Mom's Computer, Part 2

I haven't posted in a long while even though a lot has transpired. I'm won't try to cover it all -- most of it isn't that interesting anyway.

I was pondering options for all the various components when I saw that the local WorstBuy had the Antec 900 case for $120. That right quick immediately settled my case choice! Here's a picture of it right after I brought it home. I stuck an old PSU in it to power the fans and LEDs just to make sure everything worked.

This case is just beautiful! It seems to be highly regarded for its thermal properties. It comes stock with the two 120mm fans in front, another 120 in the back (partially visible in the picture), and best of all, a honking 200mm fan on top. The thing needs landing clearance to come to rest on your desktop. And, if you think all those fans would be a noise problem, think again. At medium speed, you barely hear a whisper from the case at 3 feet. Besides, Mom doesn't care!

I have to tell this one story: While researching cases, I read many of the comments about this particular model posted on the NewEgg internet sales site (Great place to buy computers and components, BTW). At the time, there were over 800 reviews (now over 1100) with an average 5 golden eggs rating. I found it most helpful to sort the reviews by lowest to highest rating. That way, I can see right up front the problems people faced, rather than loosing track of them amongst all the glowing -- but ultimately uninformative -- raves (In this case ;-) 11 ratings of poor or very poor, 975 excellent, about 180 good, and the rest average).

In looking at the disses, I try to make an assessment of the validity of the complaint. For example, the very earliest Antec 900 disses stated that the back-plane for expansion cards didn't have room for a DVI connector in the first position. Some MOBO manufacturers, however, require the graphics card to be in the first slot. Now, it's pretty obvious that's a very serious complaint. As I said, however, those complaints were all in 2006; by early January, 2007, those problems disappeared. On the other hand, some of the complaints looked like PICNIC errors (Problem In Chair, Not In Computer). One in particular was a classic. Look again at the photo. A reviewer complained that the control panel (you can't see it in the picture -- it's on top), didn't have a power-on LED! If you can't see eight, out of the nine, "power-on" LEDs in the photo, put on one of those tall conical hats and go sit in the corner!

That's all for now. I'll discuss components and theme on the next rock.

Mom's Computer!

My Mom is a fairly computer literate... um... senior citizen. (Let's put it this way, I got my invitation to join AARP more than 5 years ago.) I don't recollect when she got her current desktop. I built one for her maybe ten years ago and loaded OS/2 on it! She's long ago returned to Windows but I don't know whether she's gotten a new computer since then.

It doesn't really matter; the point is that she's long past due for an upgrade. And, she's letting me build and customize it! Whoopee! This is going to be so much fun.

Mom has some interesting requirements -- or, perhaps, lack thereof. For one thing, she's deaf. I don't mean she's hard of hearing, I mean DEAF. She, like all deaf people, is sensitive to vibrations, but sound isn't an issue for her. She also isn't a gamer. (Is any parent of a 50-something a gamer?) Interestingly, however, she does have somewhat significant graphics requirements. You see, the advent of PCs, and the viral growth of the internet, has been a boon to the deaf community.

In the bad old days, say prior to the '80s, telephones -- invented by Alexander Graham Bell in an effort to help deaf people -- were useless to the deaf. Sometime in the late '70s, however, technology based on the old teletype machine (how many of you all even know what a teletype is?) became available to the deaf community. Known as TTYs or TDDs, these early devices were big, clunky affairs. They were also expensive and slow. Nevertheless, among the deaf, they were hugely popular; finally giving them personal long-distance telecommunications capabilities approximating (though poorly) that available to the hearing.

This same period, the last quarter of the 20th century, saw the exponential development of consumer electronics, the wide-spread use of personal computers, and this thing called the Internet. For deafies, this meant, first, a drastic reduction in size, and an increase in the quality and capabilities of TTYs. (Mom's first couple of TTYs couldn't keep up with my typing at about 60 wpm.) But, the internet! The internet ushered in a whole new world for the deaf.

Many technically inclined deaf people acquired PCs, just like everyone else did, in the early 80s. But, BBS and the nascent email technology weren't much of an improvement over the TTY. It was the advent of IM that really opened up the world for deaf folks. Of course, instant communications with friends and family (along with lower phone bills!) attracted them but, more than that, the rest of the world (or our part of it, at any rate) also used IM. For the first time ever, deaf people on the internet could communicate with hearing folks as easily as they communicated among themselves. And, then, along came web-cams, cheap video conferencing, and all the other means of quick and reliable communications. Imagine the impact on deaf people. Whereas the TTY give them, for the first time, something approaching the ease and convenience of the telephone, the web-cam gave them the freedom to communicate their way; face-to-face, hand gestures, facial expressions, and body language -- the whole nine yards.

So, back to Mom's computer (thought I'd forgotten about that, didn't you). As stated, she's not a gamer but she'll still need good graphics capability. I think something using either the Radeon 2600XT or the Nvidia 8600GTS. A sound card, of course, is irrelevant to Mom. On the other hand, my daughter now lives with her and might appreciate a little music and game sounds. So, either decent mobo sound or a modestly capable sound card. Two gigs of DDR2 RAM, of course, unless DDR3 comes down in price and latency timing. For storage, I'm thinking a pair of SATA harddrives; although, I'm not sure whether to configure them in a RAID or leave them as a pair. Optical will consist of a DVD/RW, for sure. Depending on price, and whether she wants a new monitor, I might also include a BluRay or HD-DVD.

I have no thoughts on the case. Mom and I talked about a couple of themes for customization but we also talked about a clear plexi case. I'll have to do some shopping, and some thinking about customization, before deciding where to go with the case.

That leaves the two critical components: the CPU and the mobo (Mom, that means mother board -- the thing that everything else plugs into, one way or another). Based mostly on price, I've narrowed my CPU choices down to either a quad-core Q6600, or a dual core E6850. The two chips cost cost the same and, from the few reports I've seen, seem on a par in capability. I'm leaning toward the Q6600 though, because I think ever more apps will be written with quad-core processors in mind. Thus, gazing into my thoroughly cracked lead ball, I think the quad will hold its own longer than the E6850. I'll do more research, however, before deciding.

I'm also in the wind about the mobo. The P35 just plain bothers me. I don't understand the attraction for a motherboard that supports only 22 PCIe lines. One decent graphics card and there goes the neighborhood! (If someone cares to enlighten me, I'm all ears.) On the other hand, Mom's PC only needs the one PCIe 16 slot. For my druthers, I'd think a lot about the 975 mobos. They are getting long in the tooth, however, and Intel is supposedly coming out with a replacement Real Soon Now. Another research area.

Well, that's it for now. Next step is more research, followed by shopping and coming up with a customization plan.

I'll keep you all posted.

In The Beginning...

Back in the days of the 8086 and 80386, I used to upgrade computers with new hard drives, graphics cards (remember the Hercules monochrome graphics card?), math co-processors(!?), RAM, and other sundry items. My first computer was an IBM PC with a big red switch on the side and a 64Kb motherboard. I was the geekiest guy on the block, however, because I had two 5.25" floppy drives and a daughter card that carried an additional 256Kb RAM! The damned thing cost me something north of $4,000 and took about ten minutes to boot. I was in hog heaven the day I replaced one of those floppy drives with a whopping 5Mb hard drive.

Along about 1994 or 5, I decided to rejoin the human race, left the practice of law, and became an IT consultant. As a consultant, I built any number of computers, both servers and workstations, from ordered parts. I remember in about 1996 HP servers came in pieces; a case with PSU and MOBO, a separate box for RAM, another box for hard drives, yet another for the CD reader (DVD? What DVD? I don't gotta show you no stinkin' DVD!).

Later, I became an in-house developer. Things changed then, though so subtlety that I didn't notice at the time. For one thing, whatever organization I was working for usually provided me with a desktop or two and, more often than not, a laptop. With the hardware provided, I no longer had any reason to build computer systems and I spent my time learning how to be a better coder. See my coding blog, Fractal Sea, for a peek into my life as a coder.

About six months ago, I realized that I hadn't really futzed with the inside of a computer in years. So, without any real intent, I began nosing around the Internet (something that didn't even exist, at least not outside of DARPA, when I got my first computer), looking at PC gear vendors, DIY builder blogs, various hardware fora and websites. At the time, I yearned to build a screaming machine with the latest technology and all the bells and whistles.

For financial reasons (Ah, the life of a consultant!), I have yet to build my dream machine. But, while browsing here and there, I came upon something about which I'd never really given any thought. All those many computers I upgraded or built over the years invariably came in butt-ugly beige or grey boxes. What I discovered was a whole wild and woolly universe of case modders.

WOW, WTF(reaking)F! Some of the case mods out there were simply unbelievable! Anyone with any interest in modding has surely heard of the Orac3 mod by Peter Dickison. Or, how about the sculptured cases by Katsuya Matsumura? It wasn't long before I said to myself, "I gotta get me one of those!"

Well, I may be crazy but I ain't insane. I can't draw a straight line with a ruler and, at my advanced age (phbbbth!), my hands ain't as steady as once they were. Before I go nuts buying crazy stuff and trying crazy things I've never done before, I need to try something simple, small, modest as it were.

So...