Setting up a VAXstation

On 09/10/2007, Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote: OK, I was getting a bit too wound up there. I've backed off for a couple of days, much aided by my phone getting cut off - thanks for "leaving the retail market", C&W. Look, it's your choice, you live the way you want. The PC with the problem with 3 DIMMs is for a skint mate & I'm skint too. She can't afford to replace it and I am fixing it for her for free for a favour. If it was a business, it'd be a bit different. Want a free PC? No problem. You could try Freecycle: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FreecycleLondon/ Or check the skips in your local business park or trading estate. I've pulled some lovely machines out of there, and 21" monitors and so. Weird graphics card not working? Well, choose the card to suit the OS. Me, I run Linux, and these days, most things seem to just work. I'm happy to run nVidia's binary drivers on the free PC I got out of a mate at the new year. Athlon XP 2400+, 1GB RAM, 100GB hard disk, DVD+CDRW, 256MB AGP 3D card. Free for putting Windows on his new iMac for him. xBSD might be a bit more hassle but I believe they share a lot of X.11 these days. Frankly, if you want to run TSX-32, Haiku, AROS, FreeGEM, Syllable, SkyOS or something like that, use a VM. It'll be easier. I've run all of these except TSX under VMware or VirtualPC. VMware Server is a free download now; won't cost you a penny. Seriously. You don't need to spend a penny, just keep your eyes open. Fix a few CD players or something for someone and they'll give you their old PC, no hassle, I'm sure. Same goes for the OS and parts. I run a free and Free open source OS with about 99% open source apps. I use binaries for graphics card, Flash, Java and that's about it. But, yes, you're probably going to have to deal with not being able to repair the components if they die. PCs are like modern cars, or worse: designed for planned obsolescence. There are some things you just can't change in this world. If you try to be a tree, rigid and unyielding, you will get broken by the storm, blown down and smashed. Be a reed, bend in the wind. It's the only sane way to be sometimes. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat: liamproven at aol.com ? MSN/Messenger: lproven at hotmail.com Yahoo: liamproven at yahoo.co.uk ? Skype: liamproven ? ICQ: 73187508