I bought something on eBay for the first time this week!

I wanted an IBM WorkPad Z50, which looks like a small ThinkPad but runs Windows CE for 8 hours on the standard battery. (Or NetBSD/hpcmips, which is probably what I'll run on it.) It's no longer for sale, and eBay is the only way to get one. I'd always considered eBay something other people use, particularly other people with compulsive personalities. But now that I've used it to solve a problem, I'm willing to think of eBay as something I use. I'm sure I'll use it again someday.

Specs on the WorkPad I got ($125):

• 131MHz MIPS CPU
• 48MB RAM
• Compact Flash slot
• Type III PC Card slot (or two Type II)
• Infrared
• funny-looking serial port
• 640×480 (800×600 on external VGA)

Separately, also on eBay, I got a printer cable ($9) and a double-capacity battery ($9). From Meritline, a traditional e-store, I added two PC cards: 802.11b ($21) and 2-port USB2 ($30). Finally, from Amazon I got a 512MB SanDisk CF card ($125); SanDisk is reputed to have patented wear-leveling algorithms which, along with mount options “noatime” and “nodevmtime”, will maximize the life of the FFS-formatted CF.

The CPU is a bit underpowered, perhaps, but I'm totally hooked on the idea of a wireless Unix laptop that runs all day long. I'll report back when all the goodies have arrived.