The Genesis of Bubba Ram Dos
By: Hamilton Boudreaux
I have been working with small computers for a long time. I still remember college level programming in Fortran on an IBM 1138 which filled up a room. We used punch cards, and felt really good to get the thing to print out our names. Later, I got into CP/M computing. 64k was plenty, and I had one of the first hard disk Kaypro's. 10 MB was huge, and I never filled up that hard disk despite writing applications in dBase 2, and TurboPascal.
I have had every generation of 80... Intel processor. My first laser printer cost a fortune. The computer I want manages to hover around $4,000. Of course now that will buy you what was a $25,000 workstation 2 years ago. Lately I have been purchasing refurbished Compaq computers on the auctions. If you have the time and want to save some money, it is not a bad route.
I built and administer a small nine computer network here at Laughing Owl Publishing. The workstations are using Windows 95b and Win 98 SE. The server is running Windows NT 4.0. The network itself is 10baseT with Cat 5 wire built around a 3Com 10/100 switchable hub. There are five printers, an HP 6p, HP 4L, HP 1000Cse, and HP 2000C color and a Lexmark Optra Color 1200. The Lexmark prints at 12 PPM in color. It is fused toner, and the output is stunning. It is a little expensive to run, but if you need fast color printing for your workgroup, this is the printer for you.
Recently we added a Quantum file server. It was easy to install and administer, and it allowed us to get to RAID1, so there is live backup of our important files.
There are Zip drives for file exchange and an HP CD-Writer for back ups. We have two HP Scanjet 5p flatbed scanners. The stations are tower design Gateways and Compaqs. They range from a P5-150 up to an Athalon 500. The workstations are all 400 mhz or higher. The server is a dual processor NS 7000 233 with 128MB ram and 4GB SCSI 3 hard disk storage. We have standardized around Compaq 4000 series slim line notebooks.
I recently got a Palm V. If you have to juggle your schedule, need to keep phone numbers with you, and you already use a PIM on your desktop, these little dudes are REALLY NEAT. I used to carry my laptop with me everywhere. I feel like I lost 10 pounds because of this little PDA.
I have replaced the 17' monitors with flat screen TFT displays. I am very enthusiastic about these. They are truly flat and the image is two dimensional, so eye strain is minimized. In addition they do not give off any radiation. I am tired of cooking my brains with x-rays and "low level" radiation from those damn CRT monitors. Check out www.iiyamadirect.com They have the best deals I have found yet. You'll get your desk back, as well. They are thin and light. If you are buying new, look hard at the new Gateway 15' digital flat panel. I thought the Iiyama panels had a sharp image, but the new generation of fully digital display has it whipped.
This site was designed to have a clean commercial look. The first design criterion was speed of loading. As a result the design is rather Spartan. This is deliberate. I have been on web sites that take forever to load. I have been around other surfers enough to know that unless you really want to be on that site the time before the surfer hits the stop button on his browser is brief. I also know lots of folks who have their browsers set for text only.
I would like to hear from anyone who makes it to this page, especially if we have something in common.