It Was Fifty Years Ago This Month

The personal Computer Revolution started with the introduction of an 8 bit computer with switches for input and blinking lightss for output. The Altair 8800 appeared on the cover of Popular Electronics Magazine in January of 1975. It sold for $395 as a kit and $498 assembled.

I lived on the outskirts of Carbondale, Illinois at the time in a 40ft geodesic dome house. There was snow on the ground when I went to my mailbox by the Round House across the way. When I got the magazine out and saw the cover I ran back to the Dome screaming. My girlfriend and later wife, Sandy, did not at all understand the commotion. I explained it to her. "This changes everything. It is the start of the computer revolution. Every one will have one." Of course she gave me an odd look and a wan smile. I could see what she was thinking. "Computers are for IBM and take up large rooms and requite gangs of people to operate. Me own one? What are the odds?" Currently she has two, a laptop and a handheld (cell phone). Both more capable than the 1975 IBM top of the line by a factor of at least ten thousand.

I moved to Chicago in late spring of that year. After some struggles getting work and getting settled (I stayed with some friends of Dr. Nilda - who I knew from Carbondale - Suki and Jim on Sheffield and Dickens, sleeping on their couch in the living room), I got a place to live. The place was The St. Nicholas Theater on Halsted Street. They were just getting started and had to rent out what would later become their office space to make ends meet. They picked me. Their first show was going to be David Mamet's "American Buffalo". I regularly saw David and the rest of the cast and crew including Bill Macy. We had regular smoke sessions and I would expound on the coming computer revolution. I messianically believed in what I was doing and I'm sure David picked up on it. Years later I saw Bill on the street in Chicago and he told me that I was the inspiration for David's Play 'The Water Engine" about an inventor who gets knocked off to protect corporate interests. The reality was that the computer revolution depended on the products of big corporations used in ways they hadn't imagined or at the very least weren't currently at the top of their priority list.

After 6 months at the St. Nicholas, the theater company needed the space for offices and so I needed to move. Me and Sandy moved to 2053 N. Sheffield, practically next door to Suki and Jim, which would be our shop/home for about the next 8 years. I found out about the C.A.C.H.E. Club and started going to meetings where I met my lifelong friend and associate Clyde Philips. He introduced me to the computer language FORTH which I still use to this day. Ted Nelson, a computer visionary, gave frequent talks at different meetings to inspire us all. Around that time I also wrote and got published an article, Faster Erase Times - Kilobaud March 1978, on EPROMs and how to erase them. I sold kits.

When I bought my first computer there were already clones developed and the S-100 bus was becoming a standard. in fact it did become an IEEE standard a few years later. I bought an IMSAI which had Flip switches and a resonant transformer power supply for better voltage regulation than a normal line voltage transformer. That reduced the stress on the linear voltage regulator typical of the power supplies of the day. The LM7805 was king. All kinds of boards were becoming available as kits, but there was something missing.

I was walking down the street in Chicago in the summer of 1977 and the thought came to me, there is no good S-100 I/O Board, I had better design one. I probably started work that day. Intel had a very nice and very popular manual for its 8080 family of chips. There were three I/O chips I was interested in. A serial port/UART, the 8251. A counter timer chip, the 8253. And a parallel port chip with three 8 bit ports, the 8255. There was also 1K of RAM and up to 4K of EPROM. It turns out the 8251 did not have a software reset, meaning you had to tie up parallel port resources to make it work in a system. I never used it on another board, ever. But all this is hindsight. I learned all this while using the board in my system. So when Randy/Ward said they had a problem with the 8251 I was ready with a fix. I went over to where they kept the BBS prototype and showed them where to make the cuts and jumpers for the fix. I think they had everything up and running about a week or two after that. On Feb. 16, 1978 the BBS went live. I did not have a modem at the time and it wasn't until I got a modem a month later that I first logged in. The modem was a slow acoustic modem. My first log in was probably at 300 baud. I just wanted to check the connection. I didn't use it much the first few years it was up but got more involved when BBS networks started forming and discussions of politics started. I had a long distance telephone bill of $100 a month to keep up with the conversations I wanted to be involved with. Mostly National Politics and the Drug War.

That is how it all began for me and here we are fifty years later and the machines are not only talking to each other, they are now talking back at us.









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IMing

I got one of those annoying IM pop ups on my e-mail and for S&Gs I decided to engage (warp drive plus impulse engines). So I start chatting. Since I am not biting right away the female in question gave me a link to "her" site. Well she was looking good with not too many clothes on. Plus she promised to let me watch her squirt. I tired of it and signed off.

Today, same "girl" (according to her handle) but a different picture. However the conversation went exactly the same way as yesterday (when I started this little amusement). I suspect there is no girl. Just an AI program like Lisa designed to get men to sign up for the site. And in fact according to the Lisa site that may be exactly what is happening.

LISA, the future of advanced AI. A pretty bold statement I believe and one which – OK, “she” may not be the future of anything, but LISA is already promising to provide a leap forward in chatbot technology. And that’s what this site is all about, the chronicling of LISA from a few lines of code to realistic and “intelligent” speech.

So much for romance.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

I Need Some Help

We don't do this often around here. But I could use some help with a project I'm working on. Think of this as sort of a kick starter for something that could prove useful in fairly short order.

As you may or may not know I'm working on a very interesting microprocessor. You can see a picture of it on my workbench with USB cables going to the computer I'm typing on. Convenient. Internet and development system all in one. Everything is talking nice and following commands.

But you will note that there is a hole on the left side of the photo where my oscilloscope should go. That is because both of my previous scopes have gone belly up on me. I need a scope to continue my experiments and complete a design I have been working on. And this is what such a 'scope would look like. A Tektronix 475.

Which brings me to my point. I need some help to get such a 'scope. They can cost up to $500 depending on what is available and the reputation of the seller. If you can help:

Make A Donation Today

And for those of you moved by sentiment: 13 Oct is my birthday. I was born on a Friday. My lucky day.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Dopers Are Ruining The Country

Glenn Greenwald is having a look at Steve Jobs and how illegal drugs ruined his life.

It’s fascinating to juxtapose America’s reverence for Steve Jobs’ accomplishments and its draconian drug policy with this, from the New York Times‘ obituary of Jobs:

[Jobs] told a reporter that taking LSD was one of the two or three most important things he had done in his life. He said there were things about him that people who had not tried psychedelics — even people who knew him well, including his wife — could never understand.

Unlike many people who have enjoyed success, Jobs is not saying that he was able to succeed despite his illegal drug use; he’s saying his success is in part — in substantial part — because of those illegal drugs (he added that Bill Gates would “be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once”). These quotes (first published by a New York Times reporter) have been around for some time but have been only rarely discussed in the recent hagiographies of Jobs: a notable omission given that he himself praised those experiences as an integral part of his identity and one of the most important things he ever did.

I'd trade all the burnouts and drop outs who couldn't handle their drugs for another Steve Jobs. Maybe we could get 20 more like him.

In short, the deceit at the heart of America’s barbaric drug policy — that these substances are such unadulterated evils that adults should be put in cages for voluntarily using them — is more glaring than ever. In light of his comments about LSD, it’s rather difficult to reconcile America’s adoration for Steve Jobs with its ongoing obsession with prosecuting and imprisoning millions of citizens (mostly poor and minorities) for doing what Jobs, Obama, George W. Bush, Michael Phelps and millions of others have done.

It is all about connections. And Black people for the most part ain't got none. So guess who is going to jail? Clue - not white folks (very much).

Jobs’ praise for his LSD use is what I kept returning to as I read about the Obama DOJ’s heinous new policy to use the full force of criminal prosecutions against medical marijuana dispensaries in California. In October, 2009, I enthusiastically praised Eric Holder and the DOJ for appearing to fulfill Obama’s campaign promise by refraining from prosecuting medical marijuana dispensaries in compliance with state law (a “rare instance of unadulterated good news from Washington,” I gushed). As I wrote:

Criminalizing cancer and AIDS patients for using a substance that is (a) prescribed by their doctors and (b) legal under the laws of their state has always been abominable. The Obama administration deserves major credit not only for ceasing this practice, but for memorializing it formally in writing.

Yet now, U.S. Attorneys in California will expend substantial law enforcement resources to persecute medical marijuana dispensaries that sell to consenting adults even though those transactions have been legalized by the voters of California and 16 other states (to see what a complete reversal this is of everything Obama and Holder previously said on this subject, see here).

The article goes on at length discussing our All American Drug Prohibition. And finishes with this update:

UPDATE: In The Los Angeles Times today, a former Deputy Chief of the L.A.P.D. details how drug prohibition “has cost our country more than $1 trillion in cash and much more in immeasurable social harm”; “the damage that came from the prohibition of alcohol pales in comparison to the harm wrought by drug prohibition“; and “that ending today’s prohibition on drugs — starting with marijuana — would do more to hurt the [drug] cartels than any level of law enforcement skill or dedication ever can.”

Ah but think about all the government functionaries out of a job. And America out of Jobs.

H/T Drug Policy Forum of Texas

Cross Posted at Classical Values

She Boots

At about 1345z on 8 Oct 2011 my GA144 board booted. I'm going to have a beer and a nap and start in on the software after a good rest.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Steve Jobs

I am rather fortunate to have grown up in the hacker era. To have heard of Steve and Woz before they became household names. The lights are going out. A lot of us were reaching for the brass ring Steve captured. Way to go guy. And lucky (and very good) you. You will be missed.

Now about that new processor I'm working on.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Screaming Very Low Power Microprocessor

I have a new article up at ECN Magazine about a microprocessor that can do 90 billion instructions per second for a power cost of about 1 watt. Pretty good huh? It gets better. The chip has 144 processors in the package and when they are all idle the chip uses only 14 microwatts.

GreenArrays (the company that makes the chip) has partnered with another company to make the processor available to hobbyists.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Moore's New Law

I have an article up at ECN Magazine about some new innovations in chip design that look to reduce power requirements by a factor of twenty to one hundred for a given level of computing power. There is an example of this chip in production that can do over 90 Billion Instructions Per Second (BIPS) for a power cost of just a little over six tenths of a watt. Compare that to your current desktop or laptop machine.

It was invented by Chuck Moore of FORTH fame.

Details and links can be found at ECN.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Assigned Meaning

In an article on what traits a computer programmer needs to be successful the following comment was made on the outcome of the study.

Dehnadi and Bornat's thesis is that the single biggest predictor of likely aptitude for programming is a deep comfort with meaninglessness:

What makes computers so interesting to me is that all you have is a gazillion on/off switches. There is no alphabet in your computer. There are only switches. So how does the computer send an e-mail? Meaning has been assigned to certain patterns in the switching matrix. Now it helps (sometimes) if the meanings assigned are consistent. But the essence is: there is no intrinsic meaning to anything going on in the inside of a computer. Short version: meaning is dependent on context. And that is very profound in all kinds of situations. Like how do you communicate with someone who has a far different set of contexts? In computing you ask: is that block of bits you have supposed to be interpreted as numbers or text? What kind of numbers? What (human) language? To get the meanings entirely correct the context has to be spelled out in detail. Which is to say that communications between humans is very difficult. We assume contexts which may not be relevant. This leads to miscommunication.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Refilling Your Printer Cartridge - Canon

My printer (Canon MP160 all in one) has been out of wack for the last few months due to lack of ink. I had a cartridge refill kit available but I hadn't used it because the refill requirements seemed so stringent. I was way overestimating the difficulty. I used the single version of the following refills. But if you buy them 3 at a time you save money on shipping.

First - drilling the holes with the drill provided is not difficult or critical. Second - you can in theory leave the cartridge out of the printer for 24 hours without it clogging. So if it takes you 2 hours for a first time filling - no harm done. Be sure to do the work on newspapers and if possible use lint free absorbent cloth to wipe up any excess spills on the cartridge. I got away with paper towels and facial tissues. Watch out for lint.

3-Pack of Black Ink Refill Kits for Canon PG-30 PG-37 PG-40 PG-50 Cartridges

3-Pack of Color Ink Refill Kits for Canon CL-31 CL-38 CL-41 and CL-51 Inkjet Cartridges

Since the cartridges had been out of ink and out of use for so long it took 7 or 8 heavy duty cleanings (explained in the printer manual) to get them working again. But work they do. Quite well I might add.

Here is another refill kit I haven't tried that should be good until the printer dies. What looks like 3 bottles of 100 ml each for the black cartridge and 3 bottles of 100 ml each for the color cartridge. Under $25 with shipping.

20 oz (600 ml) Jumbo Canon Printer Ink Refill Kit Color & Black

One reviewer suggested a package of syringes would be very helpful to avoid contaminating the colors. So here you go:

6 pcs of 10-ml ink refill syringes and 6 pcs of 2-inch long blunt needles

They also have ink for other printers.

Lots Of Ink - Different Printers

Now you only need to buy cartridges when one breaks.

You have to admit that advice on how to economize on your computer printer supplies is proof that this is one heck of a Depression.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Buy Fruit Win Laptop

The first mate bought me a box of Fruit Roll-Ups™ the other day which is how I learned that General Mills is running a promotion that is giving laptops to kids without cash in places like Haiti.

Helping to educate

In 2010, Fruit Snacks partnered with One Laptop Per Child, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide educational opportunities to the world’s poorest children.

I did a couple of posts on them a while back: One Laptop Per Child In Haiti and Smart Idea.

You can get more information on the promotion at WinOneGiveOne.com.

The official rules say they are giving away 2001 laptops. I assume this also means that an equal number will be donated to poor kids. But they are not specific about that in the rules.

And of course Amazon will sell you Fruit Roll-Ups™:

Fruit Roll-Ups Fruit Flavored Snacks, Strawberry, 4-Count Rolls (Pack of 18)

Note that the rules say that on average you have to buy 19,000 boxes of Fruit Roll-Ups™ to win one laptop. What are you waiting for?

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Semiconductors And Japan's Earthquake

I have a couple of prognostications on the effect of the Japanese earthquake on semiconductors. Here is the first. There are several bullet points. I'm going to list those plus the final conclusion.

1. GDP will fall
2. Electronic systems will take a hit
3. There will be no change in IC forecast
4. Supply chain issues will be resolved

5. Supply will be constrained but impact on demand will be slight

"In the final analysis, there is no doubt that supply will be constrained in numerous areas relating to the electronic system and semiconductor industries due to the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. However, on a worldwide basis, demand for electronic systems and semiconductors is expected to be only slightly lessened due to the disaster in Japan. Moreover, any lessening of system or semiconductor demand in 2011 due to the earthquake is forecast to be delayed and pushed into 2012, but not destroyed."

That seems about right. Disruptions will decline through 2011 and then if no further disasters strike (like Tokyo getting a big dose of radioactive fallout) things will be back on track in 2012.

Here is a report that provides some further detail.

The disaster, including the earthquakes, a tsunami and an ongoing crisis they caused at the country's nuclear power plants, has not only damaged semiconductor manufacturing facilities, but also affectedJapan's electrical supply and transportation infrastructure.

Thus, many companies are having trouble getting important supplies and shipping out the products they have manufactured.

And it could be four to six months before semiconductor production fully resumes in Japan, said Dale Ford, a senior vice president with IHS iSuppli, a research firm. And that will have a major impact on worldwide supply since Japan is a major cog in the global semiconductor manufacturing process.

Actually, Ford noted that a few of Japan's production facilities are so badly damaged that they may never come back online again.

"This is the biggest impact on the electronics supply chain in the history of the semiconductor industry," said Ford during a Webinar that iSuppli hosted Friday. "We've had other disasters but this is the most significant supply chain impact that the industry has ever experienced."

iSuppli reported last month that the disaster in Japan is currently putting a pinch on 25% of the worldwide production of silicon wafers used to make computer chips. But the trouble is going further than that, according to Ford.

Silicon wafer production has been affected, along with the production of LCD screens, silicon and chemicals, like hydrogen peroxide, used in the manufacturing of computer chips.

Len Jelinek, a director and chief analyst with iSuppli, said that 75% of the global supply of hydrogen peroxide has been affected by the disaster in Japan. The chemical is used to build semiconductor wafers.

"This is a critical situation in that numerous manufacturing fabs that use this chemical are unable to get adequate supplies, which results in slow downs," said Jelinek. "This is rapidly turning into a very concerning issue."

Ford noted that three Japanese facilities that make silicon have not yet been able to return to operation since the earthquake hit on March 11.

So things may not be as rosy as the first report indicates.

If you need a new computer in the next six months to a year my opinion is that you should buy now.

Smart Idea

Jessie Jackson Jr has come up with a really good idea for breaking the government monopoly on schools. Give every kid a laptop.

Jesse Jackson Jr. wants the Constitution changed so that every kid has the right to an ipod and laptop.

I think his method is wrong but the idea is very good. At $100 per computer and 40 million kids in primary education the one year cost is $4 billion. For every school child in America. How much would it cost to wire up every school so the wireless laptops can access lessons and the Internet? That depends on how many buildings need to be wired. A good number for estimation purposes is 200,000 buildings at $100,000 per building. That is a one time cost of $20 billion. Internet service should be on the order of $10 per child per month. Roughly $100 per child per year. So that is a steady $8 billion a year (a new laptop every year and wireless service). Compared to the $11,000 per child average spending on schools in the US $200 per year per child is peanuts. If you pro rate the wiring costs over 10 years of public education the infrastructure cost is $100 per year per child. Bringing the total cost to $300 per year per child.

I don’t like the method (changing the Constitution) but the idea is brilliant.

In time it will break the government school monopoly. And there is already a company (non-profit) that is making suitable laptops for cheap:

One Laptop Per Child

I know one of the guys on the project. Very sharp. Mitch Bradley.

Update: 10 March 2011 1634z

A really good book by R. Buckminster Fuller on the subject that you should read at least three times.

Education Automation: Comprehensive Learning for Emergent Humanity

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Day And Night

The above is a screen capture of a very old application I was using back in the days of DOS or was it Win 3.x? Well anyway, it has been updated for Win 7 32/64 and I'm using it on my computer. You can see where the sun is shining and it gives sunrise/sunset at your location plus lots of other features. It is shareware. You can get the download at GeoClock.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

DRAM Prices Will Fall in 2011

If you are planning RAM (memory) upgrades for your computer wait until the second half of 2011 to buy. Prices will be dropping drastically.

There are four phases in the semiconductor cycle. During a shortage, prices stabilize and manufacturers become profitable. They invest these profits in wafer fabs, avoiding steep taxes on retained earnings. Invariably, this level of investment is too high and results in an oversupply two years after the company’s original commitment to add capacity. This oversupply drives prices into a collapse, evaporating profits.

As long as manufacturers are unprofitable, they can’t expand production to meet the needs of a steadily growing market. This creates a shortage a couple of years later, and the market enters another period of stable prices and profits.

So the reason the market is so unsteady is taxes. Just another entry in "the power to tax is the power to destroy" file. The smart investor takes advantage of these known cycles - when he can.

Setting UP Win 7 Pro

I bought a copy of Microsoft Windows 7 Anytime Upgrade [Home Premium to Professional Upgrade]. Microsoft says the upgrade will be easy and it has an XP compatibility mode for all those old programs I need to run. Plus I can set up Virtual Machines for things like DOS, Win3.3, Linux, XP, and who knows what else my devious mind can conjure. Maybe a Z-80 partition and virtual machine. Microsoft says it is going to be easy and will take around ten minutes. They lie.

You start off going to the Windows Anytime Upgrade gizmo under the Start button and give them the secret code that came with your (almost)empty box. You then can go to the download page and Microsoft gives you the privilege of downloading 500 MBytes of code. My speed was on the order of 1.5 MBytes a second. Not too shabby. If you have nothing else to do for 4 or 5 minutes. Then you run the sucker. It restarts the computer (the shutdown dance) 3 times with varying delays and dead times. Give it at least a half hour before you give up on it while it is in one of its idle modes.

Then I went here to get the VFirtual Machine stuff. Another significant load for your ISP. Well fine. You can fool around with that and see if you can get it to work. Or you can Read The Effen Manual. Which I highly recommend.

So any way I get some insight in the process and then I find this page which seems to work better. Which then takes you to this other page where you can do the actual downloads.

Click on XP Mode download then run the program. You then have to do the shutdown dance. Again. Only once though.

Then Virtual PC Mode - another shutdown. This is getting monotonous. And a lot longer than 10 minutes. And finally you get to do the Windows XP Mode update. Another restart. Yarghhhh!!!

Finally I'm done. More like an hour and a half or two later. Well there is the Virtual Machine Maker Icon under the Start menu. Excellent. I made a 2 GB virtual machine to see how it works. Looks good so far. I'm going to fool around some and see what I've got - by poking at it. Out of that 1 GB (roughly) of software there ought to be something useful. Like maybe I can use my schematic drafting program. After roughly three months without. But I do have about a fifth of a ream of schematic scribbles I have produced in the interim. Some transcribing is in order.

If I learn anything interesting or amusing I'll have another post. And if you would like the previous chapter of the saga you can go back to The Partitioning of An Area. Which has a link to the one before that.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

The Partitioning Of An Area

Some times you have to divide things up to make them work better. At least in the computer world. Which is why disc users who work with legacy systems often partition their systems. What to do? And how to do it? Well I found the testimonial on this page very helpful. Well what does it say? Just this:

My four stars for "Paragon Partition Manager 10" are to reflect the quality of the product as I found it to be. I was tempted to give it only three stars due to the major limitation that I had with it, however went with four due to the overall effort that the developers put into it. It is four starts because "I like it", however I doubt that I will be using it in the future. Others will likely find also that it is a good program, but not needed as there are free alternatives ("Partition Wizard Home Edition", "GNU Parted") that completely fill their needed.

*** "Paragon Partition Manager 10": Works with Windows and (primary drive) Linux partitions. Sadly, does not work with Linux partitions on logical drives.

*** "Partition Wizard Home Edition": Free. Works with Windows partitions. Does not work with Linux partitions.

*** "GNU Parted": Free. Works with Linux partitions. Does not work with Windows partitions.

*** Having both "Partition Wizard Home Edition" and "GNU Parted" will likely do everything that you need.

Partition Wizard is free? I like that price. So I down loaded it from Partition Wizard Home Edition. And then I tried it out. I decided to allocate 10GB to a new partition. The software was simple. It asked me how many megs I wanted in my new partition. I entered a number and clicked. And I got back the usual warning: "Open programs - do you want to shut them down or change partitions during reboot?" I chose "reboot" as the preferred option. It seemed the safest. So I rebooted. I got one or two unexpected screens (transient) during the reboot and then everything was back. Whhheeeww (always backup before changing your fundamentals - you will be more relaxed during operations). So I checked. Sure enough 10 GB was now in an unallocated partition.

When I add Linux to the system I'll check out GNU Parted and give a report.

Let me add that this is part of my ongoing saga about a failing hard drive and this is actually where I planned to start if my hard drive had not started to go bad. As the saying goes: even if it does not profit me I have had a profitable experience. I learned something.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Had A SMART Event Lately?

As you may or may not know I was able to get a Gateway DX4831-01e thanks to the generous help of my readers. I LOVE the machine. If you can't get one locally Amazon has them.

About a month after I got the machine (a very nice one it is - Two eSATA ports [high speed external drive interface] and lots of USB ports plus various memory card readers) I started getting SMART Event reports. i.e. your hard drive is going south - do something quick. I backed everything up and went on using it. It has been another month now. The drive seems to be working fine.

So how good is this SMART stuff? Well I dunno. I haven't worked in that area. So how to find out? PassMark Software has a free tool that gives you a read out of the codes plus it tracks them to predict drive failure. What I found was that I was running out of spare sectors (they are used to replace failed sectors). So the dive is going to fail. From what I can tell, I have about 100 days or so to get the issue totally resolved (drive replaced). DiskCheckup™ is very nice tool that you should run at least daily.

Which brings me to backup. I tried using the Win 7 backup software and I found it useless. I had enough hard disk space for the backup but the Win software wasn't satisfied. Yaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrgh! I have used Paragon 9.0 on my old HP Box and I was very happy with it. It made my transition to the Gateway painless. Once I downloaded the free trial version of Paragon Backup & Recovery Free Edition (64 bit) 10.2 and used it to do an extraction of my saved files backup was relatively easy - well the menus are not exactly intuitive but the help files help and you can get through it. And why did I have to try the new version when I still had the old version? Well you see Win 7 (and I believe Vista - but I'm not sure) is not compatible with a lot of XP software. But not to worry. Intel has a Win 7 Upgrade.

OK so I tried the latest Paragon and I got all my old files back. After a couple of months I saved enough to get the Paragon Backup & Recovery Suite 10so I could backup my Win 7 box. But I had a leetle problem. You have to uninstall the free Paragon Backup 10. Not too tough. The Uninstall worked fine. But then you have to look for an errant directory entry or two and delete them. With the usual reboots and other time wasters. Well all is well that ends well. The software is up and I'm doing daily backups (the drive is failing) which take 4 hours 14 minutes to backup 720 GB (it gets compressed to about 570 GB on the drive). I used the eSata interface instead of USB in order to speed up the transfer. But you do need special cables for that. I used Tripp Lite P952-003 eSATA to SATA Signal Cable, 7P-M/7P-M - 3ft. Everything went well, with transfer speeds on the order of 50 M bits a second (total read and write). With indicated speeds (the Paragon has a nice window where you can watch the action) of around 145 M bits a second. Judging by the time it is about 3 G Bytes a minute actual transfer speed. Not too shabby.

Now I have to erase my spare drive and find some tools I can use to partition it with. I need places for Linux, XP, and even DOS. I'll report on that when I make some progress.

I have been using this tool: Cables To Go 30504 USB 2.0 to IDE or Serial ATA Drive Adapter (Black) both for its USB interface and just for its power supply when I was using the eSATA connection. I have found it to be invaluable for working out my current issues and for reading out those old hard drives you have laying around. I'm told you can get them cheaper on eBay but I like the security of having recourse with Amazon. YMMV.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

USB Modem For Your PC

A while back when my Windows XP box died I was able, with some help from my readers and my mom, to get a Gateway DX4831-01. A very nice machine with lots of ports. But a modem port was not one of the built in options. The first mate of course was always pestering me to send FAXes to take care of various bits of business, so I went searching Amazon for a USB Modem. This is the one I got:

I had set up my Win 7 for 64 bits and I found that none of the software included on their CD was of ANY use. Dang. Well I don't give up easy. So I went looking around. First thing I went to the TRENDnet site and went looking for my modem. I got to the modem page and found a Win 7 64 bit driver and downloaded it. I loaded the driver (ran the .exe) and when it finished I plugged in the modem (you will not be prompted) after I connected it to a phone line. Then I went to the Win icon and clicked Devices and Printers. You get a modem (USB) icon and also a FAX icon. I clicked on the FAX icon and away I went. One other thing. Not every USB port on my computer worked with the modem. So you may have to try plugging it in to different USB ports.

If you want to get a dial-up connection to a server or ISP click Devices and Printers and then right click on the modem icon and then click on Dial-up Networking. I did not try this since I have a cable modem.

Because of the odd shape I think a USB 2.0 A-Male to A-Female Extension Cable is definitely in order.

This modem has served my needs well so far and I would definitely buy another.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Got An Old Hard Drive?

Amazon is selling for a very reasonable price (currently $27.93) a hard drive to USB adapter that is just wonderful for extracting data from old hard drives or using a new hard drive for an emergency backup. I don't recommend it for use as a permanent USB drive as it doesn't come with a case. Let me add that it comes with a power supply for the drive and can read modern SATA drives and the older IDE drives. Transfer speeds using USB 2.0 run from about 10 MB/second to 25 MB/second. I bought it because the hard drive in my new computer (2 months old) was giving an immanent failure notice and I happened to have a hard drive on my shelf that I was planning to install in my computer. Here is the adapter:

Cables To Go 30504 USB 2.0 to IDE or Serial ATA Drive Adapter (Black)

And here is the new hard drive I was planning to install:

Western Digital 1.5 TB Caviar Green SATA Intellipower 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Desktop Hard Drive WD15EARS

Let me add that I did have one minor problem with the adapter and it was my own damn fault. If you are using a new Hard Drive with this device be sure to follow the formatting instructions given in the half page manual. Hint: use diskmgmt.msc Enter it in your command line utility or in Win 7 the search function in the Windows toolbar icon. The rest is easy.

I messed around for a half hour or more before I followed the universal rule - RTFM. ;-) My thinking was "A half page? How hard can it be?" It turns out that for most stuff not hard at all.

Let me add that Amazon still has Sony DVD-Rs at $5 for 30. A real deal. And if you order 6 packs of them shipping is free.

Sony DMR 47RS4 - 30 x DVD-R - 4.7 GB ( 120min ) 16x - spindle - storage media

Cross Posted at Classical Values