Frankenputer

Here's a sad story oft repeated...

The day before I was going to back up all my photos and data, my computer's motherboard burned up. It was 6 years old, which is about 120 years in computer-years, so I guess I should have been expecting it.

"It seemed so healthy and happy just the day before." said Derek Dork as he weepingly surveyed the smoking ruins.

I called around to the local shops to ask about parts and was greeted with derisive laughter and phones being slammed back on-hook. The computer guy here in town was a little more kind. He's Japanese and polite. He simply said, "You ah escrewed", with a grin.

It seems computer technology jumped light years ahead while I was happily playing "Redneck Rampage" on my out-dated box.

However, on my last trip to California, my generous brother-in-law gave me his old server tower. He and my sister had made the quantum leap to shiny, beautiful, brand new wonderful MACs and the old XP box was just a toe stubber.

I brought it home, cleaned it up and loaded all my shooter games on it. That only took a couple of days of interminable downloads and upgrades from Microsoft's website.

I used the old server to search the net for a vintage motherboard that would use the new $40 RAM chip I bought just before the crash. Damned if I was gonna throw it out before I got my 40 bucks worth of use out of it!

Eureka! Ebay is awash with old crap and I found a brand new, in the box, ancient motherboard that would take my Pentium 4 processor and the RAM. Just plug it in, right?

Guess what? All this old stuff comes WITHOUT manuals or installation CDs.

I managed to find a manual online that was pretty close. Some of the connectors on the board didn't match the pictures in the manual, but luckily the guy that sold me the board was very helpful. I sent him close up pictures of the areas in question and he was able to help me out.

Great invention, the digital camera.

Feeling like Dr. Frankenstein, I got the motherboard in, transplanted the brain and gave it the juice.

"Full power, Igor."

"Yes, master."

Zapppp!

"It's alive! It's alive!"

Having got past the smoke test I turned in. I fell into a fitful sleep and for some reason, dreamed of crowds with pitchforks and torches banging on my front door.

The next morning I started up the monster and it wouldn't boot. Something to do with the hard drive. I didn't want to format it as it has pictures and files we want to keep. How to retrieve them, I'll figure out later.

Then I turned on the old server. The fans were screeching like an old fart who has just seen the monthly report on his 401K and it wouldn't boot up either.
The more I tried, the worse it got. Crap!

I then remembered the old server had 2 (count 'em, 2) hard drives. I took one of the drives and stuck it in the old box, formatted it and installed my 2002 copy of XP and once again..."It lives!"

I spent hours at Microsoft's site, downloading service packs, upgrades, fixes, and on and on and on...

I also did dozens of searches through computer help boards looking for vintage drivers.

Man, there's a lot of geeks out there! I was comforted to find I wasn't quite at the bottom of the pool. Close, but not bottom.

But I'm getting some mileage out of that new-antique $40 RAM chip, by gum!

So now I have a new goal. To keep Frankenputer running as long as possible.

I just hope it doesn't follow the classic tale where it turns on it's creator and throws him from the parapet.

...more follows...

Moving along...

When last we saw our intrepid hero, he was struggling to clean out his garage...a task akin to cleaning out the Augean Stables.

I have to say, I had it all spiffed up in there for about 2 weeks, then the piles started reappearing. Oh well.

The months have sped by and various things have happened.

One happy note, my brother and his wife moved here from Georgia. We spent Christmas together, the first time since the 70s, I think!

He's still getting their apartment squared away so we'll do some fun stuff later. He's retired too.

The weather here is pretty soggy, so I've been sticking close to home. Some days we get hail, snow (doesn't stick), rain and sunshine all in the space of an hour or so.

It's that time of year when migrating whales pass our coast, heading north. We've been out to the point a couple of times but haven't spotted any yet.

Town is pretty much empty and quiet this time of year with everybody holed up in their dens. That includes me.

I subscribe to Netflix and found they have "Instant Movies" that you can watch on the computer. I've been searching their vaults and along with the good stuff they have a teriffic collection of B-movies, zombie movies, biker trash and bad horror flicks. I'm in heaven!

I bought some cheap speakers with a port for headphones and I can watch all this crap without bothering my sleeping wife. I'll let you know when I catch a particularly good one.



more to follow...