So I just emailed IBM… I’m hoping for some help from their historical / archive department. I’ve got the bit of core memory that I think came from an IBM machine. See, I want to frame these pieces, but it’d be nice to add a tag crediting where these pieces actually came from. Maybe even some photos of the machine itself. Hopefully they’ll write me back…
Hmm. I can’t seem to make my plain old generic standard Compact Flash reader work with OS X. The card works fine on a PC, the reader shows up in Apple Device Profiler, but the disk doesn’t seem to work. It’s plugged into a powered hub which is connected to a root port on the cube itself. I’ve also tried it passed through the keyboard. No go.
Any ideas?
After using a Mac at home for the last week, and being here at work and needing to work quickly on a PC, I’m really starting to think that while Macs are nice, a PC workstation and a FreeBSD file server are what I need to get the kind of work done that I want to do. I’m having problems with the OS X interface not having the kinds of keyboard shortcuts I want, mostly due to lack of availability of flexible instant messengers, and the difficulties with Finder as opposed to Explorer.
Wow, tonight was definitely a night of getting work done. Let’s see what got done:
– Shuffled hard drives in the file server (\\golgotha). There was a 20GB as /var/storage and a 40GB as /var/storage/Audio. The 40GB is now /var/storage and a new 80GB is /var/storage/Audio. All data shuffled over intact.
– Installed a DDS-1 drive in \\golgotha to augment the DLT and handle small nightly backups.
– \\golgotha uses smbtar to pull a copy of my email, cookies, favorites, and chat logs off of my desktop (nuxx) every night at 3am and once on the first of each month, creating nightly and monthly archives.
– \\golgotha dumps the database for thefest.org‘s bbs at 2am, using a nightly/monthly scheme.
– Golgotha takes the files from \\nuxx and the various important files from \\golgotha, including financial and website stuff, and backs it up to DDS drive.
– Wrote scripts to back up the various important directories on \\golgotha to DLT (eg: /var/storage/Audio, /var/storage, /var/storage/Video) and created appropriate tape sets.
– Hooked a second UPS to the network rack down in the basement. The previous single UPS couldn’t handle more than a 30 second load.
– Put a second coat of paint on the trim around my living room and hallway. Also patched a couple more nicks and dents in the walls that I found.
Wow, yeah, quite a busy night. At least I got stuff done for once. hehe. Tomorrow afternoon I’m supposed to head over to my sister and brother-in-law’s house and show them how to hang moulding up around rooms the same way I’d done it. It’s not hard, it just helps to have someone to show you.
So, yeah. With that I think it’s bed time. Well, in a minute… I need to finish watching this backup script run manually, then I’ll add it to root’s crontab and things will be good.
For what it’s worth, WebDAV seems pretty cool. I still need to work on the authentication stuff, but as soon as that’s resolved I should be able to edit my site easily from work. Thanks, Windows XP, for supporting WebDAV right smack dab in the OS, like mapping any old drive.
…just need to get security working properly.
Remember not too long ago when I posted something about all the tubes I acquired? Well, as part of that I acquired some plans for the HAL-4096, the first computer ever used to demonstrate the synthesis of music. Anyway, just now I received some email back from one of the people who worked on it, Dave Cox:
Click here to read…
Ahh. Got the bit of patch trim around the moulding in the halls done, also installed the new smoke detectors.
I think that the next project after the living room painting will be to build a L-shaped desk that allows me to face the corner while using the computer. I’m still not sure if I want a freestanding desk or if I want one that hangs on the wall. The freestanding desk has the advantage of being movable, should I ever want my desk elsewhere. The on-the-wall the desk has the advantage of providing more leg room, possibly easier cable management, and just looking cooler. I still don’t know how I’d hang the desk on the wall, but the more I think about it, the more I wish I could weld nice steel supports and epoxy coat them, then place a nice glass top on the desk. If I go with the hanging-on-the-wall desk, I’ll likely end up with something wood, supported with metal (steel or iron) braces, with a plastic laminate on the top. If the stand-alone desk is built, then there will be two end panels, a center support in the corner, and cable management hangers. Well, I guess we’ll just have to see what ends up getting done… This project is probably a month out at this point.
What does everyone think, though? Free-standing desk, or one that hangs off of the wall? I’ve had my desk in it’s current position for the last ~2 years I’ve lived here, and I’m pretty happy with it here. The only way I’d move it is if someone moved in here or something.
Okay, so I see everyone is curious about the waffles… Well, here’s some more pictures for you. There are lots more waffles than one might imagine:
< -- In Freezer / On Counter -- >
Here’s the deal… Costco has large boxes of Eggo waffles for somewhere around $6. This isn’t much more than the price of a normal small box of waffles, so I got the large one. I figure they’ll make good breakfast and snack foods for the next while.
Tonight I got the cube back together for what is hopefully the last time. First off, I managed to pop the heatsinks off of the GeForce 2 MX after it’s time in the freezer. This went smoothly, and with the help of a razor blade and some starter fluid (mmm…ether) I got most of the epoxy residue off of the chips and heatsinks. Next came the mixing of the Arctic Silver epoxy. This was applied to the chips, and the heatsinks were clamped tightly in place. After a bit of time during which my friend Eric and I putzed around with a message board at thefest.org, I removed the clamps and happily, the heatsinks are now properly in place. Woo! The cube is back up and running, being happy as ever. I’m really happy to have it back. Also, I returned the crappy Kensington keyboard I had purchased and picked up one of the new Apple keyboards to go with the cube. Wow, what a difference… It’s so tiny, too. The board is literally only the size of the keys themselves. It fits very nicely right in front of my monitor. Woo! Finally a (completely) working Apple. I hope. ;)
Ahh… The video card has been removed from the G4 Cube and placed in the freezer. Why, you ask? Well, it seems I dorked in epoxying the heatsink on and I need to remove it*. I think I screwed up the application of epoxy and didn’t get an even layer on the GPU. So, I’m borrowing a tube of Arctic Silver Silver Thermal Adhesive from a friend and I’m going to reapply the heatsink. Hopefully it will all go smoothly. The only problem I can see running into is if I crack the GPU when removing the heatsink, if I can’t get the epoxy off of the heatsink, or of I fail to apply the adheasive properly. Again. We’ll see… Click on this for a picture of the card in the freezer…
* Removal is accomplished by chilling the card inside a baggie then popping the heatsink off with a screwdriver. I’ve done it before, we’ll see if it works this time.