Old computers never dies ...

I've spent half the day in the attic. Not something I do if I can avoid it - it's huge, dark, dusty and I've co-written a horror story about it. It didn't help to write about it, I still get spooked.
But the other day I pulled an old book out of my shelves. It was the first book we got published - way back in 1995. And I'm no different from other writers, I like to have my books in the book shelves where I can see them. I never read them, only I did now.
And it wasn't half bad. There's a few beginner's follies and some weak language, but on the whole the story works. And I wanted to take a look at the original manuscript, perhaps tweak a few things, and perhaps even put it out there as an e-book. Just to see how it would be received.
Except I can't find the bloody manuscript.

Back when we wrote it, we did a first draft with pen and paper, then I put it in the computer - it was back in my secretarial days. (One that looked like this one). Unfortunately, I didn't take any backup. Or if I did, I can't remember where the disks are. But the computer is somewhere in the attic, and so the manuscript should be retrieveable. If I can find the thing.
I'm pretty sure it is because since I don't throw away computers, there's at least four of them lurking up there. There's the small Toshiba we wrote two crime novels on, there's the 17'' Acer that I spilled diet coke on, and there's a humongous stationary computer - the screen alone takes half a room. I know I should get rid of all of them, and I don't keep them for sentimental reasons. I'm just not comfortable with throwing away something with so much personal information on it.
If I had only remembered to copy everything on the old harddrive to the new, I'd be okay and I'd never had to rummage through the attic anymore. Also, I'd never have to panick when I spill something on my computer. Or something like this happens:

And no, I don't have cats. This also happens with children and dogs, or even with just me in the room ...

Nowadays, I copy my most important manuscripts on my smart phone - how cool is that? I've got six manuscripst on my phone, and it's nice knowing they are there. I also have program that copies everthing to a server outside my computer. Absolutely recommended - use DropBox or something similiar. Mine is curtesy of the internet provider - it costs very little and I've already extracted a few documents from it...