BSA Starfire wrote on 2021-06-13, 12:49:

HP z200 workstation rear.jpg HP z200 workstation.jpg […]
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HP z200 workstation rear.jpg
HP z200 workstation.jpg

Bought this today, a 2010 HP Z200 workstation, it has a Xeon X3450 CPU, 4 GB RAM and includes 3 caddy's for HD's. There is a GPU in there but no idea what until it arrives. I was short a machine as a friend needed a PC to replace a dead Toshiba ivybridge i3 all-in-one system(dreadful thing, all laptop parts!) so she has my AMD A6 3670K machine now to replace it. She's well happy as the old A6 is much faster than the Toshiba was.
This should do me fine, it was dirt cheap(less than £50 inc delivery from a seller I trust), and I very much like these HP workstations from this time frame, I still use a HP Proliant ML115 G5 with a AMD Opteron 1354 as my daily driver and that was from 2008.
Bit of a bargain I reckon and might be even better than I hope depending on the graphics card it has installed.

The z200 arrived the next day, working perfectly and in very nice condition. All I've done so far is install a 250GB Seagate Barracuda 7200MPM HD and Linux Mint 20. The GPU is Nvidia Quadro 2000, good match for the machine I feel. Anyway I've been using the system all week and I'm really please with the old beast. It's very, very quiet, responsive and a pleasure to use. 😀 Makes a great companion to my Opteron HP ML115-G5 and Custom Phenom II/Lian-Li/HD5870 build as daily drivers. Cracking computer for the price, and in fact just a cracking computer!

Picked up these items at a garage sale today:

- Criterion edition of The Princess Bride on Laserdisc.
- A lovely Staples Easy button that cheerfully states "that was easy!" when you smash it.
- Chip Mitchell: The Case of the Stolen Computer Brains by Fred D'Ignazio. In hardcover, too boot! This is exactly the type of book I would have read over and over again when I was a kid.
Plus, with charming illustrations like this...

...lovingly sprinkled throughout, I couldn't possibly turn it down, especially at the 75¢ asking price. 😜

But the reason I posted all of this in the Modern Hardware thread is because I also picked up this bad boy today:

Going from the 1334x750 LCD on my previous phone to this high res, high refresh AMOLED, all I can say is wa wa wee wa - I can definitely get used to this!

We've had powerful smartphones for years, but it still blows my mind that I can have a full blown computer with 8GB of RAM, 256GB of superfast storage, a 2.9GHz processor, and a freakin 328.83 Mb/s 5G connection in the palm of my hand. I mean, dang! That isn't much slower than my home connection, which clocks in at 546.3 Mb/s via this phone's WiFi 6 receiver. Remember when you were lucky to get a plodding 20 Kb/s to your Handspring Visor? But I've always been wildly enthusiastic about hand held computing. I remember being similarly blown away by iPaqs, Jornadas and Cassiopeias back in the day ("they can play MP3s!!").

Standard Def Steve wrote on 2021-06-26, 22:27:

Picked up these items at a garage sale today:IMG_0045.jpg - Criterion edition of The Princess Bride on Laserdisc. - A lovely St […]
Show full quote

Picked up these items at a garage sale today:IMG_0045.jpg
- Criterion edition of The Princess Bride on Laserdisc.
- A lovely Staples Easy button that cheerfully states "that was easy!" when you smash it.
- Chip Mitchell: The Case of the Stolen Computer Brains by Fred D'Ignazio. In hardcover, too boot! This is exactly the type of book I would have read over and over again when I was a kid.
Plus, with charming illustrations like this...
IMG_0046.jpg
...lovingly sprinkled throughout, I couldn't possibly turn it down, especially at the 75¢ asking price. 😜

But the reason I posted all of this in the Modern Hardware thread is because I also picked up this bad boy today:
IMG_0042.jpg
Going from the 1334x750 LCD on my previous phone to this high res, high refresh AMOLED, all I can say is wa wa wee wa - I can definitely get used to this!

We've had powerful smartphones for years, but it still blows my mind that I can have a full blown computer with 8GB of RAM, 256GB of superfast storage, a 2.9GHz processor, and a freakin 328.83 Mb/s 5G connection in the palm of my hand. I mean, dang! That isn't much slower than my home connection, which clocks in at 546.3 Mb/s via this phone's WiFi 6 receiver. Remember when you were lucky to get a plodding 20 Kb/s to your Handspring Visor? But I've always been wildly enthusiastic about hand held computing. I remember being similarly blown away by iPaqs, Jornadas and Cassiopeias back in the day ("they can play MP3s!!").

I'm getting a very strong sense of "déjà vu" from that illustration even though I am confident that I have never read the book .

I'm still using a Galaxy S7 . I plan to upgrade around next year . If there was a higher end version of this https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/ , I would jump on it. A friend with a failing Galaxy S7 is downgrading/sidegrading/upgrading to one of those, so I should get some perspective soon .

Bought a Corsair Graphite Series 760T full ATX case (hinged side panel doors) for $29.99 + tax at a thrift store for my main desktop.

Photos:

Sorry about the lighting. Didn't want to use the flash on my phone and it's high time to invest in LED lights for my car's interior.

That's a fantastic deal for that case.

darry wrote on 2021-06-26, 22:31:

Standard Def Steve wrote on 2021-06-26, 22:27:

Picked up these items at a garage sale today:IMG_0045.jpg - Criterion edition of The Princess Bride on Laserdisc. - A lovely St […]
Show full quote

Picked up these items at a garage sale today:IMG_0045.jpg
- Criterion edition of The Princess Bride on Laserdisc.
- A lovely Staples Easy button that cheerfully states "that was easy!" when you smash it.
- Chip Mitchell: The Case of the Stolen Computer Brains by Fred D'Ignazio. In hardcover, too boot! This is exactly the type of book I would have read over and over again when I was a kid.
Plus, with charming illustrations like this...
IMG_0046.jpg
...lovingly sprinkled throughout, I couldn't possibly turn it down, especially at the 75¢ asking price. 😜

But the reason I posted all of this in the Modern Hardware thread is because I also picked up this bad boy today:
IMG_0042.jpg
Going from the 1334x750 LCD on my previous phone to this high res, high refresh AMOLED, all I can say is wa wa wee wa - I can definitely get used to this!

We've had powerful smartphones for years, but it still blows my mind that I can have a full blown computer with 8GB of RAM, 256GB of superfast storage, a 2.9GHz processor, and a freakin 328.83 Mb/s 5G connection in the palm of my hand. I mean, dang! That isn't much slower than my home connection, which clocks in at 546.3 Mb/s via this phone's WiFi 6 receiver. Remember when you were lucky to get a plodding 20 Kb/s to your Handspring Visor? But I've always been wildly enthusiastic about hand held computing. I remember being similarly blown away by iPaqs, Jornadas and Cassiopeias back in the day ("they can play MP3s!!").

I'm getting a very strong sense of "déjà vu" from that illustration even though I am confident that I have never read the book .

I'm still using a Galaxy S7 . I plan to upgrade around next year . If there was a higher end version of this https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/ , I would jump on it. A friend with a failing Galaxy S7 is downgrading/sidegrading/upgrading to one of those, so I should get some perspective soon .

IIRC, one of the computer lab textbooks I used in elementary school had a very similar style of illustration - right down to the Apple II look-alike! If you were a kid in Canada in the late 80s to early 90s, perhaps you used the same book to guide you through Logo. 😜

Hit a yard sale this morning, had computer stuff, yay! Not a lot of computer stuff, or particularly old computer stuff though... I grabbed a thinkpad dock that had a post-it saying 400 series on it, nice, just what I want for my T400... until I get home and check up, it's for T410, T420 etc, I think life is telling me to get a T420, because I grabbed a "T400 series" battery last year to find it was for a T420 too, derp. I either need to get a perfect memory for the option part numbers of every piece of hardware I have, or data on my phone or something.

Then there was the junkbox, everything a buck! So grabbed 2 SATA DVD drives, one desktop, one laptop, a D-Link DIR655, a slot blower, a USB floppy, and a pair of logitech noise loudeners, and got all 6 for $5. Don't have real high hopes of the drives working, the slot blower I bought to have to mod for a spare GPU blower if needed, the router because even if it sucks as a router, it's a gigabit switch, has a USB, so might function as a USB storage wifi modem, and/or it's got 3 nice removable antennas just like a couple of PCI wifi cards I've got haven't. The speaker set I nearly left, but they had advantages of being small and self powered, no large wallwart, so I thought they might come in handy. Tested those, and if it's the only thing that works for my $5 I won't be very upset, because for a tiny coned set of speakers they sound pretty good. I mean they were never gonna have "room filling" sound or punch in the gut bass, but they are quite impressive for their package. They are the Logitech S120 set that still look current. If you have particular need for a compact set for use with a laptop or desktop space is tight for one of your many builds, then these might actually be worth considering at the ~$20 you can get them at retail.

Standard Def Steve wrote on 2021-06-27, 15:19:

darry wrote on 2021-06-26, 22:31:

Standard Def Steve wrote on 2021-06-26, 22:27:

Picked up these items at a garage sale today:IMG_0045.jpg - Criterion edition of The Princess Bride on Laserdisc. - A lovely St […]
Show full quote

Picked up these items at a garage sale today:IMG_0045.jpg
- Criterion edition of The Princess Bride on Laserdisc.
- A lovely Staples Easy button that cheerfully states "that was easy!" when you smash it.
- Chip Mitchell: The Case of the Stolen Computer Brains by Fred D'Ignazio. In hardcover, too boot! This is exactly the type of book I would have read over and over again when I was a kid.
Plus, with charming illustrations like this...
IMG_0046.jpg
...lovingly sprinkled throughout, I couldn't possibly turn it down, especially at the 75¢ asking price. 😜

But the reason I posted all of this in the Modern Hardware thread is because I also picked up this bad boy today:
IMG_0042.jpg
Going from the 1334x750 LCD on my previous phone to this high res, high refresh AMOLED, all I can say is wa wa wee wa - I can definitely get used to this!

We've had powerful smartphones for years, but it still blows my mind that I can have a full blown computer with 8GB of RAM, 256GB of superfast storage, a 2.9GHz processor, and a freakin 328.83 Mb/s 5G connection in the palm of my hand. I mean, dang! That isn't much slower than my home connection, which clocks in at 546.3 Mb/s via this phone's WiFi 6 receiver. Remember when you were lucky to get a plodding 20 Kb/s to your Handspring Visor? But I've always been wildly enthusiastic about hand held computing. I remember being similarly blown away by iPaqs, Jornadas and Cassiopeias back in the day ("they can play MP3s!!").

I'm getting a very strong sense of "déjà vu" from that illustration even though I am confident that I have never read the book .

I'm still using a Galaxy S7 . I plan to upgrade around next year . If there was a higher end version of this https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/ , I would jump on it. A friend with a failing Galaxy S7 is downgrading/sidegrading/upgrading to one of those, so I should get some perspective soon .

IIRC, one of the computer lab textbooks I used in elementary school had a very similar style of illustration - right down to the Apple II look-alike! If you were a kid in Canada in the late 80s to early 90s, perhaps you used the same book to guide you through Logo. 😜

That might be it. I was a kid in Canada during that timeframe (my junior high math books still had type-in BASIC programs for either the Apple II or some other 8-bit micro, AFAICR). I never did take elective LOGO (LOG Writer specifically, AFAICR) classes, but I had friends who did and I might well have paged through a manual or two . Could you please share the illustrator's name (assuming he or she is credited )?

EDIT : Never mind, I see it is Larry Pearson on the cover .

I ordered another 32GB of RAM today, which will bring me up to a mind bending 64GB. That's 500 times more memory than my P3-550 had 20 years ago!

I absolutely don't need that much memory, but the two empty slots on the motherboard were bothering me. Thing is, even after this upgrade, I won't be anywhere near the motherboard's memory ceiling. It'll happily accommodate 128 of the little devils, should I ever be man enough to purchase 32GB DIMMs. 😜

Standard Def Steve wrote on 2021-06-30, 23:33:

I ordered another 32GB of RAM today, which will bring me up to a mind bending 64GB. That's 500 times more memory than my P3-550 had 20 years ago!

I absolutely don't need that much memory, but the two empty slots on the motherboard were bothering me. This is, even after this upgrade, I won't be anywhere near the motherboard's memory ceiling. It'll happily accommodate 128 of the little devils, should I ever be man enough to purchase 32GB DIMMs. 😜

When I did a Windows 3.1 introductory course way back when one of the first things the tutor said was put as much ram in the system it could possibly take...😀

I ran 16MB on a 386DX/40 + FPU on WFW back in the day.

I don't see why you wouldn't use 32GB on a newly built system today, you need 16GB just for some/most games.

I have 16GB and I want double that already.

12GB for me and my plan is to upgrade to the latest Ryzen with M.2 nVME for the storage (2TB for the OS, 2TB for storage, and another 2TB for the other storage if they make boards that supports 3 of them or 4TB if they make ones bigger than 2TB), 32GB RAM, etc.

bjwil1991 wrote on 2021-07-01, 07:35:

4TB if they make ones bigger than 2TB

https://www.corsair.com/eu/en/Categories/Prod … SD-F8000GBMP400

bjwil1991 wrote on 2021-07-01, 07:35:

the latest Ryzen with M.2 nVME for the storage (2TB for the OS, 2TB for storage, and another 2TB for the other storage if they make boards that supports 3 of them

http://www.gigabyte.pl/products/page/mb/B550- … ASTER-rev-10#kf

Decomming out-of-warranty Dell Latitudes at work with FreeDOS 1.3 RC4....why? Because that's what's around, and if verifies that they work anyway....when they can boot from it.

Bought a modern NES board from Tindie (last one in stock).

Going to order parts from Digi-Key and source a beyond repair NES front loader board to start making the board assembly.

Photos:

Bought some SATA data cables, a pack of 120mm case fans, and a TPM module for my main desktop.

I bought myself a new Socket AM4 cooler, the Snowman M-T6. Such good performance for such a cheap cooler.

Grabbed a 2TB Barracuda for pocket change, ST2000DM006 ... dude says "needs formatting" ... yah so some kind of screwed up whether software or hardware... what's the go to for these now, seatools or something? Obviously I don't want to hook it up to a windows system until it's sterile, wanna boot off a USB or something with tools. Looks like what I want here, https://www.seagate.com/ca/en/support/downloads/seatools/ downloading it now, running it later unless anyone says "Noooooo!!!!! use foobardiskdemonexpressturboelite!" or something.