Back in 1993 or so, I was doing my PhD and also ended up doing a lot of videoconferencing demos at various conferences. This really required a Sun Sparcstation

Back in 1993 or so, I was doing my PhD and also ended up doing a lot of videoconferencing demos at various conferences. This really required a Sun Sparcstation 20, maxed out with dual CPUs, as much RAM as it would take, and a video capture card and camera. In such a spec, an SS20 was pretty rare, so I carried the one from our lab everywhere in an unpadded canvas shoulder bag - on planes, buses, trains, whereever. It was pretty large, weighed about 25lbs, and back in 1993 was worth about £20,000 in that spec, which was more than I earned in a year. I was pretty worried I'd drop it or leave it in the pub or something, but I guess being so heavy, it was hard to forget. Despite the bumps, bashes and vibration, it never failed - Sun made good hardware back then. Other than having a difficult time with customs officials in Italy one time (they wanted to "fine" me for a form I apparently should have filled out; I didn't have any money, so couldn't pay no matter what they wanted - missed my flight by 12 hours as a result), nothing bad ever happened.