My Computer Repair Is On The Back Burner

Due to no stock and back order of what I wanted and could afford I have had to place the repair on the back burner. I got my full refund order this afternoon for the bad motherboard, none available to replace it. That tells me the board was a bad product to begin with. At times lower prices are great and at other times they are unloading some garbage. They just flat out said they discontinued selling the item, but not before I bought it two weeks ago. So for now until motherboard supply gets back to normal and the processors I have decided to buy two large hard drives for my two new machines and start using them everyday. They are fast computers and identical in everyway, as I would have repaired this other computer to do the same. I have some things I want to start working on and the fast computers with good storage has been lacking. I did well because I went only about 10 dollars more for the two hard drives which are ordered a few minutes ago. I still have 17.05 postage credit left and I plan on buying a couple pretty good size thumb drives. I can get 96Gb (3) thumbs32 ea for that 17 dollars. There will probably be cobwebs on the computer that is down but it is too late to buy Intel again and I most certainly don't plan on buying used ever again. eBay taught me a good lesson about buying used motherboards. Just too many people trying to unload their garbage on an idiot like myself. So I am still sitting on a new processor and got the spare power supply which you never know when you might need one. I am tired of fooling with it and the prices and availability will eventually improve so I can finally get the processor I wanted and the better motherboard. My poor win 7 machine has been upgraded until there is no upgrade left for it. It is time to shut it down and let it rest. I bought a new Hp monitor 14 years ago and it is on when I wake up each morning and stays on until I go to bed late at night. It has been one heck of a good monitor. I bought two newer models Hp for the two new computers I built but they couldn't hold a candle to the old Hp. They are larger in resolution and size but the quality is nowhere near what the older one is.

 

My first was the Tandy 1000 386, I was really disappointed I could not afford the 486. I had one drive the 51/4 and I started studying electronics and eventually had built some nice test gear, a few scopes and one digital that I built especially for the Tandy. I moved back from California and near starved to death here in La, eventually I lost all my electronic things and the computer due to a shop fire the golfer working for the farmer accidentally caused. He stuffed two muffler boxes for the big 18 wheeler the farmer used to haul harvest to the Port of Baton Rouge into the burn barrel about 50 feet from the shop and jumped into his truck and headed home. An old man living across the street saw the fire and called the department but it was a total loss of the shop office and extra rooms and I lost about 11,000 in equipment and assorted automotive tools. I came to work that next morning and saw there was no more office, immediately I ask myself did I leave a cigarette burning when I left . No thank goodness. So I had to find another job for a year then went back to the farmer after he had recuperated the loss. We just had no automotive business and I had no hobbies any longer. He was a really nice fella to work for, a German. He never blamed the employee that started the fire, you have to be a pretty big Man to be that way, especially when he lost family heirlooms not replaceable. He was in med school when he met his wife and married and her mother had 4000 acres on the false river New Roads La. He became a really good farmer. I enjoyed working for him and had a lot of fun.

 

Just as a mention, there used to be small new and used computer part stores all over the place. Generally speaking, I’d find them in old strip malls or out of the way areas where the rents are a little cheaper. Since they rarely advertised and relied on word of mouth, they were a little hard to find.

Note: Prior to the last 20 years, I did a LOT of traveling and could find those small stores wherever I went but again, I haven’t been on the road for some time and wouldn’t have any vague idea if there’s even a market for such a thing any longer.

 

My wife and I barely use our computers any more. We use our iPads for just about everything. Only on the very rare occasion we want to print something do we send it to our computers to do. Everything else is iPads.

 

Everything I do is with Desktop, I can't do what I do on an iPad plus I think the cost is much too high. I have one smart phone 4 years old and it sit in the closet so long the battery totally died. I spend 20 dollars per month for a phone service that I have unlimited time, I could use it for internet and it too would be unlimited but since it is so small I can't see it I just use the phone end, I don't even try to text on it.

I only use my computers for my hobbies and everything is building simple games and doing some illustration work in photoshop and a lot of other programs. Today I don't do the Tributes any longer because I left facebook and don't talk to my old vet friends. When I was on facebook I made a lot of tributes for people 200 + and gave them to who ever wanted one. The number is going down very quickly so there was less and less request. I spend most of my time just piddling with the little games. Several times I would have people complain that my image was too dark and they couldn't see it. Then I would have to explain to them it was not made to be viewed on a phone, the image was 1680 x 1050. They were still unhappy and I would finally take it back into photoshop and lighten it up to the point it destroyed the original image and they were happy. I post only the size that it was made. I never ever charged anyone for the images, it was always a gift. I had one made for one of our pilots who had a very big career before retiring, one assignment was as a cobra pilot and another an LOCH pilot. I made a beautiful image for him covering his entire span of flying in the Army and his wife didn't like it because the Cobra snake I had placed in the image was too large. I changed it for him but after a while I got tired of doing favors because other people were waiting for one and it takes a while to do one. I initially had made them for people I knew and were in my units I served but eventually more and more people I didn't know personally ask for one and I always took the time to do one for them and I seldom ever got a complaint, and why would I since it was gift to begin with. I started getting feedback from a lot of guys family that the person had died and he had his Tribute in his workshop or garage or what ever. Those were the best payment to see that it was appreciated.

 

i've been keeping out of trouble mostly but enjoy dabbling in the abstract and the ubiquitous virtual machine.

 

I haven't dealt with VM since the old IBM VM/CMS days of yore.

 

love it when people who know big iron remember that it's been around awhile!