Success! Tonight I hooked my old Philips turntable (circa 1980) to my computer (2007) and managed to import Bruce Springsteen's first vinyl album (1973) into my iPod (2006). Now that's technology convergence! I had to buy a phono preamp ($29 plus shipping) to make it work, but the software was free, and there is both a Mac and Windoze version. The learning curve for this old man was about 3 hours for the first import; in the future it will take no longer than playing the records.

Time to dig out all that old vinyl and start digitizing!