisc or cd for when his band plays the odd house party.

My problem is that he has a laptop with a celeron, no firewire ports, and only 256mb of ram.

I know about celerons and drop-outs, but have no experience with the faster (over 1ghz) processors.

He may be willing to upgrade the computer, however, he wants to see if we can get something working on what he has.

Now, do we try a firewire card w/ a firewire interface or a PCMCIA type interface? Which has the better chance of actually working?


thoughts, comments welcome

[Brendo]

Find a tall building...

Or... Download REAPER and see how far you get.

[digiengineer]

That laptop would make a great internet bitch when he buys a new computer for his DAW.

[bunnerabb]

Yup. use it for e-mail and spend some quan for a good, refurbished, 2 Ghz+ desktop with a handle and 1 GB DDR.

[Pimp-X]

I'd gaffa it to a broom handle and use it as a paddle.

Or, drill holes in it, the right size for a golf tee and use it as practice turf as to not deliver huge quantities if divots. Believe me. I can divot astro-turf.

It could also perhaps be used as a hot-plate for keeping steak warm at the next BBQ.

Potentially, you could use it to shim the seat of the 'short fat guy' seat in the studio.

Or shim the short leg on the refrigerator.

Or, keep it beside the bed for defense. Clobber the missus with it? I dunno.

Could be used as the foundation of a high tech litter box.

Turn it sideways, it's an axle stand.

Possibilties are endless..

[saxplayerz]

256 mb of ram is barely enough to run the os. It may work for midi recording but any audio work is going to be tough on the Celery. Give it to the wife or kids and buy or build a modern machine. :grin:

[slabrock]

I had someone contact me to help set them up with a very simple DAW and also give them hands-on instruction on how to use it.

He just wants to record midi drums from his motif and DI bass parts. He's going to then put them on minidisc or cd for when his band plays the odd house party.

The person has probably already given up and bought a new computer, but i still got an idea. That laptop is good enough for midi, especially if he loads an old Cakewalk or something.

Then he can record his drums and basses in midi, and play them back connecting the laptop to the Motif with a midi interface.

If the Motif sounds are good enough, why not have them come straight from the Motif at the show?

(Of course he may have to buy another Motif to play along, but that's just cool. You can never have enough Motifs, in sparkling silver finish.)
:-D