My Computers
From WhiteStar 02
Contents |
[edit] Computer specs
(TODO: Put Wikipedia links everywhere...)
[edit] Descriptions
[edit] artoo
Named after Artoo-Detoo (R2-D2) in the Star Wars films.
When I changed my PC in Summer 2006 and transferred whitestar02 to my girlfriend, her old machine became artoo. Up until now, it runs very well (as you can see).
[edit] compiler
I just recuperated this old machine to help with compiling the libraries which I stay up-to-date with, mainly OpenSceneGraph and ODE. I keep up-to-date with the SVN in these projects and contribute to them, so I need to update and recompile them several times a week, and that was getting too intrusive when I did it on my main machine (skywalker), so I decided to do it on this machine. It's still not that useful as compiles take a long time (the machine needs more RAM, it swaps even with no apps running because Windows itself takes more RAM than it has).
I'll probably change its name to something more interesting sometime in the near future.
[edit] skywalker
Named after Luke Skywalker (well, the Skywalker line in general) in the Star Wars films.
I was using whitestar02 and usually just upgrade parts as I go. In Summer 2006, though, I had to do a major upgrade and most of my parts would get changed (motherboard, processor, memory and video card being the major ones) so I decided to take the plunge and build a whole new machine. This is a beauty. It's a refreshing change to play games without having to tweak settings and wonder how they'll run (though that won't last, not just because games move so quickly, but also because I'm a tweaking junkie...)
[edit] whitestar02
Named after the White Star that Sheridan commands when he retakes Earth (White Star 01 having been destroyed at Z'ha'dum). The numbering is my interpretation of how they would number them.
My girlfriend now uses this machine, which is a nice upgrade for her and will allow her to do things she couldn't before (like maybe play games with me?).
[edit] simba
Named after Simba in Disney's The Lion King.
This is an Acer TravelMate 2400, and it's a great laptop. Pretty lightweight, great screen and snappy performance as long as you don't want to play games.
[edit] alpha
Named after the computer's architecture, DEC Alpha.
This computer is no longer used because keeping it updated and in good working order took too much work. Gentoo being one of the last distributions to support the Alpha, I had little choice there, but I dislike having to build everything from source (it takes too long for the small potential gains, IMHO). On the other hand, the computer was too slow to run Alpha Core (Fedora Core for Alpha).
I really respect the Alpha architecture. I have only seen a couple examples, but if I speak out of experience with this machine, it's really impressive. Even now that I've replaced it with artoo, I think alpha was faster at half the MHz. Feed Alphas enough RAM and they work wonders.
Originally, this machine cost me 20$. I had to upgrade its 2GB hard drive and 64MB of RAM, so add about 100$ each for those (pretty specific, hard to find parts) and for about 220$ Canadian, I had a hell of a home server. A shame it's not well supported anymore.
[edit] bigben
Named after the London, UK landmark (actually, Big Ben is the clock's largest bell, but the clock itself is often referred to by this name too). I chose that name because the machine's case is pretty big (old In-Win model, shorter but wider than a standard ATX mid-tower case).
This is one of my "nostalgia" machines. I use it when I want to run old games and demos. This one in particular can run games from that fuzzy era before nVidia and ATI took over the gaming video cards market, when 3D accelerated games needed to be written for a vendor-specific API. My favorites of that era are MechWarrior 2 and Wing Commander Prophecy. I also use it for slightly older but demanding DOS games like Wing Commander 3 and 4, which I love too.
[edit] tinytim
Named after the character in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol (actually, I was thinking of the Disney adaptation Mickey's Christmas Carol). I chose that name because the machine's case is pretty small (an AST desktop model, very cramped inside).
My other "nostalgia" machine. This one is for pure DOS games and demos.
I had loads of fun setting up this machine, because at the time I got it from a friend who wanted to get rid of it and knew nothing about it (from a hardware standpoint). I had an old sound card, a VLB video card (the machine had really slow onboard video) and some RAM lying around, and I played around for a while before I got everything working (including an ISA network card with working TCP/IP and SMB to my Windows and Linux boxes!).
[edit] sakura
Named after the Japanese cherry blossom, which is very beautiful. I love pictures of cherry trees in bloom, and I would really like to see some for real someday.
This is my girlfriend's old laptop, which is currently out on loan. I never really liked it because it always felt much slower than its specs might suggest.
[edit] Network
I currently have a D-Link DI-624+ wireless router connected to my home telephony cable modem, plus an 8-port wired switch. In all that gives me 13 wired ports, which doesn't leave much to spare (especially since I have an XBox 360 and an Ethernet printer too).
[edit] Internet Access
I have my internet access through Videotron cable. I recently changed to the High-Speed package, since they added a cap to the Extreme High Speed package [1] [2]. I changed partly out of protest, and partly because with the Extreme High Speed, any excess is charged with no surcharge cap, whereas in the High Speed package I can be charged a maximum of 30$ for excess bandwidth. So I go from paying 65$ per month for unlimited access at 10Mbps/900Kbps speeds, to paying a maximum of 65$ for unlimited access at 7Mbps/820Kbps speeds. So the only thing I lose is a bit of speed. Here is my current speed test, which is not bad considering the above mentioned theoretical speeds.
