Anything about old PCs, their uses, related OSes and their users
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I remember the Altair. I built a home-brew S-100 System based on that design. It was not the first microcomputer but one of many. Early design systems based on the Intel 8080a and then Zilogs Z-80 were among the few earlier units. I built a MMD1 based on the Intel 8080 with a whooping 256 Bytes and later upgraded to 1024 B and thought I was in heaven. I/O was ASR-33 teletype with a 20mA loop via optic isolator. Program storage was a cassette deck.
I remember the Radio Shack TRS series as one of the first affordable PC. I purchased a TRS-80 which was a Z-80 based unit. I would not pay the $1K for the expansion interface so I designed and built my own. I built another S-100 based system to have for network expansion within my home. Most systems are still in storage. I would expect the electrolytic capacitors are leaking by now.
I've been working on systems and interface designs most of my adult life. At one time, I would recycle PCs to make them available and affordable to the public. But once it became a burden by having to help everyone that purchased one.So I stopped.
It's just like when a doctor comes to a party and everyone has a problem to discuss. Whenever I have people that approach me about a MS problem and they are not a client then I just start speaking UNIX or play dumb and just spin them.
Sorry about spinning off, memory flashes when I see something that opens old times.
I've been working on systems and interface designs most of my adult life. At one time, I would recycle PCs to make them available and affordable to the public. But once it became a burden by having to help everyone that purchased one.So I stopped.
It's just like when a doctor comes to a party and everyone has a problem to discuss. Whenever I have people that approach me about a MS problem and they are not a client then I just start speaking UNIX or play dumb and just spin them.
Sorry about spinning off, memory flashes when I see something that opens old times.
Have fun & enjoy!
Wow you have some amazing experience indeed, thanks for sharing, glad you helped others also.
My life is like Book of Job in the Bible, however as I get more challenges, I also try to figure out innovative solutions. My main aim is to assist others in GENUINE need as much as possible with old computers.
Your work is cut out for you. There are tremendous needs for people in need of help with most things in life. Not just computers!
I am retired now and my life is busier than when at full time work. Always something to do but my body just won't keep up.
Have fun & enjoy!
Yes you are correct, I try to help where possible but don't say much about it unless it helps others to learn and is really
needed.
Being a mod on LQ is a very nice volunteer work, thanks for your time and efforts here. One can even help others and contribute online.
I have lived in Central FL a long time ago briefly in Ormond Beach.
Check out this ship, it was very popular in its days but later no one else wanted it so was set adrift: https://www.businessinsider.com/lyub...r-adventure-34
The pictures at the site above are awesome but don't load on my limited dillo browser, it needs a full fledged browser.
Not surprising since the parent site is businessinsider with all the tracking.
A creative person could have put such a ship to good use. It could have been even turned into a free museum offshore
for kids for example.
Linux is like a very big buffet, used from space research to art work. No one can have it all. I try to focus on the few tiny parts that can help me via old computer, use those and share regarding those with others also. So basically, I focus on some very tiny aspects.
https://www.nbcnews.com/better/pop-c...nce-ncna893256
Above article is very good and highlights the benefits of reading fiction. However, one can read a book on old
computer also in pdf form while listening to net radio. No need to read the whole book, for me I prefer to glance thru
classics from gutenberg.org fast sometimes. When I feel more free, then I enjoy slow reading also.
Anton Chekov was a Russian Surgeon and also an outstanding writer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Chekhov
Here below you can find a very nice collection of his stories that are like gems from history of humanity: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/57333...-h/57333-h.htm
For the lonely, poor man old computer and dry art media are very nice friends, always there for you and will assist
you very well if they are learned to use well and treated nicely.
Another thing is music, lots of it online, to listen to or to play.
It will be kind if you assist in this regard in detail. I prefer audiobooks mostly and sometimes listen to music on net radio for like an hour once a month or so, this mostly depends on my parrots moods. Hence, I am very poor when it comes to music.
On a different note, this is a general note, I will not share images of my art work online cause they are of medium to poor quality, I don't bother to cover the white spaces, manage perception etc., Just go more with the color, as long as my parrots are happy I am happy.
I managed during the worst of the heat wave by taking a shower WITH CLOTHES ON, the temp. of water must be slightly below
room temperature and not too cold or too warm. Then, sit in chair like that without wiping off the water. As the water
evaporates from clothes, it will cool your body. When it gets super intense, I even do this like once every 30 mts.
At nights, if there is a balcony, best to sleep on it outsides.
I did some crayon art with cool colors, when I watch this art, it feels cooler. However, for folks in general with old computer, can see images of icebergs, other cool places on net, learn from books on arctic, antartic explorations in the past etc.,
Distribution: Mainly Devuan with some Tiny Core, Fatdog, Haiku, & BSD thrown in.
Posts: 5,443
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rvijay
It will be kind if you assist in this regard in detail. I prefer audiobooks mostly and sometimes listen to music on net radio for like an hour once a month or so, this mostly depends on my parrots moods. Hence, I am very poor when it comes to music.
I listen to music from people who play for their own enjoyment as well as semi professionals, from online sites such as Soundcloud & Youtube.
I also play, (badly ) - record myself & post my attempts online to share with my fellow players on a couple of forums that I belong to, it can be quite relaxing.
Since retiring, I have taught myself to play ukulele, 3 kinds of harmonicas (chromatic, diatonic, & tremolo), tin whistles, & am in the process of finding my embouchure on my flutes, fifes & piccolo.
All this in addition to my online presence in these computer forums.
I have recently dusted off the old guitar in the back of my closet as well. I have many fond memories of playing and singing badly and exchanging guitar hints the same way we exchange Linux hints here, and very little to say that is positive about the direction the music industry went after I changed my major (to something else that ultimately proved useless) in 1983ish.
Soundcloud and Youtube both involve proprietary java that isn't my cup of tea,but I honestly don't see why we can't use Audacity to virtually jam with each other.
Of course it's not the same thing as inviting you into my living room, pushing aside a pile of not-yet-folded laundry to make room for you to sit down, and making you a cup of coffee, but why not?
We aren't taking anything away from the "pros" by using freely available tools for our own amateur purposes.
rvijay may not have the horsepower to run audacity but it would be no big deal to feed a wave file or a .mp3 from a simpler recording into an audacity amateur jam session extraordinaire.
This isn't the first time I have proposed a digital jam session and it won't be the last. I don't think the lack of interest has anything to do with technical issues or even lack of time, it's just so unfamiliar to us socially to play music badly together that nobody quite knows how to react when I point out how easy it would be to do this and say,"Wanna jam?"
There are other ways we could use low resource PCs to build community as well, especially those of us in rvijay's and my situation. We may be forced to avoid mainstream social networking because of our older hardware, but maybe we can find other ways of being social.
This thread inspires me. Sometimes I think that all the time and energy I put into learning a subject I never studied in school and can never be formally employed in was a waste of time. Then I open this thread and like my life again.
The curl tutorial was very helpful. I appreciate that. I mostly use wget and will branch out.
I wouldn't exactly say they are ALL the commands you should know, lol. It is helpful for certain hobby sites to be able to "surf my hard drive" instead of the internet and not have to worry about lack of public interest in underwater basketweaving costing me my source of information.
At one time there was a ruby gem that let you do the same thing for personal archives from the wayback machine, but there were some sort of copyright issues involved so you might not be able to do that any more.
If this is the dark ages of the internet and we oldsters can remember better days, then what are we doing that is different than what people have done throughout history: trying to save what was good about the past for future generations and believing that renaissances always follow dark ages even though we won't be alive to see the next one.
I think they call it "life".
Last edited by noordinaryspider; 07-28-2018 at 11:08 AM.
There are other ways we could use low resource PCs to build community as well, especially those of us in rvijay's and my situation. We may be forced to avoid mainstream social networking because of our older hardware, but maybe we can find other ways of being social.
This thread inspires me. Sometimes I think that all the time and energy I put into learning a subject I never studied in school and can never be formally employed in was a waste of time. Then I open this thread and like my life again.
In a way, I am dumpster diving virtually now. Your responses taught me something super vital, it is not about the crayon, it is not about the sketchbook, it is all about inspiration, if one has excellent inspiration and talent then even with mediocre art materials one can do good art. So, it is all about inspiration, I will use my older PC to look for more images for inspiration online, better to have more art ideas in advance than to come to a blind wall and feel empty suddenly.
At the maximum, social efforts such as these can extend beyond Linux into real life and form strong local communities, when the need arises and everything falls into place at the right time:
Check out this ship, it was very popular in its days but later no one else wanted it so was set adrift: https://www.businessinsider.com/lyub...r-adventure-34
The pictures at the site above are awesome but don't load on my limited dillo browser, it needs a full fledged browser.
Not surprising since the parent site is businessinsider with all the tracking.
A creative person could have put such a ship to good use. It could have been even turned into a free museum offshore
for kids for example.
Checkout the above site, quite a few people have successfully recycled ships to build houses. The parent site above is also very nice with several useful tips.
Here is another very nice site, with frugal living ideas: stretcher.com
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