Computers

The thing that frustrates my wife the most is the fact that most of my hobbies, and a lot of the necessities of family life (like budgets and finances), have segments that have weaseled their way onto my home computer . She never knows whether I am working or playing when I'm hunched over the keyboard in my basement office (which is often).

I cut my programming teeth on FORTRAN and Macro-Assembler programming for PDP-11 mini-computers, and have worked my way up through 8086 Assembler and Pascal to C and C++, and now do recreational programming in Microsoft's Visual Basic and Access. Never bothered with (and have no interest in) Macintosh computers. When things go wrong (as they always do), you have very few options to do anything about it with a Mac. With Windows-based machines, you can treat them like toasters (which is what a Mac proudly compares itself to), or you can use it as a Swiss Army Knife, but at least with a PC you have the choice. And they're a heck of a lot cheaper than Macs too!

Computer #1 (1983-1987; purchased for $7,100!) was an IBM PC2 (Rev 2 of the original IBM^Ž PC 4MHz 8088 and precursor to the XT) with a whopping 256kb RAM, one 5.25" 360 kb floppy, monochrome (green) monitor with a whiz-bang Hercules^Ž Graphics card (720 x 648 resolution in 2 colors - green & black), a new-fangled bootable Maynard^Ž 10 MB hard drive (85ms access time - I paid $1,100 alone for that puppy), a zippy 1200 baud Hayes^Ž modem, and a 9-pin Okidata MicroLine 92 dot matrix printer. (It is interesting to note that, even way back then, there were lots and lots of 3rd party vendors doing real good work and making very innovative products for the PC). I paid for the entire (substantial) down payment on my first house doing contract programming on this machine!!

Computer #2 (1987-1992) was another true-blue IBM machine; a PS/2^Ž model 50 (12 MHz 80286) with 1 MB RAM, one 3.5" floppy drive and an external 5.25" floppy drive for backward compatibility, a 14" EGA monitor, and one 20 MB hard drive. I bought an external 1200 bps modem to go with this puppy, and during its lifetime the 9-pin printer from the previous machine died, so I replaced it with a fancy new 24-pin Epson^Ž LQ-800.

Computer #3 (1992-1996) was bought while we were living in Germany, and is waiting to find a new use, probably as garage sale fodder sometime soon. It still works - its a Gateway^Ž 486DX2/50 ISA machine with 16 MB RAM, 952 MB of IDE hard disk space (initially purchased with two 200 MB drives, but I upgraded both over the years), an ATI^Ž Ultra display board with 15" SVGA monitor, a NEC^Ž CDR-73M double-speed CD-ROM, Media Vision^Ž Pro Audio Spectrum^Ž 8-bit sound card, US-Robotics^Ž 14,440 external fax/modem, and a mongrel $20 ISA Ethernet card. While it was my main machine in Germany, I added an HP^Ž 560C Inkjet printer to the Epson, which I still use with my current machine (described below).

Computer #4 (1996-2001) is an aging beauty (it looks a lot like the setup pictured to the right). It started out life as a Gateway 2000^Ž 200 MHz Pentium^Ž Pro^Ž (P6-200 PCI machine with Venus motherboard), with 64 MB RAM, two Quantum^Ž Fireball 3.8 GB hard drives, a Toshiba^Ž 8x CD-ROM drive, a 4MB Matrox^Ž Millennium video board driving a Vivitron^Ž 21-inch monitor (yowsa!), an Ensoniq^Ž Vivo90 full-duplex sound card with Altec Lansing^Ž subwoofer speaker system, Telepath^Ž (USR) 33.6 fax/modem with full speaker-phone capability (which I use), a 3.2 GB Iomega^Ž Ditto tape backup.

I added (and removed) a few things to the computer over the years; more hard drives (a Quantum Bigfoot 6.4 GB drive and a Maxtor 15.2 GB drive), and an internal 2x4x Sony^Ž CDR (CD-ROM writer) I bought at a computer show for $65, a D-Link^Ž 10/100 PCI network card, two 64 MB SIMMs (for a total of 192 MB now), I removed the Ditto tape backup to make room for the internal CDR, and I popped the 200MHz Pentium Pro chip and replaced it with an Intel OverDrive^Ž 333MHz Pentium^Ž II processor with MMX^Ž. Not the screamer it used to be anymore, but the improvements kept it useful for a few extra years.

Computer #5 (2001-??) is the newest addition to the family. It's a brand new former top-of-the-line Gateway^Ž S2000 Professional series with a 2 GHz Intel^Ž Pentium^Ž 4 Processor, 512MB PC800 RDRAM^Ž, two Western Digital 80GB 7200RPM Ultra ATA100 hard drives, ATI^Ž Radeon^Ž VE display board with 64MB DDR with TV-Out and DVI, a SoundBlaster Live!^Ž sound card, a 3Com^Ž PCI 10/100 Ethernet, a 16x/40x DVD-ROM, a 16x/10x/40x Recordable ReWriteable CDRW, a 56K PCI Modem, an Adaptec^Ž 2940 Ultra/Wide SCSI controller that controls a Hewlett-Packard ScanJet 4P 300 dpi flatbed scanner, and Boston Acoustics^Ž BA735 Digital Speakers w/Subwoofer, all in a Mid-Tower Case with 3.5" 1.44MB diskette drive, 5 PCI and 1 AGP slots, 4 USB ports, 1 Serial Port, 1 Parallel Port, and 2 PS/2 ports. Not content to leave well enough alone, I've already modified the new beastie - I bought a 3-port IEEE 1394 (FireWire) board (one port integral with the other front ports on the chassis, the other two out the back in traditional manner) to handle video capture and processing through a Dazzle Hollywood DV Bridge. I can now pull in analog (from a VCR or my Sony HI-8 CamCorder) or digital (from a digital CamCorder or other digital video device) video to be captured to hard disk for processing and output. Captured video takes up a lot of disk space!! I captured a 16 minute video clip and it bloated out to a 3 Gigabyte AVI file!!

Other computers lying about the house (or in college apartments) include: Audrey's machine - a Gateway^Ž 667 MHz Pentium^Ž III with 256 MB RAM, DVD-ROM, 48x CD-RW drive, a 7200 rpm 40 GB and a 5400 rpm 30 GB hard drive; Megan's machine - a Gateway^Ž 800 MHz Pentium^Ž III with 256 MB RAM, DVD-ROM, a 7200 rpm 40 GB and a 5400 rpm 30 GB hard drive and a 24x CD-RW drive; a cute little ancient Gateway^Ž Liberty^Ž 486^ŽDX4/100 portable (24MB memory, 850MB hard drive, external floppy) that gets used for email and traveling genealogy research; a no-name do-it-yourselfer that is being used as the house server and my backup machine; an ancient Gateway^Ž 120 MHz Pentium^Ž with 64 MM RAM that I use as a sandbox machine (removable hard drives in trays so I can swap drives easily and boot Linux^Ž, Windows 98^Ž, Windows 95^Ž, Windows 3.11^Ž, and DOS^Ž 6.22); and a Sony^Ž Vaio^Ž Z505 notebook computer for Lynn.

For the no-name I had fun and went to a local computer show/flea market. I bought a micro-tower ATX case that included a 150 watt power supply, 3.5" floppy, 42x CD-ROM, and keyboard-speakers-mouse. Then I bought an empty PC-Chips^Ž M754LMR motherboard with mounting space for either a Slot 1 (high-end) or a Socket 370 (low end) CPU chip, an on-board 64bit 3D AGP Graphics Accelerator with 8MB frame buffer, an on-board 3D PCI Sound system, an on-board 56k fax/modem, and an on-board Davicom^Ž 10/100 Ethernet LAN (all these on-board features mean they don't require cards and slots). Then I bought a low-end Intel^Ž 366 Celeron CPU (Socket 370 style) and 64MB of memory to plug into the motherboard. The total for the case, motherboard, CPU, memory, and parts came to $350. Finally I bought a Maxtor^Ž 8.1GB hard drive for an extra $105. The only thing missing was a monitor, which I was able to come up with. I've since tired of the micro-ATX case and upgraded to a mid-size ATX tower case, and added another 64 MB or memory while I was at it (for a total of 128 MB). I've since upgraded the CPU to a 450 MHz Pentium^Ž III in a slot-1 form factor. This machine has its hard drives in removable caddy racks, and I have five hard drives in drive-caddies; two with Windows^Ž 2000 Server, one with Windows^Ž 2000 Professional, another with Windows^Ž 98^Ž 2nd Edition, and a fifth with RedHat^Ž Linux^Ž v8.0.

The Sony Vaio notebook is a sweetheart. Purple titanium! Its a Z505 SuperSlim Pro (3.75 lbs, 1.15" X 10.8" X 8.9"), with a 650 MHz Intel^Ž Pentium^Ž III processor running Microsoft^Ž Windows^Ž 2000 Professional; 12.1" (1024 x 768) XGA TFT screen; 12.0 GB hard drive; 128 MB SDRAM; 1 type II PCMCIA card slot; integrated stereo speakers; and with built-in USB, firewire, MemoryStick, ethernet, and modem ports. Optional goodies include an external 8X max. DVD-ROM drive, external 4X4X20X max. CD-RW drive, extra triple-capacity battery, and carrying case.

In my basement office in the Family TreeHouse where the network hub is, I run my main workstation, the sandbox machine, the no-name server, and occasionally my work-owned HP^Ž 6000 laptop off a Belkin^Ž OmniCube^Ž 4-port KVM (keyboard-video-mouse) switch, that lets me share my monitor, a Logitech^Ž trackball, and a generic keyboard among up to four machines. Saves space, and is very convenient.

The house infrastructure supporting all this is a bit more elaborate than most.......

I've installed CAT5 Ethernet cable throughout the house, all terminating in the laundry room at a home-grown distribution panel. I've run nine drops so far, with a few more to go for completeness. In most of those places I've also run broadband cable TV and phone lines, with all three terminating in a single junction box with a triple-socket cover-plate holding one connector for each type of cable. I bought all my connectors and stuff from You-Do-It Electronics^Ž in Needham MA, a great place to shop - pure heaven for techno-nerds!! All the drops collect in one spot where the distribution panel is, and the panel is fed by my Comcast^Ž-supplied Motorola^Ž Surfboard^Ž SB5100 cable modem that gives me unbelievable, stupendous, incredible, high-speed 24-hour access to the internet.

Connected to the cable modem and mounted on the distribution panel is an SMC^Ž 7004BR Barricade 4-port 10/100 Mbps broadband router that allows me to share the cable-modem connection with all the computers in the house. Connected to the router is a Netgear^Ž DS116 switch/hub that allows me to connect up to sixteen computers to the router simultaneously.

A diagram of the full setup can be viewed here.

A photo of the distribution panel can be viewed here.