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General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Nilsen on June 05, 2004, 01:21:20 PM

Title: too much computerstuff
Post by: Nilsen on June 05, 2004, 01:21:20 PM
Have you ever found yourself buying computerstuff because its cool even if you have no real need for it?

I have.....again. :D

name the most useless piece of computer hardware you have bought, or the thing you regret most buying.
Title: too much computerstuff
Post by: Boroda on June 05, 2004, 01:24:26 PM
That's what I do every time another rich client tells me to "make a decent rig" for him :)

The most expensive PC I ever assembled costed the client $7K with all peripherals, bells and whistles.
Title: too much computerstuff
Post by: Nilsen on June 05, 2004, 01:26:07 PM
Quote
Originally posted by Boroda
That's what I do every time another rich client tells me to "make a decent rig" for him :)

The most expensive PC I ever assembled costed the client $7K with all peripherals, bells and whistles.


lol...hope he didnt work for KGB :D
Title: too much computerstuff
Post by: lada on June 05, 2004, 01:29:58 PM
Quote
Originally posted by Boroda

The most expensive PC I ever assembled costed the client $7K with all peripherals, bells and whistles.


LOL x86 ?

Server or workstation ?

geeeeeez :D
Title: too much computerstuff
Post by: Nilsen on June 05, 2004, 01:44:34 PM
I now for the first time in my life have WAY too much storage space.....need tips on how to use it :D
Title: too much computerstuff
Post by: Boroda on June 05, 2004, 01:45:09 PM
Quote
Originally posted by lada
LOL x86 ?

Server or workstation ?

geeeeeez :D


It was a Pentium-133MHz, one of the first such machines here, with somehing like 128Mb RAM, Number Nine video, etc, with 19" display, printer, scanner and evetything. I remembert that onlyu the case costed $100+ and weighted 20kg (I got really tired carrying the damn thing).

The guy wanted to just play games and asked for something that he'll not need to upgrade for a year or two, regardless to price. Several weeks before that he had a car crash - his Audi A8 was smashed by a ZiL heavy truck, he just threw away the keys and called a cab...

The biggest profit I have made from one machine I assembled was in 1993 (super-puper 486DX2/66), $500. The whole machine costed $4500. Unfortunately these times are gone forever :(

Most useless thing I bought for myself was a Yamaha sound board, $150, and I failed to make it work under OS/2... I sold it to another computer-nuts person for $200 :)
Title: too much computerstuff
Post by: Boroda on June 05, 2004, 01:47:28 PM
Quote
Originally posted by Nilsen
I now for the first time in my life have WAY too much storage space.....need tips on how to use it :D


Boroda's axiom: Every winchester disk gets full in two weeks.

I invented it in 1991, when I got my first machine: a 286 with a 40Mb drive. Every new drive I bought only proved it.
Title: too much computerstuff
Post by: Nilsen on June 05, 2004, 01:53:47 PM
hehe, i had one 250gb LaCie FW drive that i had used 70gb's of....now i have 2 of those drives and after deleting all the crap both drives are now empty. I also got 2 spindles with 50 cd-r's and 10 empty dvd-r's ..... add it up yourselves, but as you may guess i need software/games/movies/music to fill it all up :D
Title: too much computerstuff
Post by: Boroda on June 05, 2004, 02:01:07 PM
I have no problem with filling up the space :)

Another thing I discovered (it surprised me):160Gb drive costs about $100 now, while the cheapest CD-R is $.030. In a year or two it will be cheaper to buy another HDD then to store films on CDs.

Almost everything I watch is  DivX films I DL from Edonkey. I bought a DVD-drive for a home PC, but I have only 2 DVDs, one of them Yellow Submarine.
Title: too much computerstuff
Post by: xrtoronto on June 05, 2004, 02:01:46 PM
Quote
Originally posted by Nilsen
I now for the first time in my life have WAY too much storage space.....need tips on how to use it :D


feature length pr0n:aok
Title: too much computerstuff
Post by: Nilsen on June 05, 2004, 02:05:42 PM
Quote
Originally posted by Boroda
I have no problem with filling up the space :)

Another thing I discovered (it surprised me):160Gb drive costs about $100 now, while the cheapest CD-R is $.030. In a year or two it will be cheaper to buy another HDD then to store films on CDs.

Almost everything I watch is  DivX films I DL from Edonkey. I bought a DVD-drive for a home PC, but I have only 2 DVDs, one of them Yellow Submarine.


thx for the edonkey tips :D (is edonkye better then kazaa for movies??)

    
xrtoronto...... i have a gf hovering around me all day now. not gonna happen for a few months :D
Title: too much computerstuff
Post by: Boroda on June 05, 2004, 02:14:42 PM
Quote
Originally posted by Nilsen
thx for the edonkey tips :D (is edonkye better then kazaa for movies??)

    
xrtoronto...... i have a gf hovering around me all day now. not gonna happen for a few months :D


http://emule-project.net/

Edonkey traditionally has more Russian or Russian-dubbed films. I tried Kazaa once, Edonkey/Emule is technically two generations above it. As for content - I have DLed some music that I couldn't find even in good old Napster (Leaf Hound and Titus Groan).
Title: too much computerstuff
Post by: Nilsen on June 05, 2004, 02:17:16 PM
processing............

is there alot of spy/adware wiht emule?
Title: too much computerstuff
Post by: Gunslinger on June 05, 2004, 02:59:42 PM
in 97 I baught (financed) a gateway pentium 166 W/ MMX

it had 32m of ram modem video and sound card and came w/ a bubble jet cannon printer.  Cost me 2k$  I just finished paying it off last year lol....it was only good for about 2 months and than was totally obsolute for most uses.
Title: too much computerstuff
Post by: gunnss on June 05, 2004, 04:01:26 PM
Quote
Originally posted by Nilsen
I now for the first time in my life have WAY too much storage space.....need tips on how to use it :D



 Get your self a DVD burner and start editing Video tapes... My wife does that and has a 100 Gig partition just for the editing buffer.....

Gunns
Title: too much computerstuff
Post by: Nilsen on June 05, 2004, 04:12:43 PM
Quote
Originally posted by gunnss
Get your self a DVD burner and start editing Video tapes... My wife does that and has a 100 Gig partition just for the editing buffer.....

Gunns


lol, thats one of the things ive bought myslef ..a LaCie 8xFW/USB2 drive :cool:
Title: too much computerstuff
Post by: Roscoroo on June 05, 2004, 09:46:53 PM
I traded labor on a car for my Dual k-6 cpu's(500mhz) 486 with the dual scsi drives .. that old pc is still almost fast .. It played AH1 til around ver 1.06 or so   far from usless

These days when i build a pc for someone i ussully end up with a worthless x86 box of junk though ( ive got a closet full of it)

most worthless perchase was the 1.6 applebred cpu i got for 30 bucks  darn thing only works in one pc and has been giving me fits since day 3 ..  ( i shoulda paid the 80 bucks for a 2500+)
Title: Re: too much computerstuff
Post by: SunKing on June 05, 2004, 11:05:10 PM
Quote
Originally posted by Nilsen
Have you ever found yourself buying computerstuff because its cool even if you have no real need for it?
 


Ya TrackIR.. still waiting for enhanced mode.
Title: too much computerstuff
Post by: flakbait on June 06, 2004, 12:14:31 AM
Bought a Superdisk (LS-120) drive 6 years ago as a backup tool since I couldn't afford a CD burner. Got a three-pack of disks for it and proceeded to go to town. Course, at that time my rustbucket of a system only had a 3.2 gig HDD and most of that was full of stuff. So the 360 megs I could back off was pretty cool. Until I discovered the wonderful magic of the MP3 audio file! In a month I had two of those 120-meg disks full of MP3s, and number three had a few on it too. About a year after I bought it I ditched the thing in favor of a 24x CD burner. Funny thing is, I still have that LS-120 drive in the box, with disks, and it still works!



-----------------------
Flakbait [Delta6]
Delta Six's Flight School (http://www.wa-net.com/~delta6)
Put the P-61B in Aces High
(http://www.wa-net.com/~delta6/sig/geek.gif)
Title: too much computerstuff
Post by: lada on June 06, 2004, 03:51:20 AM
i forget.... i did buy Sun Blade 1000 few months ago for something like 350€ ... I had no time to kick out solaris and install linux, so  we can consider it to be wasted money :D

but i will do it one day :)
Title: too much computerstuff
Post by: AKcurly on June 06, 2004, 04:17:04 AM
Quote
Originally posted by Boroda
Boroda's axiom: Every winchester disk gets full in two weeks.

I invented it in 1991, when I got my first machine: a 286 with a 40Mb drive. Every new drive I bought only proved it.


Hey Boroda, serious, fun question for you.  IBM coined the phrase "Winchester drive."  Do you know where they got the name?

curly
Title: too much computerstuff
Post by: gunnss on June 06, 2004, 07:51:35 AM
I picked up a Sinclar 2000 once........ 100 dollers in 1981.......

Gunns
Title: too much computerstuff
Post by: Boroda on June 06, 2004, 12:30:52 PM
Quote
Originally posted by AKcurly
Hey Boroda, serious, fun question for you.  IBM coined the phrase "Winchester drive."  Do you know where they got the name?

curly


I have heard that the first non-removable hard disk drive made by IBM was model number 0303. Another legend I heard was that the lab that invented this drives was in a town called Winchester.

In Russian computer slang the word "winchester" is widely used, also abbrievated to "winch" or "vint" ("screw"). Soviet or Bulgarian hard drives were even called "Berdan" :)
Title: too much computerstuff
Post by: AKcurly on June 06, 2004, 03:15:20 PM
Quote
Originally posted by Boroda
I have heard that the first non-removable hard disk drive made by IBM was model number 0303. Another legend I heard was that the lab that invented this drives was in a town called Winchester.

In Russian computer slang the word "winchester" is widely used, also abbrievated to "winch" or "vint" ("screw"). Soviet or Bulgarian hard drives were even called "Berdan" :)


"Winchester technology" was the first hard drive to operate in a sealed environment.  Earlier hard drives depended on filtration systems.

The prototype consisted of two 30 meg platters.  

The rifle which won the West was manufactured by Winchester gun company ( http://www.winchester.com ).  It was a lever action, called the  "30-30."

Neat story, no idea if it's true. :)  I read it years ago in a periodical.

curly
Title: too much computerstuff
Post by: Boroda on June 07, 2004, 01:57:07 PM
Quote
Originally posted by AKcurly
"Winchester technology" was the first hard drive to operate in a sealed environment.  Earlier hard drives depended on filtration systems.

The prototype consisted of two 30 meg platters.  

The rifle which won the West was manufactured by Winchester gun company ( http://www.winchester.com ).  It was a lever action, called the  "30-30."

Neat story, no idea if it's true. :)  I read it years ago in a periodical.

curly


Interesting :)

You know, we had the whole IBM/360 and 370 series copied as ES-EVM in USSR. I even have a diploma of an operator for such machines (perforated cards, tape storage, JCL) :) We had an old (made in 1978) ES-1022, it had 29Mb removable disk drives, 11 platters (10 surfaces). Later machines had 300Mb removable disks. They were called DASD (Direct access storage devices).

First Winchester drives I used were 5 and 10Mb Bulgarian copies of IBM devices, used in ES-1839 "ES-TEL" PC-compatibles. In fact they were similar to PC-370 8088-based PC terminals for System/370. Soviet ES-1841 machines used Seagate ST-225 disks manufactured in India under license. They had a great MFM controller, a huge PC board with Soviet Z80 clone and even had something like 32Kb RAM :)

Most affordable PC-compatible machine in late-80s was "Poisk", a copy of IBM PCjr made in Ukraine :) I bet IBM didn't sell as much PCjr's as Poisks :) I had an opportunity to see an original PCjr once, and everything including cassete slots were the same as in Poisk. You can't imagine what things people have done with Poisks here: installing an MFM hard drive, floppies, VGA video - on a machine that didn't have DMA! Installing NEC V20 at stunning 10MHz instead of a Soviet 8088 clone! Oh, that was the time :)
Title: too much computerstuff
Post by: Horn on June 07, 2004, 02:25:40 PM
Bought a 5 mb "Profile" hard drive for my Apple 3 @ $2500 so I could run Great Plains Accounting. Talk about masochistic....

h
Title: too much computerstuff
Post by: Nilsen on June 07, 2004, 02:29:30 PM
lol....love your avatar Horn :D
Title: too much computerstuff
Post by: lada on June 07, 2004, 04:42:14 PM
Quote
Originally posted by Nilsen
lol....love your avatar Horn :D


bring your smile in white sweater back ! :D
Title: too much computerstuff
Post by: Reschke on June 07, 2004, 04:48:15 PM
Zip Drive was the most useless POS of computer equipment that I have ever bought. Sure it had 100MB of storage ability and at the time that was great but if I wanted to trade/give a buddy some files I usually had to break down and pull out my Zip drive and take it and the cables to his house and install that before putting the files on their computers and getting what I wanted. Another useless item for me was a Creative soundcard with Firewire connections on it. I don't own a single thing with Firewire capability and most likely never will.
Title: too much computerstuff
Post by: Boroda on June 08, 2004, 06:31:02 AM
Hm. I know at least five firms where I supplied or supported computers that use Zip-100, Zip-250 and Fujitsu DynaMO removable drives. Usual purpose is to store "confidential" accounting information.

Another client wanted an external hard drive to store such things. I offered an external case and a firewire adapter. Before that purchase they had all confidential info on SCSI drives in "mobile racks". They had a huge hammer in their server room to destroy the disks physically just in case ;)

I have heard that on of the "military" laptops ordered by Defence ministry they had an F1 hand grenade as "emergency self-destruction unit" inside the case, with the pin sticking out of keyboard panel ;)
Title: too much computerstuff
Post by: Roscoroo on June 08, 2004, 09:58:41 AM
I went to thewinchester mystery house (http://www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/)  once :D
Title: too much computerstuff
Post by: Reschke on June 08, 2004, 10:29:19 AM
As I said Boroda the Zip was useless to me and if I remember correctly it was about the time that CDR/CDRW drives started becoming cheaper and more popular.
Title: too much computerstuff
Post by: AKIron on June 08, 2004, 10:36:24 AM
I regret many computer related purchases, especially that $900 40mb hard drive for my Amiga 14 years ago. Still, is it even possible to have "too much computerstuff"? ;)


Never regretted the $300 for the Commodore 1541 floppy drive I bought in '82 though. Damn, $300 for a floppy drive