So, do you have any plans for the future involving computers and upgrades?
I intend to…
Upgrade the RAM in the Zombie. Sure, OpenSUSE runs fine on 512mb Alone but imagine what it’ll run like if i can get it running on whatever the max RAM for the s7600n (likely 2gb, the zombie is ~3-4 years old) is! (alternately, i’ll give the Zombie the upgrades to do what it did best under Windows XP Media center edition: Music and movies!)
Also, i want to get a fancy pants 1tb hard drive and USB floppy and RAID array (and more hard drives) for the Zombie (progressively turning it from a wimpy but compact desktop to one of the smallest servers to grace anyone’s wire rack). There’s a few unused USB ports on the back waiting to be used…
Third, i want to see if mom’ll give me her gateway laptop whenever she’ll replace it. It’ll make a great ‘On-The-Go’ computer if i can get it running SuSE (thus further progressing my linux experience)!
Fourth, i want to upgrade the 4x4’s power supply. I bought it for gaming, and the specs match that. Of course, the weak PSU is hindering that.
Fifth, once the 4x4 is retired, it’ll be joining my s7600n (and my mom’s laptop if i can convince her) in the world of Linux. After all, with 4gb of RAM and a 4-core processor, it’ll run OpenSUSE like nothing else!
…
In case you’re wondering why i’m only LINUX-ing old computers, i need at least one windows computer for those finnicky programs that just won’t run under linux, and i love making outdated tech useful again. It’s also smart thinking in this economic mess!
They’re almost giving away USB flash keys with cornflakes these days. Closest thing I’ve seen was a promo where lucky ice cream cones had a MP3 player inside.
You just missed me on this, so no immediate plans. Just upped the Main box from 2GB RAM to 4GB and the Laptop fro 1GB to 3GB.
I’ll just be be having fun in the Sandbox. And when it comes to more serious matters relating to installation it will be 11.2 later in the year - which will also give me opportunity to delete Vista again, I regret ever having put it back.
Yes, I have a lot of old files from CP/M days and the only way to get them onto a Linux machine is via a floppy.
Having just bought a new laptop because of a mechanical fault on my old one, I plan to sort the old one out and use it for testing new software, something I’m not prepared to do on my production machine.
Graphic card updates: A few weeks back I purchased and installed a nVidia 8400GS PCI graphic card into an old (9+ years) PC. I still don’t have it working properly due to bugs either in the openSUSE KDE implementation, or in the nVidia driver. Its also possible the old PC’s power supply is contributing to the problem.
If I can get this nVidia 8400GS to work properly with X and also with VDPAU (which is also buggy with this card), I’ll update two other PCs in our house with that PCI card. The card has the unique capability of allowing High Definition (AVCHD H.264 1920x1080) video playback on an ancient PC (by offloading the decoding to the GPU).
New PC: I’m purchasing a new socket-1366 (Intel i7 core cpu) mainboard, custom assembled PC ( there are many threads on this subject already). I placed the order for it earlier this week, and I hope to have it in a few weeks. It will have a nVidia GTX260 (896MB) graphic card, 6GB RAM and 1.5 TB hard drive. It’s expensive and much more than I would usually spend on a PC, but my intention is to mainly use it for high definition (AVCHD H.264 1920x1080) video playback, editing, rendering/encoding (from videos of a new Camcorder that I am about to purchase).
Memory update for old Laptop: My wife is debating whether we should update our old Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo M7400 laptop (which is running openSUSE-10.3) from 512MB RAM to 1 GB RAM. The laptop is capable of up being upgraded to 2GB RAM. But the RAM upgrade is not cheap, and this laptop has only a 1.5 GHz processor, so it may be a case of good money being wasted on old hardware … we have not decided yet.
Monitor upgrade: I’m also upgrading my older 19" Fujitsu Siemens TFT monitor to a new Samsung 26" TFT (I may pick up the new 26" monitor today). I’ll give my 19" TFT to my wife, and she will give her 17" TFT to a friend.
5.1 surround speaker system. I’m also thinking of purchasing a 5.1 sound speaker system to go with the new socket 1366 Intel i7 core PC (Logitech X-540 5.1 surround sound system has caught my eye). But I have not definitely decided on that.
Forgot to mention in my last post … my wife and I are also looking at purchasing a new multi-function inkjet printer, to replace our aging HP5652. We have been thinking of this purchase for over a year, but we still have not managed to use up our spare printer cartridges (for the old printer), and thats delaying our purchase.
We have not picked a printer yet, other than the fact we are leaning to HP because of my preference toward HP’s Linux support.
Our printer requirements have been evolving over the year. Originally were were only going to purchase a simple inkjet printer (nothing else) but in January 2009, after purchasing an HP F4280 multi-function printer for my mother (to replace an aging Lexmark multifunction printer), we were so impressed with the inexpensive F4280’s multifunction capability (compared to the old Lexmark) that we decided we would also get a multifunction printer. But we also want a printer that is WLAN capable.
Hence our requirements for the new inkjet printer are:
a. WLAN and USB (or ethernet) interface [including both WinXP & Linux WLAN compatibility]
b. printing (resolution TBD) via WLAN [for both WinXP & Linux]
c. scanning (resolution TBD) via WLAN [for both WinXP & Linux]
d. stand alone copy (ie with no PC direct nor WLAN connection).
The last item tend to drive up the price in Europe, due to tariffs designed to protect photocopiers.
It appears the Photosmart C4580 A4 Tinte 4800dpi USB/WLAN, which is in stock in our local PC store, may meet those requirements, although I am not certain about item “d” on the list, as it may have been disabled in the European country where we live.
Still, it could be a few months or more before our last ink cartridge in our old printer runs out, and hence the new printer purchase is still some months away.
I copied those onto DOS long ago using a DOS utility that read CP/M format floppies. Then some 10 years ago, I copied all my DOS files onto one archival CD. Soon I’ll have to copy the CDs onto DVDs or Bluray or something like that.
I actually discovered an internal ZIP drive in a “nature strip orphan” computer. And at the office there’s a box with an external ZIP drive and disks. I think I will resist the temptation to play with those, it will just be a waste of time. I can find better ways to waste my time.
Friend and I started reminiscing about those Travan tape drives with floppy interfaces. Fortunately I managed to avoid owning one of those, it was just too expensive for me at the time. I did buy a used SCSI CD-R writer (2x speed!) and it worked well with an Adaptec ISA SCSI controller on a 386! Those were the days when CD-Rs were $5 a pop, and I agonised over whether something was worth writing.
Well, we ended up going shopping today, picking up 1GB of RAM for the old laptop and also the new Samsung T260 TFT monitor (turns out it is 25.5" TFT). I hope to try both out tomorrow. The new PC is still a few weeks away.
I’m a collector of antique computers, of course! my IBM PS/2s don’t even have CD drives, and i’d like to be able to funnel some freeware stuff over to them.
EDIT: the bottom of the laptop has 2 model numbers:
MA7
Mx9630
can’t find anything on the wiki as to how SuSE runs on it or gateway’s site. wierd.
Well, I could not wait, so I installed the Samsung T260 TFT monitor.
All I can say is “wow”. This new 25.5" really shows up the deficiencies of my old athlon-2800 PC (with its old nVidia FX5200 running the openGL driver).
I’m quite content just reusing my old monitors until they break.
Main Computer’s monitor: Acer controlled by nVidia GTX260 at 1280x1024.
Secondary/SuSE computer: Samsung SyncMaster 206bw at 1280x1024. the monitor is 1250x1680 (or at least that’s what it reported when the secondary was running XP), but SuSE doesn’t seem to recognise it, so it runs it at a lower resolution. oh, and there’s a bit of blank space to the left of the screen so the right gets a bit cut off.
Ah, fair enough. Could you not set up networking on the PS/2 though, even DOS had packet drivers and that sort of thing?
Mind you, I had to dig out a floppy drive last night to upgrade the BIOS on a machine that I picked off the nature strip. I didn’t really have to but it’s better than watching TV.
Well, i don’t have a serial cable and i think the P70’s internal Modem/a would be looking for…Well, a Phone line if i tried to link my computers through the Ethernet port.
EDIT: Yup, the Zombie couldn’t find the P70. No OpenGEM for it.
It is, actually. It’s just as cool looking in person.
4mb of RAM, 80386 processor…If my PS/2 l40sx with identical specs is anything to base this off of, it’d run windows 3.x like a charm. ah, it’s funny how far computers have come, and also kind of sad that nowadays some OSes run like crap with 512mb RAM (Cough cough VISTA cough…Of course, it runs beautifully on my main computer.)
Y’know, someone should make a linux variant for retrocomputers. If microsoft can get a GUI and OS running in 4mb of RAM (or IBM if OS/2 is more your pace), i bet the guys and girls who make linux distros can do it.
Linux did have support for the microchannel bus, I know of people in the early days who ran Linux on PS/2s, but I don’t know if anybody’s exercised it lately. See for example this old article:
