The zen of old school Aero laptops

My addiction has flaired up again, this time it is directed at a ancient Compaq product.

The Compaq 4/25 Contura Aero, 4mb of titanic memory, 174mb Hard drive, no external mouse, only a track ball, pcmcia floppy, Bios that is flakier than a bowl of Tony the Tiger's product.

Ahh, web searches until all hours of the night, (the Aero Faq is a wonderful resource) finding the best price on a new battery (25 dollars on ebay) new memory runs in the 4mb 8mb and 16 mb flavors, with the 16mb requiring a Bios flash to get it to read all 16mb's of Ram.

A few lessons that I have learned

1. The Aero can handle a 8gb HD, with a Bios upgrade the Aero Faq mentions that the HD has to be less than 12.7mm, which in 1997 was a problem, now it is no big deal.
2. If your Aero has not been used for a long time, and you buy a new battery for it, start the computer first, then remove the hinged door plate and insert the battery to be charged, unlike a normal laptop that you put the battery in and start as normal, if you do not, you will be staring at a POST screen that will check your memory (4096) and you will go no further as the old cmos battery has just checked out on you (me)

3. The Cmos battery part number is 3v cr1220, it also is very cheap to purchase I paid .99 cents for mine.

4. HP/Compaq (God bless them) still maintains a download page of everything that you will need to get this twitchy but cool laptop up and running. From Rampaq's to flash the Bios to downloads to restore your hibernation partition.

5. Before formating and installing your OS, be certain to have your hibernation partition installed, it MUST be installed on a wiped HD, not a formatted one.

6. The pcmcia floppy is somewhat rare, ebay had some for 40 dollars or less, new they can go for 200, unless you like laplink, or winlink, buy one of these beasties.

7. Amazon.com had the best price on memory upgrades, at 6.00 for 4mb, new that is a 130 dollar chip.

The zen part is the usefulness of such things as keyboard short cuts, remembering those forgotten Dos commands, and smiling as you type at the thought that new these little guys went for 2,000, and now they are mere pennies.

Life is a fleeting thing, sometimes what we value highly are the most uselessly hindering things of all.

Addicted to old Operating systems

My budget was going along fine, I was saving money, I was happy.

Then just then, I decided to buy a 40 gb HD, and install in a laptop with no cd drive.

Opps, have to buy a extrernal CD drive, and well, it could handle win2000, and shouldn't you upgrade the memory......

I am comfortable with my addiction, it is positive and constructive, realitively cheap..that is what I tell myself anyway.


Does anyone know where to find a M$ Plus! CD......

Secrets of happiness

My budget just got blown up this week, a fuel pump went bad on the Honda, for a domestic, it would be cheap enough to fix, 30 dollars and some bolts an voila! fixed.

Not so with Mr. honda, try 180 dollars and a gas tank removal and it still Isn't fixed.

I should be upset, but it is an opportunity, I've been meaning to start riding a bicycle into work. Loss some weight, and save some money, but it is just so darn easy to hop in the car and drive to where ever it is that I wanted to go.

Now, that no longer is an option, I am looking forward to this actually, I perform better and try harder when the back is against the wall, and in this case, I have only gain in front of me, not loss.

This is a secret in a way, problems can be opportunities for growth or effort or change, if I solve this problem, I will achieve some goals and pick up a fun hobby.

How great is that?

The 300

The film the 300 depicts the Spartans as some sort of pro freedom type band of merry maruaders.

Unfortuantely, that difers from Spartan reality.

In Sparta, children were conscripted into military training at the age of 6, that is if the passed the fitness test, if they flunked that, they were left to die. At the age of 6 they were inducted and the training began, they were now property of the State, they fought each other in training drills, and to graduate to manhood, they ahd to sneak out at night and find a peasant to strangel with their barehands, then they lived in barracks until the age of 40 or so, when if married they could spend part of their time with their wives, a Spartan didn't "retire" until 55 or so, and then they were free to live on their own plot of land with their wife.
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I like the Spartans, there theory of "state as armed camp" makes a sort of sense, and we see that in practice in the world today, from North Korea to Cuba, however it should be pointed out that those aren't exactly the freest places in the world....

Unexpected luck

Took the bike to work the other day, my co worker had already bought a new bike, Siggh.

A different co woker decided to ride the bike just for kicks, and sure enough, he broke it doing wheelies. Then he offered to buy the bike off of me for more than I was going to sell it to my other friend for, how cool is that?

I see Libby got convicted, and of course his lawyer is out in front of the courthouse pledging to file appeals..I also notice that Libby will be going to prison, and the lawyer will be going home a millionaire from Libby's legal fees...

Another Monday

It's monday again, a bit under the weather as well, but my goodnes unless I feel like a truck ran me over I'm going into work.

For the money?

No, I promised a mexican co worker that I would bring him a bike and I forgot to bring it into work for him. He has to walk everywhere, so if we are enver to poor to help others, why not?


Progress is good as well on my goals, and I've discovered Ubuntu CD's, man, that is one heck of a deal it is more capable out of the box than any windows system that I have ever messed around with.

Don't look back Bill, I think Linux is gaining on you......

The promise of Spring

Well we have made it to March, spring is just around the corner, with
it's promise of new beginnings with every rising bud of a flower.

I like the springtime, before the summer heat wilts everything including the people who work under the unrelenting sun. In the Spring the woman seem more beautiful, the air seems cleaner, and the promise of life abounds.

Enjoy!

So far the plan is going wonderfully well (AMDG), I've lost a good ten pounds, saved a ton of money by laying off the booze, and actually *gasp* gotten a few long festering projects off the ground like installing Zip Drives (remember those anyone?) and programming other things and changing oil and and....

The language study has been lagging,
So I cannot Vous et Vous Francaise as of yet, and my Espansih is still poco...but it's spring, and the sun will be out, and the birds will be birding, and well