In article ,
says...
It wasn't a rebuke for going off topic, it was a remark on the humour of
people posting about how they wouldn't diy on a diy group.

Some day we ought to set up uk.g-a-l-m-i for those who prefer to get a
little man in.

--
Skipweasel - never knowingly understood.

In article ,
John Stumbles wrote:
On Tue, 15 Mar 2011 10:31:24 +0000, Phil Addison wrote:

If you care to build your own

I'd rather not. If, having bought all the bits, they don't work, then
what do I do? I don't have enough swappable bits around to isolate one
duff component, or know enough to sort out a configuration/compatability
problem.


Been there, done that. Got bored building computers and faffing around
installing Linux (or more often, Solaris of some flavour). Too much like
the day job.

Got an imac. Expensive slippery slope. Works well, needs minimal brain
(just what I want for home), looks pretty (so it's allowed to live in
the dining room) yet has *nix like underbelly that I can dip into at times
when I want :-)

I've now completely sold my soul to Steve (several macs, appletv, iphone(s))
- shoot me :-)

Darren

D.M.Chapman wrote:
In article ,
John Stumbles wrote:
On Tue, 15 Mar 2011 10:31:24 +0000, Phil Addison wrote:

If you care to build your own
I'd rather not. If, having bought all the bits, they don't work, then
what do I do? I don't have enough swappable bits around to isolate one
duff component, or know enough to sort out a configuration/compatability
problem.


Been there, done that. Got bored building computers and faffing around
installing Linux (or more often, Solaris of some flavour). Too much like
the day job.

Got an imac. Expensive slippery slope. Works well, needs minimal brain
(just what I want for home), looks pretty (so it's allowed to live in
the dining room) yet has *nix like underbelly that I can dip into at times
when I want :-)

I've now completely sold my soul to Steve (several macs, appletv, iphone(s))
- shoot me :-)


well I tried that because wife had a spare G3. Hated it.

Tjought 'might as wel try L:nux, its been at lest 10 years since Xterm
was a novelty'

And as pleasnatly supised. One set up, which took a day or two to get it
the way I wanted,it it has been perrty much 'what operating system?'
i,e. it does teh bob and I *seldom notice it's there*.

As opposed to WinMacple 'user experiences', which are in my face the
whole bloody time getting it the way.

it'site the difference between having a wife who can cook, and is nice
to be around, and going out with Naomi Cambell. Ultimately the wife is
the better more satisfying relationship. But you need to spend more than
just money achieving it.


Darren

On Tue, 15 Mar 2011, John Stumbles wrote:

On Tue, 15 Mar 2011 15:10:34 +0000, Clive George wrote:

I'm reading this in uk.d-i-y, not uk.get-somebody-else-to-build-it :-)

Yeah I know, *real* DIY computer hackers etch their own PCBs, roll their
own capacitors, build their own chip fab facilities ...

This is something a bit more specialist than a computer, but a Mr Robert
Trautman writes with news of literally rolling his own capacitors (down
the bottom):

http://www.electricstuff.co.uk/marxgen.htm

tom

--
The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures
the disease. -- Voltaire

On Tue, 15 Mar 2011, Ron Lowe wrote:

Again, with video in mind, I'd suggest a monitor that has native
1920x1080 for proper HD support. I'm using an iiyama one that was
reasonably priced.

We have 26" Iiyamas at work. I think we got them because they were the
cheapest, but they're really very nice.

My only complaint is that something somewhere in the software stack on
Fedora 14 can't tell a lowercase l from an uppercase I, and thinks the
manufacturer is called Liyama [1].

tom

[1] Unless that's coming over DCC or something, but i would have thought
that the manufacturer would be able to spell their own name right.

--
The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures
the disease. -- Voltaire

In article . li,
Tom Anderson wrote:
On Tue, 15 Mar 2011, Ron Lowe wrote:

Again, with video in mind, I'd suggest a monitor that has native
1920x1080 for proper HD support. I'm using an iiyama one that was
reasonably priced.

We have 26" Iiyamas at work. I think we got them because they were the
cheapest, but they're really very nice.

My only complaint is that something somewhere in the software stack on
Fedora 14 can't tell a lowercase l from an uppercase I, and thinks the
manufacturer is called Liyama [1].

tom

[1] Unless that's coming over DCC or something, but i would have thought
that the manufacturer would be able to spell their own name right.

Presumably you've tried a different font (pasted it in etc) ? I've never
been sure whether I was misreading the name to be honest, whichever way
it's spelt

Nick
--
Serendipity: http://www.leverton.org/blosxom (last update 29th March 2010)
"The Internet, a sort of ersatz counterfeit of real life"
-- Janet Street-Porter, BBC2, 19th March 1996

On Tue, 15 Mar 2011 20:32:51 +0000 (UTC), dmc@puffin. (D.M.Chapman)
wrote:

Been there, done that. Got bored building computers and faffing around
installing Linux (or more often, Solaris of some flavour). Too much like
the day job.

Got an imac. Expensive slippery slope.

Isn't that for removing pubes :-0

In article . li,
says...
This is something a bit more specialist than a computer, but a Mr Robert
Trautman writes with news of literally rolling his own capacitors (down
the bottom):

http://www.electricstuff.co.uk/marxgen.htm


Or this bloke, who makes his own vacuum tubes...
http://highfields-arc.6te.net/constr.../info/f2fo.htm

--
Skipweasel - never knowingly understood.

In message , Phil Addison
writes
On Tue, 15 Mar 2011 20:32:51 +0000 (UTC), dmc@puffin. (D.M.Chapman)
wrote:

Been there, done that. Got bored building computers and faffing around
installing Linux (or more often, Solaris of some flavour). Too much like
the day job.

Got an imac. Expensive slippery slope.

Isn't that for removing pubes :-0

I think that in most of the pictures, they already have been


--
geoff

On Tue, 15 Mar 2011 17:59:08 +0000, tony sayer wrote:

Find out were U went wrong its not rocket science..

Easy peasy: you just need a collection of spare bits - amounting to
almost a second computer - to swap with. Which is fine if you want to
build 2 computers but if you only want one then you're likely to end up
with a load of expensive kit going obsolete (or spending more time trying
to dispose of it on fleabay) as well as the time spent faffing around in
the first place.

DIY, despite being commonly practiced on Sunday, is not a religion :-)
I do it when it's appropriate. I need a PC that Just Works and is Good
Enough. I'm asking on uk.d-i-y (as well as uk.comp.os.linux) because
that's where the clueful people are!


--
John Stumbles

On Tue, 15 Mar 2011 14:01:01 -0000, Daniel James
wrote:

In article , Phil Addison
wrote:
Budget (all inc. vat)
CPU Athlon II X2 250 £45
Mobo MSI MicroATX 890GXM-G65 £97
RAM 4GB Kingston KHX1600C9AD3B1K2/4G £43
Case Antec Mini P180 £89
PSU 650W Antec TruePower £70
HDD 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 £41
Graphics On board mobo £0
Wireless TBD, say £15
Total £400

You absolutely do not need a 650W PSU in that system. The components
will draw so little power (less than 200W) that the PSU will not even
be operating in its designed power range, and the efficiency will be
awful.

The i5 system you're spec'ing probably also only needs 250-300W.

Yeah, you're right, just ran Antec's calculater and got 256W. Thanks for
the reminder.

Phil

Cheers,
Daniel.

On 15 Mar 2011 14:26:09 GMT, John Stumbles
wrote:

On Tue, 15 Mar 2011 10:31:24 +0000, Phil Addison wrote:

If you care to build your own

I'd rather not.

Fair enough.

If, having bought all the bits, they don't work, then
what do I do?

Errr... ask on here?

I don't have enough swappable bits around to isolate one
duff component, or know enough to sort out a configuration/compatability
problem.

Horses for courses but if you change your mind there's loads of help on
here... but you knew that!

Phil

In ,
John Stumbles wrote:

DIY, despite being commonly practiced on Sunday, is not a religion :-)
I do it when it's appropriate. I need a PC that Just Works and is Good
Enough. I'm asking on uk.d-i-y (as well as uk.comp.os.linux) because
that's where the clueful people are!

Surely uk.comp.homebuilt would be the best place to ask. There are quite
a few Linux-savvy people there.

--
TH * http://www.realh.co.uk

On Tue, 15 Mar 2011 21:58:10 +0000
Tom Anderson wrote:

On Tue, 15 Mar 2011, John Stumbles wrote:

On Tue, 15 Mar 2011 15:10:34 +0000, Clive George wrote:

I'm reading this in uk.d-i-y, not uk.get-somebody-else-to-build-it :-)

Yeah I know, *real* DIY computer hackers etch their own PCBs, roll their
own capacitors, build their own chip fab facilities ...

This is something a bit more specialist than a computer, but a Mr Robert
Trautman writes with news of literally rolling his own capacitors (down
the bottom):

http://www.electricstuff.co.uk/marxgen.htm

Nice ... bookmarked. :O)

On Wed, 16 Mar 2011 00:23:25 +0000, Tony Houghton wrote:

Surely uk.comp.homebuilt would be the best place to ask. There are quite
a few Linux-savvy people there.

I didn't know about that group. Prolly a bit late to ask there now: I'm
going to bite the bullet and get the Novatech rig tomorrow (errr, [looks
at clock] today) as I've wasted enough time trying to get the old one
working and really need to get productive. But I'll have a look for
interest's sake and future reference; thanks.



--
John Stumbles

On Tue, 15 Mar 2011 18:04:14 +0000
Clive George wrote:

On 15/03/2011 18:00, Davey wrote:
On Tue, 15 Mar 2011 16:29:27 +0000
Clive wrote:

On 15/03/2011 16:04, Davey wrote:
On Tue, 15 Mar 2011 15:10:34 +0000
Clive wrote:

On 15/03/2011 15:05, Davey wrote:
On 15 Mar 2011 14:26:09 GMT
John wrote:

On Tue, 15 Mar 2011 10:31:24 +0000, Phil Addison wrote:

If you care to build your own

I'd rather not. If, having bought all the bits, they don't
work, then what do I do? I don't have enough swappable bits
around to isolate one duff component, or know enough to sort
out a configuration/compatability problem.


My feeling exactly. Years ago, I bought a Heathkit computer, but
they gave the guarantee that they would fix it if it didn't
work. They knew what was in it; build-your-own sounds great,
but if you're not a full-blown computer geek, and it doesn't
boot, then what?

I'm reading this in uk.d-i-y, not
uk.get-somebody-else-to-build-it :-)

(I can build computers, but haven't bothered for a long time, and
that's not solely due to using laptops for a while)

Well pardon me for trying to add something to the conversation.

You're obviously reading something into my post which isn't there.

It sounded to me like a rebuke for going off-topic.

Did you see the :-) ?

It wasn't a rebuke for going off topic, it was a remark on the humour
of people posting about how they wouldn't diy on a diy group. Now I
sort of wish I hadn't bothered.

Ah. I was reading it on alt.comp.os.linux, so the d-i-y reference
passed me by entirely, since I don't subscribe to that group, and I
thought it was still within that reference. That's what cross-posting
does, it misses the target audience.
I don't knowingly cross-post, for that very reason. I have put this in
both groups, though, to be sure it gets to you.
--

On Tue, 15 Mar 2011 20:16:23 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

unruh wrote:
On 2011-03-15, tony sayer wrote:
In article , Daniel James
scribeth thus
In article , Phil Addison
wrote:
Budget (all inc. vat)
CPU Athlon II X2 250 ?45
Mobo MSI MicroATX 890GXM-G65 ?97
RAM 4GB Kingston KHX1600C9AD3B1K2/4G ?43
Case Antec Mini P180 ?89
PSU 650W Antec TruePower ?70
HDD 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 ?41
Graphics On board mobo ?0
Wireless TBD, say ?15
Total ?400
You absolutely do not need a 650W PSU in that system. The components
will draw so little power (less than 200W) that the PSU will not even
be operating in its designed power range,

and the efficiency will be
awful.

Well, awful may be a bit strong. But a switching power supply has
internal losses, some of which occur even if the power supply put out 0
watts. Clearly if it puts out 0 watts, and used up say 20 w, the
efficiency is truely awful. The lower the output the greater this fixed
loss is as a fraction of that.


same goes for any power supply really. They are all best around a fairly
narrow range.

I use the antec PSU calculator at http://www.antec.outervision.com/.
It will give you a good guide. You don't have to buy an Antec.
--
(\__/) M.
(='.'=) Due to the amount of spam posted via googlegroups and
(")_(") their inaction to the problem. I am blocking some articles
posted from there. If you wish your postings to be seen by
everyone you will need use a different method of posting.

In article , Tony sayer wrote:
... and the efficiency will be awful.

Why should that be then?..

Why?

I can't tell you why -- I'm not an electronic engineer -- but I can
tell you that the efficiency graphs you see for modern PSUs drop off
noticeably as the current drawn drops below about 20%. Typical PSUs are
most efficient at around 50% load, and the efficiency drops off
slightly as load increases to 100%, and more rapidly as it drops toward
0.

In article , wrote:
Take a look at Lambdatek, their 'PC Designer' is how I have bought my
last two or three systems and has worked well for me:-

http://www.lambda-tek.com/computing/pcdesigner.htm

In the same vein I might recommend Armari (http://www.armari.com/) who
built a couple of systems for me a few years ago, before I realized
that modern PCs are as easy to build as Lego. They have a similar
"pick-and-mix" website and deliver the machines fully-built and tested.

They're a bit further up-market -- so pricier -- than lambda-tek seem
to be, but they certainly know how to put a system together!

Cheers,
Daniel.

On Wed, 16 Mar 2011 12:53:37 -0000
Daniel James wrote:

In article , Tony sayer wrote:
... and the efficiency will be awful.

Why should that be then?..

Why?

I can't tell you why -- I'm not an electronic engineer -- but I can
tell you that the efficiency graphs you see for modern PSUs drop off
noticeably as the current drawn drops below about 20%. Typical PSUs are
most efficient at around 50% load, and the efficiency drops off
slightly as load increases to 100%, and more rapidly as it drops toward
0.

snip

Cheers,
Daniel.

Must ... resist ... lecture ... mode

Gaaaaaaah!

As someone who had had the 'pleasure' of working with SMPSUs for some time I
can add a bit to that.

The basic principle is that an inductor draws energy from one capacitor then
releases it to another. The more time taken to draw the energy compared with
the release time the greater the output power (not necessarily voltage) will be.
Optimum efficiency for this occurs if the times are equal - that's the perfect
world situation!

In reality as the power increases resistance losses in the circuit and all the
control devices start to degrade performance, giving you a slow downward slope
starting from between 50 & 70% depending on the design. Also the performance of
the switching circuits degrades a lot as the 'draw' pulse gets shorter.

There is also a 'standing' power requirement simply for the thing to work at
all. The higher the capability of the PSU the higher this standing power will
be, regardless of how much is actually used.

On top of this there is a problem controlling very narrow times for the
inductor in that you can easily draw too much power for what is demanded.
Un-corrected that would make the output go over-voltage. Early supplies
actually had a minimum current specified so that they wouldn't literally
pulse the output - not good for the equipment!

The traditional way to deal with this is to add a shunting circuit that would
deliberately waste power if the demand was below a certain figure.


Ahhhh - I feel better now

--
Will J G

In article ,
Phil Addison wrote:
wrote:

Got an imac. Expensive slippery slope.

Isn't that for removing pubes :-0

Well, the macbook air edge is pretty sharp - not tried shaving with it but...

Darren

On 12 Mar 2011, Daniel James stated:
If you have a 64-bit CPU and a 64-bit OS you can support more RAM ...
IIRC current x86-64 chips only support a 2^48 byte physical address
space, but that's 256TB which is thousands of times more than any
current motherboard supports.

Not so. My current server has a motherboard which, fully populated,
supports 384Gb -- and it's two years old. (It has 'only' 24Gb in it.
I feel so short of memory sometimes.)

There are server-class boxes out there with terabytes of RAM now --
although they are hardly consumer-grade.

Most 24" monitors are now 1920x1080 (16:9 ratio) but these two are both
1920:1200 (16:10) which will give a little more vertical height, which
is useful for text editing. Both have USB hubs built in, the Dell also
has an SD card reader while the Nec has (rather tinny) speakers.

I've never entirely understood what USB hubs are supposed to bring to a
monitor? The ability to build in tinny speakers and SD card readers?
(The latter in particular seems deeply arbitrary.)

--
NULL && (void)

Nix writes:
I've never entirely understood what USB hubs are supposed to bring to a
monitor? The ability to build in tinny speakers and SD card readers?
(The latter in particular seems deeply arbitrary.)

Extra USB ports, perhaps in a more convenient location.

--
http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

On 15 Mar 2011, Ron Lowe outgrape:
Memory wise: If you want to have dozens of apps running concurrently (
I find that just too messy if taken to the extent you describe ) then
yes, pile on the RAM.

Agreed. It's particularly useful if you want to run VMs.

That kind of leads to 64-bit OS. I think that 64-bit has finally come
of age, and since win7, I'm 64 bit all the way. Never looked back.

Not really able to comment on the Linux side of things.

Linux has done the 64-bit thing since 1996 or thereabouts (I think the
first 64-bit port was the Alpha, followed by SPARC64). It ran on x86-64
before any chips existed ;} and these days the x86-64 port is rather
more actively maintained than the -32 (though both are 'top-tier', as it
were, the developers pretty much all do their work on 64-bit boxes).

On the graphics card front, it looks like nVidia have lost their way,
and AMD now rule the roost. I usually buy 1 generation old: it's
still good, but doesn't command premium price.

.... and has reasonably good support in the open Linux drivers. (The
only thing that isn't supported and never will be is hardware video
decoding.)

--
NULL && (void)

On Tue, 15 Mar 2011, Nick Leverton wrote:

In article . li,
Tom Anderson wrote:
On Tue, 15 Mar 2011, Ron Lowe wrote:

Again, with video in mind, I'd suggest a monitor that has native
1920x1080 for proper HD support. I'm using an iiyama one that was
reasonably priced.

We have 26" Iiyamas at work. I think we got them because they were the
cheapest, but they're really very nice.

My only complaint is that something somewhere in the software stack on
Fedora 14 can't tell a lowercase l from an uppercase I, and thinks the
manufacturer is called Liyama [1].

[1] Unless that's coming over DCC or something, but i would have thought
that the manufacturer would be able to spell their own name right.

Presumably you've tried a different font (pasted it in etc) ?

The GNOME monitors panel capitalises the L and lowercases the i, so i can
see they're definitely saying Liyama. The manufacturer's domain name is
all-lowercase in google results, so i can see they're definitely saying
iiyama. I haven't gone as far as copying and pasting the strings into
hexdump, i must admit!

I've never been sure whether I was misreading the name to be honest,
whichever way it's spelt

Another reason to stick to Samsung.

tom

--
Linux is like a FreeBSD fork maintained by 10 year old retards. --
Encyclopedia Dramatica

In ,
Nix wrote:

[ATI video cards]

... and has reasonably good support in the open Linux drivers. (The
only thing that isn't supported and never will be is hardware video
decoding.)

But hopefully there will be OpenCL video decoders and processors before
long?

--
TH * http://www.realh.co.uk

On Wed, 16 Mar 2011, Nix wrote:

On 12 Mar 2011, Daniel James stated:

Most 24" monitors are now 1920x1080 (16:9 ratio) but these two are both
1920:1200 (16:10) which will give a little more vertical height, which
is useful for text editing. Both have USB hubs built in, the Dell also
has an SD card reader while the Nec has (rather tinny) speakers.

I've never entirely understood what USB hubs are supposed to bring to a
monitor?

You plug your keyboard and mouse into the monitor, then the monitor into
the main case. You put the monitor on your desk, and your case on the
floor. Reduces cable clutter. One of the great Apple innovations was ADB,
which let you do that back when PC users were dragging vast great serial
connectors around their offices.

Not so helpful if you use a wireless keyboard and mouse, of course.

The ability to build in tinny speakers and SD card readers?
(The latter in particular seems deeply arbitrary.)

I find the whole idea of SD card readers pretty baffling, to be honest. If
a device stores data on an SD card, it almost unfailingly also has a USB
port, and it's far easier to plug the device in via that than it is to
fiddle about with tiny little bits of plastic.

The one exception i have to that is replacing the card in a mobile phone,
when it feels safer to do copy files from the old card to the new card on
a computer, with the device sitting inertly switched off.

tom

--
Once you notice that something doesn't seem to have all the necessary
parts to enable its functions, it is going to mildly bug you until you
figure it out. -- John Rowland

On Wed, 16 Mar 2011 22:05:52 +0000, Tom Anderson wrote:

On Wed, 16 Mar 2011, Nix wrote:

On 12 Mar 2011, Daniel James stated:

Most 24" monitors are now 1920x1080 (16:9 ratio) but these two are
both 1920:1200 (16:10) which will give a little more vertical height,
which is useful for text editing. Both have USB hubs built in, the
Dell also has an SD card reader while the Nec has (rather tinny)
speakers.

I've never entirely understood what USB hubs are supposed to bring to a
monitor?

You plug your keyboard and mouse into the monitor, then the monitor into
the main case. You put the monitor on your desk, and your case on the
floor. Reduces cable clutter. One of the great Apple innovations was
ADB, which let you do that back when PC users were dragging vast great
serial connectors around their offices.

Not so helpful if you use a wireless keyboard and mouse, of course.

I use it for the mobile phone charger. And things that have silly short
USB leads, such as cameras.



--
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org

*lightning protection* - a w_tom conductor

On Tue, 15 Mar 2011, Skipweasel wrote:

In article . li,
says...
This is something a bit more specialist than a computer, but a Mr Robert
Trautman writes with news of literally rolling his own capacitors (down
the bottom):

http://www.electricstuff.co.uk/marxgen.htm

Or this bloke, who makes his own vacuum tubes...
http://highfields-arc.6te.net/constr.../info/f2fo.htm

Genuinely impressive. The soundtrack is suitably Gallic!

What's that electric welding sewing machine / punch and die hybrid thing
he's got?

tom

--
Once you notice that something doesn't seem to have all the necessary
parts to enable its functions, it is going to mildly bug you until you
figure it out. -- John Rowland

On Tue, 15 Mar 2011 23:26:57 -0000
Skipweasel wrote:

In article . li,
says...
This is something a bit more specialist than a computer, but a Mr Robert
Trautman writes with news of literally rolling his own capacitors (down
the bottom):

http://www.electricstuff.co.uk/marxgen.htm


Or this bloke, who makes his own vacuum tubes...
http://highfields-arc.6te.net/constr.../info/f2fo.htm

Great Vid. Well worth the time to watch

--
Will J G

In article . li,
says...
I find the whole idea of SD card readers pretty baffling, to be honest. If
a device stores data on an SD card, it almost unfailingly also has a USB
port, and it's far easier to plug the device in via that than it is to
fiddle about with tiny little bits of plastic.


My camera only does USB1.1 - well worth taking the card out and shoving
it in the reader.

At school I use half a dozen different cameras, three or four different
proprietary USB leads, which we don't usually leave with the cameras
'cos they get muddled up and abused. Again - much easier to pop the card
out and shove it in the reader.

The school's digital photo-frame on the reception counter uses an SD
card but it'd be a pain to take the whole thing to a computer to change
the photos - so a reader is good there, too.

--
Skipweasel - never knowingly understood.

In article . li,
says...
Or this bloke, who makes his own vacuum tubes...
http://highfields-arc.6te.net/constr.../info/f2fo.htm

Genuinely impressive. The soundtrack is suitably Gallic!

What's that electric welding sewing machine / punch and die hybrid thing
he's got?

I think you got it in one - a hybrid. The bloke's clearly very fond of
making special tools.

--
Skipweasel - never knowingly understood.

On Wed, 16 Mar 2011 02:00:39 +0000, John Stumbles wrote:

On Wed, 16 Mar 2011 00:23:25 +0000, Tony Houghton wrote:

Surely uk.comp.homebuilt would be the best place to ask. There are
quite a few Linux-savvy people there.

I didn't know about that group. Prolly a bit late to ask there now: I'm
going to bite the bullet and get the Novatech rig tomorrow (errr, [looks
at clock] today) as I've wasted enough time trying to get the old one
working and really need to get productive. But I'll have a look for
interest's sake and future reference; thanks.

Well I did get the Novatech box and *it* didn't give me a decent display
either. At which point some clue must have wormed its way into my brain
and I tried plugging the monitor directly into the graphics card instead
of going through the KVM box and - waddaya know! - 1600 * 1200! Words
cannot describe how stupid I felt.

How does the PC know what sort of monitor it's driving? I didn't realise,
or think of it, that there must be some way the graphics card can query
the monitor for its vertical and horizontal scan capabilities. I've
certainly, at one time, had those hard-wired into my xorg.conf file (and
tried it, without success, with the current setup - I guess maybe xorg
ignores that now if it thinks it knows better?).

So now I have a couple of half-decent machines: the Novatech one (quad
core, 4G, but rather tinny box) and the old Targa (AMD64 single core, 1G,
nice box). But you can never have too many PCs ... maybe I will get
around to making that media server so SWMBO & others can watch stuff on
the TV from it.


--
John Stumbles

On Wed, 16 Mar 2011 00:24:04 +0000, Davey wrote:

Ah. I was reading it on alt.comp.os.linux

*uk*.comp.os.linux, surely?


--
John Stumbles

In article , Nix wrote:
... which is thousands of times more than any current motherboard
supports.

Not so. My current server ...

Oops, sorry! I thought I had remembered to qualify that remark to
exclude server boards.

... has a motherboard which, fully populated, supports 384Gb

With what size RAM DIMMs? Can you actually achieve that capacity, today,
at any price? If you have 24 slots (which is not impossible) 24x16GB
DIMMs would do it ... and only cost £10k-£15k.

If I change "thousands" to "hundreds" my point still stands -- 256TB is
enough addressing space for today's PCs.

There are server-class boxes out there with terabytes of RAM now --
although they are hardly consumer-grade.

Indeed they are not.

I suspect boxes like that will be running several CPUs in separate
address spaces, and so aren't strictly relevant to this discussion ...
but I'd be interested to see the spec of such a machine.

I've never entirely understood what USB hubs are supposed to bring
to a monitor?

I think the idea of putting USB hubs into monitors comes from a time
when typical PCs had limited USB ports but were supplied with USB
keyboard and mouse ... something that supplied extra USB capacity and
put it on the desktop where the KB+M live was a selling point.

Today it's not a big deal ... but if you have a need for a USB hub at
all it saves a bit of space to have it built into the monitor rather
than having yet another little box with a nest of wires poking out of it
to clutter up the desk. Same deal for cardreaders (I rather wish my Dell
U2410 had a CF card slot, like the old Ultrasharp 2408 had ... maybe
it's time to upgrade my DSLR?)

Cheers,
Daniel.

In article 20110316145922.46218bc3@debian, Folderol wrote:
Must ... resist ... lecture ... mode

No, no, we're all ears!

Ahhhh - I feel better now

... and I feel enlightened. Thanks.

Cheers,
Daniel.

In article ,
says...
How does the PC know what sort of monitor it's driving? I didn't realise,
or think of it, that there must be some way the graphics card can query
the monitor for its vertical and horizontal scan capabilities.


Yup - and in some odd cases you may even need a driver for the monitor.
Or, more accurately, a .inf file.

--
Skipweasel - never knowingly understood.

On 17 Mar 2011 10:04:12 GMT
John Stumbles wrote:

On Wed, 16 Mar 2011 00:24:04 +0000, Davey wrote:

Ah. I was reading it on alt.comp.os.linux

*uk*.comp.os.linux, surely?



Indeed, you are correct. And the only one to point out the error!
--
Davey.

In article ,
Daniel James wrote:

With what size RAM DIMMs? Can you actually achieve that capacity, today,
at any price? If you have 24 slots (which is not impossible) 24x16GB
DIMMs would do it ... and only cost £10k-£15k.


Sun (sorry, Oracle) T3-4 has 64 DIMM slots, for 512GB RAM with 8GB DIMMs.
Certainly not a home machine (not even x86 :-)) but certainly not top end
stuff

For TBs of RAM you need to go *huge*

Darren

On Tue, 15 Mar 2011 23:26:57 -0000
Skipweasel wrote:

In article . li,
says...
This is something a bit more specialist than a computer, but a Mr
Robert Trautman writes with news of literally rolling his own
capacitors (down the bottom):

http://www.electricstuff.co.uk/marxgen.htm


Or this bloke, who makes his own vacuum tubes...
http://highfields-arc.6te.net/constr.../info/f2fo.htm


I get Error 403 when I try to go there.
--
Davey.