Post by: The Rabbi on March 09, 2007, 05:06:50 AM
I thought about getting a couple of PCs and then networking them somehow onto the internet line.
But I also thought about a mainframe with terminals around the house. I believe I could get one pretty reasonably (a friend was in the business and has a stash of them) but wonder what the downside might be.
Post by: mtnbkr on March 09, 2007, 05:23:55 AM
A better solution would be to build a largish Linux system and use cheap machines as XWindows terminals.
Chris
Post by: richyoung on March 09, 2007, 05:25:51 AM
If its a recent one, the room it takes up is not so bad - I went from one that filled a room, to one that was the size of two refigerators, to one slightly larger than a full tower PC - and that was ten years ago. The problem you wil find is that maintenance is expensive, the environmental requirements for temperature and relative humidity are narrower, and require expensive equipment to maintain, it likely won;t run the games and such your kids will want, or use common document suites like Office or familiar web browsers either. Lastly, GOOD terminals aren't a whole lot cheaper than a PC anyway, and you still have to wier them in - realistically, your easiest solution is a DSL or cable conection, either a wireless or cabled router, and PCs.
Post by: richyoung on March 09, 2007, 05:26:22 AM
Post by: Sindawe on March 09, 2007, 05:30:17 AM
Unless you're an old mainframe or mini computer guy, I suspect that path is just gonna make your hair turn grey and fall out.But I thought you had a couple of PCs in the house Rabbi. Did'nt you look for wireless networking options about a year or so ago? If not, and you don't need the PC for gaming (you did mention kids), an inexpensive older PC will work just fine for web surfing and word processing. Pick up a wireless access point that will handle NAT & act as a DHCP server, a PC for the kids (or you and the wife) and that should keep everybody mostly content for awhile.
Post by: mfree on March 09, 2007, 05:30:26 AM
The less tech savvy way to do things is indeed just to grab a lot of cheap PCs and use 802.11 Draft-N or just G to wirelessly network them all (no wires, whee!). Upside: No lag, all multimedia works. Downside: multiple machines to handle for upgrades/patches/licenses, possibility of abuse without detection
The more tech savvy thing to do is to buy (or "obtain") a copy of server 2003 and a handful of remote desktop licenses... or use the bunches of other software packages out there for terminal access. The beauty of this is that the remote terminal isn't really doing any work... Upside: cheap hardware (PII-500 would work just as well as a brand new box for a terminal), ultimate central control. Downside: harder to configure, multimedia and gaming wouldn't work.
It's really going to depend on what your intentions for use at the remote terminals is going to be. For kids limited to research and writing papers, option #2 is just ducky. IF they want to game though, option #2 is fowl.
Post by: The Rabbi on March 09, 2007, 05:40:33 AM
You can tell how fast I move on any decision like this. Heck, I'm still trying to decide if I want black abacus beads or white ones.
I appear to be getting the thumbs down on the idea, which is fine. Thats why I asked.
Yes, the little varmints are going to want to play games or listen to YouTube etc. They'll probably want to play Delta Force 2 (which I never play, of course). I guess cheap PCs with a wireless network is the way to go.
Post by: mtnbkr on March 09, 2007, 06:12:27 AM
Quote
Well, I doubt if any mainframe is gonna run Windows
I did some work with a Sequent box a few years ago that was nothing more than a giant X86 system with a dozen or so Pentium processors. It would run either Windows NT or Sequent's flavor of *nix. I should've installed NT before the box went into production just to see how it would run. 
I just had an amusing mental image of Rabbi's house with an old IBM System 36 in the basement, thick coax cables running all over the place, and a green screen terminal in each of the kids' rooms.
Quote
I guess cheap PCs with a wireless network is the way to go.
Absolutely the easiest and cheapest solution. If you want to buy new, wait till Dell has their low end system on sale for $299. You'll need monitors, but those last for years, so you'll be able to use the same monitor even when you replace a PC.Chris
Post by: mtnbkr on March 09, 2007, 06:52:07 AM
I was working with a Numa-Q box.
I wonder how it would run Vista...
Chris
Post by: wmenorr67 on March 09, 2007, 07:52:57 AM
Post by: Sindawe on March 09, 2007, 08:01:59 AM
Usually killer deals on decent systems. I've put four online from them. Two in friends/family homes and two here at my home that run my firewall and DC/Exchange test boxes. The only failure I've encountered was a with a friend who bought one for his wife that was shipped with a bad video card. Dell replaced the card under the 90 day warranty.
Post by: Manedwolf on March 09, 2007, 08:34:16 AM
Cheaper, more efficient, uses much less power.
Post by: mtnbkr on March 09, 2007, 08:44:51 AM
I never toyed around with it, but there's a Linux distro designed to turn networked PCs into a giant, yet cheap, SMP system. I think those have also been used to render the effects for movies.
Chris
Post by: Manedwolf on March 09, 2007, 09:02:33 AM
Don't forget Linux. Some of those render farms run linux. I'm almost positive Titanic was rendered on a Linux "farm".
I never toyed around with it, but there's a Linux distro designed to turn networked PCs into a giant, yet cheap, SMP system. I think those have also been used to render the effects for movies.
Chris
I never toyed around with it, but there's a Linux distro designed to turn networked PCs into a giant, yet cheap, SMP system. I think those have also been used to render the effects for movies.
Chris
I also remember a couple of years ago, one of the worlds's most powerful supercomputers being made out of 1100 interlinked rackmount Apple Xserve G5s. They also see heavy use in biotechnology (that sort of matrix computing) for DNA sequencing tasks.
Matrix computing is definitely the way things will be, I think. If your company already has a lot of computers, why not simply use their processors in a matrix of distributed processing, especially when they're otherwise idle at night?
Post by: roo_ster on March 09, 2007, 10:14:11 AM
1) Wired or wireless router, your choice.
2) 2x low-end PCs
3) OS & Software
1) Wired or Wireless Router
Your druthers. Wired is faster between PCs on your LAN, wireless means no dragging ehternet cabling. $50 for the box. If wireless, budget $25-$50 for each wireless card.
2) 2x Low-End PCs
Low-end PCs ($300-$500/ea for the CPU). Buy your monitors used & force them to go with CRT rather than LCD. Much more bang/buck. Four years ago I bought a used 21" Dell Trinitron flat CRT for $120, one of a truckload. Awesome monitor. Freakin' huge, but terrific quality. Should be less, nowadays. Keyboards & mice are cheap.
I have had every big vendor I have recommended in the past crap out on me or the person who bought on my reccomendation. So, I'll recommend buying from a local white-box builder. Scan any local computer/geek magazine & ask who builds good boxes. Then ask the builder & get a quote. The upside to using a local guy is if hte machine craps out, toss it in your auto & take it to him. That beats waiting for a tech subbing to Dell coming to your house 1 hour later than the appointment.
3) Operating System & Software
Do your rugrats require Windows? Are you savvy enough to install an operating system on your lonesome?
If the answers are No & Yes, you could skip the largest expenditure (OS & office software)you are contemplating by going with a linux distribution. The newer standard distrobutions and live CD distros (Knoppix, Gnoppix, Ubuntu, others) install more easily with better hardware support than Windows. No joke, I have installed WinXP & Fedora linux on the same box & Windows was more cranky.
If you require Windows, get ready for your time in the barrel. You will likely spend 3/4 to the full amount you spend per PC on each PC for MS Windows OS and MS Office.
Eitehr way, good luck.
Post by: Gewehr98 on March 09, 2007, 11:19:22 AM
Quote
Don't forget Linux. Some of those render farms run linux. I'm almost positive Titanic was rendered on a Linux "farm".
Chris, you are correct, and my IBM Intellistation M-PRo dual-XEON graphics workstation came from the 150 or so that Weta Digital used to render Lord of the Rings. It's not an exclusive thing to Apple, as much as some wish it would be. Nor should we forget the good folks at Silicon Graphics.
Post by: Bogie on March 10, 2007, 07:50:39 AM
It's about sharing an internet connection. And probably Mickeysoft Word for school stuff.
BIG DEAL.
The bottleneck is going to be the internet, even if you are using a cable modem.
I'd get each of the kiddies a $150 refurbed XP Home "business box" from Tiger Direct, and plug the cable modem into a wireless router (MUCH cheaper than running wire). The last CRT monitor I bought was a 19" from a Goodwill. $5 out the door, and if it didn't work, I was instructed to chuck it and just come back for another one.
Yeah, you can go with Linux. Do you wanna have the headache of explaining to the kiddies that this different operating system is better than what they're using at school?
Post by: RevDisk on March 10, 2007, 08:54:22 AM
I have a now stay at home mom and two teenaged kids (or almost anyway). Everyone wants to use the one computer in the house.
I thought about getting a couple of PCs and then networking them somehow onto the internet line.
But I also thought about a mainframe with terminals around the house. I believe I could get one pretty reasonably (a friend was in the business and has a stash of them) but wonder what the downside might be.
I thought about getting a couple of PCs and then networking them somehow onto the internet line.
But I also thought about a mainframe with terminals around the house. I believe I could get one pretty reasonably (a friend was in the business and has a stash of them) but wonder what the downside might be.
I think you mean "server", rather than mainframe. Mainframes generally cost a couple million bucks these days and require a large amount of infrastructure. Not to meantion, few if any run Windows, MacOS or Linux. z/OS, AIX, etc are fairly common. Servers are similiar to PC's in most regards, except they're meant for multiple users, being left on all the time, longer lasting components and such. Rack mountable ones look like metal pizza boxes.
For a home server, you'd be fine with a regular PC with a few extra hard drives.
You have a couple options.
Centralized - a heavy server and lots of 'thin clients'. Thin clients are a nice way of saying "PC's that suck". It's a regular PC with no extras and maybe not even a hard drive. That'd be fine if you just wanted to browse the web and maybe some light word processing. It can be a pain to set up but usually doesn't have issues afterwords. Thing is, if your server goes down, your thin clients will too.
Decentralized - a light server and normal PC's for around the house. Get unexpensive computers and do most of the work on them. Just store stuff on the server. If your server or any one computer crashes, the rest still work just fine.
A router can manage your networking. A decent LinkSys home router can do DHCP, NAT and act as a simple firewall. If you get one with a couple ports or wireless, you can network your computers through it as well to make them talk to each other.
Quote
The more tech savvy thing to do is to buy (or "obtain") a copy of server 2003 and a handful of remote desktop licenses... or use the bunches of other software packages out there for terminal access. The beauty of this is that the remote terminal isn't really doing any work... Upside: cheap hardware (PII-500 would work just as well as a brand new box for a terminal), ultimate central control. Downside: harder to configure, multimedia and gaming wouldn't work.
There's really no need to pirate Server 2003 R2. Microsoft makes a version called "SBS", which is a lightweight version of the regular server software. Stands for Small Business Server. Server 2003 comes with 5 built in CAL's (number of users or devices allowed), before you need to purchase additional terminal services licenses. It's not that expensive.
Going with a couple light PC's for normal day to day stuff shouldn't be too expensive either. If you wanted multimedia or gaming, you could have one higher end machine for such things.
Post by: BakerMikeRomeo on March 10, 2007, 11:55:13 AM
DON'T.
BUY.
D.
LINK.
My brother is the primary go-to guy in my family, and among all his friends (among family, I am the secondary go-to guy, being my big brother's little brother, and thusly osmosing knowledge from him), and time and again people ask him what to get to set up a wireless network, and he tells them "Not D-Link", and they go and buy a damned D-link because it was 15 dollars cheaper, and it breaks, and then they get a pillowcase full of "I told you so, moron." and oranges in the face.
~GnSx
Post by: Manedwolf on March 10, 2007, 12:11:23 PM
And for God's sake, if you do set up a wireless network, don't buy D-Link. Don't buy D-Link.
DON'T.
BUY.
D.
LINK.
My brother is the primary go-to guy in my family, and among all his friends (among family, I am the secondary go-to guy, being my big brother's little brother, and thusly osmosing knowledge from him), and time and again people ask him what to get to set up a wireless network, and he tells them "Not D-Link", and they go and buy a damned D-link because it was 15 dollars cheaper, and it breaks, and then they get a pillowcase full of "I told you so, moron." and oranges in the face.
~GnSx
DON'T.
BUY.
D.
LINK.
My brother is the primary go-to guy in my family, and among all his friends (among family, I am the secondary go-to guy, being my big brother's little brother, and thusly osmosing knowledge from him), and time and again people ask him what to get to set up a wireless network, and he tells them "Not D-Link", and they go and buy a damned D-link because it was 15 dollars cheaper, and it breaks, and then they get a pillowcase full of "I told you so, moron." and oranges in the face.
~GnSx
LinkSys is good stuff. Cheap, too. And it stacks neatly hidden in a closet without falling over.
Post by: lee n. field on March 10, 2007, 12:19:51 PM
Quote
A better solution would be to build a largish Linux system and use cheap machines as XWindows terminals.
Or if they just gotta have RedmondOS, a nice beefy Windows 2003 server, terminal server licenses, and your thin client of choice.
Quote
Do you wanna have the headache of explaining to the kiddies that this different operating system is better than what they're using at school?
My wife and youngest kid are completely un-tech-savvy, and have no problem at all using my Linux box.
Quote
There's really no need to pirate Server 2003 R2. Microsoft makes a version called "SBS", which is a lightweight version of the regular server software. Stands for Small Business Server. Server 2003 comes with 5 built in CAL's (number of users or devices allowed), before you need to purchase additional terminal services licenses. It's not that expensive.
Small Business Server It's actually not lighter weight, though there are some significant limitations. One of which is that it can't act as a terminal server. If you want a Windows Terminal Server, you have to have a separate W2K3 Server box. SBS is the cheapest way to get into W2K3 server, but that doesn't make it always appropriate.
Quote
And for God's sake, if you do set up a wireless network, don't buy D-Link. Don't buy D-Link.
I second that. I've seen too much of the Dlink wireless gear go belly up.
Post by: BakerMikeRomeo on March 10, 2007, 06:20:11 PM
LinkSys is good stuff. Cheap, too. And it stacks neatly hidden in a closet without falling over.
Heck yeah. A WRT-54G is wirelessing the pants off my house right now, and back when I was at college, failing it, I had set up a WRT-54GC so I could internet on my laptop without getting out of bed.
~GnSx
Post by: tyme on March 11, 2007, 07:59:00 AM
Revdisk is right about you mixing up mainframes and servers. If you want a mainframe as a server for 2 kids and a wife, you don't know what a mainframe is. If a friend can get you "mainframes" for cheap, they're old, old enough that they'll be totally useless aside from running up your electric bill. There's no bright line between mainframes and servers, though, so it's possible your friend is calling yesteryear's server a "mainframe." In that case, they're what you might see on an ebay search for "server."
Give up on the thin client idea. It's used at companies and in computer labs to ease maintenance. It's not a good idea for two teens and a wife. A central server for storage, running samba and NFS perhaps, and interfacing with a printer, is a good idea. But that adds another computer to the setup.
Post by: Cromlech on March 11, 2007, 08:07:51 AM
I don't like the idea of a wireless home network at all. Wireless should be used when wireless is mandatory: for laptops, in coffee shops, etc. Fixed machines should be wired, IMO, and with GbE, not 100Mbit. I'm not aware of any consumer GbE dsl/cable routers, though, so you'd have to connect all the computers to a GbE switch (they're not very expensive), then connect that switch to your linksys router. Cables need to be cat-5e.
Gigabit Ethernet routers are common here in the U.K, are they really more rare in the States?
Post by: Gewehr98 on March 11, 2007, 08:21:02 AM
Quote
I don't like the idea of a wireless home network at all. Wireless should be used when wireless is mandatory: for laptops, in coffee shops, etc.
I'll have to remember that when I want sit on my back deck with my Dell Inspiron laptop.
I'd just LOVE to have a Cat5e ethernet cable dragging around out there.
My former residence in Florida was a cinderblock bomb shelter thingie that was provided for me by the Air Force. I wireless networked that place because I didn't want to buy a masonry bit, nor did Iwant to get charged for the holes afterwards.
If you're going to hop in and say stuff like that, please expound on it. There are too many regular users of 802.11b/g/n out there who have no problems, use proper wireless encryption, and don't appreciate slinging cables who never knew that hardwired networks should be mandatory.
Post by: mtnbkr on March 11, 2007, 08:26:55 AM
I don't see any point to gig ethernet in the home unless you're gaming or moving large files around. For small to medium sized files, internet access, etc, 100mb ethernet is cheap and easy. I wouldn't even worry much about a dedicated server. Just have one main PC with a bit more hard drive space with some file shares, shared printers, etc. It'll suffice nicely for whatever "server" needs the average family will have (I'm assuming centralized printer management, data storage, etc). You don't even need a dedicated server OS. You can do this nicely with Win2kPro and probably XPPro as well (haven't looked at the latter). Sure, it won't win any geek points, but it'll get the job done for a minimal cost in time and funds. Just set the "server" shares up with local user accounts that match those on the "client" machines. Cheap, easy, and doable by most without a geek on hand.
Of course, you can buy a real server and run Linux with SAMBA, but it won't give you much functionality you're likely to take advantage of and you'll have to educate yourself on another platform (not altogether bad).
Chris
Post by: mtnbkr on March 11, 2007, 08:28:26 AM
Quote
I'll have to remember that when I want sit on my back deck with my Dell Inspiron laptop...
You just agreed with him. He's talking about fixed stations where cable can be run, not mobile stations or situations where running cable is impossible (or nearly so).Chris
Post by: tyme on March 11, 2007, 08:31:03 AM
I was wrong, it does look like a few gig-e home "routers" have been released, but they're >$100, and more than it would cost to get a 10/100 dsl/cable router and a separate gigabit switch.
Quote from: Gewehr
O RLY?
Gewehr, did you miss the "for laptops" bit?Quote
My former residence in Florida was a cinderblock bomb shelter thingie that was provided for me by the Air Force.
Somehow I don't think this is the typical home network situation. Most people have crawlspace and/or attics and hollow walls where they can run wiring, and even if you can't do it yourself and need to pay someone, the 20x speed increase and superior characteristics of a non-shared wired medium make it more than worth it. Wireless isn't free, either. For desktops, you generally have to add wireless cards.And out of curiosity, what speeds were you getting through those cinderblock walls? Not everyone can live with speeds around 10Mbit and below.
Post by: Gewehr98 on March 11, 2007, 08:51:41 AM
Many, many of the home wireless network users I've met or assisted have expressed a serious desire NOT to run Cat5e cables around their houses. Most often, it's the wives of the houses who lay the law down with respect to that, be it computers, telephones, HDTV, or high-end audio. Myself, I hate seeing exposed wiring too, and go out of my way to hide it or minimize visible cable runs, it's not just my wife that has a thing against it. When I did a stint as a Dish Network installer last year, I saw a lot of wireless networks in my neck of the woods, particularly folks who rent, and even the ancient farmhouses with sandstone walls.
You get what you pay for, period. That holds true whether it's paying somebody to snort spiderwebs in the crawlspace/attic, where they get to snake cable into walls and install wallplate boxes (Not me!), or putting a PCI wireless card in the desktop machine and pushing the Secure Easy Setup button on the Linksys WRT-54G wireless router sitting next to the cable modem. The value is really up to the customer and their unique situation or desire.
Post by: tyme on March 11, 2007, 10:19:28 AM
Quote
You get what you pay for, period. That holds true whether it's paying somebody to snort spiderwebs in the crawlspace/attic, where they get to snake cable into walls and install wallplate boxes (Not me!), or putting a PCI wireless card in the desktop machine and pushing the Secure Easy Setup button on the Linksys WRT-54G wireless router sitting next to the cable modem. The value is really up to the customer and their unique situation or desire.
Consumers would rather have a painless wireless install because they don't understand the real costs involved.The real costs are continuous frustration. Occasional wireless disconnects are aggravating. Highly variable speeds depending on ... (looking up BOFH excuse...) sunspots ... are aggravating. Increased transfer times between computers are aggravating. Neighbors using 802.11b/g/n equipment, or 2.4ghz mobile phones, can cause further reliability problems.
Planning for wired ethernet might be unpleasant. Nobody wants to put new plates in walls or run wires in the attic or under carpeting. But once it's all done, it just works. You can rest assured that your neighbor's wireless toys won't impact your network performance.
Oh, and I'm cheeky about everything.
Post by: Gewehr98 on March 11, 2007, 11:09:34 AM
For the techno-geeks and retired B-52 guys like myself, running wired Ethernet doesn't present an insurmountable challenge. However, this cheeky guy is also lazy and doesn't like a lot of wires running hither and yon, so he has a combination wired/wireless network at his residence, running wired where I can, wireless where I cannot or will not. The wireless has gotten considerably easier over the last few years, too. On the router end, I push the little white Cisco logo button. It flashes for a bit as it configures the whole schmear, then goes constant white - voila'! There's that quick and easy thing again.
Wireless is here to stay, whether we like it or not. Right now, if I fire up my Dell Inspiron, I can count 7 or more wireless networks within range of the laptop - that's not even taking into account the smart ones who have disabled their SSID broadcasts. Granted, maybe 3 or 4 of 'em have encryption enabled, but they'll learn their mistakes eventually, and it's not up to me to teach them the error of their ways.
Post by: Sylvilagus Aquaticus on March 11, 2007, 12:40:32 PM
Seems to me I paid about $150 for my Netgear 845 Gb wireless router with draft N wireless. Sure works nice.
Yes, I have a nasty blue cat5 cable stretched across the floor in my living room from time to time. I can't help it. I ain't crawling in that attic any time soon.
Regards,
Rabbit.
Post by: Cromlech on March 11, 2007, 01:01:14 PM
You can get 54Mbps (and in some cases more) connectivity between rooms in the house by way of the mains electric supply. This is what I have in my house. No extra wiring cluttering up the place, and it is far more reliable than wireless. Sure LAN is much faster than that, but it is comparable in speed to wireless.
http://www.asokausa.com/content/pluglink.html
Post by: Gewehr98 on March 11, 2007, 01:45:05 PM
The jury is still out on using one's household 115vac wiring as an Ethernet conduit. I would hope the system works on the power strip feeding one's desktop system. Otherwise you have to free up an outlet on the wall somewhere for the transceiver, and another one for the second transceiver, or more if you're running several computers. Home wiring is neither shielded nor optimized for bandwidth, nor was it ever designed to carry anything other than 115vac current. Compare that to Cat5e, which was designed from the start to carry data. If you have seperately metered sections of your residence, you've fragmented your network. To prevent somebody plugging an extension cord into your external garage outlet at night and compromising your network, you get to use DES encryption, which then throttles you back to 14Mbps. That's still faster than cable modems can deliver, but there's a reason they consider Powerline Ethernet to be the solution for the 10% club that can't do either wired Ethernet or wireless Ethernet.
Post by: RevDisk on March 11, 2007, 01:49:38 PM
I take it that either nobody cared, or even read the post I made last page?
You can get 54Mbps (and in some cases more) connectivity between rooms in the house by way of the mains electric supply. This is what I have in my house. No extra wiring cluttering up the place, and it is far more reliable than wireless. Sure LAN is much faster than that, but it is comparable in speed to wireless.
You can get 54Mbps (and in some cases more) connectivity between rooms in the house by way of the mains electric supply. This is what I have in my house. No extra wiring cluttering up the place, and it is far more reliable than wireless. Sure LAN is much faster than that, but it is comparable in speed to wireless.
How much radio frequency interference is that thing tossing off? I've heard of the tech many times, each time same story. Cranks out more RFI energy than most military jamming stations.
Post by: Cromlech on March 11, 2007, 02:08:00 PM
Anyway, I thought he only needed it for internet use, which it is more than capable of. While on usenet groups I max out the 4 meg connection all the time.
Post by: RevDisk on March 11, 2007, 05:29:39 PM
I see it as a jack of all trades, but a master of none. It can do what wireless does in a concrete and lead bunker, so long as it has sockets. As to how much radio interference it throws off, I have no idea, I have nothing for it to intefere with as far as I know. Unless I am having my bollocks fried by it, I'm not too bothered.
Anyway, I thought he only needed it for internet use, which it is more than capable of. While on usenet groups I max out the 4 meg connection all the time.
Anyway, I thought he only needed it for internet use, which it is more than capable of. While on usenet groups I max out the 4 meg connection all the time.
Inside the US, the FCC controls the airwaves. We have strict rules on usage of frequencies, as well as interference rules. (I'm not happy with some of the frequency restrictions, but I'm thankful about the interference rules.)
If your PLC causes RFI into licensed or controlled frequencies, not good things. PLC/BLC is currently OK'd by the FCC "at sufferance". In english, the technology is obviously acceptable, but jamming restricted frequencies is not. It is the operator's responsibility to know what frequencies they are jamming.
Isolated usage isn't generally too bad. Random interference will occur. Already does with consumer electronics on a regular basis, tis why you must turn off all electronics during take off and landing while on an aircraft. Widespread usage on the other hand, I'm sceptical. That's a LOT of RFI. We'd essentionally be massively jamming the airspace over the US.
Post by: Cromlech on March 11, 2007, 10:48:21 PM
Post by: mfree on March 12, 2007, 04:25:44 AM
They are, because the last time they weren't you had dozens of folks with TRS-80 model I machines accidentally jamming airport communications. That's just kinda sorta unacceptable, y'know.
Post by: mtnbkr on March 12, 2007, 05:35:23 AM
Chris
Post by: Manedwolf on March 12, 2007, 08:44:02 AM
I have the wireless base station and other stuff hidden in a closet, and my "computer" is a single MacBook Pro connected wirelessly from wherever I'm using it.
Outside, when it's nice out. I hate office caves.
Post by: Cromlech on March 12, 2007, 01:13:41 PM
They are, because the last time they weren't you had dozens of folks with TRS-80 model I machines accidentally jamming airport communications. That's just kinda sorta unacceptable, y'know.
Wow, that's a lot more powerful than I thought!
Post by: lee n. field on March 12, 2007, 04:22:07 PM
Quote
They are, because the last time they weren't you had dozens of folks with TRS-80 model I machines accidentally jamming airport communications. That's just kinda sorta unacceptable, y'know.
Forgot about that. The Model I was notoriously radio noisy, if I recall right. This was before the days when PC radio emmisions were regulated.
Post by: Manedwolf on March 12, 2007, 06:20:38 PM
They are, because the last time they weren't you had dozens of folks with TRS-80 model I machines accidentally jamming airport communications. That's just kinda sorta unacceptable, y'know.
Wow, that's a lot more powerful than I thought!
Well, recently, a guy in I believe California had authorities come to the door to charge him with operating an ELT beacon in a nonemergency situation, apparently the Coast Guard was pinpointing his house and all. Turned out his plasma TV was malfunctioning and putting out the exact frequency of a marine/aviator emergency locator beacon...
Post by: Cromlech on March 13, 2007, 01:30:54 AM
Haha.
Post by: Sindawe on March 13, 2007, 07:31:12 AM
Quote
Turned out his plasma TV was malfunctioning and putting out the exact frequency of a marine/aviator emergency locator beacon...
See! Plasma may be fine for cutting torches or for driving interstellar warp engines, but it has NO place in an honest man's glass-teat!
Post by: Manedwolf on March 13, 2007, 08:13:55 AM
Quote
Turned out his plasma TV was malfunctioning and putting out the exact frequency of a marine/aviator emergency locator beacon...
See! Plasma may be fine for cutting torches or for driving interstellar warp engines, but it has NO place in an honest man's glass-teat!Works pretty good in headlights, too!
Unless you have a dumb friend that gets curious and goes to look close around the bounceback shield of your HIDs, which is about like looking at a welding arc.
Post by: Perd Hapley on March 13, 2007, 01:20:36 PM