This is a story that has been years in the making, and indeed is not over yet.

In 1993, I decided I needed a new laptop. My old laptop was a Toshiba 1000 -- a remarkable DOS workhorse that no longer seemed suitable for the kind of work I had to do away from home, doing desktop-publishing reports on visiting speakers and writers.

So I bought a nice 486 Dell Latitude notebook, with a cruising speed of 33 mHz. At that time, it was my fastest computer. It was also quiet, portable, and had a modem card that worked pretty well.

For the next five years I got my money's worth from that machine. I did scores of reports, wrote columns, wrote stories and poems on it while on vacation.

Then, one day, I did a bad thing. I pulled the PCMCIA card out of its housing. When I reinserted it, it didn't work. No amount of reinstalling the card drivers seemed to help.

Worse, two serious corruptions occurred nearly simultaneously. One was to the Windows 3.1 registry, or possibly the File Allocation Table -- the PC would no longer boot. The second, even stranger was to my original Windows software, the backup Dell had me make from the hard disk. It, too, would crash midway through the third diskette.

When I took it back to best Buy, they just blinked at the machine -- it was too old for them to be trained on repairing it. And since it was structurally un-upgradable, they strongly urged that I pitch it off a pier somewhere. It was now a $1,900 doorstop.

Now things get personal. I was in my last week as computer columnist for the St. Paul Pioneer Press -- though I didn't know it.

So I called Microsoft, and asked them for a review copy of -- get this -- a six year old operating system, Windows 3.1. (My notebook wasn't big enough for Windows 98.) I promised I would write about it.

And Microsoft didn't ask me any embarrassing questions. ("Is this your way of getting around buying a new computer?") Instead, they obliged me, sending a copy of Windows 3.1 for Workgroups. (Forget the Workgroups part -- you can configure it to work just fine as a standalone.)

I installed it, and presto, I had my old notebook up and running again. Windows 3.1 never looked so archaic. And I had no particular purpose for the restored machine, as I had gone ahead and bought a nice new Toshiba Satellite laptop.

Then I got fired, and had no place to publish the article I promised Microsoft. I wqent from having a potential audience of 34 million readers to a mailing list of a few hundred names, and a couple of friendly newspapers. Five months passed.

Then, a week ago, I had a health problem -- a severe headache that led to a diagnosis of a small, probably benign brain tumor.

That night, in the hospital, I wanted to write, but I was afraid to leave my fancy Toshiba lying around, so I asked Rachel to fetch my old Dell notebook from home. My son Jon used his technological savvy to select just the right cables and mouse.

Soon I was up and running at my bedside. It reminded me of the many vacations I had taken, with the notebook on the cabin kitchen table, me pecking out words while woodpeckers hammered on trees outside.

I was writing again, and it felt so good.

Now, I'm not going to claim my decision was a brave one. Every cell in my brain knows that the "smart" thing to do was save the old machine by making it a Linux workhorse. A 486 chip is a nag at today's racetrack, but it runs the outlaw Linux system like a champion. And it's stable, and it makes a terrific networking box.

But two things prevented me. First, God help me, I'm such a coward, especially for a tech writer, at trying new things. I want desperately to do Linux, but am afraid of the horror stories I hear about installation. In my heart I know I would make a generous contribution to that horror literature. Yes, I am a techno-spazz!

But second, I felt I had a promise to keep Microsoft. I have said plenty of tart things about the company in my day -- yes, Mac fanatics, it's true. I've made fun of Chairman Gates, cursed their monopolism, disdained their applications, and gnashed my teeth over the crashy environment that this is their gift to the world.

On the other hand, they never did anything to me but treat me square. Their support line is the best I have ever had to rely on. And their generosity to me, a not-especially-influential columnist who was always begging for this or that, usually to satisfy some private craving, knew no bounds.

Plus, I had the brain tumor, which I plan to use as an excuse from now on for any perceived lapse in judgment.

So in this, my first post-diagnosis column, I want to thank Microsoft Corp. for their kindnesses to me over the years, but also to promise that I will be getting to Linux in good time, when I am feeling a mite stronger.

And thanks to my little notebook, too -- and for the good times we've had together.

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