Text 6612, 177 rader
Skriven 2006-07-20 14:40:04 av James Bradley (1:134/77.0)
   Kommentar till text 6603 av Maurice Kinal (1:261/38.9)
Ärende: Newbie
==============
On or about: 07-19-06  14:31, Maurice Kinal did engage James Bradley regarding,
but not
limited to: Newbie

 MK> Usually F2 or the Delete key gets one into the bios.  I am 
 MK> guessing F10 is the scsi's bootrom.

You instigator, you! An hour ago, I looked at the unplugged, dual-boot Dell.
Now, I just *have*
to plug it in to see. <ARRR |->

 JB> button during startup". <?>
 MK> Sweet.  That part sounds okay.

I dug into it today, and both CPUs were represented in the setup, inside the
DOS program.
<scratching head... Maybe a special code DOS?> I just might try to diagnose the
system yet, but
the BIOS still stacks everything under IRQ 11. I can't even *demand* anything
over 15. Maybe
it's a Compaq thing, but once 2K takes charge, nothing the setup program
dictates seems to be
considered. Comm 2 even moved to 2F0-2f7h from the standard I/O. What remains,
is I'm not
able to assign any IRQ past the first CPU, as well as not assign a serial IRQ
other than 3 and 4.
Then, every setting seems tossed out.

 JB> Gives me a reason to wake up in the late afternoon. (-;
 MK> I could use a few of those.

Shoot, it's the three hour naps that are killing my days.
 
 JB> a TFT <?> overhead panel in
 JB> my back ally today, and some crack-head lifted it.

 MK> Ouch.  A working one?

I have no idea, but when I looked at the Dell, I was returning with the panel. 

Joe/Jane Blow, walked about an eighth of a mile down the ally, until they
opened the case and
found no 'treasures'. Driving back to the auction yard, I noticed something
glistening in the light,
and there it was! They were at least refined enough to *not* bust the bejeabers
out-a it. 

I just about plugged it into the Dell, but I thought against rolling in with
the new-old overhead
projector. Maybe the panel will belong in the G-house yet. <L> Pictures at
eleven, I hope. <G>
 
 MK> MS is 'teaming' up with Nortel to make internet phones.  So 
 MK> much for Nortel eh?

And I thought they had to let all their high priced legal staff go. Maybe
that's the only staff that
didn't suffer from restructuring?

Any way you slice it, Nortel is likely to be sliced American Style, and they'll
be lucky to see any
lubrication.
 
 JB> Slack the Dells.

 MK> Sounds like a great plan.

For whatever reason, Slack never did stick to them. Mandrake, yes... Slack on
the Compaq, yes...

That's why I originally shelved the Dell project, to concentrate on the Compaq.
Then the
Sportster started playing stupid... 

 JB> That doesn't ease the IRQ pile up, though. 

 MK> What is all on there hardware-wise?

The usual, with an onboard NIC, and sound, AGP slot, maybe two PCI busses...
Still, I think I
looked at everything in the Setup today. I dropped the advert/splash-screen,
but still haven't been
able to assign any upper IRQs there.
 
 JB> Every box came with two a piece, but one. Do you know if they are 
 JB> plug compatible across brands/models/fsb?

 MK> For the p2/p3's I believe they are the same.  I know the 
 MK> Gateway server boards were using the same VRM's as HP and 
 MK> Compaq's and I think Dell's were mentioned in that mix.  
 MK> The only different ones were p3 xeon's but I think that was 
 MK> only a voltage difference.  Don't quote me on that.  I 
 MK> almost picked up a quad p3 xeon ibm rackmount about a year 
 MK> ago and could have known then.  That one had pci 
 MK> hotplugging which might have been interesting to play with.

Right-o... This is the first I have *seen* a "VRM". May I ask what visually
distinguishes a Xeon,
over any other Slot 1 CPU? Of course I'll research before I start the ozone on
fire, but I just want
to get the most "Bang for the buck." [-|{

I may be thick here, but what *is* the appeal for a hot-plug PCI bus?

 MK> However I do plan to try all that sort of stuff out next 
 MK> week on a purely Intel based 775 board next week with a 64-
 MK> bit cpu.  Supposedly it's onboard graphics gpu is covered.

"Covered" by what? <G+D> 
 
 JB> have a power vid card for, but I'll wait.
 MK> What would that be?

Ta'hell if I know. NVIDA bla-bla-bla, or an ATI does everything but the
dishes... ... ... I'll worry
about those cards, when I can buy aem for ten bucks. <EG>
 
 MK> Heh, heh.  I don't think you'll be seeing too many ibm pc's 
 MK> around for much longer so nothing to sweat there.

There's PLENTY of IBMs where I shop. <L> Are they "restructuring" too? Maybe
they didn't
learn their lesson with OS/2.
 
 JB> No matter how much we try to kill it, it always seem to move into the 
 JB> neighbourhood. /-:

 MK> That isn't what I meant but even that hasn't happened around here.  A
 MK> few  years ago I ran into a working win3.1 setup but I think 

A "friend" dropped off a Sony laptop, for me to load up. Knowing nothing about
them, I
*upgraded* it to 3.11, installed a couple of PCMCIA cards, bigger HD,
bla-bla-bla, and then he
didn't want it anymore. Ungrateful, so and so... For a time, that was my only
working mail
system, so I didn't mind too much, but for me to put my own money into it, only
to have it
populate another non-empty space on the shelf...

 MK> that is an anomaly.  One of my neighbours has a working 
 MK> win3.1 system but it boots straight up to solitaire and 
 MK> that is all that she cares about.  One of the local kids 
 MK> hacked it for her so that is all it would do or at least 
 MK> appear all that it would do.  Has been 'working' for a few 
 MK> years that way now but I had to go over there and readjust 
 MK> the display for her.  I think the monitor is slowly packing 
 MK> it in.

L!!! Well, it's a good thing monitors are so cheep these days. Maybe, my friend
needed a
solitaire/minesweeper system. <ROTF> 

 JB> Blue Wave. Let loose the tsunami. <G+D>

 MK> All that stuff is seriously flawed.  I don't miss any of it but never
 MK> got  into it in the first place, format-wise, despite thinking 
 MK> that offlining is a great idea, especially for a single 
 MK> user BBS like regular dialup BBS's were ... sans the sysop 
 MK> snoop functionality that is.  Personally I think a point 
 MK> setup is a better way of offlining but could use some 
 MK> redoing as to formats and options as to packet creation.  
 MK> The on-the-fly creation like bluewave/qwk might be 
 MK> attractive but I haven't really done anything about it ... 
 MK> yet.  We'll see.

With such a diminishing interest... Sysop snooping, I never get to where I
would be embarrassed
about what I've written, even as boggled as my brain can get.


... James

___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.20

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