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tomh38
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« Reply #15 on: May 24, 2009, 08:11:56 am » |
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The other day the mother of a friend of mine asked me if I could "run off" a copy of a DVD I have for her.
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"I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones." - Linus Torvalds, April 1991
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Triarius Fidelis
Vecteloper
Vectorian
Posts: 2399
Domine, exaudi vocem meam
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« Reply #16 on: May 24, 2009, 10:59:09 am » |
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My first computer was a neural network based model I received as a gift when I was born. It has approximately 100 billion nodes, advanced computer vision, diverse databases on many subjects, can execute a number of useful algorithms, and has occasionally even passed the Turing Test
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"Leatherface, you BITCH! Ho Chi Minh, hah hah hah!"
Formerly known as "Epic Fail Guy" and "Döden" in recent months
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Tommy599
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Posts: 61
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« Reply #18 on: May 24, 2009, 01:57:58 pm » |
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I got my first PC pretty late so it was an AMD Duron 850MHz Spitfire, 256+128,20GB
It's still running today, my parents use it. XP SP3 is on it, it runs like a snail. The spitfire I think is starting to spit blood, the cmos battery is weak (the date and the hardware keep dissapearing from BIOS settings) but it's still running! I wonder if I can get a new cmos battery for a 7 old motherboard?
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nightflier
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« Reply #19 on: May 25, 2009, 07:12:02 am » |
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I have replaced several CMOS batteries using standard watch batteries. Take the old one out and find the voltage. There is a good chance you will find a suitable replacement at your local drug or grocery store.
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Bjrnarlinux
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Posts: 38
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« Reply #20 on: May 25, 2009, 08:53:11 am » |
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The first computer i ever touched was a laptop, i was something like five back then, so i barely remember it. The first computer i related to was one my father bought at the end of the nineties. It was a beast in its day, 6 Gb of strage! 256 Mb Ram! It was awesome. It ran windows 98, but i mostly ran games on it, heroes 2 mostly.
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Life is Beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full.
Leon Trotskys last words
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Tommy599
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Posts: 61
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« Reply #21 on: May 25, 2009, 09:29:25 am » |
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I have replaced several CMOS batteries using standard watch batteries. Take the old one out and find the voltage. There is a good chance you will find a suitable replacement at your local drug or grocery store.
I'll have to give it a try, thanks! |
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Windozer
Vectorite
Posts: 386
Have Vector Linux, Will Travel.
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« Reply #22 on: May 25, 2009, 09:48:02 am » |
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Oh boy, M0E ... looks like I get the "old fart" award here...
My own first computer-like thing was a homebuilt "adder" using discrete 7400 TTL chips (AND, OR gates, and a latch).
It had 4 toggle switches, 2 push buttons, and 5 transistors driving 5 light bulbs. (And cost me probably $120)
It worked like this:
Power on, reset.
Press one button to enter a number,
enter 4 binary digits on the toggles for first number,
press the button again to enter second number,
enter 4 binary digits on the toggles for second number, and
press the button again to add and show result.
Then the light bulbs would light the resulting binary value.
(And the geeky trivia question: why were there FIVE light bulbs instead of four?)
The next thing, that really was a computer, was built on top of that last thing:
An 8080 microprocessor on a breadboard that had a whopping 128 bytes of memory, an address controller, some more latches and what not.
Eight switches for loading in the code (seriously), and a gob of transistors driving lamps to see what it was doing.
Needless to say, I never filled that code space - got tired of clicking switches.
The first REAL computer I worked on was and IBM 360 doing BAL Assembler ("Branch And Link") and FORTRAN
--- Using punch cards
(And the second geeky trivia question: what is the "Bit Bucket"?)
cheers
Howard
(Feeling Old and Somewhat Cranky)
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483,617th Registered Linux Snoozer
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M0E-lnx
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« Reply #23 on: May 25, 2009, 01:40:33 pm » |
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Wow. Definitely a story!. And no... I have no idea why it would have 5 lamps instead of just 4.
If I had to guess I would say the fifth was some kind of status indicator
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rbistolfi
Packager
Vectorian
Posts: 2203
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« Reply #24 on: May 25, 2009, 01:43:53 pm » |
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signed numbers?
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"There is a concept which corrupts and upsets all others. I refer not to Evil, whose limited realm is that of ethics; I refer to the infinite."
Jorge Luis Borges, Avatars of the Tortoise.
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Jumalauta!!
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tomh38
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« Reply #25 on: May 25, 2009, 02:28:36 pm » |
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Oh yeah!?! Well I helped Charles Babbage work on his Difference Engine! We never finished it ... but ... so there!
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"I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones." - Linus Torvalds, April 1991
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Triarius Fidelis
Vecteloper
Vectorian
Posts: 2399
Domine, exaudi vocem meam
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« Reply #26 on: May 25, 2009, 05:07:46 pm » |
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Oh yeah!?! Well I helped Charles Babbage work on his Difference Engine! We never finished it ... but ... so there!
I built the Antikythera computer |
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"Leatherface, you BITCH! Ho Chi Minh, hah hah hah!"
Formerly known as "Epic Fail Guy" and "Döden" in recent months
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Windozer
Vectorite
Posts: 386
Have Vector Linux, Will Travel.
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« Reply #27 on: May 27, 2009, 04:24:07 pm » |
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As Tom would say, Neeener Neeener Neener !  |
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483,617th Registered Linux Snoozer
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Windozer
Vectorite
Posts: 386
Have Vector Linux, Will Travel.
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« Reply #28 on: May 28, 2009, 01:38:38 pm » |
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483,617th Registered Linux Snoozer
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gamfa
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« Reply #29 on: May 28, 2009, 03:50:12 pm » |
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My first was a VIC 20. I later upgraded to to a Commodore 64. After the first Intel AT chips came out I built my first Intel box on the 8086 chip from parts bought through Computer Shopper.
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"Don't tell my cattle I have leather seats in my truck"
"I never let schooling stand in the way of my education"...Mark Twain
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