The New Computer Treadmill
Dec. 3rd, 2002 01:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aI bought a new computer this morning.
Actually, that's a lie. I bought a *used* computer this morning, because a new computer would have been wastefully expensive, would have prevented the repayment of debt, and generally would have been silly.
Our Home Server
At home we have a Linux server, erzo.org, which![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kimberly_nlts and I use for our web and mail server. It's where you can find Nothing Like the Sun and Our Personal Pages.
I've actually had a UNIX server sitting in my house since about 1991 or so. At that time it was a 386(!) running a UNIX version cunningly named 386BSD. It was nicely convenient to download and upload my email with UUCP so that I didn't have to actually connect with a modem, and take the extra couple of minutes whenever I wanted to see who loved me. Back in those days the email address was actually erzo.berkeley.edu, because it was hard to get your own domain name, let alone to host it.
Since then having a server has allowed me to host multiple email accounts, host mailing lists, and in the web era host a couple of web pages. But, it necessitates keeping a server running, which can sometimes be adventurous.
Here's What Happened
Last weekend erzo.org 3.0 started making ominous sounds. Fan-dying type sounds that presage future heat death.
By last night they'd grown to a nails-on-the-chalkboard intensity that made my home office virtually unusable and that caused the cats to keep wandering in, sniffing the computer with slightly frightened looks on their faces, and then backing out as soon as they could, to hide in Kimberly's office, or within the sound-muffling confines of their cat tree.
So, I did what any good hacker would do. I ripped the damned computer apart.
It turned out that the fan on the CPU unit was dying. And the fan on the power supply was dying. Hence the helicopter-taking-off type sounds.
So this morning I ran around a bit to get some new fans. Unfortunately my local computer store didn't have the type of fan I needed for the CPU, because it was too old. Their only CPU fans were these two-ton monstrosities that fit on top of the newest CPUs, which require 50 watts of juice all on their own, and which provide enough cooling power for most small families living on the equator. Fortunately they had a new power supply that supposedly would work with my mother board. I figured, that got me halfway there, and if I just replaced the power supply, at least my home office might be usable again.
But, you probably noticed my use of the word supposedly. See, the motherboard in erzo 3.0 could take two different types of power supply connections. We'll call them "ancient connection type" and "old connection type". I'd been using "ancient connection type", but with the new power supply I needed to instead get the "old connection type", which was actually still available.
Of course the previously untried "old connection type" didn't work and so back it was to Ye Olde Computer Store, by now becoming an old friend.
Fortunately, said computer store seems to make it money most off of barely-post-pubescent boys who must have the newest, quickest, graphicyest machine so that they can play Doom Quake of Marathon XVI and better frag their friends and engage in other meaningful Internet interactions. This requires updating your computer every 1-2 months else the newest 3-D raytraced polygon games won't work.
Long story short: I was able to get a new, used computer about 30% better than erzo 3.0 and with a couple of years more modern parts for about twice the cost that it would have taken just to replace the fan and the power supply. And Ye Olde Computer Store was even kind enough to refund me for that power supply which I couldn't use.
A third stop by the store was required a bit later to get a keyboard convertor, since none of the keyboards in my house matched the PS-2 keyboard plugs on the machine. Hopefully when I get back home tonight I'll be able to swap hard drives into the new machine, and all will be well. Fingers crossed.
For those of you in Berkeley: Quality Computers at Telegraph and Channing was the hero of this piece. Nice guys. Great attitude. Available computer parts, though only pretty recent stuff.
The New Computer Treadmill
I have to feel a little bitterness and annoyance at the whole escapade. I'm not sure how old erzo 3.0 was, since it was given to me by an ex-co-worker. It had an AMD-K6 chip in it, so it's probably in the 5-7 year range. But, despite that, having the specs on computer parts change so much in a handful of years that power supplies connect differently and different CPU fans are used is pretty ridiculous. Like I said, I even had to get a converter for my keyboard.
Heck, if I'd gotten a brand-new computer I wouldn't have even been able to use my existing network cards because ISA slots are no longer supported on new motherboards. I'd probably have had to buy totally new memory too, thanks to incompatibilities there.
Erzo, as I mentioned, is used for low-level email and web service. It doesn't need to be a fast machine and could still be working pretty well on my old 1993 or so technology. In fact, it did for nearly a decade. It's out of the treadmill that most computer users are involuntarily forced on to by software developers constantly taking advantage of the newest hardwares, and thus forcing consumers to upgrade their hardware every couple of years, to the tune of a a few thousand dollars send biannually to the hardware consortiums.
Of course, as I learned today, it's not really out of the treadmill. Because if I can't get replacement parts, except by scouring eBay and waiting a week or two, then the computer probably needs to be replaced. Maybe not every month or two like those game players, but still more often than it should need to be.
The various methods that manufacturers use to entice you to constantly repurchase physical goods, and the amount that this has wormed its way into the psyche of Americans, sometimes makes me quite sick.
Erzo's History
And finally, a monument to all those poor, dead erzo's:
Actually, that's a lie. I bought a *used* computer this morning, because a new computer would have been wastefully expensive, would have prevented the repayment of debt, and generally would have been silly.
Our Home Server
At home we have a Linux server, erzo.org, which
kimberly_nlts and I use for our web and mail server. It's where you can find Nothing Like the Sun and Our Personal Pages.I've actually had a UNIX server sitting in my house since about 1991 or so. At that time it was a 386(!) running a UNIX version cunningly named 386BSD. It was nicely convenient to download and upload my email with UUCP so that I didn't have to actually connect with a modem, and take the extra couple of minutes whenever I wanted to see who loved me. Back in those days the email address was actually erzo.berkeley.edu, because it was hard to get your own domain name, let alone to host it.
Since then having a server has allowed me to host multiple email accounts, host mailing lists, and in the web era host a couple of web pages. But, it necessitates keeping a server running, which can sometimes be adventurous.
Here's What Happened
Last weekend erzo.org 3.0 started making ominous sounds. Fan-dying type sounds that presage future heat death.
By last night they'd grown to a nails-on-the-chalkboard intensity that made my home office virtually unusable and that caused the cats to keep wandering in, sniffing the computer with slightly frightened looks on their faces, and then backing out as soon as they could, to hide in Kimberly's office, or within the sound-muffling confines of their cat tree.
So, I did what any good hacker would do. I ripped the damned computer apart.
It turned out that the fan on the CPU unit was dying. And the fan on the power supply was dying. Hence the helicopter-taking-off type sounds.
So this morning I ran around a bit to get some new fans. Unfortunately my local computer store didn't have the type of fan I needed for the CPU, because it was too old. Their only CPU fans were these two-ton monstrosities that fit on top of the newest CPUs, which require 50 watts of juice all on their own, and which provide enough cooling power for most small families living on the equator. Fortunately they had a new power supply that supposedly would work with my mother board. I figured, that got me halfway there, and if I just replaced the power supply, at least my home office might be usable again.
But, you probably noticed my use of the word supposedly. See, the motherboard in erzo 3.0 could take two different types of power supply connections. We'll call them "ancient connection type" and "old connection type". I'd been using "ancient connection type", but with the new power supply I needed to instead get the "old connection type", which was actually still available.
Of course the previously untried "old connection type" didn't work and so back it was to Ye Olde Computer Store, by now becoming an old friend.
Fortunately, said computer store seems to make it money most off of barely-post-pubescent boys who must have the newest, quickest, graphicyest machine so that they can play Doom Quake of Marathon XVI and better frag their friends and engage in other meaningful Internet interactions. This requires updating your computer every 1-2 months else the newest 3-D raytraced polygon games won't work.
Long story short: I was able to get a new, used computer about 30% better than erzo 3.0 and with a couple of years more modern parts for about twice the cost that it would have taken just to replace the fan and the power supply. And Ye Olde Computer Store was even kind enough to refund me for that power supply which I couldn't use.
A third stop by the store was required a bit later to get a keyboard convertor, since none of the keyboards in my house matched the PS-2 keyboard plugs on the machine. Hopefully when I get back home tonight I'll be able to swap hard drives into the new machine, and all will be well. Fingers crossed.
For those of you in Berkeley: Quality Computers at Telegraph and Channing was the hero of this piece. Nice guys. Great attitude. Available computer parts, though only pretty recent stuff.
The New Computer Treadmill
I have to feel a little bitterness and annoyance at the whole escapade. I'm not sure how old erzo 3.0 was, since it was given to me by an ex-co-worker. It had an AMD-K6 chip in it, so it's probably in the 5-7 year range. But, despite that, having the specs on computer parts change so much in a handful of years that power supplies connect differently and different CPU fans are used is pretty ridiculous. Like I said, I even had to get a converter for my keyboard.
Heck, if I'd gotten a brand-new computer I wouldn't have even been able to use my existing network cards because ISA slots are no longer supported on new motherboards. I'd probably have had to buy totally new memory too, thanks to incompatibilities there.
Erzo, as I mentioned, is used for low-level email and web service. It doesn't need to be a fast machine and could still be working pretty well on my old 1993 or so technology. In fact, it did for nearly a decade. It's out of the treadmill that most computer users are involuntarily forced on to by software developers constantly taking advantage of the newest hardwares, and thus forcing consumers to upgrade their hardware every couple of years, to the tune of a a few thousand dollars send biannually to the hardware consortiums.
Of course, as I learned today, it's not really out of the treadmill. Because if I can't get replacement parts, except by scouring eBay and waiting a week or two, then the computer probably needs to be replaced. Maybe not every month or two like those game players, but still more often than it should need to be.
The various methods that manufacturers use to entice you to constantly repurchase physical goods, and the amount that this has wormed its way into the psyche of Americans, sometimes makes me quite sick.
Erzo's History
And finally, a monument to all those poor, dead erzo's:
- erzo v1.0. 16MHz 386, running 386bsd and netBSD. ~1991-~1993. Killed for being too slow.
- erzo v2.0. 33MHz 486, running netBSD and Slackware Linux. ~1993-2002. Killed after a hacker attack because it needed to be rebuilt anyway, and a new computer was available.
- erzo v3.0. 200MHZ AMD-K6, running debian Linux. 2002-2002. Killed due to lack of replacement fans.
- erzo v4.0. 266MHZ Pentium Pro(?), hopefully going live tonight.
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no subject
Date: 2002-12-03 02:50 pm (UTC)How do they compare to UCS (if you've had experience with UCS)?
no subject
Date: 2002-12-03 03:06 pm (UTC)All I can really offer on Quality Computers is:
no subject
Date: 2002-12-03 03:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-12-03 03:26 pm (UTC)I always thought they were overpriced by a fair amount, but I haven't been there in years ...