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derFunkenstein
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Re: Strange thought of the day.

Thu May 25, 2017 3:19 pm

I was just happy to get Kubuntu running in a VM. :lol:
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captaintrav
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Re: Strange thought of the day.

Thu May 25, 2017 4:33 pm

There's a couple of ifs but installing Ubuntu is possibly even easier than Windows. ie, "if" you have supported hardware there's no hunting for drivers ; whereas Windows only has the in-box drivers which are quickly outdated, the install media for Ubuntu is likely only a couple of months old.
 
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Re: Strange thought of the day.

Thu May 25, 2017 8:04 pm

Cloning an existing install to different hardware also tends to be easier since drivers for most hardware devices are auto-detected at every boot, and there's no OS licensing/activation to deal with. Just last week I cloned the virtual disk of a Debian VM I'd been using to a physical SSD, installed the SSD in a spare PC, and had a physical Debian system (configured exactly like my VM) with close to zero effort. I had to manually install the AMD GPU driver (GPU is the one hardware category where drivers tend not to be auto-detected and configured properly without user intervention) and change the host name. That was pretty much it. Most of the effort was actually in vacuuming all the dust bunnies out of the old system, since it was pretty disgusting in there when I opened it up to install the SSD!
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whm1974
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Re: Strange thought of the day.

Thu May 25, 2017 8:42 pm

captaintrav wrote:
There's a couple of ifs but installing Ubuntu is possibly even easier than Windows. ie, "if" you have supported hardware there's no hunting for drivers ; whereas Windows only has the in-box drivers which are quickly outdated, the install media for Ubuntu is likely only a couple of months old.

Not to mention that doing updates afterwards is really painless with most distros than it is with Windows...
 
whm1974
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Really strange thought of the day.

Sat Jul 08, 2017 6:45 pm

OK I'm not sure to put here or in the Linux subforum, but I have been having this idea that somewhere there is a 8 or 9 y/o kid who put together a computer from spare parts and has manage to have installed and running of all things either Arch or Gentoo Linux. And managed to do it with no help from his or her parents. Are there kids this young doing this?
 
Redocbew
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Re: Really strange thought of the day.

Sat Jul 08, 2017 7:11 pm

Didn't you make exactly this same thread a few months ago?
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whm1974
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Re: Really strange thought of the day.

Sat Jul 08, 2017 7:14 pm

Redocbew wrote:
Didn't you make exactly this same thread a few months ago?

Sorry if I did. I remember making one on the Manjaro forums, but for the life of me, couldn't remember if I post this question here already.
 
Delta9
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Re: Really strange thought of the day.

Sat Jul 08, 2017 7:28 pm

I did when I was 11 years old (1990). A family friend worked for a large telecom company here in North America. His job was to maintain, repair and upgrade workstations. They didn't fix anything, just threw it out. I asked if he could get me a computer and her brought over 3 AT&T PC6300s (true 8086 7-8Mhz), each having a defect. He gave me the binder it came with and told me to use the main board in the one box because it had 1024k memory expansion kit, and he handed me an NEC hot rod 8086 at 12mhz. I disassembled and reassembled them into one machine with a 20MB MFM hard drive. I installed DOS, and topped it off with Geos, as I was also given a proprietary 3 button mouse. Did it all myself, however I did have a ton of DOS books and info available around the house. It also helped that I had every conceivable upgrade an accessory for the PC 6300, which was a rebranded Olivetti. Kids today have it easy.
 
whm1974
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Re: Really strange thought of the day.

Sat Jul 08, 2017 7:36 pm

Delta9 wrote:
I did when I was 11 years old (1990). A family friend worked for a large telecom company here in North America. His job was to maintain, repair and upgrade workstations. They didn't fix anything, just threw it out. I asked if he could get me a computer and her brought over 3 AT&T PC6300s (true 8086 7-8Mhz), each having a defect. He gave me the binder it came with and told me to use the main board in the one box because it had 1024k memory expansion kit, and he handed me an NEC hot rod 8086 at 12mhz. I disassembled and reassembled them into one machine with a 20MB MFM hard drive. I installed DOS, and topped it off with Geos, as I was also given a proprietary 3 button mouse. Did it all myself, however I did have a ton of DOS books and info available around the house. It also helped that I had every conceivable upgrade an accessory for the PC 6300, which was a rebranded Olivetti. Kids today have it easy.

Thanks. And yes you are right kids do have it easy these days. No jumpers or DIP switches to mess with at all. What is the youngest kid you know or have heard of doing this sort of thing?
 
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Re: Really strange thought of the day.

Sun Jul 09, 2017 5:33 pm

I built my first machine at 8 or 9 years old out of spare parts. Didn't have *nix, but I did have DOS working well with expanded memory, sound, and whatnot.

I think I put Windows 3.1 on it as well, but that was a long time ago and games primarily ran in DOS anyway.
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Re: Really strange thought of the day.

Sun Jul 09, 2017 10:03 pm

its not exactly hard, i was building 286's and setting up autoexec.bat and config.sys in dos before i was even a teenager
the thing is nowdays kids are just not interested in computers as much so you dont see them doing these things often
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Re: Really strange thought of the day.

Sun Jul 09, 2017 10:12 pm

Of course there are, but so what? Child prodigies are not a new phenomenon; Mozart was composing and performing for the European elite when he was 8 or 9 years old too.
 
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Re: Really strange thought of the day.

Sun Jul 09, 2017 10:35 pm

I did not build a full-blown computer at that age (it was the early-mid 1970s), but I did build a "Pong" and "Tank War" video game when I was 12 or 13. General Instrument had an ASIC (40-pin DIP IIRC) that you could buy via mail-order that did the game logic; you had to supply 5V DC power, wire potentiometers and buttons for the controllers, and provide an RF modulator to interface it to your TV (most TVs did not have direct video inputs back then, they were designed to pick up OTA analog broadcasts only). Everything was soldered point-to-point on perfboard I got from the local Radio Shack, using wire scavenged from scraps of old telephone cables.

The cables for the controllers were scavenged audio speaker wire. Potentiometers, buttons, knobs, and small "project box" enclosures to mount them on also came from Radio Shack.

The RF modulator was especially interesting. I found a magazine article with a schematic for a circuit that could transmit on TV channel 2/3, and decided to "roll my own" from scratch -- hey, I was building this using my allowance money, and I already had a small collection of random scavenged discrete parts by then... had to do everything on the cheap, and loved a challenge. The inductor for the RF circuit was hand-wound using a pencil as the coil form. Tuning the RF modulator was done by gently stretching or compressing the coil until the TV was able to lock on when set to channel 3.

The RF circuit was so "leaky" that I discovered I didn't even need to run a wire over to the TV's RF input; I could just let the TV's antenna pick it up from across the room. Classic "That's not a bug, that's a feature!" situation. :lol:

That project may still be in a box in the crawlspace somewhere... don't remember if I trashed it the last time we moved.
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Captain Ned
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Re: Really strange thought of the day.

Sun Jul 09, 2017 10:42 pm

A bunch of Heathkit stuff in my youth, including the alarm clock I still use (its replacement sits on the shelf awaiting the purchase of a proper soldering station and a roll of 63/37), but nothing homebrew.
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whm1974
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Re: Really strange thought of the day.

Sun Jul 09, 2017 11:30 pm

NovusBogus wrote:
Of course there are, but so what? Child prodigies are not a new phenomenon; Mozart was composing and performing for the European elite when he was 8 or 9 years old too.

Yes, but what we as a culture(the US) doing to find and nurture such child prodigies? Hell are we even doing anything to encourage children to learn now? No we seem to have this culture of dumbing down instead.
 
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Re: Really strange thought of the day.

Sun Jul 09, 2017 11:51 pm

Well, my propensity for all (or at least many) things geeky was nurtured at home. My early interest in electricity/electronics was encouraged from a very young age; the dining room was transformed into my personal electronics lab, and (believe it or not) I received an oscilloscope as an 8th grade graduation gift. Bless my dad, oscilloscopes were really expensive back then and money was tight; in retrospect I'm not sure how we were able to afford it. Best. Gift. Ever.

Failing that sort of support at home, teachers could theoretically fill the gap by acting as mentors. But in today's homogenized, standardized-test-score-oriented, budget strapped educational environment, I think the odds are not good. I'll stop here to minimize the risk of this thread veering too far into R&P territory.
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Re: Really strange thought of the day.

Mon Jul 10, 2017 5:34 am

My earliest electrical experiment involved a ceramic surface mount light socket, a ceramic surface mount switch, and an AC plug. I wired them all in parallel. With the switch off I plugged it into a wall socket and light came on. Humm ... I flipped the switch and all the lights in the room went out. Parallel circuit lesson learned.

An uncle gave me a dead AM radio from his milking parlor. I pulled all five tubes and tested them with the grocery store tube tester. Replaced the bad one and WLS Chicago plus CKLW Detroit/Windsor became nightly entertainment.

First kit was a very nice Allied Electronics VOM until I decided to measure the current in a wall socket, poof. Replaced with a Heathkit VOM. Followed by a Heathkit stereo cassette deck, a dwell/tach meter, and a timing light. Still use the last two for mechanical ignition tune-ups.
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Captain Ned
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Re: Really strange thought of the day.

Mon Jul 10, 2017 6:21 am

farmpuma wrote:
I pulled all five tubes and tested them with the grocery store tube tester.

I am old enough to remember the once ubiquitous tube tester gizmos. Wasn't a grocery store item here in VT, but every Rat Shack had one back when there was a Rat Shack in every town.
What we have today is way too much pluribus and not enough unum.
 
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Re: Really strange thought of the day.

Mon Jul 10, 2017 6:40 am

Redocbew wrote:
Didn't you make exactly this same thread a few months ago?
Exactly the same.
Topics merged. Please do not create duplicate threads.
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Re: Really strange thought of the day.

Mon Jul 10, 2017 7:57 am

farmpuma wrote:
My earliest electrical experiment involved a ceramic surface mount light socket, a ceramic surface mount switch, and an AC plug. I wired them all in parallel. With the switch off I plugged it into a wall socket and light came on. Humm ... I flipped the switch and all the lights in the room went out. Parallel circuit lesson learned.

An uncle gave me a dead AM radio from his milking parlor. I pulled all five tubes and tested them with the grocery store tube tester. Replaced the bad one and WLS Chicago plus CKLW Detroit/Windsor became nightly entertainment.

My first project (IIRC when I was around 9) was a crystal radio kit. And yes, WLS was one of the few stations strong enough to come through decently.

farmpuma wrote:
First kit was a very nice Allied Electronics VOM until I decided to measure the current in a wall socket, poof. Replaced with a Heathkit VOM. Followed by a Heathkit stereo cassette deck, a dwell/tach meter, and a timing light. Still use the last two for mechanical ignition tune-ups.

Seems like you had a knack for putting large amounts of current where it didn't belong... :lol:

Captain Ned wrote:
farmpuma wrote:
I pulled all five tubes and tested them with the grocery store tube tester.

I am old enough to remember the once ubiquitous tube tester gizmos. Wasn't a grocery store item here in VT, but every Rat Shack had one back when there was a Rat Shack in every town.

Even the corner drugstores had them in Chicago back in the '60s. I remember walking down to the Rexall with my dad when i was around 7 years old, brown paper bag full of tubes to be tested (from the TV) in hand. A few years later, that TV became the first major piece of electronics I scavenged for parts.

JustAnEngineer wrote:
Redocbew wrote:
Didn't you make exactly this same thread a few months ago?

Exactly the same.
Topics merged. Please do not create duplicate threads.

I thought it seemed vaguely familiar.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
 
Captain Ned
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Re: Really strange thought of the day.

Mon Jul 10, 2017 8:06 am

just brew it! wrote:
A few years later, that TV became the first major piece of electronics I scavenged for parts.

That should have been enough time for the flyback caps to self-discharge.
What we have today is way too much pluribus and not enough unum.

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