Nostalgia

Summer 2024. I’ve gone back to writing in a notebook.

The infamous “G-Pa Slip and Slide Video”

Facebook has a feature called Memories where they show you posts you made on this day in previous years. Apart from being sometimes creepy and often reminding me of things I used to like, I’ve started copy/pasting the best of them into this blog. It’s not removing them from Facebook or making them less private, but I feel like I’m taking back some of my soul and at least making my thoughts easier to find.

The year was 1994. I was working apartment maintenance and had a healthy interest in computers. I also had a IBM XT knockoff in my apartment connected to a 56K modem. One of the benefits of apartment maintenance is the lost and found that occurs when people move out quickly. Things of value usually get stored in case the owner comes back for them. But certain items become the property of the maintenance staff. ...

In 1998 I wrote the only piece of software I had intended other people to see. I wrote it in Visual Basic 4. It’s a guitar fret board mapping program. Pick a note and a scale and click a button. It’ll show you where those notes are on the fret board. It was fun and useful but really basic and lacked a lot of features. But I made it and I was proud to give it away. At some point a website called Harmony Central got a hold of it. I might have uploaded it or maybe someone else did, I don’t remember. In any event, Harmony Central was a very popular music site that contained a lot of resources for musicians including sheet music, tablature and software. Fret Master made it into the listing. ...

I found what I believe to be the earliest reference of me using Linux on the internet. Via Google Groups, I had posted a question asking for help configuring X on Debian 1.3.1 (released July 1997): I hope I haven’t missed an obvious solution to this problem somewhere - but it’s slowly driving me mad… I’ve installed Debian 1.3.1 (older version, I’m sure, I’ve had the CDs for about a year) and am trying to configure Xwindows.I can successfully start XF86Setup and even get my intellimouse to work but I can’t seem to find a happy configuration for my Permedia 3000 graphics card. There is no preset for my card and I’ve tried to ‘hand-configure’ it but every time I finish configuring and XF86Setup exits and tries to fire up the server my monitor goes blank (even the power light goes from green to amber(stand-by mode) - the first 2 times I had no choice but to power off (OUCH!) and run e2fsk manually to recover - since then I’ve learned to exit Xwindows (Ctrl-Alt-Bkspc) blindly (the video never does come back - but at least I can hear the exit beep and shut down nicely)Obviously, I’d like to take full advantage of the capabilities of my card - but I’ll settle for just being able to see the screen :)If anyone can offer some advice as to where to start, I’d appreciate it! I’ve got ‘LINUX - The Complete Reference’ the book with all the HOWTO’s and stuff - although I don’t know if that’s totally accurate because of it’s age either (also about a year) but any refernces to HOWTO’s or web pages or just a message from somebody who has a Permedia 3000 card working under LINUX would be great!Thanks for helping…. ...

What a difference a year makes

I nearly shot my eye out!

I installed Linux again.