[Ham-Computers] FYI. Me and Ham radio and computers.

[Leo (Bing) Whiteway]

Some of this why I don't use Microsoft software.

In 1977 I bought a computer kit from Ohio Scientific. It was a miserable
piece of crap. It had 4 k of ram and you programmed it by sliding 8
little switches and then pressing a push-button to enter the byte into
memory. In this way you could write program and run it. When you turned
the computer off you would lose the program. I finally made an adaptor
that connected the computer to a cassette recorder. This way I was able
to reload the programs I made and use them later. I bought a suction-cup
modem and started browsing the bbs's in town. I got onto a few things
and was starting to like the damn thing.
I saw an ad for a Sinclair computer. I bought it for $125.95 Canadian
plus tax. It came with 8 k of ram. I modified the modem to computer adaptor
and was on the bbs's again. This thing was slick. It used the z80 cpu which
was much more usable than the 6502 in the Ohio-sc machine. I bought a 16k
ram pack for it and started writing programs in machine code. I was very
proud of how small I could make these programs.
In 1984 I bought a used 8088 XT with 8 megs ram and a 20 meg hard drive.
I bought a 2400 modem and was back onto the bbs's and also through a back
door with the college to the internet.
Next I started running a Ham packet radio bbs. It took all my computers
time so I buggered around with some software so I could multi-task.
Qram and some others worked ok but it was very slow. I added a 2.5 meg
ram card and A friend told me I should try out windows as it would
multi-task very nicely. I got Windows 2 then windows 3.0. I installed it
and also the packet software. The bbs ran ok but I could only multi-task
between any two windows programs. This way I could not run the packet bbs
and still run anything else. What a waste of time and money.
I bought a 286 with a coprocessor and as I saw the ads for OS2 from IBM.
I got os2 2.0. It mutli-tasked just fine. OS2 2.1 was out and I got it.
I had 4 megs ram and was doing just fine. OS2 warp 3 came out and I bought
a 386 with the same coprocessor and it had 8 megs of ram. I ran OS2 Warp3
for a long time.
During this time, I saw the info on Linux. I got a ham to send me an early
copy of it and it came all on 51/4 discs. I think there were over 30.
I installed it and it worked just great but there was no way to have any
other operating system on the HD at the same time. No boot managers yet.
The Linux was all command line a bit like dos. There was no xwindows system
yet so it was more for experimenting than anything else. I had to reinstall
OS2 warp. Now OS2 warp4 came out but it was $450.00 US so I was about out of
that for a while.
I then bought a copy of Redhat4 and installed it. I fooled around with it for
months off and on. I was never able to get it to work the modem and get on
the internet. I gave up. I went back to OS2 warp3. The reason OS/2 never went
anywhere is that Gates bought up all the production of 3.5 floppies and IBM
could not find enough to supply their sellers.
Finally an old friend I hadn't heard from in some time called and we
talked. It turned out he was running Linux and had no real problems
getting it to run. He sent me his old disc from the older version of
Caldera 1.2. I got it installed and with just a couple of calls to him
and I was on the Internet and even dual booting into OS/2 Warp3.
Great stuff. I went through Caldera 1.3, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 3.1, and 3.1.1. All
worked just great. I was able to install any software I wanted with very
few problems. I was going along with Caldera right up till they started
their phony suit against IBM and Linux. Since then I have tried every
Linux version I could find and so far the only version I have no
problems with are:
Slackware, Lycoris, Knoppix, smoothwall, and IPcop. All the others have
some problems. I know I could fix them and make them work but I don't
really like the idea of having to do that. I think they should all just
find my hardware and go ahead and install flawlessly.
Well, there is my story. Maybe you can see where I am coming from and
don't take what I say to heart. You run what you want and don't let
someone's ranting change you. Make up your own mind from experience not
hearsay.



-- 
Leo (Bing) Whiteway in Kelowna, BC, Canada: Ham calls: VE7UW and VE7OKV
A computer without Microsoft is like a chocolate cake without mustard.
Everyone should have a chance to try Linux. It's great.
http://linux-bc.com/      < running Slackware 9.1 >