kimnach.org
Confusers in the home
Before you delve into this and its linked pages, you must
know that I care little for MicroShaft and its products. Not just
because of its business practices and how it became the biggest fish in
the PC O/S market, but because of the sheer number of hours I have
wasted over the past 30 years troubleshooting, re-installing, and
cussing at machines having this shite running on them. I would
venture with all of the machines--mine, friends', family's, and
work--that I have had to deal with MicroCrap on them, I have spent
nearly one-man year. Just think about that.
Since my first real exposure to these binary wonders at St. Ignatius (class of '79, my sons are classes 2018
and 2020), I've been somewhat enthralled by them. My first "real"
computer was a C-64 for many years, then an Amiga 500, followed by a
couple of Amiga 2000, then a 286-based DOS/windoze3.1 box (to do some of
my work at home), then an Amiga 4000--and somewhere in the mid-80s I also
had a PDP-11....My current home also has many computers. In addition
to some of the aforementioned, my wife and two sons have Win10 boxes, and
there are various Raspberry Pi's, Asus Tinker Board, Odroid C2's scattered
throughout the home and my IROC.
Just how many Computers does one need?
It's not just about "needing" so many, it's partially about "geeking out"
as my wife and boys say. Some computers serve a specific function,
such as the Odroid
C2s which are media extenders, while others simply fall in the category of
"toy." The rest somewhere in between. Maybe.
"Required" computers
- There are two Odroid
C2s currently operating as media extenders. Each is connected to a
1080p Plasma TV (wonderful pictures) and run Kodi on the android
operating system. These boot from eMMC memory and are hard wired to my home network.
- My Momus CNC
in the woodshop runs on an older Pentium-based machine, which has 2GB
RAM, a simple video card driving a 19" touch screen display, and its o/s
is Winfart XP Pro. Why Wincrap? Simple, it's all about Mach3.
- The wifetm and boys each have a Winblows machine.
She's a CPA and does taxes--the software which she uses is all meant for
the evil empire operating system. The boys use them for games and,
quite honestly, there aren't a lot of options on Linux. Trish and
the boys each also have a Chromebook, which is required "Bring Your Own"
technology at St. Ignatius.
- My x86 machine running Win-timesucker 64-bit. Presently it's
used for design (e.g., Cutlist Pro),
Cut2D,
Cyberlink Power Director, Photodex
Proshow Producer, simulation tools, and a splattering of other
apps.
Needed machines? Well, yes, I think so.
- I have an unRAID
server, having approximately 36TB of storage. This is used to
backup data, documents, family pictures and videos, and act as a media
server for our home. The server uses a core-2 processor and has
2GB RAM.
- An x86 machine used for security and home automation. This
machine has gone through many incarnations from a nano-ITX motherboard (EPIA-N10000)
running linux (forget the app) then WinXcrementP (again, I forget the
s/w), to a raspberry pi with HomeGenie,
to the present system running Active Home Pro on a micro-ATX . The
machine also has a PCI 8-channel security camera card installed.
- My office machine, a Core-2 Duo, also running WinTENse, with 8GB
RAM. I use it for video editing and encoding (especially Proshow Producer), Sketchup to design for the CNC (and soon for 3D
printing), Cutlist
Plus panel cutting optimization, LTspice simulator, and a few other odds and ends.
- My Home Theater PC (HTPC),
which has 4 OTA HD tuners, and runs TVheadend with Ubuntu 16.04.
This machine has morphed significantly over the past 12 years. Not
only the motherboard & other hardware has changed, the operating
system was finally upgraded to linux when the Ceton Cable Card tuner (6
tuners) was sold.
Changes
are OK
- The boys have one of my old PCs (actually my first HTPC) connected to
their 50" Plasma gaming station. This machine runs Kodi on Ubuntu
16.04, but it could (should?) be swapped out for a Raspberry Pi, Odroid, or some other Single Board Computer.
Never
Gonna Let You Go machines
- My Amigas.
I have parted ways with other machines (C64, Amiga 500, Amiga 1200, a
humungus PDP-11+RM8 drive for a very short time), but the Amigas will
always remain....even if they crap out.
- Amiga 4000/Toaster/Flyer. Ah, 68060 w/32MB Ram. Yup,
Mega not Giga.
- Amiga 2000 also with 32MB
Questions, broken links, comments, concerns?
e-mail me, Greg Kimnach
(non-hyphenated American)
Home
is where you can say anything you like 'cause nobody listens to
you anyway.