August 30, 2004
MY 16 COLOR NIGHTMARE
Just thought I'd share this...
This was an old network box that got thrown out at work. It wasn't really constructed to be a stand-alone home computer, so I had to do some... modifications.
What it came with: A 300 MHz CPU, a bad 4 Gig hard drive, one 64 Meg stick of memory, 1 IDE controller on the board, 2 empty PCI slots, and a power supply with only one power plug.
On the bright side, it has USB, on-board video, and on-board sound. There's also an on-board network connection that I couldn't make work.
What I've done: Unplugged the old power supply, and plugged in one that had multiple power plugs. For the sake of convenience, I just left it sitting on the floor, rather than try to swap it into the case.
Replaced the 64 Meg of memory with 2 sticks of 256 Meg. I'm running programs at a tolerable speed now.
Installed my old Network Interface Card in one of the PCI slots, so I have internet access.
Installed my old C: drive properly in the case in place of the original C: drive that didn't work.
Hooked up my USB hub (floor, lower left), giving me printer, scanner, and access to my PDA via its charging cradle (not shown).
Installed a PCI IDE controller card and attached my old D: drive (on floor, bottom right of picture) to it, thus giving me access to ALL of my old files.
Unfortunately, the case wasn't designed to hold all this stuff, so I'm currently running everything in the "gutted fish" layout that you see in the picture. It seems to run ok this way, except when the cat starts walking on the components.
I hope to have a picture of something happier within a week.
As a final note, the 16 color thing isn't SO bad, even though it makes my vast pr0n collection nigh unviewable. The big problem is that I can't adjust my screen setting above 480x600, which makes viewing blogs without left sidebars a little tricky, since a little of the text gets cut off on the left side. My current work-around for that is to copy the block of text I can't read, and paste it into a text editor. Even the cut-off parts get copied, so I'm able to read what I'm missing.
Meanwhile, I just keep repeating "it's only temporary".
Oh, and drinking heavily helps, too.
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Do like a real modder and ditch the entire idea of a case. Get a small piece of half-inch plywood and mount everything to that. LOTS of airflow that way. You'll have to dust it occasionally, though.
Heh,heh.. I ran a machine with that open faced look for nearly two years. Worked flawlessly. Of course I had more that 16 colors and better screen resolution. The rest nearly the same.
My interior designer (wife) kept giving me fits of rage over all the stuff sticking out of it. ;-)
Harv dad would so proud it ain't pretty but it works you need alittle black electrical tape for a finishing touch, our dad had 7 boys you should see what some of our cars looked like.
Heh.
I've done that too.
Nice! I have one of those too!
Is there an echo in here?
You have serious blogging issues to go through all of that to get to the net. I'm not saying that as a bad thing, just as a person in awe over what you're willing to do in order to blog.
Contagion - part of it is blogging OCD. Part of it is that male genetic urge to fix something that's not working.
Blogless Brother - and after I finish wrapping the bitch in electrical tape, I can paint the sucker chocolate brown and forest green.
(inside joke - those were my dad's favorite colors. All his shirts & pants, most of the furniture, and anything that needed painting around the house was usually one or the other of those 2 colors)
You are truly a master of hardware, I salute you.
t
Master of Baiting... You salute yourself!!
E-Mail Me (Harvey)
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