Computer Help and Support

Of course I have plenty of smaller computers.

One of my favorite computers is one I built in 1979 using an 1802 processor. That was built using parts from a previous 1802 computer I'd built.

I also have an 8 inch boat anchor floppy drive. It worked last I turned it on, but I'm a little wary of turning it on now. No doubt rubber and plastic bits have gone brittle and big electrolytic capacitors would fizzle or explode.

The Fortran class I took in college was still using punched cards and processing the jobs overnight. From then on all my computer classes were on BSD systems. I wasn't really interested in the Apple II, or later, the IBM PC labs. I was happy that other people used those -- it meant they wouldn't complain about me hogging the Unix terminals.

I once was excited to get a job with a major mainframe manufacturer just as they were shutting down. Everyone was abandoning that sinking ship, which was the only reason they were hiring guys like me. Three quarters of the factory floor was dark. The 1950's decor cafeteria was a ghost town. It was so creepy in the cafeteria, with dust on the tables and flickering fluorescent lights, that no one would eat there.

My boss would let me take home damned near anything I wanted, which often confused the security staff. Eventually the place closed, the building was knocked down, and all that cool stuff inside, including some very expensive tools I'm certain, went to a landfill which was later declared a Superfund site.

I have various Atari 800 computers, which are still my favorites, and an Amiga that was used in local television production.

My current desktop runs Debian. Most of my old computers are emulated on it. I have an Atari icon on my computer desktop that takes me directly to an emulation of my significantly upgraded Atari 800 XL, just as I last used it.

I didn't build an IBM clone until 1990. That computer is emulated in DosBox.

Whenever I build a new computer these days I simply copy everything on the old computer over to the new computer. My oldest files go back to the 'seventies. Some of these were downloaded from my university's computers using a 300 baud modem.

Maybe I don't need to keep all this old computer hardware, but one never knows. The day after I've dumped my eight inch floppy drive will be the day I find some long lost treasure on eight inch floppy disks.