I built a decent monster for video editing, etc. But now that I think about it that was nearly 5 years ago now. I guess it’s still a monster, but specifically a dinosaur. 
Guess it’s time to build anew.
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I went for over kill so I wouldn’t have to worry about it again for a while. 6 core intell, 16gb ram that I’ll upgrade later when I need it, nvidia 1080, more storage than I’ll ever need. It’s been so great
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I love my Cintique as well, but they are very expensive. If you do decide to buy one, consider B&H for the drops and spills warranty. The Intuos series are very good tablets, but require you to develop your hand-eye coordination. I used an IntuosPro3 for years, and still use it at home or on the go: it lives in my backpack with my laptop.
I have yet to try an iPadPro / Pencil combo, but everyone who I have talked to that has one has been enjoying it (including one very talented artist that I look up, and who also owns a cintique).
I did not like the drawing action on the various surface/pro/3/4 that I have tried at store displays, but they also never have a real drawing program installed, so my surface drawing experiences have been all been in OneNote. The pen-to-surface feel was far to slippery for me.
@sawa If you have a way to plug it in, I will happily sell you an ancient wacom Digitizer 2 for real cheap (but it kind of pre-dates USB…) 
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ooooh, old tech… 9-pin or RS-232?
Also:
I think i’ve posted this one here before but… How many connections can you name?
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Gee lemme see, LPT - VGA - serial - PS2 - USB?
It is an ADB 4-pin with throughput. It would have gone inline with the keyboard on an old mac. Griffen makes an adapter to USB (or they used to…)
I just went… kill at the time. I’d been out of work for a while. “Only” quad-core, 8GB RAM, and a nice Nvidia card. Since then I’ve only upgraded storage. Maybe it’s time to go octa, at least 16GB, and a newer nice Nvidia card.
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This machine was my present to myself for getting out of my soul sucking job and into a much better one. I invested all of the money they had to pay me for the vacations I was never allowed to take in the computer
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Some of the best improvement that can be done with getting an old laptop is to find an SSD (that is the same size or larger than the existing laptop hard drive) and get cloning tool (for about $30).
As long as your laptop hard drive is SATA (pretty much and laptop made in the last 4 to 5 years), this works very nicely. 250 Gig SSD is less than $100 and a 500 Gig is less than $175.
If the laptop is a Core i series, it is amazing the performance jump you get over a spinning hard drive. Even a Core2, AMD or Pentium processor in a laptop will receive a definite boost.
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I have an old HP dv7 entertainment laptop that I just populated an empty drive bay with a 250 GB SSD and doubled the ram to 8 GB. rather than buy new. Very good performance boost. It will last me a while longer.
Just rebuilt the HTPC with 24GB RAM and the newer AMD MB and CPU that has the integrated GPU. It rocks 4K just fine. No more $300 video cards!
It cost me 1/4 of the original build too. Now I grin when I reboot.
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That’s cute 
I remember when 10mb was more than anyone would ever need. Now I fret over 1TB drives 
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I did fairly well with a Mac Pro built specifically for video, lasted me about 8 years before it really started to show it’s age. Price tag was pretty heavy though.
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I’ve got a 256g ssd and a 2T optical plus 4 more unused drive slots should I fancy dropping in more monstrous drives. Pictures are now the threat since I bought my girl friend a nice canon for her to play with so I’ll likely end up investing in a drive just for her
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Carbonite is running a 30% off (on 3 year subscriptions) until March 31.
It is the best “set it and forget it” offsite online backup when you do the 3 year package.
I have nearly 2+ TB of files backed up. Takes a really long time to get that much up there.
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Oh yes perfect this is the second piece of the puzzle. It’s all fun and games till the drive flames out and you loose everything. Yeah for the cloud
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25 pin F/F gender bender → 25 to 9 pin serial adapter → 9 pin to PS/2 keyboard adapter → PS/2 to USB adapter → USB stick. Does that actually work?!
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For the old Wacoms there is a conversion from ADB to USB that involves a $15 microcontroller and a 1K-ohm resistor (iirc). It’s on my list of things to do (after I rescue the microcontroller from the C64 joystick I converted for the 12-year-old).
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I agree! I should have been more clear though. When I wrote IPad, I really meant a super-cheap-IPad-knock-off-thingy and not an actual IPad. That just seemed like an awful lot to write at the time and for the life of me I could not come up with the generic term of “tablet” LOL.
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Aren’t any of those. Apple controls the OS too tightly to allow an iPad knockoff.
Android tablets do run the gamut from $50 to $500. But with a different OS the native app question & answer is different. Even the web based solutions can be different as Apple Safari doesn’t always support websites the same way Google Chrome does.
Chiming in because this is a subject weirdly dear to my heart. I love and ADORE my wacom cintiq. But their laptop version is not up to par yet. I still think that wacom has a better feel and it has more levels of pressure so you don’t have to push down as hard as you do on a surface. If its for ergonomics I would say buy a cheap wacom tablet and combine it with a cheap laptop and you will be solid. Can’t wait to see what lovely things you all make. 
I can strongly recommend this little guy as a great starter: https://us-store.wacom.com/Catalog/Pen-Tablets/Intuos/Intuos-Draw-Small-S01#/undefined1
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