I just replaced my aging 2004-era PC with—wait for it—a 2005-era PC. A friend is moving across the country so I'm taking it off his hands.

The differences between the two are more than just the year of time, though: one was hand-built from parts, while the other was a commodity off-the-shelf Compaq. So the new machine, while not strictly faster by the clock, is 64-bit and is much more amenable to upgrades.

While the added bulk is a bit annoying, the case has a lot more space in it—up to 8 or so drive slots (I can't imagine ever needing that many), and 4 RAM slots—which is a sure step up from the limitation of two drive slots and two RAM slots in my old machine.

The most visibly shiny parts in the new desktop experience are 4G RAM versus 1G, and a nice ATI GPU. While I'm glad my OS allowed me to squeeze six years out of my main machine, I'll be happy to stop shaking my fist at Chromium for eating all my memory!

The new machine will keep its old name: earlgrey.