As at late June 2002 we have two 700 MHz Athlons, a 400 MHz K6-2, a 200 MHz Pentium MMX, a 75 MHz Pentium laptop, a 75 MHz Pentium and the Acorn A4000 in use. Total hard disk storage is around 120 GB.
Peripherals include an Alloy 16 port 10Base-T hub, an 8 port no-name Fast Ethernet hub, an HP LaserJet 5MP printer with 18 MB of RAM, an HP DeskJet 670c, a CanoScan FS 2710 35 mm film scanner, HP ScanJet 4300C flatbed scanner, a 3COM/USRobotics 56K Voice Fax modem, an Intel iStation combining a 4 port hub, 56K modem and firewall, AIWA Travan 4GB/8GB IDE tape backup, Matsushita SCSI CD burner, and a cheap and cheerful AceCat digitiser.
Monitors are a 19" Sony G400, a 17" Philips 17B, a 15" Samsung, a 15" Acorn, a 15" Acer and 15" Osborne. Mice are nearly all Microsoft and one was the original "Leprechaun's toilet" until it was stolen. Keyboards are mostly the cheap Taiwanese sort, the old Zenith that came with the 286 was to be be replaced by a second MS Internet keyboard until it was stolen. We had a MS Ergonomic keyboard, but the key action was unpleasing, so it was passed on.
|
Machine |
Notes |
|
Tandy 200 |
Intel 80C85, 48 KB RAM, OS from MS, but purchased TS-DOS from Traveling Software |
|
XT Clone from S |
Intel, 8088, 640 KB RAM |
|
Home built XT Clone |
NEC, V20, 640 KB RAM |
|
Zenith 8 MHz 286 |
AMD, 3 MB RAM |
|
25 MHz 386SX |
Intel, 8 MB RAM, CIS chipset |
|
40 MHz 386 |
AMD, 16 MB RAM, CIS chipset |
|
66 MHz 486 DX |
Intel, 16 MB RAM |
|
100 MHz 486 DX |
Intel, 32 MB RAM |
|
Olivetti Quaderno |
NEC V30/16MHZ CPU, 7.5" LCD screen, 1 MB RAM, 20 Mbytes Harddisk |
| 200 MHz K6 (upgraded to 400 MHz) | AMD, 64 MB RAM, AOpen TX MoBo |
|
233 MHz K6 (upgraded to 400 MHz) |
AMD, 128 MB RAM, DFI MoBo |
|
75 MHz Pentium |
Intel, 64MB RAM, ASUS MoBo |
|
700 MHz Athlon |
AMD, A-Open MoBo, 256 MB RAM |
|
700 MHz Athlon |
AMD, ASUS MoBo, 512 MB RAM |
|
Acorn A4000 |
ARM RISC processor, 2 MB RAM |
| Toshiba Satellite Pro 400CS | Intel 75 MHz Pentium, 16 MB RAM |
| Acer Entra | Intel 200 MHz Pentium MMX, 48 MB RAM. |
|
OS |
Notes |
|
Tandy 200 |
In Tandy 200 firmware. It was written by MS |
|
TS DOS |
A disk OS for the Tandy 200 written by Traveling Software |
|
MS DOS 2.1 |
Bundled with XT Clone from S |
|
MS DOS 3.3 |
Bundled with Zenith |
|
Windows 2.1 |
Bundled with Zenith |
|
DR DOS 3.4/Gem 3 |
Purchased from store |
|
Windows 3.0 |
Purchased from MS |
|
Windows 3.1 |
Purchased from MS |
|
Windows 95 |
Purchased from MS |
|
Windows NT 4 WS |
Purchased from Frank’s Compware |
|
OS/2 Warp 3 |
Purchased 2nd hand |
| Windows 95 OSR2 | Purchased from Frank’s Compware |
|
Slackware Linux 2.2 |
Purchased with book |
|
RedHat Linux 4.x |
Purchased with book |
|
Caldera Open Linux 1.2 |
Purchased with book |
|
RedHat Linux 5.2 |
Purchased from store |
|
Caldera Open Linux 1.3 |
Purchased from distributor |
|
Caldera Open Linux 2.3 |
Purchased from APC |
| Small Business Server 4.0 | Purchased from MS |
|
Caldera Open Linux 2.4 |
Downloaded from Internet |
|
RedHat Linux 6.0 |
Purchased from APC |
|
RedHat Linux 6.1 |
Purchased from APC |
|
Corel Linux 1.0 |
Purchased from Corel |
|
Mandrake Linux 7.1 |
Downloaded from Internet |
|
Windows 2000 Pro |
Purchased from EYO |
|
Small Business Server 4.5 |
Purchased from MS |
|
Windows 98 |
Purchased from MS |
|
Windows 98 SE |
Purchased from MS |
|
Windows NT4 Server |
Purchased from MS |
|
RISC OS 3.1 |
Purchased with Acorn A4000 |
|
OpenDOS 7.x |
On a CD that came with a magazine |
|
BeOS |
Download from the Internet |
| OS/2 Warp 4 | On a CD that came with a magazine |
| SuSE Linux 7.1 | Purchase via Internet |
I haven't bothered to list various version numbers of software here. Some, like CorelDRAW! I have owned many versions of, not mention endless bug fixes.
|
Software |
Notes |
|
Microsoft Office |
I started using Word and Excel before they were bundled in Office. These are still two of my all-time favourite apps, though I suspect they won't be upgraded from 2000 any time soon. |
| Lotus SmartSuite | I used to train Lotus Word Pro and wrote a training manual for it. It's a nice word processor. I never cared for Lotus 1-2-3. |
| Word Perfect | I was a late-comer to Word Perfect. The first version for Windows sucked dead rats. Version 6 though became my word processor of choice until Office 95 was released. I still occasionally use Word Perfect on Linux. |
| Star Office | Unstable crap that I might be tempted to use when the next version comes out! |
| Borland Sprint | I wrote an awful lot with this fine word processor. A product that didn't deserve to fail as miserably in the marketplace as it did. |
| WordStar | This is one of the later DOS versions and I quite liked it, but not as much as Sprint. |
| PageMaker | Still my all-time favourite desktop publishing package. Unbeatable flexibility in layouts, nice type and very stable. |
| Ventura | My second favourite desktop publishing package. Excellent when the document has a strict, formal structure as in technical publications. |
| CorelDRAW! Suite | I have been using this since version 2 and despite stability problems with some versions remains my most used graphics package. It's certainly the best value for money! |
| Adobe Photoshop | I haven't used it for years, though I have a look as each new version that come out. Mostly it makes me work harder to achieve what I can do in Corel PhotoPaint. |
| Claris FileMaker Pro | My favourite database application. If you want precision control over layout, it's unbeatable. If you'd rather knock up a database quickly when you don't need all the bells and whistles of Access, it's a dream. |
| ISYS | Back when hard disks were slow computers were slow, and filenames were 11 characters, it often took forever to find a file. ISYS made that a snap by building indexes of file content you could search. They still do and for some with massive amounts of documents, it's still apparently the best. |
| GoldWave | A shareware audio recording and processing package that does a remarkable amount at a bargain basement price. Highly recommended. |
| MS FrontPage | I've tried Adobe PageMill, Macromedia DreamWeaver and others, but ended up using FrontPage because it's good enough most of the time. There are enough niggles that I suspect I might be moving to DreamWeaver MX if it's as good as it seems so far. |
| Visual Studio 6 | When you are part of a MS Certified Solution provider, you get all sorts of stuff. This is stuff I might get around to learning one day. VB at least. |
| MS Back Office 4.5 | Again this came as part of MS Developer Network and includes 50 CALS. Never used. |
| MS Back Office Small Business Server 4.5 | Now this came as a special with 6 CALS (IIRC) for Certified Professionals and resellers. We used this until I acquired the iStation and Windows 2000 Pro went gold. |