Been awhile, but I need somewhat of an outlet, becauuse things have been VERY stressful in general.

My wife has a few *problems* (of the professional help variety, been going on for a couple years now) and has taken to destroying things around my apartment as a part of her *episodes*. Pretty much every Versa has cracks in it now except the P/75 - they all still work. The one that took the most hits was the 40EC, which thankfully I had an entire clean, like-new 40EC enclosure to put it in. The V/50's hinge area is exploded, my M/75 has cracks in it from me traveling around with it - the NanTans came out clean (NanTans are a bit tougher). Moondog took a tumble, one monitor, a DVD/VCR Combo, and one CRT TV are broken, and there's been a lot of fighting and arguing trying to start as of late as a result. I basically, live in hell right now.

So right now I have been slowly, between *episodes* dealing with all the vintage equipment and trying to minimize because I'm looking either getting myself, or getting US the hell out of there since our apartment is a "trigger". Most of these problems came from a neighbor that terrorized her for an entire year (and our shitbox Aparmtent did fuck-all to help due to COVID eviction moratoriums). But that's not vintage stuff. However, the SPACE part of it is. I'm looking at either getting a storage unit, getting that rental house (or one of them), or both.

Did fix up my main 486 desktop for now, as I'm planning to shuffle HDDs again. Seems I can't get bloody U7 to work on anything running FreeDOS, so I'm moving back to MS-DOS for now (sigh). Seems to have something to do with how FreeCOM reports memory management to Ultima 7. Might start just doing up the Laptops with quad-boot Win95/3.11/DOS setups like my M/75 has (which needs the least mending ). Fixed the main 486 desktop up, video card now goes through clearly, and everythings very stable. I also may be selling some more machines vintage and modern as I just got a Surface, another victim was the Lenovo T61 (which still boots but the screen is cracked and the battery case is chipped open). Will pull the HDD from it and throw another drive and likely sell it as a parts unit.

THis really sucks, I got Famicom adapters for my NES for Christmas, I wanted to try obtaining some import carts to mess around with. But finances, family issues, and everything else have been making my life a literal shitshow for the past 2-3 months. I've been working on my website more to escape it all.

creepingnet wrote on 2023-01-04, 20:30:

Been awhile, but I need somewhat of an outlet, becauuse things have been VERY stressful in general. […]
Show full quote

Been awhile, but I need somewhat of an outlet, becauuse things have been VERY stressful in general.

My wife has a few *problems* (of the professional help variety, been going on for a couple years now) and has taken to destroying things around my apartment as a part of her *episodes*. Pretty much every Versa has cracks in it now except the P/75 - they all still work. The one that took the most hits was the 40EC, which thankfully I had an entire clean, like-new 40EC enclosure to put it in. The V/50's hinge area is exploded, my M/75 has cracks in it from me traveling around with it - the NanTans came out clean (NanTans are a bit tougher). Moondog took a tumble, one monitor, a DVD/VCR Combo, and one CRT TV are broken, and there's been a lot of fighting and arguing trying to start as of late as a result. I basically, live in hell right now.

So right now I have been slowly, between *episodes* dealing with all the vintage equipment and trying to minimize because I'm looking either getting myself, or getting US the hell out of there since our apartment is a "trigger". Most of these problems came from a neighbor that terrorized her for an entire year (and our shitbox Aparmtent did fuck-all to help due to COVID eviction moratoriums). But that's not vintage stuff. However, the SPACE part of it is. I'm looking at either getting a storage unit, getting that rental house (or one of them), or both.

Did fix up my main 486 desktop for now, as I'm planning to shuffle HDDs again. Seems I can't get bloody U7 to work on anything running FreeDOS, so I'm moving back to MS-DOS for now (sigh). Seems to have something to do with how FreeCOM reports memory management to Ultima 7. Might start just doing up the Laptops with quad-boot Win95/3.11/DOS setups like my M/75 has (which needs the least mending ). Fixed the main 486 desktop up, video card now goes through clearly, and everythings very stable. I also may be selling some more machines vintage and modern as I just got a Surface, another victim was the Lenovo T61 (which still boots but the screen is cracked and the battery case is chipped open). Will pull the HDD from it and throw another drive and likely sell it as a parts unit.

THis really sucks, I got Famicom adapters for my NES for Christmas, I wanted to try obtaining some import carts to mess around with. But finances, family issues, and everything else have been making my life a literal shitshow for the past 2-3 months. I've been working on my website more to escape it all.

Darn dude. Work on yourself and take the red pill. That's all I can advise

gmaverick2k wrote on 2023-01-04, 20:47:

Darn dude. Work on yourself and take the red pill. That's all I can advise

Not really looking for advice. I'm not the problem - she is. Just venting.

If you've been in a relationship with someone for 10+ years and suddenly things start going sideways, you don't just drop em'. You at least try to work on the relationship at least a little bit first. After all, I am a "caregiver" in this case, I do have access to medical (as difficult as it can be though). It's just a LOT harder than I think people realize it is. They think you stuff a pill in the patient's mouth and everything is fixed right away - not so. I'm giving it some time within reason. I'm not really sharing more about this specific scenario than that. I'd like to keep most of my privacy. Again, I needed to vent. Staying with her is totally dependent on . That said, not a fan of Redpill/MGTOW, or whatever, also not a fan of the whole Incel thing. I made a total asshole of myself in the 2000's with this crap, and all I can do is take a look at my own species and shake my head. Admittedly, I'm a bit of a misanthrope. If you are truly "going your own way" because of a girl, are you truly "going your own way" then?

The boundary for this is if the medical treatments coming up don't help at all. Things got better after the neighbor left for a time, then went sideways due to some other *triggers*. That's where I'll start doing plan C, which I won't be posting about here, as it could involve litigation. I have everything planned out. It's just very stressful because there's a lot of "Nintendo" (Leave luck to the "heavens") involved.

creepingnet wrote on 2023-01-04, 21:31:

Not really looking for advice. I'm not the problem - she is. Just venting. […]
Show full quote

gmaverick2k wrote on 2023-01-04, 20:47:

Darn dude. Work on yourself and take the red pill. That's all I can advise

Not really looking for advice. I'm not the problem - she is. Just venting.

If you've been in a relationship with someone for 10+ years and suddenly things start going sideways, you don't just drop em'. You at least try to work on the relationship at least a little bit first. After all, I am a "caregiver" in this case, I do have access to medical (as difficult as it can be though). It's just a LOT harder than I think people realize it is. They think you stuff a pill in the patient's mouth and everything is fixed right away - not so. I'm giving it some time within reason. I'm not really sharing more about this specific scenario than that. I'd like to keep most of my privacy. Again, I needed to vent. Staying with her is totally dependent on . That said, not a fan of Redpill/MGTOW, or whatever, also not a fan of the whole Incel thing. I made a total asshole of myself in the 2000's with this crap, and all I can do is take a look at my own species and shake my head. Admittedly, I'm a bit of a misanthrope. If you are truly "going your own way" because of a girl, are you truly "going your own way" then?

The boundary for this is if the medical treatments coming up don't help at all. Things got better after the neighbor left for a time, then went sideways due to some other *triggers*. That's where I'll start doing plan C, which I won't be posting about here, as it could involve litigation. I have everything planned out. It's just very stressful because there's a lot of "Nintendo" (Leave luck to the "heavens") involved.

This shit is why you don't get married. Too expensive, too stressful, *way* too expensive to get out of.

If my best friend or close family or anyone went around smashing my retro computers, the number one source of pride in my life, I'd probably end up in jail for a good minute. I've spent years and thousands of dollars collecting this stuff. Most of it costs 5-10x what it did when I got it, and some of its rare enough I might not be able to just order a replacement for any price. Its the one hobby in which I'm better than 99 percent of people. Like I'd rather someone assault my person than my stuff, at least the former heals.

Best of luck to you with your situation.

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote on 2023-01-05, 03:31:

Its the one hobby in which I'm better than 99 percent of people.

Oh how I long to be part of the 1% some day...

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote on 2023-01-05, 03:31:

This shit is why you don't get married. Too expensive, too stressful, *way* too expensive to get out of. […]
Show full quote

creepingnet wrote on 2023-01-04, 21:31:

Not really looking for advice. I'm not the problem - she is. Just venting. […]
Show full quote

gmaverick2k wrote on 2023-01-04, 20:47:

Darn dude. Work on yourself and take the red pill. That's all I can advise

Not really looking for advice. I'm not the problem - she is. Just venting.

If you've been in a relationship with someone for 10+ years and suddenly things start going sideways, you don't just drop em'. You at least try to work on the relationship at least a little bit first. After all, I am a "caregiver" in this case, I do have access to medical (as difficult as it can be though). It's just a LOT harder than I think people realize it is. They think you stuff a pill in the patient's mouth and everything is fixed right away - not so. I'm giving it some time within reason. I'm not really sharing more about this specific scenario than that. I'd like to keep most of my privacy. Again, I needed to vent. Staying with her is totally dependent on . That said, not a fan of Redpill/MGTOW, or whatever, also not a fan of the whole Incel thing. I made a total asshole of myself in the 2000's with this crap, and all I can do is take a look at my own species and shake my head. Admittedly, I'm a bit of a misanthrope. If you are truly "going your own way" because of a girl, are you truly "going your own way" then?

The boundary for this is if the medical treatments coming up don't help at all. Things got better after the neighbor left for a time, then went sideways due to some other *triggers*. That's where I'll start doing plan C, which I won't be posting about here, as it could involve litigation. I have everything planned out. It's just very stressful because there's a lot of "Nintendo" (Leave luck to the "heavens") involved.

This shit is why you don't get married. Too expensive, too stressful, *way* too expensive to get out of.

If my best friend or close family or anyone went around smashing my retro computers, the number one source of pride in my life, I'd probably end up in jail for a good minute. I've spent years and thousands of dollars collecting this stuff. Most of it costs 5-10x what it did when I got it, and some of its rare enough I might not be able to just order a replacement for any price. Its the one hobby in which I'm better than 99 percent of people. Like I'd rather someone assault my person than my stuff, at least the former heals.

Best of luck to you with your situation.

I don't mean to devolve this into a completely offtopic argument but I have to point out that I found this post absolutely apalling. If mods take this to be a personal insult, then so be it, but this is borderline sociopathy. No matter what the value of any of my hobby belongings are, none of them can compare in value to my wife and child's physical or mental health. They are all, at the end of the day, just property and hobby. They can be replaced, sometimes with new hobbies even. On the other hand, we are talking about people that have made the majority of my adult life enjoyable and memorable. Success in life to me will be when life slows down and I settle, and I realize I am still in good company and my kid keeps wanting to come back to me for a good time, not when my PS/2 POSTs on its 40th birthday. This hobby gives me much joy but there is nothing more fulfilling than hearing someone call you "Daddy" or "Love" at the end of the day. I really think you need a perspective change..

While one's family should usually take precedent over their hobbies, there's still not many excuses for them to wantonly damage your possessions. However, if it's mental illness, best for people not to judge someone else's situation or use it as reasoning to bring up redpill ideology. Not going to debate that ideology, just agree it's not appropriate to bring up in this instance.

Marriage is a commitment you enter without an ability to predict the future, so one can hardly predict their partner developing mental health problems down the road - or developing them themselves.

I don't mind this being discussed, but it shouldn't be discussed in "What retro activity did you get up to today?". Also, is this really a red pill topic? To me it seems to do nothing with it, it's just an antisocial person who's overly obsessive about his hobby. I have guesses why, but I was off-topic long enough.

libby wrote on 2023-01-05, 09:37:

While one's family should usually take precedent over their hobbies, there's still not many excuses for them to wantonly damage your possessions. However, if it's mental illness, best for people not to judge someone else's situation or use it as reasoning to bring up redpill ideology. Not going to debate that ideology, just agree it's not appropriate to bring up in this instance.

Marriage is a commitment you enter without an ability to predict the future, so one can hardly predict their partner developing mental health problems down the road - or developing them themselves.

Sure no one can judge others if they are mentally unstable and insane, BUT when it comes to history, and preserving it, well then the shit gets criminally dirty in my book.... As History is the MOST important thing FOR every single human, without History we are nothing, we wont know shit about our ancestors, or how things got to where they are today...

Good at least with the many filthy scrappers, that there are many collectors, and enthusiasts that preserve the computer history...
I think people that use to destroy History, no matter the form, Computer HW, books, ancient statues/ buildings ect, should be PUNISHED, as there is NO bigger and disgusting crime then this....

appiah4 wrote on 2023-01-05, 08:04:

I don't mean to devolve this into a completely offtopic argument but I have to point out that I found this post absolutely apalling. If mods take this to be a personal insult, then so be it, but this is borderline sociopathy. No matter what the value of any of my hobby belongings are, none of them can compare in value to my wife and child's physical or mental health. They are all, at the end of the day, just property and hobby. They can be replaced, sometimes with new hobbies even. On the other hand, we are talking about people that have made the majority of my adult life enjoyable and memorable. Success in life to me will be when life slows down and I settle, and I realize I am still in good company and my kid keeps wanting to come back to me for a good time, not when my PS/2 POSTs on its 40th birthday. This hobby gives me much joy but there is nothing more fulfilling than hearing someone call you "Daddy" or "Love" at the end of the day. I really think you need a perspective change..

So you think destroying history is fine jesus...........

I guess u are one of these people that think, having a kids is the greatest achievement in their lifetime... I find that to be primitive thinking... This is exactly what certain people do in some places of the planet, they have like 10 or more kids in one family, and look how rich they are, and how good do they live.. And i think that having a kid, 2, 3 or more EVERYONE can do that... On other hand people like Tesla, Miceangelo, Einstein, Newton and many others, are the people that drive that society and humanity to higher levels... Not the people that just make more kids... The more the people on the planet, the less resources for everyone...

Radical Vision wrote on 2023-01-05, 09:57:

appiah4 wrote on 2023-01-05, 08:04:

I don't mean to devolve this into a completely offtopic argument but I have to point out that I found this post absolutely apalling. If mods take this to be a personal insult, then so be it, but this is borderline sociopathy. No matter what the value of any of my hobby belongings are, none of them can compare in value to my wife and child's physical or mental health. They are all, at the end of the day, just property and hobby. They can be replaced, sometimes with new hobbies even. On the other hand, we are talking about people that have made the majority of my adult life enjoyable and memorable. Success in life to me will be when life slows down and I settle, and I realize I am still in good company and my kid keeps wanting to come back to me for a good time, not when my PS/2 POSTs on its 40th birthday. This hobby gives me much joy but there is nothing more fulfilling than hearing someone call you "Daddy" or "Love" at the end of the day. I really think you need a perspective change..

So you think destroying history is fine jesus...........

First off, I did not say destroying history/historic artifacts is fine.

Second, you woulld realize that it is not actually history but a 20/40 year old piece of junk if you could get your head out of your ass and realize that any decent person would not even attempt to compare the value of a trivial belonging to another human life.

WELL i have a news for you, these 20/40 years old "junk" parts are computer history......... But after i did read junk, i dont think there can be made argument at all here, this is NOT even stupidity, it is INSANITY..... I know other computer enthusiasts, that also state, that scrappers, and people destroying old PC HW, need to be pursuit by the law....

Radical Vision wrote on 2023-01-05, 09:57:

Tesla, Miceangelo, Einstein, Newton and many others, are the people that drive that society and humanity to higher levels... Not the people that just make more kids...

You do realize that all those people were children of other people, right? Also, one of the main issue of the developed world is the aging population. The only place not having enough kids will drive society is into ruin.

creepingnet wrote on 2023-01-04, 20:30:

Been awhile, but I need somewhat of an outlet, becauuse things have been VERY stressful in general.

My best whishes to you and your family

Radical Vision wrote on 2023-01-05, 09:57:

I guess u are one of these people that think, having a kids is the greatest achievement in their lifetime... I find that to be primitive thinking... This is exactly what certain people do in some places of the planet, they have like 10 or more kids in one family, and look how rich they are, and how good do they live..

People in those 'places of the planet' are not poor because they have many children. Please do at least some basic research before propagating your primitive world view.

Radical Vision wrote on 2023-01-05, 09:57:

The more the people on the planet, the less resources for everyone...

The CO2 emission of one resident of e.g. Somalia (a country with a high fertility rate) is pretty much zero. In contrast to this it's over 100x more for one resident of any developed country. In terms of resources WE are the problem

Radical Vision wrote on 2023-01-05, 10:11:

WELL i have a news for you, these 20/40 years old "junk" parts are computer history......... But after i did read junk, i dont think there can be made argument at all here, this is NOT even stupidity, it is INSANITY..... I know other computer enthusiasts, that also state, that scrappers, and people destroying old PC HW, need to be pursuit by the law....

All the stuff in your, mine or any other collector's attic has no historic value until it becomes a) really rare and b) lands in a museum. Until then it's just junk in our attics. It's nice that we care about it and maybe some few of that stuff might someday end in a museum but I highly doubt it.
The actual historic value that we provide is this forum where a lot of knwoledge is collected for later generations. Historians don't care too much for items.

You may not like the idea, but scrappers have the same right that you have to do whatever they want with old electronics. For the environment (and availability of resources that you seem to care so much) they do an even better job than us.

On-topic: last week I finally installed my Toshiba Satellite notebook (Pentium II 233, OPL3). DOS, Win98 and Win2000 on a 60 GB mSATA SSD. I had a lot of trouble with this and I'm still not really happy with the result but I'm glad to finally have a usable portable Retro PC with very good DOS compatibility.

I think the history of I.T. can be really interesting.
At the end of the day, behind all those products, there are people who built them. Their story is always insightful.
The story of Jay Miner for example. Or Jack Tramiel, or...

I'm glad for example that the history Western Europe's I.T. got preserved. Not everyone grew up with the NES and PCs next. That's the American (and very narrow, and repeated way too often :p ) point of view.
No, here it was Sega products, Atari products, Commodore, Amstrad CPC, Oric32, MO5, and the like.

I'm sorry when I see that I know nothing and probably will know nothing about the I.T. history of South Korea for example, or Japan... All those Sharp x68000/PC-98/FM Towns games and apps and business around it that existed or still exist...
Simply because on top of being 40 years old by now, this story has a language and geographical barrier on top of it.
I would love to know so much more about it !

Imagine all those cool people behind it, what they might want to share about it. Their successes, their projects that went nowhere, the people they've seen as mentors, etc...

So yeah, I'm a bit sad when it gets dismissed as "Not history".

There are historians right now searching into the history of videogames for example. And it's not really about the videogames themselves...

Anyway, rant over.

TL;DR: People are cool.

Radical Vision wrote on 2023-01-05, 09:52:

Getting married will only make ur life miserable and shitty, since females have all the power then.. Then just don`t get married and don`t give them the power, or they will divorce and trow u under the bus...

If only I'd known that 40 years ago. I'd have married someone with ambition, then taken all their money 😀

60 year old spinster with nobody to tell me what I can or cannot do 😀

debs3759 wrote on 2023-01-05, 14:51:

Radical Vision wrote on 2023-01-05, 09:52:

Getting married will only make ur life miserable and shitty, since females have all the power then.. Then just don`t get married and don`t give them the power, or they will divorce and trow u under the bus...

If only I'd known that 40 years ago. I'd have married someone with ambition, then taken all their money 😀

60 year old spinster with nobody to tell me what I can or cannot do 😀

in order to get a taste of the high life you should secretly buy 1-2 3Dfx cards, store them somewhere you don't like them being stored and then await someone who asks "are there more parts" while providing the story that "husband is on work trip" then sell them

i think it unlocks an achievement or something!

xcomcmdr wrote on 2023-01-05, 14:28:

So yeah, I'm a bit sad when it gets dismissed as "Not history".

Just in case you are refering to my comment, that's not what I meant. Of course IT is a major part of our history. But the stuff in my attic doesn't contribute to preserving that simply by its existence. There's a lot more to that than just buying things, playing with them and then stashing them into boxes. It means preserving it for future generations. I can't even guarantee that my stuff survives the next year. For that it needs to be stored in a professional way (i.e. by a museum)

The more important role that we have is collecting information about all the stuff and share stories about it. Historians in 100 years will not care so much about the tenth version of a Voodoo 5 (that won't work then anyway) but about what part it had in our society. Hopefully copies of this forum will get archived somewhere but even that is not guaranteed. I have problems finding reviews from back then because many of the articles are gone. The Internet isn't a good place for preserving anything, just like my attic 😀

HanSolo wrote on 2023-01-05, 15:27:

Just in case you are refering to my comment, that's not what I meant. Of course IT is a major part of our history. But the stuff in my attic doesn't contribute to preserving that simply by its existence. There's a lot more to that than just buying things, playing with them and then stashing them into boxes. It means preserving it for future generations. I can't even guarantee that my stuff survives the next year. For that it needs to be stored in a professional way (i.e. by a museum)

The more important role that we have is collecting information about all the stuff and share stories about it. Historians in 100 years will not care so much about the tenth version of a Voodoo 5 (that won't work then anyway) but about what part it had in our society. Hopefully copies of this forum will get archived somewhere but even that is not guaranteed. I have problems finding reviews from back then because many of the articles are gone. The Internet isn't a good place for preserving anything, just like my attic 😀

that's a good way of putting it

we can think in terms of how things 100 years old are considered now. there is the 'role' it had in life of those times and the technical facts of its construction and usage, both together form the information that constitutes what is now 'history'

i suppose in part some collectors might hope that by preserving a few things then those things may well 'make it' past the "this is old trash" era and into a time when it is considered more of historical interest

even so, the abundance of everything means i think we'd struggle to bequeath old PC things to even the most enthusiastic museum, but one never knows

technical documentation of how it worked, archived forums of it being discussed and ancient youtube videos of it in action might help form a library of the PC past though

HanSolo wrote on 2023-01-05, 15:27:

Historians in 100 years will not care so much about the tenth version of a Voodoo 5 (that won't work then anyway) but about what part it had in our society. Hopefully copies of this forum will get archived somewhere but even that is not guaranteed. I have problems finding reviews from back then because many of the articles are gone. The Internet isn't a good place for preserving anything, just like my attic 😀

This makes me wonder... is there a complete copy of this forum being made anywhere that is accessible to anyone other than the owners of the site?

There are so many websites that I have been to that just vanish from the face of the earth because the archived copies on WayBackMachine aren't thorough (and are horrible slow to navigate)... most of them are forums.

What was that one big one that was like VOGONS but was heavily focused on sound cards and MIDI stuff? I used to see more references to it, but it was shut down and all of the resources there were almost completely lost.

There was another site I was a part of years ago that was one of the earliest video card review sites and when the owner went through some things and eventually passed away the site just vanished, along with the massive forum.

Or, on a slightly different note, take club-mst3k.com. Nearly 20 years of MST3K archives, comments and discussions. The owner went silent a year or two ago and no one knew him in person. With no one to ensure that the hosting was maintained, the site just died one day. The internet archive has the bones of the site, but there is a lot missing. Someone (possibly in Asia) started up a clone of the site, hosted elsewhere without any explanation an everyone was so happy... then it too just vanished after several months. No one knew the person that hosted it, so there's no way to get a copy of that site either.

I'd hate for any of this to happen here, but if it does, we need a way to archive this stuff in a way that anyone who has the ability can get it back online with all of the links going to the right place, all of the picture attachments, etc.

Is there even a good way to archive forums in a perfect 1:1 way like this? I have never found a method that worked right.