-=> ROY J. TELLASON wrote to WAYNE CHIRNSIDE <=-


 WC> They're working on new microlithography techniques using far
 WC> ultraviolet LASER's to make chips now so terrahertz processors and
 WC> RAM memory in the tens of gigabytes will be available in about two
 WC> years!

 RJT> UV lasers?  Wow.  I guess xray lasers will eventually show up,
 RJT> probably starting out in some weapons program...

I originally wrote the same about X-ray LASER's in the post but
editted it out.

 WC>  I just got another thing added to my things to do list, buy
 WC> antivirus software :-(

 RJT> Me,  I don't plan to hook a modem to the w98 box at all,  when it sees
 RJT> the 'net it's gonna be through a router/firewall box.

Guess I'll check out a router as well.
This time it turned out to be a false alarm and it
appears someone with my e-mail in their address book
got infected with one of those worms that has it's
own SMTP built in. Yesterday about 27 e-mails on the server
with 2/3rds of them carrying a worm, today nada, 7 messages
no malicious payloads.

 WC> Haven't figured out how to completely block trojans and viruses on
 WC> the 98 box while I've managed it quite nicely on the Windows 3.1
 WC> box without antivirus software.

 RJT> I never could see the sense of taking _data_ and _running_ it!  That
 RJT> seems to be at the root of a lot of those kinds of problems.  Things
 RJT> like email attachements that you execute,  etc.

Yeah but the newer stuff is self executing inserting a key into the
registry and it has built in SMTP and scans and incorporates
your address book into it's SMTP.

RE: sound card.

 RJT> Got one PCI one in the machine but it doesn't seem to have an interrupt
 RJT> configured and I'm stalled at the moment in terms of figuring out how
 RJT> to make that happen.  Also a couple of ISA ones in a box here,  I'm
 RJT> going to try and see what I can make work shortly.

I've a half length ISA that appear identical to the SB sound card minus
proprietary SoundBlaster CD drive I could checkout for you.
Just sub it into the NEC in place of the SB card and see if it works.
I'm pretty sure it will as it's using the same IRQ, and addresses.
Only problem there is I need to retain the software CD for the NEC setup.
Of course if it's for Linux I expect it'd be detected.
I was contemplating the experimental swap anyway to get that big honking
card out of the way but still retain the sound in the ISA slot to
free up a PCI slot occuied by a PCI sound card.
Give me a yell if you if nothing you've on hand works
and I'll see if I can manage to send it to you.
I'll even zip up my SoundBlaster directory and delete
and see if the SoundBlaster software recognises and sets up
on the card.

 WC> So far my loses from failure over the years are 2 floppy drives,
 RJT> These days when I
 RJT> go to snag one,  even at the used place,  I try for Sony.  They haven't
 RJT> disappointed me yet.  And they invented the damn things.

Good to know and thanks for the tip as I'm planning to buy one for backup
for when one here inevitably fails.

 WC> one motherboard, three momitors and two hard drives the latter two
 WC> of these items suffering unnatural deaths.

 RJT> I can't recall any HDs actually out and out failing on me,  though the
 RJT> old 40M seagates I used to run got *really* noisy bearings before I
 RJT> stopped using them.

 As I say both of my HD's suffered inflicted deaths not natural ones.

 RJT>  Monitors,  yeah.  I have three of them sitting here in the room,  

  I've two dead in the other room with one possibly worth
  the tme to fix as it doesn't look too bad and I think it's
  an intermittant on on of the potentiometer leads to board.

 RJT> And power supplies!  I know
 RJT> that a couple of the XT-class supplies got cooked,  mostly from running
 RJT> 24/7 with two of those above-mentioned seagate drives in the box.

 WC> I killed a 230 Meg. drive swapping it when my elbow touched the
 WC> monitor screen and me and the ex-girlfriend killed a 2.5 Gig drive
 WC> when I loosed the scissors from her hands with which she'd first
 WC> tried to stab herself and than me on the nearest available object,
 WC> the running computer :-(

 RJT> Which didn't have the cover on?  :-0

Oh the cover was on but Cynthia was ex-marine and more than a little
tough, took repeated whacks of the wrist before dislodging
the scissors. I imagine the heads bounced around on the media
quite a bit as it damaged both the boot sector and lost me
1.5 Gig of a 2.5 Gig drive.

 WC> Omly problem with the Paviliom 433 is I've no tools to examine the
 WC> hard drive and check and eliminate any hidden system files at the
 WC> end of the drive to repartitian with FIPS without worry so as to
 WC> install Linux.

RE: drives
 WC>  I'm not touching anything under 40 Gig.

 RJT> Under a gig there are reliability questions,  though I still have a
 RJT> couple of 500-540M drives that do okay here.

I'd say under 2.5 Gig, YMMV.
I have a 325 Meg. Seagate with no bad sectors but the bearings are
starting to sound noticable.

 RJT> Or boot linux from a floppy (got tomsrtbt handy?) and use dd,  instead.

 WC> Close as an internet logon. What's dd?

 RJT> From the man page: "dd - convert and copy a file". 
Copies from stdin
 RJT> to stdout,   using specified block sizes (default is 512 bytes),  and
 RJT> optionally performing conversions.

Hmm, I'd been using Linux to cp to and from a FAT 16 partition
with no noticable problems without using dd, guess things were just
serendipidously lined up right here.
Definately something I'll want to look into.
Thanks for the answer as currently there's no chair in the room
at the computer desk because of my back and the cart I've got is currently
occupied by the H.P.
THAT's why I want to split the partition on the H.P. so
badly to install Linux here.
Think I figured out what I did wrong with FIPS but splitting
a FAT 32 with data on it is new to me, FAT 16 and the version
of FIPS for that is old hat.

RE: UPS

 RJT> Most batteries are rated in "reserve power".  Automotive-type
 RJT> batteries, anyhow,  not so much gels and such.  That spec usually
 RJT> involves a given discharge rate,  a given temperature,  and a given
 RJT> cutoff point where you'd consider it discharged.  Typical stuff is like
 RJT> 20 or 25A,  80 degrees F,  and maybe 10.6v (I'm not real sure,  just
 RJT> doing this from memory and it's been a few years since I was doing
 RJT> that).  Typical numbers for a group 31,  the size that a
 RJT> tractor-trailer would use three or four of,  are anywhere from 120
 RJT> minutes to 180 minutes.  Automotive batteries are rated somewhat lower.
 RJT>  The marine-style batteries were similarly rated,  and not in AH,
 RJT> which would've made more sense to me.

That's what I'm looking for, 2 - 2 1/2 hours up time after
loss of power.

 RJT> Gels are rated in AH,  but that's at a _20-hour_ rate -- so a 10AH gel
 RJT> is spec'd for a 500mA drain for 20 hours.  You can pull a lot more out
 RJT> of them, for short periods of time,  though they don't seem to last
 RJT> real long in that type of use,  and of course at lower rates they last
 RJT> longer.

 Some experience with those in heavy duty sizes as a company
 I worked for used a great many as backup and their service conract
 swapped them out well before they were dead and I snagged a few.

 RJT> People who used to buy batteries were often surprised at how this
 RJT> worked, thinking that you could draw a heck of a lot more out of them
 RJT> than you actually can.  Or that they'd last longer while you did it.

 I find if you charge them up quickly after discharge it helps.
 I'll rely largely on the guys from Electro-Battery as they deal
 with the stuff all the time. Downloaded a 39.4 Meg. PDF of
 Digikey's catalog last night to find some hefty stud type
 rectifiers to isolate the UPS charger from external battery.
 Unbelieveable amount of stuff in their new catalog and I
 was wishing I was a kid again with good eyesight to play
 around with all the surface mount prototype boards and such.
 Also snagged Jameco's PDF. That's 53 MEG of download in under three
 hours time :-)

 RJT> I had some interesting times working with that stuff on a couple of
 RJT> occasions. One time a guy wanted a gel to run a small motor that was
 RJT> used to start model airplane gas engines,  which pulled maybe 2-3 amps.
 RJT>  I recommended one,  he picked something way smaller,  and ended up
 RJT> cooking it and coming back for the bigger one later.

I used the 24 amp/Hr gel pack to drive a infernal contraption or
two I built, ultrasonic high poered device or increadibly painful
siren if you lowered the drive frequency and my near 30KV
power supply which also drew 10 - 11 amps.
Both short duration useages.

 WC> You know I'm getting a little spooked by these plugins that
 WC> install on the fly and shockwave activating and streaming MP3
 WC> suddenly coming out of my speakers never even having left the web
 WC> site, Charles Angelich's, that I was on.

 RJT> That *is* weird.  I've little experience with that sort of thing,  and
 RJT> am not sure I'd care for it too much.

Me neither, I'd rather manually go to the web site of of someone
offering such plugins, download and install it myself
as well as having the backup archive instead of it doing
it's thing in the background, Winunzipping and instaling on the fly.
Like I say it's spooky.

 RJT> And if I did have that sort of
 RJT> thing happening,
 RJT>  I'd want to be *real* sure of what was running on any system I had
 RJT> here.  It amazes me how much people will trust in stuff like that...

 I exercise some care which is not to say I won't yet get burned.
 Almost got fried last night on a zipped download of what was supposed to
 be an MP3 but I did a "save taget as" instead of letting it
 do it's thing in Winzip. AS I've pkzip 2.50 on the machine I used the -t
 switch to look at the _MP3_ first, there were a couple of dozen files
 in there and it would have taken over my desktop, replaced my
 wallpaper and dog know what else. Promptly deleted.
 
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