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Cool boat & travel computer
I've wanted a small computer to take on my upcomming trip but reluctant to
get into Vista or switch to Apple. I also don't want to be carrying anything very expensive or delicate on this trip which will involve a long boat trip. All these considerations apply on the sailboat as well. I've been taking a laptop on longer cruises for track planning and in case I need to reload charts in the GPS. It doesn't stow anywhere easily though and I'd hate to have it go adrift given its cost and all the stuff on it. I'm typing this on an ASUS Eee PC I bought yesterday at Best Buy. It's about the size and weight of a thin hardback book, uses Window XP (Probably the last XP machine available), and has solid state memory instead of a hard disk. No drives or card slot but three USB ports and MMC/SD card slot as well as Ethernet & video connectors. Nice screen with some cool zooming and panning features that make it's more than adequate size and clarity even easier to use. Built in webcam. Not terribly fast but just about perfect for a small cruising boat and traveling light. A under $475 it won't be a major disaster if anything happens to it. Worth owning even if you have a larger laptop, I think. -- Roger Long |
Cool boat & travel computer
"Roger Long" wrote:
I've wanted a small computer to take on my upcomming trip but reluctant to get into Vista or switch to Apple. I also don't want to be carrying anything very expensive or delicate on this trip which will involve a long boat trip. All these considerations apply on the sailboat as well. I've been taking a laptop on longer cruises for track planning and in case I need to reload charts in the GPS. It doesn't stow anywhere easily though and I'd hate to have it go adrift given its cost and all the stuff on it. I'm typing this on an ASUS Eee PC I bought yesterday at Best Buy. It's about the size and weight of a thin hardback book, uses Window XP (Probably the last XP machine available), and has solid state memory instead of a hard disk. No drives or card slot but three USB ports and MMC/SD card slot as well as Ethernet & video connectors. Nice screen with some cool zooming and panning features that make it's more than adequate size and clarity even easier to use. Built in webcam. Not terribly fast but just about perfect for a small cruising boat and traveling light. A under $475 it won't be a major disaster if anything happens to it. Worth owning even if you have a larger laptop, I think. The Eee PC is indeed a cool machine -- great for Skype & email too. BTW, I just bought (actually assembled) a new machine with XP on it. Michael Porter Marine Design mporter at mp-marine dot com www.mp-marine.com ** Posted from http://www.teranews.com ** |
Cool boat & travel computer
"Roger Long" wrote in message ... I've wanted a small computer to take on my upcomming trip but reluctant to get into Vista or switch to Apple. I also don't want to be carrying anything very expensive or delicate on this trip which will involve a long boat trip. All these considerations apply on the sailboat as well. I've been taking a laptop on longer cruises for track planning and in case I need to reload charts in the GPS. It doesn't stow anywhere easily though and I'd hate to have it go adrift given its cost and all the stuff on it. I'm typing this on an ASUS Eee PC I bought yesterday at Best Buy. It's about the size and weight of a thin hardback book, uses Window XP (Probably the last XP machine available), and has solid state memory instead of a hard disk. No drives or card slot but three USB ports and MMC/SD card slot as well as Ethernet & video connectors. Nice screen with some cool zooming and panning features that make it's more than adequate size and clarity even easier to use. Built in webcam. Not terribly fast but just about perfect for a small cruising boat and traveling light. A under $475 it won't be a major disaster if anything happens to it. Worth owning even if you have a larger laptop, I think. -- Roger Long Does it have wireless ethernet ? What is the capacity ? Sterling |
Cool boat & travel computer
"Silver K" wrote
Does it have wireless ethernet ? What is the capacity ? Yes, wireless built in. 16 GM of solid state memory instead of a mechanical hard disk (strange not to hear a disk grinding when you click something). 1 GM of regular memory. The built in MMR/SD card reader allows for even more storage. Battery life isn't great. I used it 45 minutes this morning on a full charge and it said it was down to 30% after but that's not real critical for most of what I'll be using it for. It's also sometimes slow in responding which I wouldn't expect from solid state memory but you can't expect a lot from something this small. It's not a lot slower than my desktop machine sometimes when it's doing heavy stuff. BTW it's an Asus Eee PC 900. -- Roger Long |
Cool boat & travel computer
wrote in message
... On Thu, 25 Sep 2008 10:17:22 -0400, "Roger Long" wrote: "Silver K" wrote Does it have wireless ethernet ? What is the capacity ? Yes, wireless built in. 16 GM of solid state memory instead of a mechanical hard disk (strange not to hear a disk grinding when you click something). 1 GM of regular memory. The built in MMR/SD card reader allows for even more storage. Battery life isn't great. I used it 45 minutes this morning on a full charge and it said it was down to 30% after but that's not real critical for most of what I'll be using it for. It's also sometimes slow in responding which I wouldn't expect from solid state memory but you can't expect a lot from something this small. It's not a lot slower than my desktop machine sometimes when it's doing heavy stuff. BTW it's an Asus Eee PC 900. What's old is new again! http://oldcomputers.net/trs100.html I used to supply these to news reporters so they could write stories in the field and transmit them via an acoustic coupler that fit over the mouthpiece of a pay phone to our ATEX mainframe editorial system. I still have one of them that I saved for posterity. I have all the manuals and accessories. It still works perfectly. Ran all day or longer on 4 AA batteries. The news biz continued to use these for a LONG time after they were obsolete, because they worked so well for this particular application, and usually survived being dropped and otherwise abused. I had an old HP portable... one of the first solid-state ones. Battery lasted 20 hours, with all sorts of programs on ROM chips. It was a bit slow and the LCD screen sucked, but it wasn't bad. I finally dropped it. -- "j" ganz @@ www.sailnow.com |
Cool boat & travel computer
On Thu, 25 Sep 2008 11:09:43 -0400, Gogarty
wrote: Which brings to mind another thought. Has anyone but a used ToughBook on eBay? Not on EBAY but a CF-48 from one of the online used laptop dealers. It has been my primary boat computer for the last two years and many thousands of miles. It has survived salt spray, being knocked around, and one 3 foot drop. I paid less than $400 for it. It has some battle scars but still works well. There are any number of used laptop bargains for rugged machines like the IBM Thinkpads. Typical price for a Pentium III is around $200. I bought a so called factory reconditioned Thinkpad for my wife at less than $300. It arrived in brand new factory packaging without a mark on it and has worked perfectly on the boat for 3 years, still looking like new. Typically we run the Thinkpad at the lower helm for receiving Weather FAX and SSB EMAIL; Toughbook at the upper helm as backup chartplotter and route planner. I took an old Thinkpad on the 2002 Newport-Bermuda Race using saran wrap over the keyboard to make it water resistant. We were on a Frers 41 which is a fairly wet boat. It survived the race even after getting sprayed a few times. |
Cool boat & travel computer
"Roger Long" wrote in
: I'm typing this on an ASUS Eee PC I bought yesterday at Best Buy. It's about the size and weight of a thin hardback book, uses Window XP (Probably the last XP machine available), and has solid state memory instead of a hard disk. No drives or card slot but three USB ports and MMC/SD card slot as well as Ethernet & video connectors. Nice screen with some cool zooming and panning features that make it's more than adequate size and clarity even easier to use. Built in webcam. If you buy a Serial to USB adapter like this: http://www.electronicproductonline.c...hp?cPath=35_67 &products_id=1803&osCsid=02348a8645bc5c88ee61b13b3 3e7c519 (It comes with a CD manual and drivers for your WinXP that turn one USB port into a COM serial port.) Then, you can input NMEA data and the AIS receiver to the tiny PC and run The Cap'n or other nav software on it, totally automating chart plotting, trip planning, autopilot steerage, etc., just like the big boys have! For your application, the XP model is probably best. I have a friend with the Ubuntu Linux version which is much faster and leaves lots more memory storage because the operating system is tiny in comparison to WinXP bloatware. Skype runs great on it....even with the webcam for Live TV! Nice little PC, but little support from the computing community. |
Cool boat & travel computer
On Sep 25, 2:04 pm, Larry wrote:
"Roger Long" wrote : I'm typing this on an ASUS Eee PC I bought yesterday at Best Buy. It's about the size and weight of a thin hardback book, uses Window XP (Probably the last XP machine available), and has solid state memory instead of a hard disk. No drives or card slot but three USB ports and MMC/SD card slot as well as Ethernet & video connectors. Nice screen with some cool zooming and panning features that make it's more than adequate size and clarity even easier to use. Built in webcam. If you buy a Serial to USB adapter like this: http://www.electronicproductonline.c...info.php?cPath... &products_id=1803&osCsid=02348a8645bc5c88ee61b13b3 3e7c519 (It comes with a CD manual and drivers for your WinXP that turn one USB port into a COM serial port.) Then, you can input NMEA data and the AIS receiver to the tiny PC and run The Cap'n or other nav software on it, totally automating chart plotting, trip planning, autopilot steerage, etc., just like the big boys have! For your application, the XP model is probably best. I have a friend with the Ubuntu Linux version which is much faster and leaves lots more memory storage because the operating system is tiny in comparison to WinXP bloatware. Skype runs great on it....even with the webcam for Live TV! Nice little PC, but little support from the computing community. I have the smaller Asus ee with 7" screen and the great thing about it is that it runs Linux and boots up in 20 seconds instead of the 4 minutes of a Vista trash machine. When in airports or anywhere with wifi, I can check my e-mail, answer them, shut it and be putting it away before everybody else's Vista or Windows machines have booted. |
Cool boat & travel computer
On Sep 25, 2:33*am, "Roger Long" wrote:
I've wanted a small computer to take on my upcomming trip but reluctant to get into Vista or *switch to Apple. *I also don't want to be carrying anything very expensive or delicate on this trip which will involve a long boat trip. Roger Long Hello Roger: I use a Panasonic CF-29. Had it for 3 years. Its has a smaller foot print runs XP and is supper durrable. But here we enter the philosophy of design. Id rather have somthing designed to be droped 5 feet and still work than buy three and throw each away when one croaks. In other words, when ya buy three cheepos you now have a laptop that is THREE times as large as a ONE laptop. The CF-29 is way heavy by laptop standards. Get one used and they are very reasonable priced. Im a very happy user. Heck Im even typin on it now. Bob |
Cool boat & travel computer
"Roger Long" wrote in news:gbg6hf$d0p$1
@registered.motzarella.org: BTW it's an Asus Eee PC 900. -- Roger Long As to runtime, buy a 120 watt inverter built right into the cigarette lighter plug for it. Plugged into the house battery, it should run it down in a week or so. You won't notice it as a load. http://www.walmart.com/catalog/produ...Specifications This 80W one at WalMart should run it continuously just fine. |
Cool boat & travel computer
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Cool boat & travel computer
"Capt. JG" wrote in
easolutions: I had an old HP portable... one of the first solid-state ones. (The older ones had tubes....(c;) |
Cool boat & travel computer
wrote in news:1067971e-5f9d-4aab-b310-
: I have the smaller Asus ee with 7" screen and the great thing about it is that it runs Linux and boots up in 20 seconds instead of the 4 minutes of a Vista trash machine. When in airports or anywhere with wifi, I can check my e-mail, answer them, shut it and be putting it away before everybody else's Vista or Windows machines have booted. My Linux machine is the Nokia N800 Linux Internet Tablet, with a lot of mods from the Linux hackers at the Maemo linux garage: http://www.maemo.org/ where our freeware comes from. The little tablet only runs at 400 Mhz on an ARM processor, but is like you say very fast booting and running in Linux, not Bloatware. Hell, the Gnumeric Spreadsheet app and Abiword full-featured word processor are only a few MB of code. Bootup is a little slowed because I have two 16GB SDHC Class 6 memory cards stuffed with movies, music, map tiles for Maemo Mapper and Wayfinder GPS programs, ebooks, and other stuff like documentaries, TV comedy shows from BBC TV, etc. Maemo looks through the files during bootup and it takes a while to wade through my piles....(c; It's still WAY faster then even an 80GB WinXP Pro Gateway laptop. During the bootup process, if you autoconnect through BT to the BT DUN connected sellphone broadband, it isn't through displaying the logos before Linux has the internet online and running....THEN displays the home screen...(c; Google Nokia N800 and Nokia N810. We have many videos. We stole the Wii Remote video game controller for our games. Some smartasses wanted to connect USB devices the tablet was never intended to support, so come Canadians are buildling a little miniUSB to USB femail adapter with appropriate electronics to hardware force the USB chipset into HOST/OTG mode. Recently, I've installed some scripts and a wired LAN driver so I can use the tablet on the directly connected LAN at home at 100Mbps, instead of the Wifi radio link which is slower to respond. A Linksys tiny USB 100M USB-to-Ethernet adapter runs off the router's DC on the Cat5 cable and feeds the tablet's USB with internet, directly.....totally cool in a portable device. I can connect to even the Motorola Z6m sellphone's memory card (2GB) and move files on and off over the bluetooth FTP and OBEX protocols to load and unload pictures, music and my phone book. Unhobbled like your Asus by the sellphone company bureaucrats, the little Linux tablet is very addictive and new stuff comes out every week! http://maemo.org/downloads/updated/OS2008/275/ these apps are "released" for users. Hundreds more are in development, which we're invited to help with, over in the garage area: http://garage.maemo.org/ |
Cool boat & travel computer
Larry wrote:
wrote in news:1067971e-5f9d-4aab-b310- : I have the smaller Asus ee with 7" screen and the great thing about it is that it runs Linux and boots up in 20 seconds instead of the 4 minutes of a Vista trash machine. When in airports or anywhere with wifi, I can check my e-mail, answer them, shut it and be putting it away before everybody else's Vista or Windows machines have booted. My Linux machine is the Nokia N800 Linux Internet Tablet, with a lot of mods from the Linux hackers at the Maemo linux garage: http://www.maemo.org/ where our freeware comes from. The little tablet only runs at 400 Mhz on an ARM processor, but is like you say very fast booting and running in Linux, not Bloatware. Hell, the Gnumeric Spreadsheet app and Abiword full-featured word processor are only a few MB of code. Bootup is a little slowed because I have two 16GB SDHC Class 6 memory cards stuffed with movies, music, map tiles for Maemo Mapper and Wayfinder GPS programs, ebooks, and other stuff like documentaries, TV comedy shows from BBC TV, etc. Maemo looks through the files during bootup and it takes a while to wade through my piles....(c; It's still WAY faster then even an 80GB WinXP Pro Gateway laptop. During the bootup process, if you autoconnect through BT to the BT DUN connected sellphone broadband, it isn't through displaying the logos before Linux has the internet online and running....THEN displays the home screen...(c; Google Nokia N800 and Nokia N810. We have many videos. We stole the Wii Remote video game controller for our games. Some smartasses wanted to connect USB devices the tablet was never intended to support, so come Canadians are buildling a little miniUSB to USB femail adapter with appropriate electronics to hardware force the USB chipset into HOST/OTG mode. Recently, I've installed some scripts and a wired LAN driver so I can use the tablet on the directly connected LAN at home at 100Mbps, instead of the Wifi radio link which is slower to respond. A Linksys tiny USB 100M USB-to-Ethernet adapter runs off the router's DC on the Cat5 cable and feeds the tablet's USB with internet, directly.....totally cool in a portable device. I can connect to even the Motorola Z6m sellphone's memory card (2GB) and move files on and off over the bluetooth FTP and OBEX protocols to load and unload pictures, music and my phone book. Unhobbled like your Asus by the sellphone company bureaucrats, the little Linux tablet is very addictive and new stuff comes out every week! http://maemo.org/downloads/updated/OS2008/275/ these apps are "released" for users. Hundreds more are in development, which we're invited to help with, over in the garage area: http://garage.maemo.org/ Find me a decent CAD to replace my beloved Design CAD and I'll convert to Linux. Or a way to run without it (Wine still needs Win). Until then, it ain't gonna happen. I recently replaced my old Dell laptop (running 98 SE) with a Thinkpad clone running XP. XP ain't half bad (for Windoze) (once ya get the hang of it). The USB connectivity is certainty more consistent. And it boots quickly. Up in 30 seconds. But I don't load a bunch of web stuff. I used to be strictly a Cad and spreadsheet guy. But these days, playing DVDs, photoshop, and cutting new movies rank up there time wise. But the think that keeps Ubuntu in the box is the CAD issue. -- Richard (remove the X to email) |
Cool boat & travel computer
"cavelamb himself" wrote in message
m... Larry wrote: wrote in news:1067971e-5f9d-4aab-b310- : I have the smaller Asus ee with 7" screen and the great thing about it is that it runs Linux and boots up in 20 seconds instead of the 4 minutes of a Vista trash machine. When in airports or anywhere with wifi, I can check my e-mail, answer them, shut it and be putting it away before everybody else's Vista or Windows machines have booted. My Linux machine is the Nokia N800 Linux Internet Tablet, with a lot of mods from the Linux hackers at the Maemo linux garage: http://www.maemo.org/ where our freeware comes from. The little tablet only runs at 400 Mhz on an ARM processor, but is like you say very fast booting and running in Linux, not Bloatware. Hell, the Gnumeric Spreadsheet app and Abiword full-featured word processor are only a few MB of code. Bootup is a little slowed because I have two 16GB SDHC Class 6 memory cards stuffed with movies, music, map tiles for Maemo Mapper and Wayfinder GPS programs, ebooks, and other stuff like documentaries, TV comedy shows from BBC TV, etc. Maemo looks through the files during bootup and it takes a while to wade through my piles....(c; It's still WAY faster then even an 80GB WinXP Pro Gateway laptop. During the bootup process, if you autoconnect through BT to the BT DUN connected sellphone broadband, it isn't through displaying the logos before Linux has the internet online and running....THEN displays the home screen...(c; Google Nokia N800 and Nokia N810. We have many videos. We stole the Wii Remote video game controller for our games. Some smartasses wanted to connect USB devices the tablet was never intended to support, so come Canadians are buildling a little miniUSB to USB femail adapter with appropriate electronics to hardware force the USB chipset into HOST/OTG mode. Recently, I've installed some scripts and a wired LAN driver so I can use the tablet on the directly connected LAN at home at 100Mbps, instead of the Wifi radio link which is slower to respond. A Linksys tiny USB 100M USB-to-Ethernet adapter runs off the router's DC on the Cat5 cable and feeds the tablet's USB with internet, directly.....totally cool in a portable device. I can connect to even the Motorola Z6m sellphone's memory card (2GB) and move files on and off over the bluetooth FTP and OBEX protocols to load and unload pictures, music and my phone book. Unhobbled like your Asus by the sellphone company bureaucrats, the little Linux tablet is very addictive and new stuff comes out every week! http://maemo.org/downloads/updated/OS2008/275/ these apps are "released" for users. Hundreds more are in development, which we're invited to help with, over in the garage area: http://garage.maemo.org/ Find me a decent CAD to replace my beloved Design CAD and I'll convert to Linux. Or a way to run without it (Wine still needs Win). Until then, it ain't gonna happen. I recently replaced my old Dell laptop (running 98 SE) with a Thinkpad clone running XP. XP ain't half bad (for Windoze) (once ya get the hang of it). The USB connectivity is certainty more consistent. And it boots quickly. Up in 30 seconds. But I don't load a bunch of web stuff. I used to be strictly a Cad and spreadsheet guy. But these days, playing DVDs, photoshop, and cutting new movies rank up there time wise. But the think that keeps Ubuntu in the box is the CAD issue. Friends don't let friends use Vista. -- "j" ganz @@ www.sailnow.com |
Cool boat & travel computer
On Thu, 25 Sep 2008 21:15:11 -0700, "Capt. JG"
wrote: Friends don't let friends use Vista. It actually runs pretty well on a Quad Core desktop with 4 GB of memory and a fast hard disk. :-) I'm liking it better than I thought I would but there is still some software that won't run. |
Cool boat & travel computer
"Wayne.B" wrote in message
... On Thu, 25 Sep 2008 21:15:11 -0700, "Capt. JG" wrote: Friends don't let friends use Vista. It actually runs pretty well on a Quad Core desktop with 4 GB of memory and a fast hard disk. :-) I'm liking it better than I thought I would but there is still some software that won't run. I've had nothing but problems with it when trying to support those who have it. Yeah, I'm sure it's quite adequate with a Quad and 4gigs. :-) -- "j" ganz @@ www.sailnow.com |
Cool boat & travel computer
Capt. JG wrote:
"Wayne.B" wrote in message ... On Thu, 25 Sep 2008 21:15:11 -0700, "Capt. JG" wrote: Friends don't let friends use Vista. It actually runs pretty well on a Quad Core desktop with 4 GB of memory and a fast hard disk. :-) I'm liking it better than I thought I would but there is still some software that won't run. I've had nothing but problems with it when trying to support those who have it. Yeah, I'm sure it's quite adequate with a Quad and 4gigs. :-) Which is more computer power that several foriegn countries combined! WHY? Why do I need that much power to do what I've been doing all along? -- Richard (remove the X to email) |
Cool boat & travel computer
"Larry" wrote
As to runtime, buy a 120 watt inverter built right into the cigarette lighter plug for it. Plugged into the house battery, it should run it down in a week or so. You won't notice it as a load. I have a slightly larger inverter on the boat so battery life isn't an issue there. I have found that the ASUS battery life is pretty minimal, about 45 minutes on a full charge. That's enough for a quick email or weather check during an air travel connection but not enough to get through a short flight. I expect my use away from a power plug to be pretty minimal though. I had one of those little direct plug in inverters and it burned up while running a laptop. -- Roger Long |
Cool boat & travel computer
Anybody remember the Sinclair Z80? That was my first computer. A Basic
loop to count 1,2,3.... would go slower than you could say the number out loud. -- Roger Long |
Cool boat & travel computer
On Thu, 25 Sep 2008 22:15:41 -0500, cavelamb himself wrote:
Find me a decent CAD to replace my beloved Design CAD and I'll convert to Linux. google qcad But the think that keeps Ubuntu in the box is the CAD issue. what does that mean? |
Cool boat & travel computer
Yes, Timex was the distributor here. They first came out as a kit for about
$150 but were later sold assembled which is the way I bought mine. -- Roger Long |
Cool boat & travel computer
|
Cool boat & travel computer
On Thu, 25 Sep 2008 22:15:41 -0500, cavelamb himself
wrote: But the thing that keeps Ubuntu in the box is the CAD issue. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=linux+CAD+software |
Cool boat & travel computer
cavelamb himself wrote in
m: Find me a decent CAD to replace my beloved Design CAD and I'll convert to Linux. Or a way to run without it (Wine still needs Win). http://www.tech-edv.co.at/lunix/CADlinks.html Will these do? Sorry the list is so deep....(c; I'm sure you'll find one of them, maybe the one you're using now, ported to Linux, directly. You don't need WINE..... |
Cool boat & travel computer
|
Cool boat & travel computer
"Roger Long" wrote in
: Anybody remember the Sinclair Z80? That was my first computer. A Basic loop to count 1,2,3.... would go slower than you could say the number out loud. -- Roger Long Z80's good....especially running CP/M OS....(c; I was an Ohio Scientific microcomputer dealer. OSI had the first hard drive micro, a 74MB (MB not GB) fixed hard drive stolen out of minicomputers. It had a 14" platter and was mounted in the Model 3's standard 18" equipment rack. There were 3 processors you could switch between very easily. A 6502, Z80 and 6800 (not 68000). OS-65/U was the companies OS to run on the 6502, a great little processor, and it came with a very extended BASIC interpreter making software fun to write. We wrote an accounting system to keep track of a few thousand vending machines/jukeboxes, etc., for Sumter Music and Amusements in our town. The system was the 74MB computer under OS-65/U with our BASIC program running on it. The box used dumb terminals and we had 4 cards in it with 4 ADDS Regent 24 dumb terminals on various desks in their office. They were thrilled that such a cheap system could do what it cost, at that time, hundreds of thousands of dollars to do on an expensive minicomputer. It ran for years 24/7 off a commercial UPS we installed for it. Crashing on power glitches wasn't pretty! It usually took out the database. Backup was in 8" floppies each week and we handled that for them after hours. Dick or I would go down at night and take the backup with us in case the building burned we'd still have the whole database, only updating what had been done between the backup and the fire, which never happened. The UPS failed once, but we got lucky and noone was writing to the hard drive when the crash occurred. We went way, way past the noted MTBF. OSI couldn't believe how long it ran.... (c; IBM came out with the PC and that was the end of OSI and our little computer store. My biggest sale was to Liggett & Myers Tobacco Co in North Carolina. They wanted to break their people into microcomputers and funded a whole school with 36 OSI desktop computers in the training room. Those used little NTSC video monitors as output and had two floppy drives and a keyboard in a pre-Apple 1 small computer that actually worked. Their IT boss was a fan of OSI and used to send us some really neat software he wrote on them to play with on ours. The PC just put everyone out of business....almost Apple, too! ================================================== ========= The Maemo Linux hackers have written or ported many old small computer emulators to the tablet's Linux OS. There may be one for the Sinclair. There's one for the old TI handhelds, I know. |
Cool boat & travel computer
wrote in message
... On Fri, 26 Sep 2008 00:45:49 +0000, Larry wrote: "Capt. JG" wrote in areasolutions: I had an old HP portable... one of the first solid-state ones. (The older ones had tubes....(c;) For whatever reason, I sometimes save old pieces of technology. I have a non-working Altair, a Kaypro suitcase, my first IBM PC, complete with all original books, disks and receipts, The TRS100, a non-working trs102, a 300 mb disk pack from a CDC washtub, an 80 mb winchester drive that weighs about a pound per mb, etc, etc. I've seen websites of people who are really serious about this stuff. I have the stuff, but it's all in boxes stored away. I hardly ever have the urge to open those boxes. I just have it. You should consider seeing if a museum would take them as a donation... was in the Smithsonian recently and saw a system I used to have (well, not the same box, but). If you've never see the exhibit, you should check it out. -- "j" ganz @@ www.sailnow.com |
Cool boat & travel computer
"Roger Long" wrote in message
... Anybody remember the Sinclair Z80? That was my first computer. A Basic loop to count 1,2,3.... would go slower than you could say the number out loud. -- Roger Long Saw one, never used it. I did use and work on Univacs, Dec 10s/20s, and VAXs. I remember when Apple came by to give us a LISA demo. The conference room was packed and we kept yelling out, what about this, can it do that? I also remember when the first IBM PC showed up, and one of the programmers immediately got it hooked up to a printer and it started printing Hello World over and over. -- "j" ganz @@ www.sailnow.com |
Cool boat & travel computer
"Larry" wrote in message
... "Roger Long" wrote in : Anybody remember the Sinclair Z80? That was my first computer. A Basic loop to count 1,2,3.... would go slower than you could say the number out loud. -- Roger Long Z80's good....especially running CP/M OS....(c; I was an Ohio Scientific microcomputer dealer. OSI had the first hard drive micro, a 74MB (MB not GB) fixed hard drive stolen out of minicomputers. It had a 14" platter and was mounted in the Model 3's standard 18" equipment rack. There were 3 processors you could switch between very easily. A 6502, Z80 and 6800 (not 68000). OS-65/U was the companies OS to run on the 6502, a great little processor, and it came with a very extended BASIC interpreter making software fun to write. We wrote an accounting system to keep track of a few thousand vending machines/jukeboxes, etc., for Sumter Music and Amusements in our town. The system was the 74MB computer under OS-65/U with our BASIC program running on it. The box used dumb terminals and we had 4 cards in it with 4 ADDS Regent 24 dumb terminals on various desks in their office. They were thrilled that such a cheap system could do what it cost, at that time, hundreds of thousands of dollars to do on an expensive minicomputer. It ran for years 24/7 off a commercial UPS we installed for it. Crashing on power glitches wasn't pretty! It usually took out the database. Backup was in 8" floppies each week and we handled that for them after hours. Dick or I would go down at night and take the backup with us in case the building burned we'd still have the whole database, only updating what had been done between the backup and the fire, which never happened. The UPS failed once, but we got lucky and noone was writing to the hard drive when the crash occurred. We went way, way past the noted MTBF. OSI couldn't believe how long it ran.... (c; IBM came out with the PC and that was the end of OSI and our little computer store. My biggest sale was to Liggett & Myers Tobacco Co in North Carolina. They wanted to break their people into microcomputers and funded a whole school with 36 OSI desktop computers in the training room. Those used little NTSC video monitors as output and had two floppy drives and a keyboard in a pre-Apple 1 small computer that actually worked. Their IT boss was a fan of OSI and used to send us some really neat software he wrote on them to play with on ours. The PC just put everyone out of business....almost Apple, too! ================================================== ========= The Maemo Linux hackers have written or ported many old small computer emulators to the tablet's Linux OS. There may be one for the Sinclair. There's one for the old TI handhelds, I know. Anyone remember the S100 bus? I worked with Concurrent CPM for a while. -- "j" ganz @@ www.sailnow.com |
Cool boat & travel computer
"cavelamb himself" wrote in message
m... Capt. JG wrote: "Wayne.B" wrote in message ... On Thu, 25 Sep 2008 21:15:11 -0700, "Capt. JG" wrote: Friends don't let friends use Vista. It actually runs pretty well on a Quad Core desktop with 4 GB of memory and a fast hard disk. :-) I'm liking it better than I thought I would but there is still some software that won't run. I've had nothing but problems with it when trying to support those who have it. Yeah, I'm sure it's quite adequate with a Quad and 4gigs. :-) Which is more computer power that several foriegn countries combined! WHY? Why do I need that much power to do what I've been doing all along? Because you can! LOL -- "j" ganz @@ www.sailnow.com |
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On Fri, 26 Sep 2008 10:24:29 -0700, "Capt. JG"
wrote: Anyone remember the S100 bus? I worked with Concurrent CPM for a while. Is that the one that used to run down Jackson Street? Never met Concurrent. --Vic |
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"Gogarty" wrote in message
... In article lutions, lid says... Friends don't let friends use Vista. I was co-author of a "VISTA for idiots" type book. As such, was a beta tester on Vista. I could not wait to banish it from my system as soon as the project was done. Indeed, friends don't let friends use Vista. Except for one module, voice recognition. Excellent. Wish I could find such a module that would run on XP. I had a friend who needed VR. I think he used Dragon and hated it. -- "j" ganz @@ www.sailnow.com |
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Gogarty wrote:
In article lutions, lid says... Friends don't let friends use Vista. I was co-author of a "VISTA for idiots" type book. As such, was a beta tester on Vista. I could not wait to banish it from my system as soon as the project was done. Indeed, friends don't let friends use Vista. Except for one module, voice recognition. Excellent. Wish I could find such a module that would run on XP. Many years back I worked for the University of Delaware in the Office of Instructional Technology. These were the DOS days, of course. We had video overlays on DOS screens, text to voice and voice recognition projects up and running - under DOS - on 33 Mhz ATs. So it's not a technology thing, as much as a business thing. That's ny opinion - for what it's worth. -- Richard (remove the X to email) |
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mister b wrote:
On Thu, 25 Sep 2008 22:15:41 -0500, cavelamb himself wrote: Find me a decent CAD to replace my beloved Design CAD and I'll convert to Linux. google qcad Qcad is a fairly simple 2D only system. Not gonna do it for me... For instance, (this being a nautical forum) http://www.home.earthlink.net/~cavelamb/draft.htm We start in flat space, but wind up in 3D - fully rendered. All in one package. Now there are lots of CAD systems that can do this - but they don't run under Linux. But the _thing_ that keeps Ubuntu in the box is the CAD issue. what does that mean? mo betta? -- Richard (remove the X to email) |
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Wayne.B wrote:
On Thu, 25 Sep 2008 22:15:41 -0500, cavelamb himself wrote: But the thing that keeps Ubuntu in the box is the CAD issue. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=linux+CAD+software Oooo... Suddenly I feel like a kid on Christmas morning! There are a couple there that I hadn't seen before and need to investigate. Thanks Wayne -- Richard (remove the X to email) |
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"Capt. JG" wrote in
easolutions: Anyone remember the S100 bus? I worked with Concurrent CPM for a while. Sure! Kept me poor buying parts to build them for years....(c; My first was a Southwest Technical Products that had 8 toggle switches for input and 8 light bulbs for output.....then, some smartass sold me a TELETYPE interface! REAL programmers use: COPY CON PROGRAM.EXE on DOS machines....(c; |
Cool boat & travel computer
cavelamb himself wrote in news:FPqdnRZ-
: Suddenly I feel like a kid on Christmas morning! That's the trouble with Linux. EVERY morning is Christmas morning! |
Cool boat & travel computer
cavelamb himself wrote in
m: I started out on AutoCAD version 10 (for over $8000!!!) I didn't like it then - and still don't. I've seen a few ACAD systems brought up to near the same level via macros, but those generally don't come with the system. And none of them have the gravity point select feature from DCad. We couldn't afford AutoCAD, and really didn't have a use for it, either. But, the "inner circle" who ran the 14,400 baud computer club BBS I was a member of, used to have several hidden-from-users little places where various DOS softwares COULD, if one were to look, download some pretty expensive stuff, like the absolute bleeding edge versions of AutoCAD that made it onto those directories as if by magic, the very day the version was released....(c; Spending 14 hours downloading something amazing at 3AM on a workday didn't seem that unusual, either!....(yawn)..... Lucky for them the soundcard and nice graphics card hadn't been invented yet. We didn't have all the music and movies until years later.....(c; |
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