[plug] Card Trek: The Search for SCSI

[skribe]

Today was my day off so I went hunting for a SCSI card.  I needed something 
that could be plugged into my wife's computer so she could use the old UMAX 
scanner we bought several years ago.  She's been begging me for months to 
hook up the scanner. I had stolen the original SCSI 2 card to use with the 
server to do backups.

I don't really know much about SCSI cards.  All I really knew was that I 
didn't want anything too expensive.  I was hoping to get away with spending 
around $50.

So my wife and I started shopping around in the city.  It's
reasonably close to home and it meant we could do some other stuff we needed 
to do there as well.  Two birds, one stone sorta thing.  Or that was the plan.

The first place we went to was along the way on the fringes of the city.  It 
had a guy in his forties or fifties sitting behind a long counter like you 
expect to see at a hotel check-in.  He was working on his computer and I 
thought he was the secretary.  It turns out he was the sole sales assistant.  
He was dressed in a suit and I sensed that he expected his customers to be 
likewise attired.  I was in jeans and a t-shirt.  I asked him if he had any 
cheap SCSI cards that were compatible with linux.  He looked at me for a 
moment as though I had just uttered a blasphemy (there were Windows ME 
posters everywhere), then tapped a few keys on his computer.  He then asked, 
"what card was I after?" Great, I thought.  A choice.  I told him that I 
wasn't after any particular card.  I just needed something that was 
compatible with SCSI 2 and that had linux drivers available.  He nodded, 
punched a few keys on his computer again, and then told me that they had no 
SCSI cards whatsoever.  That there had been a shortage due to the events of 
September 11th.  He even speculated that the shortage was because the 
military had snatched them all up.  I smiled, nodded and left.

The next place we visited was a few blocks further down the road.  By local
standards this place it was huge.  It had two exits.  You enter by one, 
through a turnstile, and exit through the other. The place was pretty full.  
The phone was ringing all the time and sales assistants were rushing around
frantically. I thought that we would surely find a card to suit our purposes
here.  So we browsed.  We found lots of graphics cards, networking cards, tv
turner cards, a bunch of hard drives safely locked in a glass cabinet, but no
SCSI cards.  They must keep them in the back, I thought.  So I managed to
attract the attention of one of the sales assistants, a petite chinese girl.
And I asked her if they had any SCSI cards.  She told me that they didn't 
stock any SCSI cards.  That there wasn't a demand for them.  So we thanked 
her and made our goodbyes.  I failed to mention that she had a stack of SCSI 
hard drives in the glass cabinet.

We had lunch and did some errands before moving onto the next place.  A 
national franchise store.  They too had lots of glass cabinets filled with 
nifty toys. Unfortunately none of the cabinets held SCSI cards.  So my wife 
asked the sales assistant if they had any.  The sales assistant checked her 
computer and then reported that they didn't stock SCSI cards in this state, 
that they were only available over east.  Something to remember when over 
east: buy lots of SCSI cards and sell them at home.  I'd make a killing.

The next place we visited held some personal history.  I had once tried to 
buy a mobile phone there.  I had asked to examine one of the phones so I 
could feel how heavy it was only to be told by the elderly sales assistant 
that that was against store policy.  I told him what he could do with his 
policy and promptly left.  As a result I wasn't too hopeful, but we were 
running short of options and it was in the area.  So we entered the store and 
I saw that everything had changed.  There wasn't an elderly sales assistant 
in sight.  It was all sleek and professional boys.  We had a quick look 
around but couldn't seen any SCSI cards.  One of the boys noticed our worried 
looks and asked us if we needed any assistance.  So I asked him if they had 
any SCSI cards.  He asked me how to spell SCSI.  Twice.  We left.

By this tme I was getting really frustrated.  My wife was getting sore feet.  
We had walked all over the city and had yet to find any SCSI cards let alone a
cheap one that worked with linux.  But fortune favours the brave, or so they
say, and the next place we visited actually had a solitary SCSI card for sale.
Unfortunately, it was $165.  I could have bought a brand new USB scanner for
only a little more.

My wife had had enough but I had one more ace up my sleeve.  I knew of a 
second-hand store that just might have something for us.  I would have gone 
there first but the other stores were closer to our errands.  So we headed 
over there.  It was a good 2-3 km walk.  We do a lot of walking so it 
wouldn't have been a bother except my wife had worn her CFM boots and they 
were starting to hurt. So, to put it mildly, we were less than pleased when 
we discovered that the store was closed.

We'd both had enough by then and so we headed home.  I don't think my wife 
will be bugging me about the scanner any time soon.  A-ha!  My ploy worked. 
Perhaps I'll surprise her and buy a card online and have it delivered.

skribe
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