Computers

Or, to be more spefic, my computer... The machine I use for my work is:

Intel Pentium II Celeron @ 333Mhz

Gigabyte GA 6BXC motherboard w/ 66 MHz data bus

32 MB of synchronous dynamic random access memory

Quantum Fireball hard disk, 6.4 GB in capacity

S3 Trio 64V+ PCI video card :o(

Samsung SyncMaster 3Ne 14" monitor, borrowed :o(

56 kbps external modem w/ a Rockwell chipset

Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 5L printer

Hewlett-Packard ScanJet 4P scanner, also borrowed

Teac 3.5" floppy drive, 10 years oldr, originating from my first 286, still in good condition ;o)

The CD-ROM is a cheap Samsung 4-speed, I've got it almost for nothing a year or two ago...

That should be it. Regerding the configurations and operating systems, I've had many... Just a word of warning: except for the relatively boring text about my computers, you won't find anything of much interest on this page. Well, if we've got that clear, let's begin...

The first computer I've had was an Intel 286 AT @ 12 MHz, with 1 MB of DRAM (was there EDO at that time?), of course, complete with a Hercules monochrome monitor & display adapter (luckily enough, the monitor wasn't a yellow but a white one, thus the fact I don't have to wear glasses today), and a 42 MB hard disk. The box was a very well built, heavy and robust AT desktop box with a humongous red switch directly at the power source, in the back. I still rember the pleasant feeling of pulling up that big red switch while as a 13-year-old I sat down to play a game of Accolade's Test Drive, Broderbund's Prince of Persia & Carmen Sandiego or Mindscape's 4D Sports-Driving  :o). I was running MS-DOS 3.30 and later 4.10 (probably something in between these two but these I remember well, I ran each of them for quite a time).

Getting money for my parents for a computer upgrade was always difficult... I've got my first VGA monitor (analogue, and outdated even then) at the age of 15. There was no end to my happines... Somewhere around that time my father upgraded our machine to a 25 MHz 386, which I wouldn't have been so happy about if I had known that I'll have to wait three years for the next upgrade. The poor analogue VGA monitor got broken in the meantime, sometime when I started attending highschool, so I spent 6 months waiting for a certain part from the 'central storage'. In that time I was bored stiff so I learned to play guitar, fro which I've developed an equally great interest. And yes, I still play it. Let me get back to the story. 6 months later came to my home an Axiom 14" monitor, state-of-the-art equipment at that time, and eye-hurting garbage today. In any case, at least I had a computer in working condition. Of operating systems, I ran MS-DOS 4.10 and 5.0 and Windows 3.0, later MS-DOS 6.0 and Windows 3.1. Ah, yes, I've had a Tseng ET3000 video card w/ 256 kB RAM ;o), and an 8-bit Sound Blaster clone which I bought from my own funds, at the time when soundcards were not a common piece of computer equipment.

Which reminds me, a few days ago at home I've put together an old 386 @ 40 MHz with a friend of mine, along with that very Axiom monitor. I was surprised ('cause I forgot) how good a machine it was. I installed MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11... DOS was loading in 3 seconds, Windows in 6 more, runs M$ Word 2 or 6 and CorelDRAW 5, a little slow, but workable... I thought: so much money for expensive computers which run 32-bit operating systems, and this little machine is worth $40 all together. I found some old games on one of my CDs and enjoyed myself enormously...

To cut a long story short, 3-4 years after that 386 (the old 25 MHz one) I've got myself an AMD K5 @ 100 MHz (I found out recently that it is a very rare microprocessor, just a few people owns one) w/ 32 MBs of RAM and a 1.2 GB hard disk... That's when I've got this unfortunate S3 Trio card, and a 4-speed CD-ROM. My moto is "Money is an object." That machine worked (now, how it worked, that's another story) until it died somewhere in the begining of 1999. so I was forced to cheat, borrow and steal to get myself the machine I'm using now... On that K5 I ran Windows 3.11 (w/ win32s), Windows 95 and Windows 98.

Somewhere along I got myself a modem, a bigger hard disk, as well as the printer, which I got as a compensation for some DTP project, which is what I do from time to time. Right now, I'm running Windows NT 4.0 Workstation, in my opinion the best Microsoft's OS since MS-DOS 6.2 and Windows 3.1... Windows 95 and 98 are cool if your machine is short on memory but since I've have 64 MBs of SDRAM I have the minimum prerequisite for running NT. I'll probably be able to run NT 5 decently, as soon as it comes out. Beside NT, my secondary OS is Linux Slackware 4, kernel 2.2.6. I use Linux actively since september 1999. so I'm still learning it, but I have a great desire to become a Linux guru someday... Here's a screenshot of my X desktop under Linux (I use WindowMaker and GNOME, and I also use Laetitia from time to time), while you can get an ideo of my NT desktop from the photo at the top of the page, besides, Windows desktops are fairly similar on all machines...

That's about it... So I haven't lied... It was a boring story after all.