The bold Tedger considers venturing into a bold
world of Lunix, with an old friend at his side… well in front of
him.
Today I was in the storage room at our condo and
noticed something… a battery. This wasn’t just
any
battery it was an extra battery for the family’s first laptop: The PowerBook
1400c/166. Sporting a 166Mhz processor, 16MB, 2GB hard drive, 8x CD-ROM, Mac OS
version 8 and weighing in at a impressive 6.6lbs this was a machine of the
future! It later sported 64MB of RAM, a Modem, an Ethernet Card! It was truly
amazing. (special note: my current Powerbook 12″ only weighs 4.6
lbs!)
Now at this point I’m sure most of you are thinking, wow what a looser, this is a horrible machine. Now think again, my family (and from here on out I) owned this computer in 1996. This was the first computer that I installed anything into (the modem and ethernet although they were PC cards so I wouldn’t exactly call that installing….) this is the first computer I ever used broadband internet with, first computer I used on two continents, no wait 3! And most of all the first computer I played the first game I was ever really really hooked on: WarCraft 2. I mean, sometimes I still pull that CD out and give it a spin.
Anyways, back to the adventure. My old friend there the good ol’ 1400 has been sitting in the storage room for a year now, just collecting dust. I thought to myself wow that’s a shame. That computer is 8 years old. It’s like a old relative that you stick in a nursing home using the life insurance money from their dead spouse and never visit them. And like an old person (as long as they aren’t too far gone) you can always learn something from them, and sometimes, just sometimes, you can even teach them something new.
The analogy continues to apply. I’m not quite sure if the CD drive or the Ethernet on this computer runs anymore, if they don’t then I’m afraid that I can diagnose this computer as clinically dead. If however one or even both of these components are still working, I might be able to teach this old dog a new trick: to become a Yellow Dog. To be specific, to run Yellow Dog linux.
I just checked the Yellow dog website and it says the current version wont work, but the older one, yellow dog linux 2.2 will!
The 1400 — which I will now call Spot (a dog’s name)– will be on an adventure of a life time. For further view’s of Spot’s adventure you will find it in the “Que’s Techmania” category of my blog.
Now at this point I’m sure most of you are thinking, wow what a looser, this is a horrible machine. Now think again, my family (and from here on out I) owned this computer in 1996. This was the first computer that I installed anything into (the modem and ethernet although they were PC cards so I wouldn’t exactly call that installing….) this is the first computer I ever used broadband internet with, first computer I used on two continents, no wait 3! And most of all the first computer I played the first game I was ever really really hooked on: WarCraft 2. I mean, sometimes I still pull that CD out and give it a spin.
Anyways, back to the adventure. My old friend there the good ol’ 1400 has been sitting in the storage room for a year now, just collecting dust. I thought to myself wow that’s a shame. That computer is 8 years old. It’s like a old relative that you stick in a nursing home using the life insurance money from their dead spouse and never visit them. And like an old person (as long as they aren’t too far gone) you can always learn something from them, and sometimes, just sometimes, you can even teach them something new.
The analogy continues to apply. I’m not quite sure if the CD drive or the Ethernet on this computer runs anymore, if they don’t then I’m afraid that I can diagnose this computer as clinically dead. If however one or even both of these components are still working, I might be able to teach this old dog a new trick: to become a Yellow Dog. To be specific, to run Yellow Dog linux.
I just checked the Yellow dog website and it says the current version wont work, but the older one, yellow dog linux 2.2 will!
The 1400 — which I will now call Spot (a dog’s name)– will be on an adventure of a life time. For further view’s of Spot’s adventure you will find it in the “Que’s Techmania” category of my blog.
I'm Trevin Ward, I'm a Political Science Student at Iowa State University in Ames, IA.