Farewell, old friend

Tuesday, June 24th, 2008 • Horrorthon Posts

After three years of faithful service, my beloved Pioneer DVR-109 internal optical drive has failed. I replaced it today with a brand new, robust DVR-115 (which has already proven itself faster and more reliable than its predecessor—it earned those additional six increments in its name!).

Once I got the new drive in there, I disassembled the old one. And look! Such elegance, such simplicity inside old “cyclops.” How many horror movies and LOST episodes and science fiction epics and Sopranos seasons (and websites and CGI models and novels and drawings) passed through that single glass laser eye (which you can just make out, in the lower half of the picture: a centered blue circle framed by support electronics)? How many Netflix movies spun on that magnetized turntable hub? But shed not a tear for this aluminum and plastic and silicon partner in crime (literally); its earnest, capable young replacement is already burning its merry way through flimsy circles of polycarbonate and vegetable dye, fiendishly inscribing them with cinematic and tele-visual binary goodness. Out with the old, in with the new.

A stalwart, tireless servant; a triumph of design and engineering—and you never even see it. (And it only costs $35 to replace.) Aren’t machines beautiful?