Death of an old friend.....

[Dreadbelly]

I use a Blue and White Yosemite Tower. 300mhz. 384 megs of ram. Totally and completely built from scrap parts and bits. Hooked to a 19 inch monitor. I run OS9 because I like it more than OSX.

As for software selection, that's pretty much a myth. I have everything I will ever need and then some.

My system might not be the fastest, but she's got it where it counts. Crashes happen once in a blue moon. Plus, I built her. I made her. I know what makes her tick. I know that when she boots, and the video looks a bit scrambled in one corner of the monitor, all I got to do is give the tower a light tap with my foot near the rear to make the video card that I salvaged wiggle back in to place in the PCI slot. (It never quite fit right) The OS has been totally hacked and altered with a dozen different programs and the user interface has been tweaked with Res Edit. Plus, she can boot from a cold start and be up and running and online in about 30 seconds. My wife says my computer is a lot like the Millennium Falcon.

I'd like to get ahold if a scrap pile of damaged and scrapped iBooks. I see lots of them on ebay. Actual lots. Crates. For a couple of hundred bucks. I know I could build an iBook or two out of those and maybe have enough parts to keep it going for a good long time.

Oh. And word of advice to to hardware hobbiests.

DON'T TOUCH THE CRT TUBE!

[KiltedCodeWarrior]

I'll stick my neck out here and say something dangerous.

It is my own opinion that the virus protection companies and M$ are all in cahoots with one another, each one having a black ops team that writes destructive viral infections to undermine each other's software thus keeping all of them in business and making PILES of money from people who keep shelling it out hand over fist.

Some viruses are so well written to take advantage of certain features that they could have only been written by somebody with inside information. I realise this is circumstancial evidence at best, but it's enough for me.

Dread, I would like to subscribe to this theory, but I don't think that the facts support it. I am a big Linux fn, mainly because it is open source. This means that a hacker can identify a hole to exploit by reading the code, but somebody else can do the same thing to come up with a fix. In MS, the hackers do not necessarily have access to the code (but might), but the general development community also does ntot have access, so the correction has to go through a formal identification, testing, implementation, and fix process that open source does not require.

Again, I prefer Linux and Mac, but I am not sure there is a MS conspiracy/complacency for viruses because the fixes for those viruses takes away from the resources available to develop new functionality.

RJI

[Sciuropterus]

We have a new Mac Mini and a 12" PowerBook in the office, the Mrs. has a G4 tower in her office.

[jfellrath]

It is my own opinion that the virus protection companies and M$ are all in cahoots with one another, each one having a black ops team that writes destructive viral infections to undermine each other's software thus keeping all of them in business and making PILES of money from people who keep shelling it out hand over fist.

I don't agree here, though I do think there are probably Luddites within some of these companies (particularly Microsoft) who write viruses as their own form of social protest.

I think the thing that really gets MS in trouble, honestly, is that they are trying so hard to make Windows and Office do EVERYTHING that they leave it full of holes, holes that are needed to make it do everything and be open to everything.

Some viruses are so well written to take advantage of certain features that they could have only been written by somebody with inside information. I realise this is circumstancial evidence at best, but it's enough for me.

Having been in the IT business for going on 11 years now, I can tell you that there are plenty of programmers who are simply that good at this stuff. It's sort of scary.

I work with MS stuff at my job but have an iMac at home. Best computer I ever owned. Plus it looks like R2D2 with a TV on his head.

[Archangel]

Wow, is this some sort of weird coinkydink?

Who would have thought that so many Mac Users would also be kilt wearers?

We DO like to be comfortable don't we, on many levels.

It is so scary to realize that not only are there other kilt wearers out there, but those people are also Mac fans, Batman fans, pointy thing fans, martial art fans, loud music fans. There's also a couple of bike fans, hard core Scotland fans and nice people fans. Oh, don't forget, Dread fans.

It's like a home away from home, sometimes.

[Southern Breeze]

Oh. And word of advice to to hardware hobbiests.

DON'T TOUCH THE CRT TUBE!

If you never listen to anything Dread says,LISTEN TO THIS!The voltage in these babies is very high and lethal(one touch and your screwed).The CRTand capaciters can hold a fatal amount of current even when it has been unplugged for days.I"ve taken PC repair classes and I still leave them alone.Also,Don't mess with the power supply in the case.If it goes bad replace it and don't open it.

[Dreadbelly]

If you never listen to anything Dread says,LISTEN TO THIS!The voltage in these babies is very high and lethal(one touch and your screwed).The CRTand capaciters can hold a fatal amount of current even when it has been unplugged for days.I"ve taken PC repair classes and I still leave them alone.Also,Don't mess with the power supply in the case.If it goes bad replace it and don't open it.

I've hit one twice. The first was with a Mac Plus, the second with a Mac Classic. Both are compact Macs with the screen built in. Both times made me lie down and take a long nap on the floor. The first, I dunno what happened. No memory. Just a bright white light. I don't think I even touched it, just got to close. The second, I turned to get something and my elbow brushed up against it. For these reasons, I no longer work on compact classic Macs. I still lack the vocabulary to describe the pain... Only that it was a varitable symphony of tactile stimulation.

I would bet that I probably looked a lot like Young Einstein when he plugged his electric guitar in to the atomic bomb to drain it of energy and defuse it.

[Southern Breeze]

Dread you are one very,very ,very lucky man!!! The voltage in most CRTs and capacitors is around 25,000v.NO KIDDING.

[Dreadbelly]

Dread you are one very,very ,very lucky man!!! The voltage in most CRTs and capacitors is around 25,000v.NO KIDDING.

That's the new CRTs. The old CRTs like those used on classic Macs (With phosphor in the tube) typically had about 35,000 to 50,000, with up to 200,000 volts in static discharge just to get you warmed up before the real current hit. Static is harmless, like from a Van De Graff generator... But it would make you tingle if you were grounded. Once most people felt the static effect though, it was to late, the capacitor charge happened about a microsecond later.

There's a couple of old Mac techies that have stories to tell about hitting the old style CRT tubes.

[Southern Breeze]

I can imagine how you felt.I used to be a welder and twice while TIG welding grounded through my elbow(funny bone).Words still fail me when telling how it feels.I've heard stories from some of the older Mac guys myself.