[racket] Racket & Netbook

From: Shriram Krishnamurthi (sk at cs.brown.edu)
Date: Wed Jun 30 14:09:58 EDT 2010

I find DrRacket very hard to use on older machines and netbooks.

I recently upgraded to an Acer Aspire 1810T.  This is about $600 and
has a netbook form factor (same chassis as the 1410T, which is their
netbook).  The 1366x768 screen makes the keyboard nice and wide and
great for use in travel.  What's good about it is that it has a real
(non-Atom) dual-core processor, and I got it with 4Gb RAM.  (It also
has an HDMI output port, and 3 USBs.)  It's been absolutely wonderful,
and I finally understand how people can work with DrRacket instead of
Emacs.  Now I launch DrRacket with impunity.

This was a great buy, because it costs about a 1/3 of a "proper"
laptop but has enough computing for many of my tasks.  It was very
hard to find something between netbook and notebook, and all the
reviews I saw indicated that Acer had found that sweet spot.  I bought
it, and can confirm it's true.

Of course, you won't get Apple-level support from Acer.  But that cuts
both ways (Acer support staff don't assume they are inherently more
advanced genetic beings).

Shriram


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