About My Computers.....

I have several computers that I use to assist me in my daily battles against homework, boredom, and isolation. Here's a quick overview of what's in my lab (read: bedroom). This page in entirely devoted to worshiping my incredible ability to stick random pieces of computer hardware together and call them "working".

Primary computer

This is my primary computer, but it is very hard to describe. It's nature governed by the laws of chaos, which make quantitative description tough. I can say that it's random number generator is so complex that it actually does a better job of generating random concepts and ideas. When forced to produce a random number, it usually comes back with 42. The consistency at which this occurs might lead one to believe that it is an improbably random number generator.
This computer's memory is supposedly vast and highly adaptable, but do to the fact that it relies on a chemical-electrical system for storing data makes data integrity deteriorate over time.
Its ability to do floating point math is abysmal.
My primary computer
My secondary computer, G4 933.
The stickies over the power button are there to cover the LED, which lights the room like a torch at night.

My Secondary Computer

This is my secondary computer, a G4 933. It replaced an aging 7200/120*. It's the first new computer I've ever had, and four years later, I'm just as thrilled with it as i was when i got it. It is more reliable (especially in OS X) and easier to work on than most other macs i've had. It's been upgraded with an Apple SCSI card, a 20 gig seagate Barracuda SCSI disk, a no-name REALTEK ethernet card, 756 megs of RAM, a OrangeMicro Firewire/USB 2.0 card, a round scsi cable, a flashed Sapphire Radeon 7000 (64 meg) PCI, and LiteOn 48x12x40 Firewire/USB 2.0 CDRW, and a myriad of other USB peripherals. and, of course, an iBot webcam. I've done some minor case mods chronicled elsewhere to quiet it a bit. One day, when I'm really rich, I'll put a faster SCSI card, and populate it with CL2 memory.

My Tertiary Computer

I bought this Dell XPS T500 from my housemate in may of 2004. It ended up inheriting a bunch of stuff from the old Dell. It is a PIII 500 with 192 megs of RAM. It has about 40 gigs of disk spread across 4 drives (1 20 gig, 1 10 gig, and 2 4 gig drives in a RAID 0, a 8x DVD Hitachi DVD, an HP cd writer 9100 (8x4x24). It's been pumped with a 4 port NIC, a 3com 3905C NIC, a FastTrack66 ATA RAID controller, a Radeon 9200se 128 PCI, and a Radeon 9200se 128 AGP. This computer usually dual-boots Mandrake 9.1 and Windows 2000 (when it works, that is...). I actually have little affinity for Dells, it just happens that they are often the cheapest available when I have money to upgrade.
My tertiary Computer, a Dell Dell XPS T500. Looks a lot like the old Dell.

My Quaternary Computer

My Quaternary Computer

This is my trusty rev. 2 Ti-89. By far the most ubiquitous problem solving tool on any engineering or science campus, this pocket dymo, while considerably less able than most of my other computers, is infinitely more portable, and more geared toward solving problems. Although it doesn't normally solve personal issues (I have seen it create them), it is very useful for doing complicated integration, finding the limit of absurd functions, and doing Taylor expansions.

My Quientary Computer

I was visiting my Uncle sometime in the not-so-distant past, and I found that he had this old Newton MessagePad. It's the original... it's primary purpose is basically to be a toy, although it seems to be pretty capable of storing phone numbers... if I enter them in using another computer. The really cool thing is that it can be used as a remote control
My Quientary Computer, an Apple Newton


Computer I used to have, but am to lazy to remove from my web page

Quadra 950

I used this computer as my primary from my sophomore to my senior year of high school. It had 40 megs of RAM, a SuperMac Video Spigot, a Radius Thunder Photoshop accelerator, 3 hard disks, and a hard to close case. I gave it to some poor, anguishing high schooler this year, who was still using a Performa. Now he can at least play Marathon decently. I had Debian 3.0 running on it, although i was unable to get X working. I learned a bit about setting up httpd, ftpd, and just how much horse power it takes to run SSH.
My old Quadra 950.

HP Pavilion 3250

I got this HP Pavilion 3250 on ebay. I upgraded it to 256 megs of ram, a 20 gig hard disk, and a 10/100 PCMCIA ethernet card. I dual booted Red Hat Linux and Win2k on it. It had a little bit of a heat issue where I discovered that leaving it on with the lid closed will cook in inside components. I used it mostly for work, so it sat in the corner as a SETI slave. It cost me a ton of time and energy, and I eventually sold it for scrap.

My ex-Quintary computer

Dell XPS D266

I won this Dell XPS D266. at the NMT auction in May of 2003. It's a Pentium II 266 (as you may have guessed...) At the time it had 32 megs of ram, a 3 gig hard disk, and a nVidia RIVA video card. Since then i have scavenged an additional 28 gigs of disk (across 3 drives), a CDRW, 64 more megs of memory, a 56k modem, enough NICs to give it 6 ethernet ports (Don't ask why. I don't know...), a ATA66 RAID controller (with a working RAID) and I bought an All-In-Wonder Radeon 7500 card for it. I got bored last christmas and drilled some holes in the front which I've filled with various status LEDs. It dual-boots Mandrake 9.1 and Windows 2000. After a failed attempt at upgrading to a pentium III, I've decided to humbled my upgrade goals and dealt with it for several months where it faithful saw me through many, many pchem lab write ups (LaTEX rocks!). Then I bought the PIII from my old housemate in may 2004. It ended up getting chopped into little bits by my brother as he modified it to accept standard components into the decidedly non-standard Dell hardware.
My ex-tertiary Computer, a Dell XPS266. It functioned as a miniature book shelf. I cleaned it off to take this photo.

*Which, in turn, replaced a 6100/66, which replaced a Quadra 950, which replaced a Mac IIfx, which replaced a Mac IIx.


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