Charles J Knight wrote: > > > I'd be interested in constructing units that can handle Win95 on a > > > network. Each unit would use an external hard drive. In fact, I > > > can > > > imagine one standard desktop case that contains 6 complete units > > sharing > > > one power supply; it would sit on a table with 6 monitors & > > > keyboards. > > > Interesting. I know old slow motherboards are *cheap*, I just > > bought 7 > > 386's for $6 total, delivered, and I've bought bunches of 486 > > motherboards at $3 apiece. You can make a 386 or 486 machine about > > 3" > > tall if you work at it a little - get 2" tall video cards and HDC > > cards, > > take the "backplane" connector off and bend it to make it shorter, > > One note -- he mentioned that he wanted W95 capable machines, > which implies a minimum of a 486/50, and preferably a machine > that's a lot faster. Most everyone here, knows what we WANT, and it isn't always what we can AFFORD, darnit! It's always either, Our Money budget won't buy us a MicroOptical pair of glasses, or, our Battery budget won't last long enough, or or or... <G> Win95 will definitely run on a 486DX33 with 8Mb RAM; it's quite slow on a 386, BUT, remember - a 386 with 8Mb in the hand beats no machine at all; Linux is a quite good OS; part of my thought was that there are Linux shells that look/act a lot like Win95, something to consider. Trying to give him options, in case his (obviously stated as LOW!) budget won't do what he'd LIKE it to do, like most of our budgets! A look-alike that's viable is better than nothing, and KDE etc. on a 486 with 8Mb is nicely faster than same machine with Win95... > These motherboards, with RAM (8-16 meg) and processor, regularly > come up at swap meets for $3-10. But that's here, in the US, where > these are considered old and slow. > > In fact, I purchase entire 486 systems, complete with 300M hard drives, > for $5 on a regular basis. I have been given 'em free from one place locally <G> Same difference. Needs them over there, not here, obviously! > He's setting up a lab in Ghana, which is a country over in Africa, where > these machines would not necessarily be considered so out of date. > Parts availability would be minimal, relative to what we are accustomed > to. Know where Ghana is, don't want to think you're patronizing me here; Haven't been to Ghana, I imagine a 386 that RUNS would be worth more there (as here!) than a Wished-for but not present, Win95 machine. I also meant to mention that it'd be a *GOOD* idea to find spare hardware [identical laptop and/or identical motherboard & spare identical video cards], etc., if he wants to be able to repair 'em in future; Sometimes you can just replace a transistor on a broken card, it's always most convenient to just swap it out & debug it when you can... If that means you have to re-install everything, it's a pain. > We could certainly just fill up a shipping container and ship a few dozen > complete machines to him, with relative ease -- cost is the major factor. > Full desktop systems are heavy, and weight is all important when shipping > things overseas. This is probably why he is asking about wearable > components -- the extra cost of shipping to Afica probably evens out the > price difference between "traditional" 20 pound monitors which we would > buy for $100, and HMDs which we would buy for $500. Sure, know all that. Some LCD terminals are quite light, for example you could get by with Tandy 100's if you had to, acting as Unix CLI terminals. I had the impression he just plain had insufficient funds for the hardware he wanted, I could have mis-understood... My impression, too, is that shipping isn't THAT expensive (I'd bet I can reasonably quickly ship a monitor & machine to Ghana from here for about $200 max; Find me a usable wearable display at that price, *PLEASE*! I'm sure you'd be elected to sainthood if you managed it... <G>) > > "fanout", I need to research that. We were talking on another list > > about making Beowulf clusters this way, multiple motherboards in a > > stack! <G>) > > Why am I picturing something akin to a NeXT cube, as a final > product? Haven't looked inside one, this would've been larger though. I think he would've ended up with ?30"? 24"? rectangles anyways, of 1/4" plywood, FDD/HDD on the plywood alongside the motherboard, connectors on the back, slide 'em all the way back so the connectors engage & then the front clicks down to latch in place, fans on the plywood on the side. It would be cheap, not nearly as pretty as a NeXT, he wanted something scalable & that he could upgrade at will, I'll see what he ended up doing. > Of course, a passive backplane with multiple CPU cards (shades > of S-100) might make a good arrangement. For Beowulfing, if you wanted to make custom stuff, etc. One thought is that if you used plywood cases the corrupt Customs people might not be so "interested" in these machines as they'd look like industrial junk <G> It's a thought anyways. The cases could be build on-site, saving a lot on shipping costs from here to there. Anyone else been to Comdex & seen the "tech bench" rigs for debugging/testing motherboards? Those could be mutated into something usable here... > > > PS: this school is not affiliated with any NPO, so it is difficult > > to > > > obtain funding beyond personal contributions. But: if I can get > > more > > > equipment to the school the children will benefit enormously in > > terms of > > > learning basic computer/office skills and understanding web/email > > usage. > > > The school is in an economically-depressed region, so the impact > > of this > > > computer lab is absolutely incredible. Right now there are 12 > > workstations > > > yet 1500 children. > > What types of computers would you like? If each member of the > list donated some of their "old" equipment, I'd be willing to bet > that we could come up with at least several 486 and Pentium desktop > units at little to no cost. Local computer stores won't pay for most 486en. I've passed on lots of hardware, could probably find some parts here - I have been given a 486 system for the next door neighbor, who's blind, so I'm learning about Text to speech in addition to DragonDictate, which I already know about but detest <G> - where would we want to stockpile all this though? Ghana being where it is, maybe East Coast, in which case we want to get heavier parts like printers, monitors, & cases (if needed) over there. I've bene offered a couple printers for good causes, may get one to the neighbor, but shipping those to the East Coast is pricey! Motherboards and cards and perhaps CD-Rom's, FDD's, HDD's from over on this coast is easy enough, Priority Mail gets things to the east coast, fairly fast. We need to know what's wanted/needed; And figure out how to get it there from here. It's really nice if all machines are of "identical" components, I've learned from managing 20 machines here, too. It makes debugging and finding drivers a lot easier, frankly. It's a nightmare to have 20 machines with 20 different hardware configurations, it's at least nice to have machines put together in a few groups of identical machines. (HDD size is less critical, of course <G>) > Shipping would remain, though... > > How would y'all on the list, feel about this type of collective effort? > > -- Chuck Knight I can find NICs for $1 sometimes, I've been only getting SMC cards, I can find a few good identical NICs here probably, if that'll help. I'd suggest we coordinate so he doesn't end up with a ragtag fleet of patchwork machines, if possible. Mark -- I re-ship for small US & overseas businesses, world-wide. (For private individuals at cost; ask.) -- Subcription/unsubscription/info requests: send e-mail with subject of "subscribe", "unsubscribe", or "info" toWear-Hard Mailing List Archive (searchable): http://wearables.blu.org
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