Had luck finding some motorcyle riders here, so let's see if I can find some Computer Geeks lurking around. Any one built a system lately. Last ones I built were for the wife and me back in Jan. 04. Went with a miniATX motherboard, AMD 3.2 GHZ processor, 1GB of RAM, and the wife got an 80GB hard drive and I stuck with an old 60GB that I had used from another system.

Any one here using Linux as their operating system. If so which Linux are you using?


_________________
It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt. Mark Twain

Yup, I'm one. The last system I built two years ago is a P4 3.4 GHz with 2 gigs of RAM and two hard drives, a 200 gig and a 120.

I had another machine running Red Hat 7.3 a few years ago. I only dabbled in Linux, never used it extensively.

I like AMD, I'm not partial to Intel chips. I used to love the old K6 series chips. My first Athlon was a 600. I also had an Athlon 950 that is still happily running. I gave it away last year.

I'm an old timer. I still get nostalgic for Windows 3.1, DOS and any Mac OS before X.  


_________________
ResMed VPAP III machine, bilevel at 22/16
ResMed Activa Mask

I knew there had to be at least one other computer geek around besides my self. I have an K7 system around here some where that runs just great. I loved when Intel and AMD are seeing who will reach a goal first. I remember when it was who was going to go to 1GHZ first.

I started, I hate to admit this, on a Commodore 64 with a tape drive to load programs up with. My wife got me a 5 1/4" floppy drive for the thing on Christmas of '84. Here's one I really hate to admit. I had to spend $1,000.00 for my first hard drive in '85. It was only the top end at 20MB.

I haven't seen much in 64bit software yet have you?


_________________
It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt. Mark Twain

Fellow bike rider AND computer geek... I do freelance computer repair for friends and family on the side to make some extra coin.

I just finished reassembling my old server the other day. Sempron 2200, 1GB DDR Ram, dual 160GB drives, single 40GB, and 52x CD-ROM... all this thing is a file and print server for my home network. I run Windows XP Pro SP2 on it, as Windows Server 2003 is just too much.

I have two laptops on this network. One is a HP Pavilion, 3.2GHz, 1GB DDR, 100GB Harddrive, wifi... etc etc. The other is a older Dell Inspiron 5000e that I use as a backup and for my neice to play her games on when she comes to visit.

My first computer I had was a IBM PS/1 286-8 that I upgraded to a 286-12. This thing didnt even have a harddrive.... I still have that system sitting in my closet... though over the years I have aquired the upgrade parts to upgrade that thing as far as I can. Why I keep it I dont know.

I have toyed with Linux. (I had it on my Dell) I was using Ubuntu, and still have it on the other drive. (I just put a different drive in for my neice's games. I put the Ubuntu HD in when I want to play with it.)


_________________
NeonHomer
"No Matter Where You Go, There You Are..."

Respironics BiPAP Plus @ 6 cmH2O EPAP/10cmH2O IPAP
Respironics REMStar Heated Humidifier
Fisher & Paykel HC407 Nasal Mask
ResMed Mirage Swift

Ride a bike and work with computers. That'll dispell the myth that motorcycle riders are dumb. I'm really surprised by that comment on Windows Server 2003. The shop I just took over had it running on some Compaq servers at 1.7GHZ with about 1GB memory and it ran pretty good. I have since replaced those servers and we now have better ones.

My home network is a Charter cable modem plugged into a Motorola wireless router / switch. It has five spot on the back for Cat 5 cables. I have the wifes, my computer and a Brother laser printer plugged in the back. I have a Dell Inspiron 8200 laptop I bought used with a wireless Motorola card in it. I can sit pretty much anywhere in the house and surf the net when I need to. I'm not a laptop fanatic but friend who is sold me the 8200. I love these older Dell laptops has you can pull the hard drive, run two batteries or what ever configuration you want. My friend runs a little local computer store that sells used and new laptops. He does pretty good.

I remember those PS/1 computers. I had a friend run out and buy one the day they hit the street. Boy was he ever disappointed by that system. He never bought anything with IBM on it again.


_________________
It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt. Mark Twain

The home network itself here consists of Earthlink HSI cable provided by Brighthouse Networks. The modem (a Terayon TJ715x) feeds a Linksys WRT54G wireless router running DD-WRT v23 SP1 Final. The file/print server is a wired connection. I also have a XBox that is connected to the router as well. I use it as a DVD player mostly. (Picked it up cheap at a yard sale... it had a bad harddrive. I put a new one in and added a modchip.)

The laptops are wireless. The HP has a built in wifi, and the Dell has a Linksys PCMCIA card for wifi.

I say Windows Server 2003 is too much because I was original running it on a Dell Poweredge 1300 server running dual P3 550's. I then went to my old server (the Sempron 2200 that I am running now.... It was my "old" server cause the motherboard died. I sent it off to be replaced, and when it got back, I just never rebuilt it.).  I loaded W2K3 Server to the Sempron, but decided that it was too much of an OS for what I needed. Windows XP Pro works good for what I want it to do.

Now I am getting ready to host a small website from my server as well. I dont know how long it is going to last, as my 2 yr old likes to come in and press the power button at random.... wreaks havoc with harddrives!!

The Dell I got in a trade. I traded a fully loaded Dell P3-700 system to a guy who wanted a tower system for his kids. He had the laptop, but the display was messed up. Turns out the cable was bad. Anyway, I set it up for playing around with. Then I found out about a old battery recall, and the battery that was in it was under the recall!! FREE BATTERY!!  

I was using it as a playing around system to learn Linux, but I put a different drive in it and put XP on it for my neice so she could play The Sims w/o screwing up my HP.


_________________
NeonHomer
"No Matter Where You Go, There You Are..."

Respironics BiPAP Plus @ 6 cmH2O EPAP/10cmH2O IPAP
Respironics REMStar Heated Humidifier
Fisher & Paykel HC407 Nasal Mask
ResMed Mirage Swift

I'm a network admin by day, so I dabble a little bit in computers :)  

My home network is embarassingly elaborate, more typical of a small company than a residential. The only rooms without networked computers (either wireless or wired) are the bathrooms -lol-  2 servers (one that is Internet facing as an email/web/ftp/terminal server, the other for internal domain/file serving/backups), 8 workstations/laptops. In three rooms I have old laptops hooked up to TVs and stereos to function as "media centers." They work great for streaming video and MP3s off my file server. I'm a part-time musician as well, and have a PC dedicated to my little home "recording studio" setup.

I'm 35, and likewise got into computers in the Commodore 64 days. Used to get in trouble being 13-14 and pretending to be much older hitting local BBS' with my screaming 300 baud modem (fortunately I've grown out of that phase in life!). Didn't get an x86 based PC until '92 (a 486/25), but took off with those. I haven't built a new PC in a few years, though I keep upgrading components in my oldest son's computer to keep up with game releases. My wife and I both have laptops for our general use, so not much to do with those once you've maxed out the RAM.

I used Linux fairly extensively in the mid-'90s, but have gotten away from it. Since the vast majority of my job is dealing with Microsoft technologies, that's mostly what I use and run at home.


_________________
<--Will-->
http://www.inside-corner.com
http://www.willwillis.us

Ozone Rambler wrote:

I knew there had to be at least one other computer geek around besides my self. I have an K7 system around here some where that runs just great. I loved when Intel and AMD are seeing who will reach a goal first. I remember when it was who was going to go to 1GHZ first.

I started, I hate to admit this, on a Commodore 64 with a tape drive to load programs up with. My wife got me a 5 1/4" floppy drive for the thing on Christmas of '84. Here's one I really hate to admit. I had to spend $1,000.00 for my first hard drive in '85. It was only the top end at 20MB.

I haven't seen much in 64bit software yet have you?

No, not much in 64 bit software. They're kind of slow coming out with stuff for the Intel Macs as well.

I had a Commodore Vic 20! I remember playing those text-based adventure games on the little cartridges you popped into the back.

My first system back in '93 was a 486DX-33 with a blazing 8 megs of RAM, 245 meg hard drive and a Diamond Stealth video card. Oh, and how could I forget the 2400 baud modem for dialing out to Prodigy? I added a Sound Blaster card and one of the first CDROM drives that ever came out for the low price of 400 bucks, just so I could play the 7th Guest.  

Somewhere in the recesses of my storage room, I have an Apple IIe. That was great for Zork. Yes, I'm a gamer, as well as the worst case of arrested development you'll ever see in a woman in her mid 40's. I was a major Doom addict back in the early 90's.

I was working in the tech department of a computer store when the Athlons first came out. I remember the processor wars between AMD and Intel well. Ah, the good old days....


_________________
ResMed VPAP III machine, bilevel at 22/16
ResMed Activa Mask

What we are not around this household are computer geeks!  But we have had a computer for something like 20 years which is hard to believe.

We started out with a Coleco Adam which we bought after Coleco went bankrupt.  At the time, I could not have cared less about computers but my husband, although no geek, was intrigued and discovered that there was an informal group meeting here in Toronto.  That group evolved into the Metro Toronto Adam Group and my husband ended up as the president, not for his computer knowledge but because he could run a meeting.  I eventually got involved when I discovered spreadsheets since I am the money manager around here.  Also, we didn't have a graphics program but we did have a Logo program so I learned enough Logo to do graphics.  There is still a hardcore group of Adam users and we still meet once a year.  We call it a convention but it's really a reunion.  

Much later, I inherited an Amiga from a dear friend who died suddenly.  His widow gave me his Amiga 1000 and later his 2000.  To learn how to use it, I joined the TPUG Amiga section.  That's the Toronto Pet Users Group.  TPUG is still very active as a Commodore 64 club but the Amiga section has dwindled to very little.  Anyway, the 1000 was inadequate and I soon bought an Amiga 500 and not long after that, I had the opportunity to buy a 3000 so I did.  And I'm still using it.  The operating system is now more than 10 years old but there have been some upgrades which I have and I'm quite happy to go on using it, especially the spreadsheet and word processing programs.  I also have a Logo program for it and I'm still using that too.  

On the MS-DOS front, we now have both an up-to-date desktop and a laptop, which I am using for the Internet.  And I have discovered MSWLogo which is on both of them.  I am now very interested in computers but it is my husband who is most deeply involved.  If left to my own devices, I would be lost but I can't imagine being without one.  

My husband is the one who officially has OSA so I started visiting this site for info that might help him and I've stayed around out of general interest.  

There is an Adam group that meets on a chat group every Wed. evening.  TPUG has a web site but I'm not sure how well it's been maintained.  There are other Commodore groups out there and the Amiga is more popular in Europe than North America.  There is also a Coleco gaming community which is quite active and there is an Adam emulator available.  Also 2 Amiga emulators, one of which is commercial.

But, boy, that 20 years seems like no time at all.  And here we are senior citizens!

I used to have a Dell Poweredge 1300 server setup for my file/print server, but in all honesty, it was too slow and too much of a PITA to run for what I wanted to do with it. My Sepron system is a lot faster, and I can upgrade it better.

I have a Linksys WRT54G router, and it does what I want it to do right now. I have only two of the four ports used right now, and a third is used when I run my Mac (more on that in a sec).  I dont think I need more ports, but it would be nice...

The Mac..... I picked up a Mac G3 B&W from a yard sale for $10. Turns out the motherboard was toast. The system sat for about 6 months until I came across a motherboard. I dropped it in, and it runs great. It only has a 400MHz processor, but it is a interesting change of pace from using a Windows system. I am running OS X 10.3 on it, and I have 1GB of RAM in it.  Bad thing is I have a Rev 1 motherboard, which is the problematic board, and just a 8MB video card. I dont see any sense in upgrading past that, as I just set the system up to play around with it.

I think this is bad.... most men take a magazine to the bathroom.. I take a wireless laptop!!!


_________________
NeonHomer
"No Matter Where You Go, There You Are..."

Respironics BiPAP Plus @ 6 cmH2O EPAP/10cmH2O IPAP
Respironics REMStar Heated Humidifier
Fisher & Paykel HC407 Nasal Mask
ResMed Mirage Swift

Look at all the great post. Will what hooked me to computers was telecommunications. I started with a 300 baud modem as well. I was stationed at McChord AFB near Tacoma WA at the time and there were lots of local BBS. My wife and me got transferred to Edwards AFB near Lancaster / Palmdale CA in 1985. I joined the Antelope Valley Commodore Users Group and ran their BBS for 7 years. When I retired in 92 and moved to Longview WA I ran a PC based BBS for awhile. By 96 it was pretty much a done deal on the death of BBS by the World Wide WEB. I tried a few years ago to run a Telnet based PC BBS and had fair success with it. Just wasn't the same.

The only group we haven't heard from are the old Atari computer users. Atari actually built some pretty decent systems and were quite popular in the 80s. I'm really surprised we haven't heard from a former Atari user. I used a friends Vic 20 with a modem and that is what got me hooked to go buy a C64. I just loved the fact that you used basic at the operating system for those old systems. Talk about instant computer course.

AMD and Intel are still at it which really shows how much things keep changing. Lately it been the 64bit and duo core and now quad core processors. I really don't think that this is going to slow down unless they just reach the ability to push the processor any further. I know Intel got stung on the 64bit and the duo core. AMD really leap frogged them there for a couple of years.

CatNappin your post gave me a great idea for another topic. Let's find out how many gamers are lurking about shall we.


_________________
It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt. Mark Twain

If you are looking for a friendly Linux version, check out Ubuntu.  I run it in VMWare and it performs well.  I have run Debian, Mandrake, Redhat, and a few others, and Ubuntu is probably the friendliest of the bunch.

As to building it myself, I don't build anymore as its cheaper to buy it built now...


My first modem was a 150/300 baud phone cup style, and I had it rigged to a DEC paper terminal...

Oh, btw, I still have my Motorcycle endorsement too!

I used to love surfing local BBS's. You could get some great shareware stuff and utilities. My friend's brother had one for a few years, we used to trade Doom levels that we had designed. Sysop, there's a term I haven't used in a long time!

As for having an Ethernet drop in your bathroom, that's the mark of a pre-wireless computer geek!  


_________________
ResMed VPAP III machine, bilevel at 22/16
ResMed Activa Mask

All this talk of old computer systems made me decide to do a list for old computer geeks. Some thing along Jeff Foxworthy only for computer geeks. So here is the start of the list. Please feel free to add to it if you think of anything new to add.

You might be an old Computer Geek if:

1.   You ever owned a computer by Commodore, Atari, Coleco, or Franklin
2.   You used a game cartridge or cassette tape to load programs for you computer
3.   You thought 16 colors out of a computer were cool
4.   You know what a 300 baud modem is and used one
5.   You know what a bulletin board system is
6.   You know what ANSI graphic are
7.   You know what a tagline is
8.   You had two telephone lines in your house, one for voice and the other for the computer
9.   You used a TV for a computer monitor
10. You know what punch cards are
11. You keypunched cards
12. You remember when mainframes took up whole rooms and only had 64KB of memory
13. You know what a 9 track tape drive is
14. Your first PC was an 8 bit computer
15. You know what EGA is
16. You remember 8 inch floppy drives
17. Your first computer used KB instead of MB for memory size
18. Your first printer was dot matrix

OhforFive Added
19. You had to buy a clock/calendar board for your first PC.
20. You know what a CPM OS is

Ozone Rambler Added
21. You know what an Apple Lisa is
22. You built your first computer and it wasn’t a PC
23. You know what GWBasic is
24. You consider Windows the Johnny come lately has you owned an Appler Mac or Commodore Amiga in the 80's

Will Added
25. Radio Shack sold their own line of computers (ie TRS-80, Tandy)
26. You know what a Timex Sinclair is



Last edited by Ozone Rambler on Sun Nov 26, 2006 5:06 pm; edited 1 time in total
_________________
It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt. Mark Twain

19. You had to buy a clock/calendar board for your first PC.
20. You know what a CPM OS is

I'm guilty of all but 1, 2, and 9.  

10 and 11 brought back painful memories.


_________________
0'fer