My interest in electronics goes back 50 years. I was 3 years old when I figured out that TV and radio weren't "magic." I taught myself electronics and was fixing stuff before I was 12. I then worked as a TV and stereo repairman, as well as audio recording engineering and industrial electronics repair. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thirty years ago this spring, my friend Roger Gregory showed me the book "Computer Lib/Dream Machines" by Ted Nelson (the inventor of the term "hypertext"). Roger soon became lead programmer for Ted's Xanadu Hypertext Project (Google on "curse of Xanadu" for more), and I was on the road to learning about personal computers years before they were available. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I was using QDOS a year before it became PC-DOS, on the Zenith Z-100 a year before IBM partially copied it as the IBM PC. I was a warranty repairman for Zenith PCs in the mid-80s. Computers I have owned include the Commodore KIM-1, VIC-20, 64, and Amiga. I have belonged to several user groups, and wrote and edited newsletters and acted as disk librarian. I ran a BBS and wrote and edited manuals for a software firm. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Currently, my system is running mostly Debian Linux installed from Knoppix, with Windows 98 and XP in the mix. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I will do my best to apply my broad background to the problems presented here. I may not always be right, but we can solve problems and learn together -- and that's what it's all about!

* AMD Athlon XP 1800+ CPU (slightly O/C'd) * GigaByte GA7-DXC MB * 768 MB PC2100 DDR RAM * Debian from Kanotix + Win XP * Dell/Philips D1028 monitor

Music, art, science, computers, science fiction, pop culture, teaching, Linux