Show newer

Toshiba T4600C repair (-) 

Well, crap. I can't even test if my HDD is good or not (I have a known-working I can reformat if it isn't), because both the FDD inside my laptop & the spare I recently picked up have spindle drive belts that either slipped off the motor or just lost too much elasticity to grip the motor's spindle. Worse, the FDD is a slim model with ribbon cables, & IDEK if off-brand replacements ever existed. (Using a USB FDD is out because USB didn't exist yet.)

Show thread

Fun fact: When laptops were thick-as-textbooks monsters, some manufacturers broke up the motherboard into a mainboard with modules sandwiched above. Toshiba did that to my laptop: 3 layers of 4 or 5 modules stacked behind all the peripherals & keyboard.

Show thread

I had to spend the evening digging through everything again to convince myself that a hard drive problem isn't why I stopped the repair 16 years ago. (It went through an earthquake, & even though it was barely felt where I was, about 100 miles away, the utility power was messed up enough to kill the DC power-in module.)

Show thread

I guess I shouldn't be too shy about the taped printout. How many things taped to the outside of a frequently-carried, frequently-shuffled plastic box survive almost a quarter century without a single edge peeling loose or corner turning up?

Show thread

Computer screen photography tip: 

Put a giant black panel or posterboard in your lap while sitting in front of it, or rig one to hang from your neck or shoulders while standing in front of it, to minimize reflections.

Perk: If you can cover your face as well (& still see through it), it's a half decent privacy screen as well.

It's okay if you failed today. You can try again tomorrow.

lewd?, link to lots of nsfw 

I love the "horny people are X" toots @beth bot is doing.

It wouldn't have taken so long or been so worth it today if it wasn't my first laptop or one that runs Windows *without* Internet Explorer. (Yes, IE was actually optional back when I first got it.)

Show thread

Friendly reminder that you deserve a strong, four-armed lesbian girlfriend that will princess carry you whilst carrying a rose.

⛓️ : OkCupid

I'm excited to finish a PC repair that I started 16 1/2 years ago. I thought it would never happen.

lost things & lost sleep (-) 

Have you ever been up all night tearing your house apart, looking for just one little thing that you know for certain you've hung on to for literally half your life? I can now say I have, unsuccessfully at that, & my body's going to pay for it tomorrow. (Oh crap, it *is* tomorrow!)

As queer programmers, it is your civic duty to install positiveSelfTalk.exe into all your android friends.

If you need the tar.gz, DM me.

retrocomputing 

Also, I learned the hard way that even though the 5150, XT, AT, & pre-PS/2 IBM clones all have physically compatible keyboard sockets (5-pin DIN, just like MIDI sockets), the 5150 & XT use an incompatible protocol, so AT-style keyboards won't work unless they have an XT-mode switch.

Show thread
beeping.town will be a pleroma instance for bots, in the same vein as https://botsin.space with a bot-friendly code of conduct.

keep an eye out for when registrations open when I'm ready!
if you're interested in helping moderate beeping.town send an email to iliana@beeping.town
💜

retrocomputing 

If you thought IDE hard drives were becoming scarce, just try what I spent the last few hours doing and shop for an ESDI hard drive.

I'm trying to restore a trash-picked (& VG condition) IBM 5160 (the PC XT) that turns out to have been complete except for HDD & keyboard. The rescue included an amber MDA monitor & ESDI controller with cables, though I didn't recognize the controller until today.

Going with an IDE controller & CF or SD adapter is an option, I suppose.

it 👏 doesn't 👏 matter 👏 where 👏 you 👏 came 👏 from 👏 or 👏 when 👏 you 👏 joined 👏 mastodon

Show older
Computer Fairies

Computer Fairies is a Mastodon instance that aims to be as queer, friendly and furry as possible. We welcome all kinds of computer fairies!