My Other Hobby, Computer Building & Repair

[RockJustRock]

Hmmm, I've got my Dad's old Gateway tower which was running Win95 that I was just going to toss .. I pulled the HDD, but it still has all the other internals, including a 3.5" floppy and a CD drive.

'95 was right about the time things went from AT to ATX. If it is AT format you will need to do some surgery, but some people enjoy that. ATX format is why building the sleepers is so easy. Hard to believe the same case standard lasted over 20 years. I guess they got it right. The I/O shield system just works as long as you have the one for your motherboard. Worse comes to worst you can do without the I/O shield but it is ugly.

Funny how the optical drive is nearly a thing of the past. I have people bug me to burn stuff to CD or DVD and I just tell them to go away. When optical was big the joke was the uninitiated thinking it was a cup holder, but now...…

People build 19" rack mounts, but they are awkward.

[Monster]

I have a Tandy Color Computer II sitting on my desk right now, connected to my grandma's portable color TV that she watched a lot before she died in 1980. BASIC is fun to play with, for a little while.
I learned to type on manual typewriters...and still do, occasionally.

That's awesome Jim. I went looking for mine, but only found my 70's era "tape drive" - ha, ha, ha. BASIC is great for learning the principals of programming.
I learned to type in Junior High on an ancient Underwood typewriter. I joined the class to meet girls, but actually learned to type, getting to 90-words a minute with less than 3 errors.

[tardis454]

It's an appearance thing for me too, plus I love building computers, I'm not much into OEM stuff unless it's cheap or free.

The Gateway PC is worth some dough, there are plenty of people looking for old cases, you'd be surprised how much someone will pay for it.

They have a couple of old VAX System workstation computers here at work that I'm hoping to get my hands on .. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VAX

The first computer I ever used was a Texas Instruments TI-99 with a voice emulator. I spent hours typing Basic commands and learning to code as a kid.

[cstmwgn]

sooo, is there a source for those itty bitty screws? I just replaced the touchpad in my dell and I have a couple of screws that the heads are getting pretty bad.

[tardis454]

sooo, is there a source for those itty bitty screws? I just replaced the touchpad in my dell and I have a couple of screws that the heads are getting pretty bad.

I get them when I part out desktops & laptops. You can buy kits off Amazon & eBay too..

https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Cleaning-Repair-Screws/b?ie=UTF8&node=3012917011

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2380057.m570.l1311.R4.TR12.TRC2.A0.H1.Xcimputer+scre.TRS0&_nkw=computer+screws&_sacat=0

[cstmwgn]

I get them when I part out desktops & laptops. You can buy kits off Amazon & eBay too..

https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Cleaning-Repair-Screws/b?ie=UTF8&node=3012917011

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_fro...crews&_sacat=0

Thank you