Copying the Computers?

[96bookworms]

I noticed this a while ago, and have just now gotten around to actually posting it:

I noticed in High Wizardry, that it says that Dairine makes a copy of the computer that they get, and when she sees it, she tries to hide it, thinking "I'd just as soon have the original", and then it says 'and then, just as silently as it came, the second computer vanished.'That would mean that when she takes out the computer at the museum, it's actually the copy. That could happen, I guess, but then Tom (or was it Carl?) does that spell...something like...'anything not it's own cannot exist in this room'? And then the computer vanishes. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that should be possible.

Then in the later books their are two computers again...it's mentioned in WD that Dairine was working with the home computer as well as with Spot...

[Crawl]

You're probably just confused because of the wording. When Dairine hid the computer she hid the original in other-space. It was a switch-e-roo and she left the copy on the desk. When they refer to her working with it later I think she either made another copy of spot for the family to use at home I think there's a distinction between the original computer and the upgraded version spot which is more customized.

If your still confused about how there can be a copy in the room, either the spell wore off which is likely or they just put the copy in a different room to use as the home computer.

[illiriam]

Yeah, I agree with crawl. By "second computer", which could be understood to mean the copy, Dairine is actually thinking about the original. She just means that there was one, silently another one appeared, and silently, she made the second computer (the one she wanted) disappear.
I will concede that the wording is ambiguous. I just took it for granted that she meant Spot when I read it, until you pointed it out.