I've had a computer since I was eight. Started with a ZX Spectrum, which I taught myself to program in BASIC. Eventually got a PC, an XT with 640K of RAM, and a flakey hard disk drive. Upgraded to a 286, and then a 386. Around this time more computers appeared at home, and we got a LAN, initially running Compex ReadyLink, then upgrading to Netware Lite. Our server was a 286 with 60MB of disk. Windows 95 came out, and I managed to make it work with Netware Lite.
Then I discovered Linux. Ended up convincing Dad to let us switch our network server to it, initially running mars_nwe, which faked the IPX Netware protocol, allowing us to access the server from our DOS or Windows 95 machines.
In 1999 we got a cable internet connection via Saturn and Paradise net. We could download our 512MB month's quota at a whopping 512 kilobits per second. And upload at 128k. We had a static IP. And I started messing around with running a webserver and mailserver on our network server, by now a 486 DX4/100 with 2.5GB of disk. I'd taught myself HTML a few years prior, now I learnt perl and built some simple CGI scripts.
The computers multiplied, and I began acquiring more, installing Linux and setting up an extra LAN in my room, routed back to the house's 10base2 backbone network. I ran an extra mail sever, and extra web servers, and experimented with Java servlets, Roxen, Courier and Cyrus.
I became involved with the VUW computer club, Interface in 2002. They had a PC they'd mean to use as a webserver but it had never gotten a home or a network connection. I arranged these through the university, and set up the machine with some other students. We acquired more hardware, and in 2003 I set up what I believe was the first wireless network in an NZ tertiary education institute that was usable by students, SWANS. Originally our access points were discarded machines (old PowerMacs running Linux, or old 486 laptops) with wireless cards in them that could be coaxed into access point mode with a special driver. We had coverage of the undergraduate computer science labs, and the university Quad via a laptop perched on an office window.
The computing empire grew at VUW. I finished my BSc Hons year, and embarked upon an MSc, which meant I got an office. A research project provided me with my own cupboard to house machines, and the Donald/Interface computing empire at VUW grew.
I left home to flat in Karori with friends (including a former Interface president) in early 2005. The computers came with us. The garage housed a table covered with them. I hosted several for friends who didn't have space or decent internet. We unsuccessfully tried to start a wireless community network, NZWired.
Around this time, the price of renting dedicated servers in the US was dropping, and a group of friends got together and rented a box in the US, partitioning it with UML. Eventually we switched to Xen. We outgrew the first box, and switched to a larger box at a different provider, and I took over paying the bills. I found someone who would rent me a cheap box in the US at the then ludicrously low price of USD20/mo, and so ended up with two machines in the US.
Eventually I finished (well, handed in my thesis, anyway) my MSc, and started at Innaworks. The computers at VUW were handed over to other students, and I discovered that full-time work left me with less energy to spend on sysadminning toy machines. The box shared with others in the US suffered from neglect, both sysadmin-wise and billing-wise, and cheap VPSes (virtual private servers) became cheaper. The shared server got shut down. I ended up getting a cheap VPS to host my mail and began to look at the pile of machines in the garage a bit more seriously. I consolidated my servers in the garage down to one machine, and there things sat for a while.
In the mean time my desktop PC was getting a bit old and proved incapable of driving the new 24" LCD I'd got. I discovered that the Asus EeeBox was capable of driving it, and also would mount nicely to the back of the screen. It wasn't too fast, but my needs weren't that great. I was now down to three computers that I regularly used at home: a server, the EeeBox, and a laptop.
In early 2009 I ended up joining Urban Vision, and moved into a flat over the road from the Arlington council flats in Mt Cook. The computers came along but most stayed off. The servers that I ran at home had had their functions transferred to a virtual server in the US; important things (mail) went first, less important things (this blog) took a few months to come back. Gradually I got rid of the more saleable ones. I finally got around to getting rid of most of the virtual servers in the US that I wasn't really using much anyway in the last week. I'm now down to two. And one laptop (on loan), two Eee PCs (anyone want an Eee 701?), and the EeeBox desktop. I haven't worked out what to do with my old file server and its couple of terabytes of data, and I've got an old Athlon XP 2600+ desktop machine that I really should find another home for. And there's a menagerie of wireless routers and other embedded Linux devices. And a pile of hard disks. But I'm (almost) all better now. Next step: getting rid of the remaining unused PCs, and trying to find something to do with my accumulated cache of computer parts and cables.
Comments:
Sheesh, I see you don't even allow <em>simple</em> html code. :-P
I can't remember what text processor parses the comments, it might be markdown. In which case this will be a link. Or I've forgotten markdown syntax again, which is equally likely.
Uni-style procrastination was great, but required the student lifestyle. I still seem to come up with neat projects to work on in my "spare time", but that spare time is so effectively used up by other things that it is rare for any of them to come to fruition.
Hey, are you still trying to get rid of the 701? I'll make you an offer, I'd love to play around with the early model - I've got a much-loved 1000H.
I am also trying to push the reams of old cases and hardware out of my crowded flat, so far I've had a lot of success building them up into simple machines for my workplace (I'm the IT manager, with a budget of approximately $0 ...)
Luke H, Thorndon (via BKD).
Full time work had a similar effect on me too, I think. At one time I spent lots of my time on committee work for the astro geek society, and I really enjoyed what I was doing which was mostly database information stuff as the membership secretary. Being at university was so much more flexible and I had lots of excuses to procrastinate, but also the work that I was doing once I went full-time was using all the same parts of my brain (or something like that), and I just got sick of doing the same things when I finally got home late at night. My interest in that kind of work really disintegrated. It was the opposite when I worked at NZ Post with a job of shuffling letters from one side of the corridor to another, and I spent the entire day dreaming up ideas and arrived home really wanting to write lots of interesting code.
It didn't help that nobody else was very interested in taking it over so I went for several years unsuccessfully trying to find someone to hand things over to. In the end I just had to decide outright to let it go, and accept that someone else would have to build it up again.
Anyway, it was great to have the opportunity to be around during the time that you <em>were</em> engaging in all the interesting procrastination that you've just mentioned. You've been involved in some really interesting projects.