After installing Fedora 16 on it, I was a little disappointed in how its video worked with my HP 25″ display. It was kind of slow and I noticed the mouse could move off the left edge near the top. Huh? There is only one video output from this motherboard, but it was acting like there were dual displays. A quick review of xrandr revealed an output LVDS1 which is for a laptop panel and does not exist of course.

So that led me to review the i915 kernel module parameters using modinfo. It suggested to me I could instruct the module to ignore the laptop panel display and also enforce modesetting on the VGA port only. I attempted this by editing /etc/grub2.cfg and appending these two kernel options:

i915.modeset=-1 i915.panel_ignore_lid=-1

After a re-boot, I was instantly gratified by the super-fast boot (5-seconds for Linux and another 10-seconds for automatic login to GnomeShell to complete). For $69, the speed and versatility of this motherboard/CPU is outstanding. I will have to contemplate ordering more, heh.

Over the years, its onboard fan got a bit louder and louder, which I believe was a result of maturing Linux graphic drivers that were pushing its dual GPUs harder and harder.  So much so, I could hear my workstation whining away from another room.  That’s not good.  No matter what TLC I put into the workstation to improve firmware, air flow, etc., I could not get rid of the annoying decibels it was throwing about.

This card performs admirably, supporting both my HP 24″ displays at 1920×1200 each, but it runs super quiet.  I cannot hear any part of the workstation’s fans when exiting the room — and it has 7 of them: three upfront, one rear, one on each CPU, and the one on this new video card.  I can sit comfortably now at my workstation and hear myself think again — it’s like meeting myself new all over again, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing either.

I can only imagine our dog, Rebecca, must be feeling without all that air swooshing in that background. 

Old (VIC20), new (Linux), and virtual computing (Win7) to dual monitors

I got another 24″ monitor (left) and its make is also HP.  It sits comfortably paired with an HP w2408h (right) and its stand also supports tilt and swivel, something HP got right that other makes still don’t get.  It is packaged with a complement of cables: a pair of HDMI, a pair of DVI, and a USB to bridge its ports to the computer.  And of course, it is also 16:10 aspect ratio despite the overflow of cheaper 16:9 monitors on the market.  Do consumers really care about the small black areas above/below a 1080p HD movie playing on their computer display?  I’ll take the 1200 pixel rows over 1080 every time, thank you.

But what attracted me most about this particular model is its multiple video inputs: composite video, s-video, component video, 2x DVI, DisplayPort, and HDMI.  The monitor does a bang up job with the analog inputs, allowing for original and scaling sizes to maintain aspect or fill the screen.  The screenshot shows a VIC 20′s composite video displaying in a Picture-in-Picture display overlaying a portion of the Fedora 15 Linux Gnome Shell background.  This monitor also supports Picture-out-of-Picture (below) which means the widescreen display is split into two halves for side-by-side viewing, a very nice and quite usable option.

Desktop computing is fun again with this much screen real estate (3840×1200) to roam about and easy attachment of a variety of video sources to appease my retrogaming pleasures.  It is truly versatile by every measure.

HP LP2475w POP example

An original TI/99 4A computer, boxed, 22 carts (mostly games, extended BASIC, and a couple of learning aids I can use when they put me in a retirement home), BASIC and extended BASIC quick reference guides, a video cable to plug into my RCA A/V ports on a Sony HDTV (nice picture!), and a joystick adapter to allow 1 or 2 Atari-style joysticks to be used (thankfully). The boxed computer arrived in excellent condition and was “won” for only 99-cents; the A/V cable for its convenient hook-up and superior picture was $9.

I already played a few game carts, very cool and capable… but their look and feel play like a good homebrew on silicon. Not bad, but not addicting either… likely influenced by the price I paid for it today, though. If I paid retail pricing for this stuff back then, well, I probably would not have felt so justified. TI should have gotten some licensing rights from any of the arcade manufacturers; heck, I can see with its faster and superior processor and with its separated video, TI could have done some direct ports of many arcade games and done them real justice in the home computing space.

I recall being somewhat lustful of this computer back in the day when I was shopping, like the many millions of electronic consumers. I just bought Atari VCS as a family gift for Christmas 1981 with an Asteroids cart and I was hooked on the Dark Tower game we got from our parents. But I was enticed by BASIC programming from our high school computer math class, and those games only increased my thirst to learn computer programming.

At a local Apex outlet, they had a home computer stand with each of the competing models sitting side-by-side: Atari, Coleco, Commodore, and TI. Only the TI had a demo cartridge running in it always, showcasing its capabilities, and it was seducing to watch. But Atari and Coleco were backed by so many alluring gaming titles in their wonderful packaging. And while Commodore VIC 20 absolutely looked like the poor cousin of the group, the printed specs with William Shatner on it sold me that its stock features and future looked the brightest… and its $300 entry point made it obtainable.

So what detracted me most from the TI-99/4A was its “entry” price of $500. Its casing and game cartridge slot were really cool, and while it has a quality keyboard, it was still small and unfriendly for the (potential) programmer in me. Then came its built-in BASIC, ugh. I was turned off by its high entry price, limited and expensive expansions, etc.

The Atari 400 was slightly less expensive and had a lot more titles, but even a worse keyboard; plus you had to buy BASIC at the time for around $50, and it had limited and expensive expansion options. And while Coleco would be a “step up” from Atari VCS, it very much looked like a gaming console trying to pass off as a computer.

I’ll really enjoy a $100 worth of TI-99/4A home computing today… but it’s no “wonder” that the VIC 20 ate their lunches back then, followed the next year by a crushing blow the C64 delivered for the rest of the decade. And it’s also no wonder why the Atari and TI crowds are still jaded by C= today.

Motorola Droid X

Well, my Blackberry Storm is sitting idle in its own cradle; it’s man-genius click-screen days are all over.  It has been replaced by a smarter phone, Droid X.  I won’t bore you with all its technical details charms, but highlight only the things I find of interest.  And there are a lot of things of interest to me already, even after only a couple of hours of use.

Gad, it comes with a lot of memory.  There is 8gb internal and a 16gb removable microSD.  And you will find lots of ways to use that storage once you visit the Market app and try to weed through the apps, games, and other cool things to add-on.  Speaking of which, I already installed Adobe Reader, Labyrinth Lite, RingTone, and Touchdown Pro.  Labyrinth is the cool show-off 3D marble maze game, just because it is.  Touchdown is a (great) Microsoft Exchange client that simply works and is simpler to configure.  The built-in messaging integration to my personal IMAP and Gmail accounts take care of the rest.

While it has an HDMI output jack, I found its built-in Media Share to be a perfect companion with my Sony Playstation 3.  Droid X autoconnects to my home’s wireless router, discovers and allows for the PS3 to connect to it for streaming media (music, pictures, video) out of it for high-def viewing.  This will make the 8mp camera more friendly to use with this kind of easy integration of media files.

Overall, light to handle, touch is responsive, speech-to-text is accurate, apps are fast and intuitive, screen is large and vivid.  My phone just got a lot smarter — cool!

Now what to do with the 80+ cartridges I own?

Moral of the story: someone’s junk is someone else’s treasure.

The C16 (16kb memory) was to succeed the VIC 20 (5kb) for low-end computing, breaking the $100 price barrier for a color home computer.  That was the model I chose when shopping for my VIC 20 replacement, snubbing the more popular and powerful “gaming” computer in C64.  It was time to get a bit more serious about my career in computer programming, and I convinced myself that this little machine would serve my purposes better in that pursuit.  I was right at the time in December 1984, but in hindsight, the C128 home computer I would purchase just 7-months later was the real deal.

Pictured here is the Plus/4 model, with a price-point outside of its targeted consumers, outfitted in its sleek casing and cool keyboard layout.  It came with the full complement of 64kb RAM of which nearly 60kb of it was available to its improved BASIC 3.5 and built-in machine language monitor.  Back then, outlets were trying to gouge consumers for $399. Today, you can typically buy these in near-mint condition like this one for around $20.

Plus/4, joystick, floppy, and datasette

I have to confess that owning this floppy drive was a bit pricey – about $90 Euros plus overseas shipping — and the cost of a U.S. to Foreign power converter from the local Radio Shack. Not one of my better purchases, however, I am pleased the transaction of getting this working dinosaur went smoothly and without any disappointing incidents that occur frequently. So, I bundled the order with the Datasette and Jack Attack game cartridge to make the total purchase a complete success for the seller at Tinchens Online Shop.  Here’s a picture showing the peripherals working:

Floppy and Tape works!

C16 game: Jack Attack

The 1551 floppy drive connector into the game cartridge port has a passthru connector to allow a regular game cartridge to be fitted, as seen here with one of my all-time platform favorites in Jack Attack.

Anyways, I assembled one of the four for my personal collection, which was an easy insert-and-twist of the handle into its base.  And the supplied USB cable is ample in length.  Fired up the new VICE 2.2 software using Fedora 12 and its SDL UI immediately recognized the joystick as “USB HID v1.01 Gamepad [USB_Classic]“. No compatibility issues whatsoever — nice!

Even nicer was that old Atari joystick feel. As cheap and lightweight these joysticks go, nothing beats that old wigglin’ away and pounding that little red fire button as if pressing down any harder will make the 8-bit action perform any better — heh. I witnessed many such maneuvers from fallen opponents that took a classic beat-down from yours truly. The handle would creak mercilessly from the strain, followed by that wincing poppin’ sound of plastic giving in to the futile gesture. Usually, the busted joystick would go airborne and I’d have to go ducking.

Ah, thanks, Curt, for bringing back such lovely memories!

Atari-style joystick for your PC