Hardware

I tend to change hardware a lot — with certain exceptions. My fickleness has tapered a little, but I still like to experiment with new-old machines. For reference, or just to show off, this is the hardware I’m using now. These will change from time to time, and I’ll try to keep updating this page, rather than adding posts.

There’s generally no note of operating systems, because everything is probably running some shade of Ubuntu, Crux or Arch, and that can change from day to day. Oh, and one last thing — I am exceptionally uninventive when it comes to machine names: I christen each one with the serial number off the bottom. Boring, huh?


Dell Inspiron 8000: cc99p01

1Ghz Pentium III (Coppermine) 512Mb Crucial PC133 64Mb Nvidia Geforce 440 Go NV17 60Gb 7200rpm Hitachi HTS721060G9AT00 (internal) 120Gb 5400rpm Hitachi HTS541612J9AT00 (modular) NEC ND-7550A 8x dual layer DVD+-RW MiniPCI Intel PRO/2200BG and antenna 2x USB 1.1 ports, rear 1600×1200 UXGA LCD ESS Technology ES1983S Maestro-3i PCI Audio

Heavily modified from the original specs, this machine has been in my family since it was first purchased in 2000. I added the video card, modular hard drive and faster system drive and also purchased an internal wireless card with antenna for it.

I replaced the screen, which had a strange little white line of pixels across the bottom. I cleaned it inside and out, added an HP optical mouse, and I usually connect to the Internet through a wired connection, but I also have a wireless card I sometimes swap out. It also has a built-in modem, firewire, S-video and a whole rank of other things I’ve just never bothered trying.

With this video card, the machine is fast enough to handle Compiz/Fusion (without too many doo-dads), and play most games at native resolution. This machine will probably keep me busy well into the next decade, if the innards continue to perform.

I’d recommend one of these computers in a heartbeat — particularly the later versions, the 8200s. These are among the most flexible, expandable and versatile computers Dell ever built. Expansion bays and other hardware are compatible all the way back to the Pentium II models (the CP series). If you want a laptop you can adjust to your needs, without sinking $1200 in one, this is a great way to do it.


IBM Thinkpad iSeries 1200: 1161-41j

550Mhz Celeron (Coppermine) 192Mb PC100 4Mb Silicon Motion, Inc. SM712 LynxEM+ Japanese keyboard 20Gb 5400rpm Hitachi hard drive HTS548040M9AT00 LG CRN8241B 24x CDROM 2x USB 1.1 ports, one side and one rear 800×600 SVGA LCD Intel 8440MX AC’97 Audio

I got this machine at the outrageous price of roughly $100 at a secondhand store in Japan — and I’m completely in love with it. In contrast to the above machine, this one is almost completely stock. The only change is the hard drive — the original was a 5Gb 4200rpm Travelstar that sounded like a dental drill any time the power was applied. Blech!

The LCD is really the only downside — 800×600 is almost annoying these days. I would love a proper 1024×768 screen, but this machine is such a doll as it is that I’m not at all inclined to change it out. All the buttons, the pointer stick, the mouse button cluster and the keys are in perfect shape — even the key labels in hiragana and katakana are still there. This is a beautiful machine as it is, and doesn’t need me micromanaging it to make it work well.

I’d also recommend one of these machines, although it’s probably not for everyone any more. For day-to-day use, most people will probably find the porthole screen a major inconvenience. And without a proper operating system, a 550Mhz machine (and a Celeron, at that) is going to drag. It’s definitely not too slow, although it would be if it were not properly looked after.


Fujitsu FMV-5100NU/W: FMV-5100

100Mhz Pentium (classic) 16Mb PC66 Chips and Technologies F65548 1Mb video card Intel 430MX chipset Japanese keyboard Samsung MP0402H 40Gb 5400rpm hard drive Asix AX88790 wired PCMCIA card 800×600 LCD Sound (as yet untested )

After about a year of searching around for a pre-Pentium III laptop for experimentation, a co-worker provided me with this dandy little machine. It’s in amazing shape for something that dates back a dozen years. Short of one loose key cap and a column of green pixels, there’s really nothing wrong with it.

The original 810Mb hard drive had a complete installation of Windows 95 on it, and for a little while I set that aside as a precaution against ruining the systems I built. However, I decided later that I didn’t need that escape route, and so I’ve used that, as well as some larger, faster drives, to host Linux systems.

Otherwise it is as much of a learning experience as anything I’ve encountered yet. Sixteen megabytes of memory is almost impossible to work with, and couple that with a 100Mhz processor, and anything you do — except booting up — takes an disproportionately large amount of time. But it’s fun to experiment.

As far as recommending this machine, I don’t think I would. It takes a special person to appreciate a unique and unusual item like this; if you stumble over one in the dark and you’re an experimenter, take it home. If you’re not, leave it alone in the dark where you found it.