Posted a suggestion for you at A.B.P.W. Look for "OT- Portable computer idea
for CS"

Don't think too long about the PDA. Resolution isn't there. Wife keeps her
photo gallery of grandkids and such on hers, but it's nothing like throwing
the camera memory into the PCMCIA slot, then having 1024x768 and Photoshop
to play with.

Those "return from lease" computers are pretty common, and some are
up-to-date enough. Got a ThinkPad Celeron for $360 from a local college kid
which takes care of photo business, internet browsing, and lesson planning.
Check with a local laptop university for December graduations, they offer to
the holders (who have already paid for them) at an attractive price, but not
all take advantage of it. Daughter bought an $899 new Dell, which works not
one bit faster at common tasks than mine.

"Charlie Self" wrote in message
...

I've got time yet. Helluva lot more of that than money. I don't need the
machine this year, even, but need to have it ready to go about February or
March.

I don't need a 15" screen, either, which is why I'm looking at used
laptops,
but there's no way I'm paying 65% of new prices for a machine that has to
be 3
years old. And that seems to be what a great many of the used sellers are
asking.

As I said, I haven't had time to check locally, but I'm positive that
within a
dozen miles, there's only one such store (there's one in Bedford and it's
a
dozen miles from my house to there).

You can buy small form factor PC's these days. They're about the size of
a
loaf of bread. Load them up with whatever components you want, and you
have
an ultra quiet high-powered portable system. Customers have put them into
their boats, RV's, etc.

Yeah, well...I really, really don't want to get into building computers
again.
I built something like 5. That's enough.

I don't know if these meet your needs, but they're half built. Pop in a hard
drive, ram, (and on some a CPU) and you're good to go.

Charlie ...

eBay generally has hundreds (at least) of used laptops, some over-priced but
many pretty reasonable. Last year I needed a cheap laptop for off-site
audio recording. I found a used NEC laptop with a 6.4 GIG HD, 10+ inch
display, CD drive and USB port. It's only a 233MHz Pentium II but it cost
me only $233 and it serves my purposes just fine. I have also used it to
transfer and view pictures from my digital camera, although that is not why
I originally bought it.
Here's the search parameter I used:
http://search.ebay.com/laptop_W0QQfr...sortpropertyZ1

Just doing a cursory scan I see that as I was typing this, there was an IBM
Thinkpad with a 12.1 inch TFT display and a DVD drive that just went for
$299 and a working Toshiba Tecra with 12" screen that just sold for $41.
I'm sure you can find something sufficiently cheap.

Lee
--
To e-mail, replace "bucketofspam" with "dleegordon"

mp writes:


Posted a suggestion for you at A.B.P.W. Look for "OT- Portable computer idea
for CS"

Sorry. I dropped ABPW long ago because AOL tends to drop 85% of the pix.

Charlie Self
"Men stumble over the truth from time to time, but most pick themselves up and
hurry off as if nothing happened." Sir Winston Churchill

Lee Gordon writes:

eBay generally has hundreds (at least) of used laptops, some over-priced but
many pretty reasonable. Last year I needed a cheap laptop for off-site
audio recording. I found a used NEC laptop with a 6.4 GIG HD, 10+ inch
display, CD drive and USB port. It's only a 233MHz Pentium II but it cost
me only $233 and it serves my purposes just fine. I have also used it to
transfer and view pictures from my digital camera, although that is not why
I originally bought it.
Here's the search parameter I used:
http://search.ebay.com/laptop_W0QQfr...sortpropertyZ1

Just doing a cursory scan I see that as I was typing this, there was an IBM
Thinkpad with a 12.1 inch TFT display and a DVD drive that just went for
$299 and a working Toshiba Tecra with 12" screen that just sold for $41.
I'm sure you can find something sufficiently cheap.


Or close to sufficiently cheap. I'll check it out, and thanks.

Charlie Self
"Men stumble over the truth from time to time, but most pick themselves up and
hurry off as if nothing happened." Sir Winston Churchill

Lee Gordon writes:

I originally bought it.
Here's the search parameter I used:
http://search.ebay.com/laptop_W0QQfr...sortpropertyZ1

Just doing a cursory scan I see that as I was typing this, there was an IBM
Thinkpad with a 12.1 inch TFT display and a DVD drive that just went for
$299 and a working Toshiba Tecra with 12" screen that just sold for $41.
I'm sure you can find something sufficiently cheap.

Yeah. Lots of stuff using Win98, too, but I'm not sure that can be made to
support USB. I think I tossed my ME CD a week or two ago. Worst OS I ever
tried, including Mac OS 8.

Wish I had time this afternoon to pop into town and see what they've got there.
I've got some stuff that might actually make a decent one-to-one swap for a
$600 or $800 laptop.

Charlie Self
"Men stumble over the truth from time to time, but most pick themselves up and
hurry off as if nothing happened." Sir Winston Churchill

Charlie, just my 2 cents but Dell currently has an entry level laptop for
$719. Add the support and it will last you some time. You want to use this
thing for video capture from your camera and an older PII may do that now
but it will be painfull and won't support you for very long. It's like
buying any other tool. If you want to save a few bucks at minimum go with a
PIII 800+ mhz system. Memory is pretty cheap to add to these guys these
days. You will at least get a few years out of that and should be able to
find it for around $400.



"Charlie Self" wrote in message
...
Lee Gordon writes:

I originally bought it.
Here's the search parameter I used:
http://search.ebay.com/laptop_W0QQfr...sortpropertyZ1

Just doing a cursory scan I see that as I was typing this, there was an
IBM
Thinkpad with a 12.1 inch TFT display and a DVD drive that just went for
$299 and a working Toshiba Tecra with 12" screen that just sold for $41.
I'm sure you can find something sufficiently cheap.

Yeah. Lots of stuff using Win98, too, but I'm not sure that can be made to
support USB. I think I tossed my ME CD a week or two ago. Worst OS I ever
tried, including Mac OS 8.

Wish I had time this afternoon to pop into town and see what they've got
there.
I've got some stuff that might actually make a decent one-to-one swap for
a
$600 or $800 laptop.

Charlie Self
"Men stumble over the truth from time to time, but most pick themselves up
and
hurry off as if nothing happened." Sir Winston Churchill

Charlie Self wrote:

For shooting photos out of my own shop, I'm slowly running up on a need
for a method of viewing the shots more fully at the scene.

So I started checking used laptop prices, and keep running into a sort of
price settling at $700 ($699 plus shipping) to $800 ($799 plus shipping).
Checking these out, I find 6, 8, 10 or 12 gig hard drives, Pentium IIIs,
max of 128 megs of RAM, few details on USB, lots of CD readers and DVD
readers, screens in the 12" range.

Just for kicks, I thought I'd check the Dell site, since I've gotten good
value from my desktop Dell. Here we go: several of their 1150 models, with
Pentium IV, quarter to a half gig of RAM, 20 or 30 or 40 gig hard drive,
14+" screen, CDRW, bunch of other handy stuff, plus XP loaded. Prices
start at about $825.

Do these smaller outfits have rocks in their heads or are they out there
hoping to catch the ever unwary? Add 25 bucks to their prices and get a
hard drive that is 4-5 times as large, double or triple the RAM, a faster
CPU and a burner, plus other features and they expect to sell stuff.

Amazing.

Charlie Self
"I have always felt that a politician is to be judged by the animosities
he excites among his opponents." Sir Winston Churchill
Everyone wants a laptop. I have computers that I can't even give away but
everyone wants to know when I'm getting a new laptop, there is a wait list
to last longer than my lifetime of people wanting me old ones.

Be very careful of the Dell 1150 (and maybe others) it has a desktop cpu.
My wife bought one and it runs _HOT_. Just sitting on a desk with the
screen blank the cpu fan will turn on off every few minutes. Pick up the
machine and both cpu fans crank up to full speed shopvac sound level. Its
a 2.4GHz machine and with the software load from Dell it ran slower than my
1GHz latitude. I reloaded XP clean on it and its better but still not as
fast as it should be. Some of these new cheap laptops are really a rip
off, they throw in a fast cpu and huge screen so you have to have a big
battery and loose the benefit of portability, but they give it a slow hard
disk, slow system bus, slow memory, etc so you loose the benefit of the
fast cpu and bug screen. If you want a decent one look for a Latitude,
sign in the small business store and if they ask what the business is your
an "independent contractor". You will pay the same price buy won't get all
the "free" software included so instead you get a better quality system.
The computer makers work the same as tool makers, I paid the same for my
crapsman router as my PC router, but I got a bunch of accessories with the
crapsman and have to buy all the accessories for my PC. But the PC will do
a much better job and outlast the crapsman which I wore out in a short
time.

I've got time yet. Helluva lot more of that than money. I don't need the
machine this year, even, but need to have it ready to go about February or
March.

Then perhaps you may want to wait a bit. The same money six months down the
road will buy you a lot more computer than you'll get today plus there will
be a lot more used equipment on the market right after Christmas.

On 07 Sep 2004 17:15:18 GMT, otforme (Charlie Self)
calmly ranted:

Larry Blanchard asks:

Charlie, do you remember the "lunchbox" computers? Nobody sells them
anymore, but at least a couple of years ago you could buy a case with
the (small) CRT and build your own. I don't know about battery-powered,
but with a converter you could plug it in to your car/truck lighter.

Sounds familiar. My first computer was a 'portable' Kaypro 1, but that little
thing weighed something like 22 pounds. I did cart it along a couple times,
which may be why I wear a 36" sleeve these days.

g My dad wrote his (one, not 45 like you) book on a Kaypro
II. They were definitely not "laptop" models.



..-.
Better Living Through Denial
---
http://www.diversify.com Wondrous Website Design

Larry Jaques wrote:

On 07 Sep 2004 17:15:18 GMT, otforme (Charlie Self)
calmly ranted:


Larry Blanchard asks:


Charlie, do you remember the "lunchbox" computers? Nobody sells them
anymore, but at least a couple of years ago you could buy a case with
the (small) CRT and build your own. I don't know about battery-powered,
but with a converter you could plug it in to your car/truck lighter.

Sounds familiar. My first computer was a 'portable' Kaypro 1, but that little
thing weighed something like 22 pounds. I did cart it along a couple times,
which may be why I wear a 36" sleeve these days.


g My dad wrote his (one, not 45 like you) book on a Kaypro
II. They were definitely not "laptop" models.

The were called "luggables" if memory serves.
j4

Shazzamm!

I went away for a couple of weeks and all kinds of cool stuff started
happening.

You're threatened with a suit from an anonymous asshole - who really
isn't all that anonymous.

Peoples is telling you to buy a PDA to view photos with - as though a
three inch screen is demonstrably better than a two inch screen.

Some peoples is encouraging you to buy a used laptop for the same
money as a new laptop - because it was better in it's day.

Golly - I do love the Wreck.

I'd go for that low end Dell and add in a few treats.

Pay for the DVD burner, which is cheap as **** if'n you buy it up
front and allows you to burn 4.5 gb worth of stuff. Get that extra
memory when Dell is running the special on it. Otherwise, buy the
aftermarket. It's all about dollars per byte.

Akshully, if'n it were me, I'd position myself to eliminate the
desktop and spend about two grand on the laptop. Keep the screen you
have, if'n it can be color corrected. Get yaself a nice port
replicator and you can keep using the keyboard that you like and the
mouse that you like - and you will have two screens to work on - which
can be a great help. The existing desktop will make a nice storage
device - IDE drives are cheap as dirt right now.

I work with two screens and would never go back.

There is one word of counsel that I would give to you -

"Bidness"

Do not buy on the Home/Home Office side of the Dell website. If you
do, you will be relegated to non-english-speaking-peoples as your
resource for customer service/tech support.

The "Bidness" side of the Dell website will kick you right into the
section where you will deal with Americans who don't speak English -
you will be better off - because you will be used to that.

I know, it's a slippery slope - you have a target figure for dollars
to be spent - get over it. It is way past time that everyone switched
to laptops as their main computer - if you don't bite the bullet now -
you will bite it bigtime in the future.

I think that you could make a good argument for giving your current
desktop to a deserving family member - thus giving them somewhat
current technology whilst propelling yaself into both currency and
beyond.

A couple of caveats - if you buy 512mb ram, make sure it is all on one
chip - it will cost you more but your upgrade path will be better
(same goes for 1gb - I wouldn't buy a box with less than a two gb
potential).

Second - get a video card that is twice as nice as the best that you
could forsee needing (DAMHIKT).

Thirdly (I lied) get a bigass hard drive and make it spin at 7200 -
you won't regret it.

I bought most of the above from Dell for $1750.00 American and I like
it a lot.

YMMV.

yippeee!



Regards,
Tom.

Thomas J.Watson - Cabinetmaker (ret.)
tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)
http://home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1

On 07 Sep 2004 10:53:06 GMT, otforme (Charlie Self)
wrote:

For shooting photos out of my own shop, I'm slowly running up on a need for a
method of viewing the shots more fully at the scene.

So I started checking used laptop prices, and keep running into a sort of price
settling at $700 ($699 plus shipping) to $800 ($799 plus shipping). Checking
these out, I find 6, 8, 10 or 12 gig hard drives, Pentium IIIs, max of 128 megs
of RAM, few details on USB, lots of CD readers and DVD readers, screens in the
12" range.

Charlie,

I would also suggest EBay. A few months ago I purchased a Thinkpad
PIII, 450 Mhz, 20GB HD and 512 MB RAM, with OS, carrying bag, Ethernet
card, etc. for under $400. Looking in Ebay history, the same computer
has sold for as low as $350 on occasion.


http://mywebpages.comcast.net/wgoffe...oodworking.htm

Charlie Self wrote:

For shooting photos out of my own shop, I'm slowly running up on a need for a
method of viewing the shots more fully at the scene.


WalMart has recently started selling laptops. I haven't looked at them but the
price sounds good. See:

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/produ...uct_id=3163026

--
Jack Novak
Buffalo, NY - USA
(Remove "SPAM" from email address to reply)

Nah, it's Micro$oft's new OS just for carpenters & woodworkers ... MS Doors
:-p

--

Marc Hudson

"Swingman" wrote in message
...

"Larry Blanchard" wrote in message
In article , patriarch
says...
So, what's the proper OS for a Neander computer user? ;-)

DOS 3.1 of course.

Unless OS/MFT or Multics will fit on a desktop :-).

... or just load up whatever Babbage was using. :)


--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 7/10/04

BruceR wrote:

patriarch wrote:
"Swingman" wrote in
:
snip

I've probably owned 6 laptops in the past 12 years, and that is the
first one I've not bought used. Personally, I've gone back to using a
desktop in a, likely out-of-step, effort to return to more Luddite
ways.


This commment shows, I guess, how far we've come, when a desktop user
feels he's a Luddite. ;-)

So, what's the proper OS for a Neander computer user? ;-)

The OS is the power tool of computers. The Neander computer provides
memory for instruction/data storage and a processor that understands
basic machine codes to manipulate the data according to the provided
instructions. What more would a Neander need? Of course some would argue
that having a processor follow your instructions and manipulate your
data is akin to a power tool so the true Neander who makes his own
woodworking tools should also by definition make his own processor by
hand coding an FPGA or actually building a bit slice.

The hard part's finding a working or repairable with reasonable effort
machine with lights and switches on the front panel for a reasonable price.

-BR


Patriarch,
who really appreciates the bigger screen on the desktop.



-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----== Over 100,000 Newsgroups - 19 Different Servers! =-----

--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

I know, it's a slippery slope - you have a target figure for dollars
to be spent - get over it. It is way past time that everyone switched
to laptops as their main computer

Why? Desktop computers are faster, cheaper, upgradeable, and more versatile
in configuration and expansion options.

"mp" wrote in message
...
I know, it's a slippery slope - you have a target figure for dollars
to be spent - get over it. It is way past time that everyone switched
to laptops as their main computer

Why? Desktop computers are faster, cheaper, upgradeable, and more
versatile
in configuration and expansion options.

I agree. Laptops are optimized for one thing: portability. If that's not
an interest to you, laptops are a big loser.

todd

Greetings and Salutations...

On 07 Sep 2004 17:13:53 GMT, otforme (Charlie Self)
wrote:

Steve Knight asks:

what may work for you is a PDA. you can view pics on it and keep it in your
pocket. the only hard part is matching it to the camera memory. what memory
does
the camera use?

Compact flash. That really shouldn't be a hard match. I'll have to check.
You're the second one listing PDAs. I'll see if I can locate one that might be
suitable for viewing and storage.

Charlie Self
"I have always felt that a politician is to be judged by the animosities he
excites among his opponents." Sir Winston Churchill

Or (and I hate mentioning this because I just don't need more
Ebay competition for them) a tablet computer. I happen to like the
ones by Fujitsu quite a bit. and...on Ebay...you can get them for
$250 to $350 for PLENTY of machine to do what you want to do.
Regards
Dave Mundt

mp responds:

I've got time yet. Helluva lot more of that than money. I don't need the
machine this year, even, but need to have it ready to go about February or
March.

Then perhaps you may want to wait a bit. The same money six months down the
road will buy you a lot more computer than you'll get today plus there will
be a lot more used equipment on the market right after Christmas.

Now, I hadn't thought of the the after-Christmas increase. That's a good idea.
Thanks.

Charlie Self
"Men stumble over the truth from time to time, but most pick themselves up and
hurry off as if nothing happened." Sir Winston Churchill

Larry Blanchard wrote:

In article ,
otforme says...
Han asks:

Why do you want a laptop anyway? If you get a small desktop, ...

You're kidding, right? I go to a spot to shoot photos and set up a
desktop computer to review them there?

Charlie, do you remember the "lunchbox" computers? Nobody sells them
anymore,

Whaddaya _mean_ "nobody sells them anymore"?
http://store.jinco4me.com/luboxco.html

If you DAGS "lunchbox computer case" you'll find a lot more. Trouble is
they're specialized equipment and thus quite pricey. You can get a damned
good laptop for the price of the case alone.

but at least a couple of years ago you could buy a case with
the (small) CRT and build your own. I don't know about battery-powered,
but with a converter you could plug it in to your car/truck lighter.



--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

Philip Lewis wrote:

otforme (Charlie Self) writes:
Lee Gordon writes:
eBay generally has hundreds (at least) of used laptops, some over-priced
but
many pretty reasonable. Last year I needed a cheap laptop for off-site
Or close to sufficiently cheap. I'll check it out, and thanks.

I'll second ebay...
I managed to pick up a PIII-400 4.3 gig dell latitude for $300.
I already had an identical system (except hd = 20gig) and wanted a
backup. ;)

I decided to install netbsd on it and it's become my primary machine.

I just wish i could get my card reader to read my CF cards. :(

I'll third it. The Thinkpad 770 that I got off ebay many years ago is now
starting college. Just read all the fine print very carefully, check the
seller's feedback before you bid, and plan on 200 bucks or so for a new
battery--you may not need it in which case you're 200 bucks to the good,
but that's not the way to bet.

Good luck charlie!

--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

Charlie Self wrote:

JohnT writes:

I'm using a compaq I bought new at Xmas time on a "special" sale that
was $700 after rebates at my local CompUSA. 15" screen, 30gig HD,
DVD/CD-R, etc, etc. Maybe you need to look around some more, wait for
sales, etc.

I've got time yet. Helluva lot more of that than money. I don't need the
machine this year, even, but need to have it ready to go about February or
March.

I don't need a 15" screen, either, which is why I'm looking at used
laptops, but there's no way I'm paying 65% of new prices for a machine
that has to be 3 years old. And that seems to be what a great many of the
used sellers are asking.

As I said, I haven't had time to check locally, but I'm positive that
within a dozen miles, there's only one such store (there's one in Bedford
and it's a dozen miles from my house to there).

Charlie, if that Bedford is Bedford, MA and you're driving something that
doesn't burn up a hundred bucks worth of gas on the trip to Hartford you
might want to go by Kaplan Computers http://www.kaplancomputers.com/. He
always has used notebooks in stock ranging from dirt cheap and pretty old
on up, and usually has several Thinkpads. Not as cheap as the best ebay
prices but not bad. Nice thing about Kaplan is that you can see what
you're getting before you buy.

One thing to watch for with used laptops though, is the battery--if you
can't test before you buy then just assume that you're going to have to
replace it--that adds 200 bucks or so to the price. Another is the
drivers--if it comes with a wiped disk and no recovery disk (usually the
case) then you're going to need the device drivers to get it up and fully
functional--IBM has drivers for some rather ancient machines up on their
site--you can generally count on being able to get drivers for every
operating system that was ever supported on that machine.

Charlie Self
"I have always felt that a politician is to be judged by the animosities
he excites among his opponents." Sir Winston Churchill

--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

On Tue, 07 Sep 2004 21:07:36 -0400, Nova
calmly ranted:

Charlie Self wrote:

For shooting photos out of my own shop, I'm slowly running up on a need for a
method of viewing the shots more fully at the scene.


WalMart has recently started selling laptops. I haven't looked at them but the
price sounds good. See:

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/produ...uct_id=3163026

And the mfgr (for whom Walmart OEMs) is in good company:
http://www.notebookcomputers.com/madebywho.asp
Interesting.

(Note to Tawm: How is Dell's Business service? Home/Office Indian
customer support sucks the big, green, rancid one. I spent an
entire day helping my neighbor with his Dell and I spent several
hours with their people trying to get off the dodgamned mailing
list. That taught me to -never- buy a Dell.)


..-.
Better Living Through Denial
---
http://www.diversify.com Wondrous Website Design

In article ,
Charlie Self wrote:
Larry Blanchard asks:

Charlie, do you remember the "lunchbox" computers? Nobody sells them
anymore, but at least a couple of years ago you could buy a case with
the (small) CRT and build your own. I don't know about battery-powered,
but with a converter you could plug it in to your car/truck lighter.

Sounds familiar. My first computer was a 'portable' Kaypro 1, but that little
thing weighed something like 22 pounds. I did cart it along a couple times,
which may be why I wear a 36" sleeve these days.

One 36" sleeve, and one 33" one, right? (like lugging a Speed Graphic :)

As for what's going on with lap-top pricing, The _biggest_ expense factor
is the low-power-consumption component selection. And it's pretty much a
fixed _amount_ increment over the 'regular power' components. So, the
price hit on the higher capacity stuff is _relatively_ smaller. Add in
the 'quantity buying' power of the big boys, and it's not surprising that
they can market much more impressive specs for 'very little' more money than
the little guys.

Many people _still_ prefer the little guys, because they have a better idea
of what they're getting (component suppliers don't change from week-to-week,
depending on who has the better price _today_), and can, many times, specify
the precise make/model, etc. of the components they want.

In article , mp wrote:
Charlie, do you remember the "lunchbox" computers? Nobody sells them
anymore, but at least a couple of years ago you could buy a case with
the (small) CRT and build your own. I don't know about battery-powered,
but with a converter you could plug it in to your car/truck lighter.

You can buy small form factor PC's these days. They're about the size of a
loaf of bread. Load them up with whatever components you want, and you have
an ultra quiet high-powered portable system. Customers have put them into
their boats, RV's, etc.



Bah. those are the *BIG* ones. grin

I can get a complete 'system on a board' that bolts to the side of a 3-1/2"
hard-drive. Same form-factor. needs only a power-supply to drive the
motherboard and the disk.

If you don't need the big hard-disk, something the size of a pack of playing
cards is 'no problem'. :)

Of course, you do have to have keyboard, monitor, and probably mouse.

In article ,
Larry Blanchard wrote:
In article , patriarch
says...
So, what's the proper OS for a Neander computer user? ;-)

DOS 3.1 of course.

Unless OS/MFT or Multics will fit on a desktop :-).

Actually, even OS/MVS (non-XA), including SPF, _will_ fit on a desktop.
If you've got a "P-370" card, it runs _native_ on the co-processor board.

Othewise there is the 'Hercules' emulator, which will run anything from about
TOS/360 (that's Tape Operating System -- for sites that couldn't afford
rotating mass storage, aka 'disk drives') forward. I think it does XA, and
even Z-system. *scary* piece of software.

In article ,
Swingman wrote:

"Larry Blanchard" wrote in message
In article , patriarch
says...
So, what's the proper OS for a Neander computer user? ;-)

DOS 3.1 of course.

Unless OS/MFT or Multics will fit on a desktop :-).

... or just load up whatever Babbage was using. :)

Factoid: Lady Lovelace had the software ready, but Babbage never completed the
hardware required to run it.

In article ,
patriarch patriarch wrote:
"Swingman" wrote in
:
snip

I've probably owned 6 laptops in the past 12 years, and that is the
first one I've not bought used. Personally, I've gone back to using a
desktop in a, likely out-of-step, effort to return to more Luddite
ways.

This commment shows, I guess, how far we've come, when a desktop user feels
he's a Luddite. ;-)

So, what's the proper OS for a Neander computer user? ;-)

I'm going to have to dig up my copy of the product announcement for "OS/VU"
'virtual universe'.

It was noted that start-up was _slow_. the IPL of 'sys1.god' took seven
days to complete.

System calls to 'non resident galaxies' had a large latency problem.


As for the Neanders -- *what* operating system?? In the good ole days, all
programs ran 'stand alone'. There *wasn't* any such thing as an operating
system -- either the functionality was embedded in your application code,
or it didn't exist. Many shops came to have a 'standard library' of routines
for basic device functions, that you could merge to your code, as needed.

The true Neander is going to 'program on the bare metal' producing direct
machine-executable code, handling all required functionality internally,
without benefit of an operating system, or even an 'assembler' to do
instruction translation.

Don't laugh. I've _written_ code under those conditions, myself.

In article ,
Charlie Self wrote:
Lee Gordon writes:

I originally bought it.
Here's the search parameter I used:
http://search.ebay.com/laptop_W0QQfr...sortpropertyZ1

Just doing a cursory scan I see that as I was typing this, there was an IBM
Thinkpad with a 12.1 inch TFT display and a DVD drive that just went for
$299 and a working Toshiba Tecra with 12" screen that just sold for $41.
I'm sure you can find something sufficiently cheap.

Yeah. Lots of stuff using Win98, too, but I'm not sure that can be made to
support USB. I think I tossed my ME CD a week or two ago. Worst OS I ever
tried, including Mac OS 8.

Win95/SE (second editon) *does* support USB, fwiw.
==

Charlie ...

Yeah. Lots of stuff using Win98, too, but I'm not sure that can be made to
support USB. I think I tossed my ME CD a week or two ago. Worst OS I ever
tried, including Mac OS 8.

All versions of Win98 support USB. There is even a version of Win95
(version B) that supports USB but it is very basic and somewhat limited.
The $300 laptop I bought on eBay came with Win98 installed (not always the
case that there is any OS on an eBay machine; it's always wise to check
before bidding) and I upgraded it to Win98SE. The upgrade disk was another
eBay purchase (about $30).
I notice that you are looking for a machine with a 20 GIG hard drive. Most
of the eBay machines equipped that way seem to be running in the $450-600
range.

Lee


--
To e-mail, replace "bucketofspam" with "dleegordon"

"Robert Bonomi" wrote in message
ervers.com...
In article ,
Charlie Self wrote:
Lee Gordon writes:

I originally bought it.
Here's the search parameter I used:
http://search.ebay.com/laptop_W0QQfr...sortpropertyZ1

Just doing a cursory scan I see that as I was typing this, there was an
IBM
Thinkpad with a 12.1 inch TFT display and a DVD drive that just went for
$299 and a working Toshiba Tecra with 12" screen that just sold for $41.
I'm sure you can find something sufficiently cheap.

Yeah. Lots of stuff using Win98, too, but I'm not sure that can be made
to
support USB. I think I tossed my ME CD a week or two ago. Worst OS I ever
tried, including Mac OS 8.

Win95/SE (second editon) *does* support USB, fwiw.

Slight nit-picking correction. There was no SE version of Win95. You're
thinking of Win95 OSR2 (OEM Service Release 2). SE was the second version
of Win98.

todd

On Wed, 08 Sep 2004 21:56:24 +0000, (Robert
Bonomi) wrote:

In article ,
Swingman wrote:

"Larry Blanchard" wrote in message
In article , patriarch
says...
So, what's the proper OS for a Neander computer user? ;-)

DOS 3.1 of course.

Unless OS/MFT or Multics will fit on a desktop :-).

... or just load up whatever Babbage was using. :)

Factoid: Lady Lovelace had the software ready, but Babbage never completed the
hardware required to run it.


Kind of an ironic historical twist, isn't it? Probably the only time in
history the hardware availability lagged the software. (Well, at least in
my world that's the case).

On Wed, 08 Sep 2004 22:07:42 +0000, (Robert
Bonomi) wrote:

In article ,
patriarch patriarch wrote:
"Swingman" wrote in
:
snip

I've probably owned 6 laptops in the past 12 years, and that is the
first one I've not bought used. Personally, I've gone back to using a
desktop in a, likely out-of-step, effort to return to more Luddite
ways.

This commment shows, I guess, how far we've come, when a desktop user feels
he's a Luddite. ;-)

So, what's the proper OS for a Neander computer user? ;-)

I'm going to have to dig up my copy of the product announcement for "OS/VU"
'virtual universe'.

It was noted that start-up was _slow_. the IPL of 'sys1.god' took seven
days to complete.

System calls to 'non resident galaxies' had a large latency problem.


As for the Neanders -- *what* operating system?? In the good ole days, all
programs ran 'stand alone'. There *wasn't* any such thing as an operating
system -- either the functionality was embedded in your application code,
or it didn't exist. Many shops came to have a 'standard library' of routines
for basic device functions, that you could merge to your code, as needed.

The true Neander is going to 'program on the bare metal' producing direct
machine-executable code, handling all required functionality internally,
without benefit of an operating system, or even an 'assembler' to do
instruction translation.

Don't laugh. I've _written_ code under those conditions, myself.



We used to call them "executives"; small continuous loops that polled
various hardware locations and/or waited around for interrupts. Simple,
efficient, and relatively easy to see what was going on with a piece of
hardware so programmed.

Robert Bonomi wrote:

In article ,
Larry Blanchard wrote:
In article , patriarch
says...
So, what's the proper OS for a Neander computer user? ;-)

DOS 3.1 of course.

Unless OS/MFT or Multics will fit on a desktop :-).

Actually, even OS/MVS (non-XA), including SPF, _will_ fit on a desktop.
If you've got a "P-370" card, it runs _native_ on the co-processor board.

Othewise there is the 'Hercules' emulator, which will run anything from
about TOS/360 (that's Tape Operating System -- for sites that
couldn't afford rotating mass storage, aka 'disk drives') forward. I think
it does XA, and
even Z-system. *scary* piece of software.

Especially when you consider that it outperforms the early hardware.

--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

You're quite right. And now I'm not sure _which_ one it was that
introduced USB support -- Win95/OSR2 or Win98/SE. Whichever it was,
the splash screen announced 'with USB support'.

The OSR2 release for Win95 provided limited USB functionality for a few
devices (HID primarily I believe... mice and a few keyboards). Full USB
support was in Win98. (Or "fool support" if you're a Linux person talking
about Windows...)