Nothing else can replace the versatility and customization possible with a computer like this. To be able to buy regular components, "off the shelf" and build what I need is not possible with a store bought system be it Dell or Apple. They always have the velvet collar of control of what is possible. To take my computer that I am typing this on into a bare bones computer, and make it just a RAID box lets me keep using the parts from a computer that I first built in 2013.

Glen, think I found a cable adapter for you.

https://scontent-dfw5-2.xx.fbcdn.net...1f&oe=5E8712F7

Welp, the smoke test passed so far. No smoke or sparks, Windows is loading. No I just have a day of configuration.

I had to run to the local Office Depot to get a HDMI cable. As I was leaving I realized I could have gone to Lowe's or Home Depot, and got it faster. Crap.

As always they ask the question "what is a good phone number for you" so I said 555-1212 and she replied that is an easy one to remember. I just smiled. I guess she can call information if she wants to reach me. Amazing that in this era someone would not know any 555 prefix is BS or the phone company. Ah well.

Winds is installed. It took me two tries to get Windows installed. The first time I did the default thing and it wanted my to make a pin and use that to log on. Screw that. So off to the internet and the Microsoft site, and read how to install it without using a Microsoft account. IT is fairly easy is you look and watch of the a few things that don't make obvious.

Then uninstall a lot of crap. I do understand lots of people get a laptop to go to college, or be on social media and play games. This would be a killer game machine, but it has already been cleared of the games. No one but me will be using it.

morning all. on hold with Verizon to gripe about the bill and the fact I keep having to call about turning all a service add-on.

I forget...does Verizon offer to call you back when you reach the top of their queue? I use that feature with any business that offers it.

They did when I called from my cell this weekend. They never called back so I used the office phone and put it on speaker for all to enjoy.

I was on hold with the Social Security department several years ago when I had to commute. They had the hold music of the Nutcracker. I got to hear that for a couple of hours. Aahh memories......

I got thru and when the text came back to tell them how they did I made it really clear that the tech today was great but that three calls is not a great way to say customer service...…..

Wow, just wow.

Way back in the stone ages when DOS 3.0 was new, I bought my first hard drive. It was HUGE, and stored 10 Megabytes of data. I figured I would never fill that up. I was somewhat mistaken in that belief.

I am initializing the RAID 5 setup on my new machine. It will have a total of 15,626,782 Megabytes of storage. 15 million MB on my computer. If I could travel back in time to talk to the nerd installing a 10 MB drive and I tried to tell him that someday you have have 15 million MB that 1980s nerd would laugh and say BS! To think I would have 1.5 million times more storage on my home PC is mind boggling. And that does not count the paltry pair of two TB hard M.2 sold state drives. So I guess I have 17 TB of room total on this system, and room for more!

That same 1980s nerd also installed the RAM expansion card to get my computer all the way to the max, 640K of RAM. 256 Gig would not even be something I could have understood.

And the difference between the 8086 4.77 MHz CPU and the i9 18 core CPU is so far apart as I can't quantify it. That nerd is still building computers all these years later.

How many mammories did you get on your new phone?

The phone is storage space, not really RAM. But my iPhone is 256 Gig as well.

I don't know how much RAM an iPhone uses. It may well all be ROM memory, and it just reads what it needs from the storage drive. Of course it is solid state storage.

My 1984 nerd was not yet allowed to even own a phone back then, AT&T owned them all, and just leased them to clients. I was a total scofflaw, and plugged my 300 Baud modem into the phone lines and did my thing, and risked the phone police busting me. I was not too worried.

I remember when I was allowed to buy the phone on the wall, they billed it to my phone bill and split it up into three easy payments. It was about 75 bucks I think. I still have it in my closet for some reason.

Again the 1984 nerd would have slobbered all over a magic device like iPhone 11 Pro. Heck I still can't believe I have one and I paid for it, so I know I really do.

in 1984 I still had a year to go in high school.

Yer just a puppy.

Well, the computer is chugging along. It is building the RAID5. I started that process yesterday and it is just 37% complete. So that is not real fast. I can't imagine what it is doing that takes so long to format 5 drives into one big ol' 15 TB drive. I keep going back to that first PC with the 5.25 inch floppies, and low density, 360Kb floppies at that. It came with just 256Kb of ram. It was a dual floppy machine, one floppy to boot from, then load the program disc into the first floppy, and the data went on the other floppy.

The 10 MB hard drive I installed would not even hold one photo from my digital camera. At 300 Baud I could read the text as fast as it downloaded. That was really annoying when I had to wait for the entire screen of text to download so I could scroll up or down and hit enter to go to the next screen. The mouse was just something in the magazines. It was the late 1980s before I got my first mouse. The wide port serial mouse. Microsoft Patent Pending mouse.

yep just a kid...………NOT!!!!

I didn't get my first computer till 1988 or 89. I was a boat anchor by todays standards but back then it was cool.

In the 90's friend of mine put a system together to demo to the cable companies for video on-demand. It was a file server for movies/TV. It used a mac so it could access and serve a 4TB raid. PC could not access that large of a drive back then.

When I had my first Mac was so happy when was able to get a 20meg hard drive. The single 3.5 400K floppy had to swap disks all the time. One for the program, one for data. Didn't have that with the AppleIIc, the 5.25 floppy was big enough for program and data. The first program to require 2 400K floppies was Pagemaker. Then the 400K disk was upgraded to double sided for 800K.

Had a 300 baud Apple modem. You sent AT to the modem to get it's attention for commands. Type ATTD for Attention Tone Dial, then the number. If you accidentally sent ET instead of AT it would reply "phone home". Learned to read at 9600 baud when got a 9600 baud modem. Also when listing basic programs it listed them at 9600 baud on the screen.

Was doing the typesetting for the company catalog. Started by just typing the text, added notes for the font. size, margins, and taking the pages to the typesetter. Would get the type in one column that had to be cut and pasted to make the pages. Then I learned the codes to set fonts and margins, etc and modemed files to the typesetter. Would get the pages with the columns of type set with the pages all layed out so all that was needed was putting in the pictures. Was writing a program to do WYSIWYG on the AppleII when I realized the Mac did WYSIWYG right out of the box and saved printer files that could be sent to the typesetter. Sold the AppleII got a Mac and have been using them ever since. At that time a PC system to do WYSIWIG typesetting costed $25,000 dollars.

Remember getting a replacement for my printer's print cartridge that turned it into a 144 dpi scanner. That was cool. My dog chewed it up about the time 144 was not enough dpi.

The dog knew you wanted another one.

Don't think she liked the Christmas card I made scanning in her picture and adding a Santa hat.

She had poor taste then.