Category: IBM PC

An Old Drive Bites the Bits

In December 2002 I splurged and bought my first DVD burner: a Sony DRX-500UL. I paid $430 for the external unit, which burned DVDs at a whopping 2X (30 minutes per disc). At the time, a war of formats was brewing between DVD-R (DVD “minus” R) and DVD+R (DVD “plus” R). The Sony was one of the first I found that could burn discs in either format, so even though it was a bit more expensive than some other drives on the market, I was covered no matter which format ultimately prevailed. On March 20, 2003, I made the mistake… (read more)

RobOHara

300 Keyboards

I’ve scanned in 99% of my old photographs, but every now and then I run across one that slipped through the cracks. This is one of those. I’ve told this story before, but right around the year 2000, a co-worker of mine and I attended a local auction for a computer store that was going out of business. At the auction there were large cardboard boxes full of computer keyboards. The opening bid was crazy — something like $20 per box. My friend Don and I chuckled at the price and stopped paying attention. The auctioneer tried restarting the auction… (read more)

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DJ Mix Pro

To provide the music for my niece’s wedding, I used a program called DJ Mix Pro. It’s not a well known program, but it’s really good at what it does (and really affordable), so I thought I would mention it. Talented disc jockeys are able to take two songs, match their speed (measured in Beats Per Minute, or BPM), and seamlessly fade from one song to the next. It is an art that requires skill, talent, and a good ear. DJ Mix Pro simulates this skill and performs it automatically by using its own patented “Beatlocking Technology.” After adding your… (read more)

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Bring out your Dead (DOS Machine)

Like most of you, I spent several hours this weekend bringing an old dead DOS computer back to life. (Wait. You guys didn’t do that this weekend, too? Man, you missed OUT!) I bought this old desktop machine years ago at a thrift store for (I think) five bucks. The last time I used it was to transfer my old Commodore 64 diskettes to D64 disk images using an original X1541 cable. According to this blog entry, that was ten years ago. Ten years of sitting hasn’t been good for the machine. The hard drive spun up, but spins more… (read more)

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Mortal Kombat Memories

This week’s release of the latest Mortal Kombat game (MK X) caused me to reflect on my own memories of the Mortal Kombat franchise. I don’t actually remember the first time I saw Mortal Kombat in an arcade, which is a terrible way to start an article about my memories of Mortal Kombat. I do however remember the launch of Mortal Kombat on home video game systems, which took place in September of 1993. I didn’t own any modern consoles at the time (I was a PC guy and a retro console gamer), but I remember seeing magazine ads and… (read more)

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Happy 21st Birthday, Doom!

I didn’t have a phone line in the first apartment I lived in, which cut my BBS/modeming habit when I moved in drastically down from “many hours a day” to “nothing” very quickly. In regards to computers, it was a transitional time for me. When I first moved into that apartment, my primary computer was a Commodore 64. When I moved out of the apartment and in with Susan I bought my first PC, a 386/25 PC that my friend Josh helped me assemble. The minute I moved in with Susan and got that PC I plugged it into the… (read more)

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PC Games For Sale: 40 Cents Each

I had heard of the website Bundle-in-a-Box before, but never really looked into it until one of my friends Robb Sherwin had one of his games added to a bundle. What Bundle-in-a-Box does is group several games together and allow their customers to pay whatever price they think the bundle is worth. The games are downloadable and DRM-free so you can install them wherever and to whatever you want. This week’s bundle contains five games and the minimum price you can pay is $2, which works out to be 40 cents per game. If you go crazy and pay more… (read more)

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MDoS (Microwave Denial of Service)

I began experiencing intermittent internet problems the first week we moved into our new home (a little over a year ago). I’d be chugging along, reading Facebook or watching a movie online, and suddenly everything would stop. I tried all the easy things like changing wireless channels, moving my router, and resetting/rebooting everything, but nothing seemed to help. To make matters worse we were only experiencing the problem a couple of times a day, which made tracking down the issue even more difficult. I figured out the problem one day while watching a movie in the living room on Netflix… (read more)

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Fixing Scratched CDs with Toothpaste

This was part of a larger blog post that took a different direction so I split this little tidbit out. Did you know you can fix many scratched CDs with white toothpaste? I’ve tried it out of desperation a couple of times with success both times. Not only does the toothpaste fix scratches, it also prevents them from getting cavities in the future.

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A New Day, A New RAID

A few years ago when I decided to build my first data storage RAID for the house, I didn’t have enough room in my server’s case to add four additional hard drives … so I went out to the garage, pulled one of my old computer cases off the shelf, and added four hard drives to it. I then bought some 3′ SATA cables, ran them out the back of my server and into the back of this tower to the drives, created a software RAID5, and began filling it with movies and music. I give you … Mr. Moonpie.… (read more)

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