Moving to Linux

Dec VAX2000, how many of those did I throw in the skip??? 20??? Along with a Ferranti Argus 700 GZ some WICAT consoles, rear projectors...

All working :? Just obsolete and the place was relocating (except me, I chose something else!)

I did slavage a few bits tho, 2 x 21" Mitsubishi monitors amongst others, dual screen - Brilliant!!!
 
Reason I asked was because this guy I knew at school was into collecting computers, consoles and arcade machines. One of his computer collecting friends had some kind of minicomputer, mainframe or supercomputer at home (a proper supercomputer, not a G4 Macintosh!).

So there are nutters out there who do run these things in a domestic environment!

Silliest bit of computer equipment I ever had was a (free) rackmounted network switch. I installed the thing in a computer desk I was building at the time. Hooked it all up, then turned on the switch... the noise was deafening! Either 6 or 8 small (and therefore very fast and noisy) fans. I used it for about 2 weeks before buying a small pocket-sized ethernet switch and consigning the rackmount to my parts bin! I would go to bed every night with my ears ringing: not good!
 
Yes, amazing how at work the noise all seems very unobtrusive, yet if you bring any of the kit home, it sounds like a jet taking off. I don't know if you've ever had a power cut at work, but it is amazing how quiet it goes. BTW, I know I've got my threads a bit mixed up, bl**dy computers, never could get the hang of them :lol:
 
Hadn't noticed this thread until now. I use Mandrake Linux quite a bit. I am also going to check out Ark Linux, it looks like it could be good.

One of his computer collecting friends had some kind of minicomputer, mainframe or supercomputer at home (a proper supercomputer, not a G4 Macintosh!).
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At one point a friend and I were planning a cluster supercomputer. It never grew from a few pieces of paper and printouts of information on Beowulf linux, though.
 
Just noticed Zen's response!

How do you find Mandrake? I suppose pretty good if you use it a lot. Am I an isolated case with my crashes and "slower than XP" experience, or does it take a lot of setting up to get running sweetly?

Beowulf clusters are cool. I was reading about a guy who built one using 12 Mini-ITX motherboards... same power as 4 P4 CPUs but cheaper and less power hungry, hence cooler.
 
As you lot seem to be reminiscing, my first real computer was the Amiga 600HD. 20mb of on board disc, brill. Cant really call a Commodore 64 or a Dragon 32 REAL computers, just toys. But my question for all you old time geeks is, was the windows based system on the Amiga in use before Billy brought out windows 3.1?
 
marios_kin said:
As you lot seem to be reminiscing, my first real computer was the Amiga 600HD. 20mb of on board disc, brill. Cant really call a Commodore 64 or a Dragon 32 REAL computers, just toys. But my question for all you old time geeks is, was the windows based system on the Amiga in use before Billy brought out windows 3.1?
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Workbench???

Did you ever use Amos?
 
Well, as a former Amiga-enthusiast (Amiga actually means "girlfriend", so we could geek it with the best of them) I know that the originaly Amiga, the Amiga 1000, was debuted in 1983. It was released in 1984 (although I might be out by a year, 1984 and 1985 respectively!)

It had 256k of RAM and a 7 point something MHz Motorola 68000, and the first version of the Amiga's custom chipset.

Now, that computer came with Workbench 1.0. Billyboy released Windows 1.0 in 1985.

So yes, the Amiga was running Workbench before IBM-compatibles were running Windows. Now, Workbench was also superior: it was a multi-tasking operating system. Windows 1-3 (and possibly 95-98, not sure about them) were "Multiple Program Loading", but not multi-tasking. Big difference. The GUI was superior to all versions of Windows until Windows 95. Also the disk format was superior to the IBM-compatible equivalent: 880 kbytes on a DD floppy instead of 720. HD drives were available with the A4000 which would hold 1.8mbytes on a disk that a PC would only put 1.4mbytes on.

Of course, back then until about 1993, Amigas were superior to PCs for all but office number crunching. The graphics chipsets were far superior, and the games were better too.

Personally, I owned a "CDTV", which stands for "Commodore Dynamic Total Vision". The world's first CD-ROM based personal computer. A wonderful machine. Based on the A500, but with 1mbyte of RAM and in a hi-fi format (looked great). I had this networked with my brother's A1200, and we used to play network games. Great stuff.
 
mildmanneredjanitor said:
Did you ever use Amos?
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Did you ever play about with NIALL, the Non-Intelligent Amos Language Learner? It was one of those bots that you speak to and it gradually learns the language through patterns, and it's replies become more intelligible.

They actually ported Amos to the PC, but didn't call it PCos.
 
Friend of mine had a vic 20 then upgraded(?) to a commodore 32.

I must admit to being pleased that someone else actually believes the Amiga was a superior machine to a pc, when I got my first pc, a pentium 75, I really thought it was my imagination, all the blurb that was around at the time was trying to tell me different. I was making animation sequences on the Amiga but the pc even loaded with windows 95 just couldnt hack it. Am I right in thinking that Toy Story was made using Amiga type machine?
 
Doesn't it depend upon the task ?
Excel for example was a revelation to me after the old spreadsheet software ... nothing like that on the 'oldies' :wink:
P
 
My dad bought the family a Vic-20 when I was about 4. You could get games on cartridges that slotted in like a console, or on tape. They were advertised by William Shatner. Great stuff! Later upgraded to a Sinclair Spectrum +2.

NASA used A4000/040s for something or other, I found some pictures on the net of them.

I don't know about Toy Story, but Babylon 5 and Seaquest DSV were rendered using "Video Toasters", which were Amiga-based video systems.

Also, the old "Virtuality" virtual reality systems were A3000-based.

And I knew a post-doc researcher back at Uni who earned money on the side by translating and subtitling Japanese anime... he used an Amiga 500.

So, the Amiga, despite being branded as an impotent games machine by jealous PC and Mac users, has actually had a full and varied life. There are attempts to revive it, but I really can't see it catching on. We are too dependent on the Wintel architecture nowadays. Even Apple rely on a few die-hard religious fanatics from "The Cult of Macintosh" to keep their computer sales up.

No-one has mentioned the Atari ST... funny that :wink:
 
only atari thing i can recall was the atari er, er,...........um.....well it played games anyway
 
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