29 Dec
2005
29 Dec
'05
2:42 p.m.
On Thu, 29 Dec 2005 15:35:35 -0500
"Roy J. Tellason" <rtellason at blazenet.net> wrote:
On Wednesday 28 December 2005 08:09 pm, Scott Stevens
wrote:
I have had a TERRIBLE problem with mice out in the garage. I've
learned that you NEVER put a PC out there without blank card
brackets in ALL open card slots and drives installed in ALL open
media holes. I've recently thrown away an otherwise good Dell
Optiplex Pentium III system because the mice set up housekeeping
in it. There was a big obvious nest in it and signs that 'the
little ones' were (im)properly raised as computer component
enthusiasts. I still have a lot of systems out there but they're
all carefully sealed. But I live surrounded by hundreds of acres
of cornfields, and the mice converge on my garage every year when
it gets cold. They've also chewed up ALL the power tool user
manuals that I made the mistake of leaving in the workbench
drawer. Sometimes if I'm out there and being quiet enough, the
whole city of mice around me comes alive.
> My lot is fairly large (0.23 acres) and I
have a huge area in the back
> of the lot that is essentially "unused", where I could build
> something. But for a public museum I'd rather not have it in the back
> yard of my house, so I am considering purchasing some undeveloped land
> in a cheaper part of the city.
I wouldn't consider that size to be "fairly large" but then I'm
thinking in
terms of "several acres", probably as rural as I can manage to get...
I am a collector, and consider myself somewhat of
a conservator,
but I don't personally have interest in maintaining a museum.
Right now my storage system borders on being a disaster, in part
because of a lack of organization and optimization of space.
Sounds familiar. I have the larger of two "bedrooms" in a second floor
apartment with way too much stuff in it, stuff in the hallway, in front of
my bookshelves, and a 10x20 storage unit.
I have 3-4 spare acres here, though, and long
term plans include
putting down a cement slab out there and then a pole building.
Insulation and heat eventually, so it can be a place to operate
instead of just for storage. At present the second bedroom is
completely crammed, my 'main labspace' room is so congested that
I can't even get to the electronics bench..., I have to be very
careful what I leave in the garage (unheated, somewhat unsealed
against the elements)
Euw. What would worry me more than anything else about not being completely
sealed is rodents, they can be very destructive. We've had a problem with
mice here in the house this year.
I am at the
point where it's time to post giveaways and
real-cheap-sale items on eBay just to get rid of some of the
excess, which isn't necessarily museum-grade stuff, but then... I
don't necessarily subscribe to the 'ten year rule' (make that- I
don't subscribe to it AT ALL in my personal collection. I have
some things much older, and quite a bit of newer stuff that I
like having, too. Usually things that don't get mentioned here
because that isn't the focus of this list, but it belongs at
least in this post.
I hear ya! :-)
I'm a hardware person, and what I really want
to focus more time
on is using some of the 'classic' silicon I have accumulated.
Z80 sbcs (real Z80, not the new clones and ASIC things) and the
Intel 8088 project that I've half completed. All those wonderful
8255, 6821 and Z80 peripheral chips, all the SRAM parts I have,
etc.
I have a bunch of that stuff on hand as well, plus 6502, 6510, 6522, 6526,
and some vic20- and c64-specific parts -- not because I have any particular
enthusiasm for those chips, but because I used to fix 'em. And a 6809, and
I think a z8001 somewhere. And then those 80xx microcontroller chips, and
probably others.
I'm now in the process of dipping my feet in
the GnuEDA package, because I
need a decent robust schematic capture program that isn't either an illegal
'evaluation' copy or a four figure investment.
I downloaded that at one point and had subscribed to their user list but it
read too much like a developer's list to suit me, and I never did get around
to getting it installed and configured.
In it's recent incarnation built on
NetBSD/i386 I am so far very impressed
with Gschem. (I *like* the fact that I have the complete source for the
entire setup.
Yes. I like that sort of thing very much myself. :-)
Schematics I create are mine forever, etc. etc.)
Housing my collection? It's a *disaster* but my wife puts up
with it. She isn't even complaing loudly yet that I haven't
moved the bandsaw she gave me for Christmas (she works at
Menards) out of the living room yet.
Heh. Sounds like you're definitely worse than I am! :-)
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin