For those of you interested in instructional technology issues,
especially related to bootstrapping, see this quick photo-story,
scraped from the digg news site:

http://inpics.net/isolemamba/

[from "unwired" listserv (http://www.unwired.cc/). addresses parallel
computing solution for navajo technical college.]

San Diego Supercomputer Experts Help
Navajos Build "An Internet to the Hogan"

January 25, 2007

By Paul K. Mueller

Navajos in the American Southwest, many of whom have never had access
to a personal telephone, will soon make a significant leap into the
Internet Age, thanks in part to resources and expertise provided by
the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at UC San Diego.

The Navajos, who refer to themselves as the "Dine" (dee-nay), will
celebrate "An Internet to the Hogan and Dine Grid Event" on Monday,
Jan. 29, at Navajo Technical College in Crownpoint, New Mexico.
Highlights of the event include their official acceptance of a
"Little Fe" mini-supercomputer from the TeraGrid – the world's
largest supercomputing network – and a demonstration of advanced
radio technology.


Little Fe (in contrast to "big iron," slang for supercomputers) is a
small cluster of parallel processors that work together as a single
small supercomputer. Developed by a team of computer scientists and
professors for their students, it provides both a research-level
parallel cluster and an opportunity for students to learn parallel
processing.

According to Tom Davis, dean of instruction at the Navajo college,
the project is "designed to end the digital divide in the eastern
agency of the Navajo Nation" – a vast, stark, high-desert landscape
poorly served by commercial utility companies, where traveling 10
miles to make a phone call is not uncommon.

Staff at SDSC, among them Jim Hale and Diane Baxter, are working on
interrelated projects with Navajo Technical College (NTC). The first
phase will build a major wireless "pipe" using the Lambda Rail and
Internet 2 from Albuquerque to the college, in northwest New Mexico.
Through an extended mesh of wireless broadband towers that will be
built by students, faculty and community members, NTC will offer
broadband connectivity to 31 community centers, and later to schools,
clinics, hospitals, police departments, fire houses and homes.

"SDSC, a member of the TeraGrid collaboration, is eager to help
demonstrate the promise of this technology," said Baxter, director of
education at SDSC. "We look forward to working with the Navajo Nation
to help build this bridge to the future."

Working with Hale and Baxter at SDSC is Jared Ribble, 22, a Navajo
student learning to harness the powerful resources of supercomputers.
"Helping put the Dine on the grid, and bringing the Internet to the
hogan," he says, "gives us a wealth of opportunities. The addition of
Little Fe will enable complex research projects to be conducted
anywhere on the grid. A small tribal college can now have the
research capabilities of a major university."

[from BoingBoing:]

Video of retro Commodore programs

Kim Moser has lovingly captured a bunch of old Commodore PET and C-64
demos from the late 1970s and early 1980s, and saved them as movies
you can play online. "The early ones had blocky black-and-white
graphics, crude sound, and consisted of less than 8K of BASIC code,"
Kim says, "which makes them particularly retro-licious."  Link:

http://www.kmoser.com/commodore/

Hmmm...how long has the term "ghost town" been applied to abandoned
cyberspace areas?



On 8/31/06, 11011 110111000 <the_illiac@...> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> [Passed along without comment from BoingBoing:]
>
>  Title: Ghost town dial-up BBSes still online
>  There are a few ghost-town dial-up BBSes [bulletin board systems]
>  still alive and kicking, and you can connect to them using VoIP and
>  your machine's modem. They're abandoned towns with half-finished
>  multiplayer games, mouldering message boards, and the occassional old
>  coot holding court.
>
>  Link: http://www.boingboing.net/2006/08/30/ghost_town_dialup_bb.html
>
>

[Passed along without comment from BoingBoing:]

Title: Ghost town dial-up BBSes still online
There are a few ghost-town dial-up BBSes [bulletin board systems]
still alive and kicking, and you can connect to them using VoIP and
your machine's modem. They're abandoned towns with half-finished
multiplayer games, mouldering message boards, and the occassional old
coot holding court.

Link: http://www.boingboing.net/2006/08/30/ghost_town_dialup_bb.html

all--

I've got a few projects lined up now that I'm in my new house, so I
thought I'd report on them as they come to fruition.  The first one is
*really* easy: I wanted to stream my music wirelessly through my house
and beyond, and I wanted the advantage of playing it on non-digital
devices like my car stereo or the boombox in the garage, so I opted to
use FM radio waves as my medium of choice.

Step One is to get an FM transmitter of some sort. There are several
of these devices on the market for around $50 - $100 (see here for the
one I purchased:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0007ODOMA/102-4260185-9207304?v=glance&n=17228\
2),
or you can make one yourself from a kit...just don't exceed the FCC
wattage ceiling, or you'll be getting a visit from the feds.  The one
I purchased had a minijack input and a variety of power options (AC,
USB, battery).

Step Two: get a minijack Y-splitter so that your external computer
speakers still work. I picked this up at Radio Shack for around $5.

Step Three: plug splitter into computer audio port. Plug splitter and
external speakers into splitter.

Step Four: Turn on transmitter. Set frequency to dead air (in my case,
setting 3 switches in various on/off combos until i found an
unoccupied frequency).

That's it--now you can go fire up your iTunes or whatever, go out to
your car and set the radio to your new pirate radio station, and rock
out to all those RIAA-approved mp3s.  My coverage extends a little
less than 2 blocks from my house in all directions, so I can even
share with my neighbors if I want.

More to come...

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/biztech/08/11/ibmpcanniversary/

And I have one of those!

You have 60 seconds to get your Ipod Nano here at no charge
http://www.nanosforall.com/ehtzcsiur

all--

a few recent items of old-tech interest scraped from the interwebs:

> i've put this URL in our links section (archives folder), but let me
highlight GUIdebook, a really slickly designed site cataloguing the
history of the graphical user interface.  expected fare like early
windows and mac, but also gems like acorn, amiga, BEOS, GEOS, and even
microsoft bob.  spend an hour or three checking it out...very
nostalgia-inducing.

> sometimes we must let go of our machines, and that's okay.
lifehacker recently posted about the "recycling for charities" program
primarily for small wireless devices (cell phones, PDAs, digicam,
etc.), but there's also a lot of other useful info in the comments
section:
http://lifehacker.com/software/recyling/donate-your-wireless-device-to-charity-1\
89257.php

> even though it's not exactly retro, i've been following the MIT
"laptop for every child" (aka $100 laptop) travails for some time
now--WIRED has a story in this month's issue about how it's nearly
ready to come to fruition... a fascinating story:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.08/laptop.html

--iLLiaC

all--
things have been busy lately (work and an upcoming move), but i've got
a few projects in the works that i'm planning on posting here over the
summer.  in the meantime, a tidbit--some guy crammed his nokia inside
of a NES controller:

http://www.diyhappy.com/nes-controller-cellphone-mod/

Hi,

   My point is apparently being misconstrued....

   This process is a fix for a malicous code that seems to exploit planned
obsolescence....which makes planned obsolescence go faster...built in failures
happen every 3 months or so...sucking the money out of the user.

   Buying new doesn't help if you backup & restore because this non-detectable
malicous code generally resides on the backup....because it's there laying
dormant for some time. It may also be transfered on the www.... I don't know for
sure but my experience suggests it is.

   I have had success where EVERYONE else fails with this process on machines
also which don't have this malicous code. I guess because planned obsolescence
is built into every PC. I have had extraordinary success on PC's running DOS,
WIN 3.x, WIN 9x, Win 2000, Win 2000 network server and Mac.

   The truly amazing thing about this process is the huge range of problems it
resolves hardware and software problems...like all of them...minus electrical
surge problems, bad ground issues, or true component failures. (by the
way...true component failures can be a result of a mailcous code....I've seen it
in my 20 years of PC repair)

   The process itself is amazing...it flies in the face of conventional thinking
and I think it proves that EVERY problem you've experienced in the past was a
result of the industry's devious little plan. To keep you buying. Talk about ill
gotten gain.

   Here's a link discussing what a malicous code can do to your system....look at
some of the replies towards the bottom...this is an evil SOB.

   http://www.securityfocus.com/news/11372

   Check out this running list of symptoms resolved by my process....trust me
when I say that when/if you learn what the process is....you will say NO WAY.

   Well the list of symptoms is not on this PC....if you google,"planned
obsolescence fix", you will see my craigslist ad. Seems I'm the only one.

   Thanks,

   Mike

11011 110111000 <the_illiac@...> wrote:
   i didn't necessarily start this group in order to showcase old
computers as fetish objects (the working theory is that they can still
be useful and we should explore ways to help that happen).  still, i
couldn't resist pointing to these (all from the MAKE blog, incidentally):

keyboard shoes--
http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/04/keyboard_shoes.html

the wooden breakfast platter PC--
http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/04/the_wooden_breakfast_platter_p.html

how to turn an amiga 500 into a lamp--
http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/03/how_to_turn_an_amiga_500_into.html





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---------------------------------
Talk is cheap. Use Yahoo! Messenger to make PC-to-Phone calls.  Great rates
starting at 1&cent;/min.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Not sure if I mentioned this or not...but, for those of you on LJ or
browse it, here is a neat community:

http://community.livejournal.com/vintagecomputer/

Cheers!

i didn't necessarily start this group in order to showcase old
computers as fetish objects (the working theory is that they can still
be useful and we should explore ways to help that happen).  still, i
couldn't resist pointing to these (all from the MAKE blog, incidentally):

keyboard shoes--
http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/04/keyboard_shoes.html

the wooden breakfast platter PC--
http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/04/the_wooden_breakfast_platter_p.html

how to turn an amiga 500 into a lamp--
http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/03/how_to_turn_an_amiga_500_into.html

This campaign is about Human beings, Democracy, UNHCR, Refugees, The Iraqis,
Islam, Kurds, Human rights, Respect, Money, Donations, Angelina Jolie,
Pavarotti, Giorgio Armani, Donors, Peace, History, Campaigns and about you if
you care about these words.

Hi there,

I am SAM, an Iraqi refugee living in Lebanon at the moment; I have spent the
last 10 years of my life as a refugee registered with the UNHCR in Beirut. The
last 4 years, I have spent as an activist for peace and human rights (especially
refugees and asylum seekers) on the Internet; I'm also books author and ebooks
publisher. I have launched many campaigns to improve our situation as refugees
in Lebanon and hopefully bring more understanding to our problems worldwide. I
helped make many changes and improvements at the UNHCR office in Beirut; I used
the Internet as the field for my activities (you can read more about that in my
free ebook 'MY CAMPAIGNS'). All my ebooks are free and could be download from my
sites.

This is my newest campaign, it's about the illegal and humiliating actions of
the UNHCR, who using photos of refugees as banners and human-buttons to collect
money. This is an abuse of the dignity and humanity of the refugees and must
stop immediately and a clear public apology present by The United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees. My friends, I am talking about the pictures you can
see here: http://home.graffiti.net/lebanon2/human-buttons.htm

Also you can read my new campaign 'Urgent, we need smile' here:
http://unhcrlebanon.topcities.com/smile.html

For more info about UNHCR and life of refugees you can read my free ebooks. I
invite you as fellow humans and members of the world community to support my
campaign by reading my article on my site and see the human-buttons. The
campaign is to support and improve the UNHCR http://www.unhcr.org especially
after the last scandals in the UN and UNHCR, just for example:
http://www.mizzima.com/archives/news-in-2005/news-in-april/12-April05-22.htm

"We make demonstration and fast because the UNHCR office in Cairo did nothing
for our problem..." http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4440730.stm

Together we will build better world.

You could reach me fast via this form:
http://lebanon.exactpages.com/email_me.htm
  and if you like to know more about me, you can google for my name 'osam
altaee'.

Thanks
THE TRUTH WARRIOR
http://lebanon.dreamstation.com
  http://www.unhcr.us

I actually found a way to get rid of planned obsolescence....built
in errors. Keep in mind I have a windows 3.1 pc which is completely
functional as a result of my highly unconventional "fix" or repair
process. Now 20 years old and completely stable and reliable.

This win3.1 pc used to break down about every 3-6 months....it was
going thru the built in evolution of failures as revealed by
this "fix".

Nothing will make a consumer buy a new pc like the frustration of
having a pc which locks up all the time with no service provider
having the ability to figure out how to make it stop.

                               OR
A dead laptop/pc which needs a $600 motherboard when you can buy a
new one for $1000.

My unique process is the result of the need to find a fix for a non-
detectable virus/malicous code which caused multiple
hardware/software failures. I have a running list of 50 common
failures/symptoms resolved by this process....everything from
locking up problems, to data overwritten by garbage, to dead
motherboard, video board, NIC, to Disk I/O errors and general
protection failures....even a mac pc with a "damaged Hard drive"
according to the operating system while attempting to initialize it.

This process works in DOS/Win 3.x, Win 9x, Win2K, Win 2000 network
server os, and mac. Hard to say what else it will work on.

Based on my experience, It will work in every os there is. You can
see an ad I wrote in an attempt to sell this process at
Houston.Craigslist computer service section.

This info is not known by even the most experienced service
providers as I have repaired desktops, laptops...even printer's
boards that were being thrown away by multiple service providers.

Have a great day,

Mike
PS this process is both time and cost effective.

Passed along without comment:

http://news.com.com/2009-1006-6037980.html

while watching _CBS Sunday Morning_ yesterday, i was reminded of the
demise of one of the internet's precursors, and certainly the
technology responsible for ushering in the modern age of
telecommunications.  last month, western union quietly ended its
telegram service.

story here:
http://www.digital-world.com/archives/2006/02/telegram_era_en.html

what hath god wrought, indeed...

http://makezine.com/

i recently got my first issue of _make_ magazine (from o'reilly, the
folks that bring you all those nifty tech guides), and i just felt the
need to post on it--it's a really fun publication. this mag is so
timely, and it puts its finger on the pulse of DIY/lo-tech/old-tech
hacking culture right when it's about ready to explode into the
mainstream.  the latest issue, incidentally, even has a write-up of
OSU alum daniel joliffe, who designed the "one free minute" anonymous
speech mobile sculpture thingamajig (http://www.onefreeminute.net/).

Darn! I really wanted one of those--really liked the large toggle
wheel that thing has.

--- In columbusconsortium@yahoogroups.com, Pelzig <pelzig@g...> wrote:
>
> I'm such a rube.
>
> http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/hoaxes/computer.asp
>
>
> The picture is actually a "vintage" year-2000 shot of a nuclear
submarine
> control room, as seen on the website of the U.S. Navy:
>
>
> http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/news/news_stories/sub-centen02.html
>
>
> The picture was modified as an entry to one of the many photo-alteration
> contests on fark.com, by the following steps:
>
>
> Converted to grayscale.
>
>
> Added gray-suited man to left of photo.
>
>
> Overlaid monitor with console TV, and keyboard with teletype-printer
setup.
>
>
> The giveaway is the difference in pixel density; the console TV is taken
> from an older (and grainier) image, while the teletype-printer setup is
> trimmed from (most likely) a catalog of the day.
>
>
> Of course, the fact that the man is standing crookedly, the paper
doesn't
> interface correctly with the table, the console's been covered with a
> computerized fill pattern, and the room beyond is still shown with
its many
> consoles doesn't help it any.
>
>
>
> On 12/24/05, Pelzig <pelzig@g...> wrote:
> > http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a369/nanasha/Computer001.jpg
> >
> > From 1954 Popular Mechanics:
> >
> > "Scientists from the RAND Corporation have created this
> > model to illustrate how a "home computer" could look like in the
year 2004.
> > However the needed technology will not be economically feasible
for the
> > average home. Also the scientists readily admit that the computer will
> > require not yet invented technology to actually work, but 10 years
from now
> > scientific progress is expected to solve these problems. With teletype
> > interface and the Fortran language, the computer will be easy to use."
> >
>

I'm such a rube.

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/hoaxes/computer.asp


The picture is actually a "vintage" year-2000 shot of a nuclear submarine
control room, as seen on the website of the U.S. Navy:


http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/news/news_stories/sub-centen02.html


The picture was modified as an entry to one of the many photo-alteration
contests on fark.com, by the following steps:


Converted to grayscale.


Added gray-suited man to left of photo.


Overlaid monitor with console TV, and keyboard with teletype-printer setup.


The giveaway is the difference in pixel density; the console TV is taken
from an older (and grainier) image, while the teletype-printer setup is
trimmed from (most likely) a catalog of the day.


Of course, the fact that the man is standing crookedly, the paper doesn't
interface correctly with the table, the console's been covered with a
computerized fill pattern, and the room beyond is still shown with its many
consoles doesn't help it any.



On 12/24/05, Pelzig <pelzig@...> wrote:
> http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a369/nanasha/Computer001.jpg
>
> From 1954 Popular Mechanics:
>
> "Scientists from the RAND Corporation have created this
> model to illustrate how a "home computer" could look like in the year 2004.
> However the needed technology will not be economically feasible for the
> average home. Also the scientists readily admit that the computer will
> require not yet invented technology to actually work, but 10 years from now
> scientific progress is expected to solve these problems. With teletype
> interface and the Fortran language, the computer will be easy to use."
>

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a369/nanasha/Computer001.jpg

From 1954 Popular Mechanics:

"Scientists from the RAND Corporation have created this
model to illustrate how a "home computer" could look like in the year 2004.
However the needed technology will not be economically feasible for the
average home. Also the scientists readily admit that the computer will
require not yet invented technology to actually work, but 10 years from now
scientific progress is expected to solve these problems. With teletype
interface and the Fortran language, the computer will be easy to use."

all--

first off, tim berners-lee, the man generally credited with inventing
the WWW, has launched his own blog, located here:

http://dig.csail.mit.edu/breadcrumbs/blog/4

for those following MIT's 100-laptop project (i know, it's not
old-tech, but it's become a thread), it's coming closer to
fruition--manufacturers, distributers, etc. are falling into place.
follow the news here:

http://laptop.media.mit.edu/

finally happy holidays to all.  expect more posts from me early next
year.

::i::

> Maybe we could meet at Otie's in Hilliard?  New smoking ban has left
them starving for visitors.
>
Give me a date and time I would love to join I am able fridays
afternoons and on. i would need and address to so i could map quest
it.  hopefully more people could join us too
:D:D:D:D

On Sat, 19 Nov 2005 21:39:08 -0000
"x1wicked1x" <littledog187@...> wrote:

> ok just wanted to know but thats to bad. you guys should have some
> place were we could meet at.

Maybe we could meet at Otie's in Hilliard?  New smoking ban has left them
starving for visitors.

--
Albert Vest, al vest at earth link dot net

ya that is a huge HD

ok just wanted to know but thats to bad. you guys should have some
place were we could meet at.