[Coco] Techrepublic Rocks !!!!

[Roger Merchberger]

Rumor has it that Joel Ewy may have mentioned these words:
>Interesting.  Of course I can turn on a real CoCo, load up Telewriter
>64/128, and be typing a document before the BIOS on a typical PC has
>even finished its POST, let alone booting any operating system off of
>any kind of mass storage.  Still, the process he describes is pretty
>cool, and I have used BartPE to make a bootable Windows CD for
>diagnostic purposes.

Dealing with a) too much beer (is there such a thing?) and b) a LIFO buffer 
due to (a) I'll start at the bottom & work my way up. [1]

[[ offtopic drivel... skip to the ontopic if disinterested... Did I mention 
the beer? ;-) ]]

BartPE was really handy... until the Ubuntu BootCD could natively write to 
NTFS. Now I'm back to using Linux to fix all my Winders issues...

I joke if I ever get a Vista machine it's gonna run linux. I slapped Ubuntu 
7.10 64-bit on my dual-core lappy & turned on every *stoopid* 3D option (I 
*hate* wobbly windows - it reminds me when I've had too much beer - did I 
mention the beer? ;-) ) and on boot does more graphical mindnumbing useless 
crap, still starts apache, PostgreSQL & mysql, and uses 380Meg of RAM... 
Vista's lucky to stay under a Gig.  [[ Oh, and Wine runs World of Warcrack 
straight off my NTFS drive - didn't even "install" it where it was supposed 
to. ]]

[[ back on topic now... ]]

Other than reminding my boss she was in diapers when I got into 
computing... I also play "riddle me this" with my cow-orkers... I ask them 
how much better computing's gotten over the last 22 years when I can boot a 
Unix(ish) OS from a 300rpm floppy on a <2Mhz CPU and .5 Meg of ram *faster* 
than I can boot Win[any] from a 7200rpm hard drive and 4000x that much 
RAM.... When I ask them how we've actually *improved* computing - they 
cannot answer me.

Granted, with smellphones & VoIP all the rage, I also say: "It's taken 100 
years to finally get back to the voice quality of 100 years ago." ;-)

Yes, I keep a box of 8" floppies & a few IBM 80-column cards on my desk 
just to remind 'em how much of a "fogey" I really am. ;-) [2] The one thing 
I never dealt with (outside the military and they wouldn't let me keep any) 
was paper-tape - anyone have a sample (preferably punched) for cost of 
postage? ;-)

I'll shutup now - back to my beer. Thank gawd I've already purchased my 
Tequila for Cinco de Mayo!

Laterz,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger

[1] If you're foolish enough to read the bootnotes... well... just don't 
ask my wife what I mean by that! ;-)

[2] Don't ask about my line on the 8" floppies at work that keep's 'em 
rolling! ;-) I'll have to respond in private mail! Did I mention the beer?

--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger   | A new truth in advertising slogan
SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers | for MicroSoft: "We're not the oxy...
zmerch at 30below.com          |                         ...in oxymoron!"