Thunkenstein has a new body part. During the re-creation of Thunkenstein, upon removing its W98 brain and replacing it with an abnormal NT brain, that removed the ability for Thunk to use the USB port for a Wireless adapter.
Recently I had to replace the Ethernet port, which (mysteriously) was still supported for NT, and for which I am grateful. And while I was perusing the shelves at Fry's for things Internet I spied a Ethernet-to-Wireless adapter. At the time I was only interested in getting the Ethernet connection working, and was not in the mood to spend money on something that I wasn't sure would improve anything.
However, after making sure the new Ethernet card worked, I then researched the web for Ethernet-to-Wireless adapters, just to find out what other guinea pigs experienced with them. For the most part there was good things to say, so today I went back and bought this one for about $90. If I was willing to go mail-order I might have got it cheaper, but not much -- after shipping charges.
Bam! It worked right off, attached to our home Wireless-G point and here I am, sitting far away from my computer office, writing this blog entry. I don't notice any speed difference from being plugged directly into the router from being wireless. So Thunk has a new body part and is very happy.
Now, I can't really complain, being that Thunk is so cheap, now totaling about $350 for every necessary body part since I saved it from the junk heap. But the term "Wireless" hardly applies to Thunk, other than not having a 50 foot cable leading from my office to here in the living room. I actually have 4 wires to effect this "wireless" connection. There are two power cables, one for the laptop and one for the adapter, one Ethernet cable and one mouse cable.
I suppose this exercise in re-incarnating obsolete hardware and software is like those guys who rebuild Model-T Fords. It's a lot of work for something you can't drive on the highway. However, with Thunk, I actually can use this for my work. And for those who think that NT is completely obsolete, the current speed of Thunk is about 50 times what it was when I first obtained it.
Why? Because W98 was a piece of 16/32bit hybrid crap, NT is pure 32bit; there was hardly any memory at first, and now there is 300mb; and there were all those stupid software packages running concurrently on it that only marketing people use; and there was some old W98-era virus software that ate whatever time and space there was left. Just to boot it up took 20 minutes or so. At first I was hesitant to even bother with it. Now it is a little work-horse that I use for network programming and other generic software. About the only thing MS still running on here is NT and IE, and everything else, compilers, languages, et al, are open source.
Now, if only my current employment didn't demand the use of Microsoft, I'd just replace all this with Linux. NT is lean and mean, compared with W98, but Linux would run circles around it.
Recently I had to replace the Ethernet port, which (mysteriously) was still supported for NT, and for which I am grateful. And while I was perusing the shelves at Fry's for things Internet I spied a Ethernet-to-Wireless adapter. At the time I was only interested in getting the Ethernet connection working, and was not in the mood to spend money on something that I wasn't sure would improve anything.
However, after making sure the new Ethernet card worked, I then researched the web for Ethernet-to-Wireless adapters, just to find out what other guinea pigs experienced with them. For the most part there was good things to say, so today I went back and bought this one for about $90. If I was willing to go mail-order I might have got it cheaper, but not much -- after shipping charges.
Bam! It worked right off, attached to our home Wireless-G point and here I am, sitting far away from my computer office, writing this blog entry. I don't notice any speed difference from being plugged directly into the router from being wireless. So Thunk has a new body part and is very happy.
Now, I can't really complain, being that Thunk is so cheap, now totaling about $350 for every necessary body part since I saved it from the junk heap. But the term "Wireless" hardly applies to Thunk, other than not having a 50 foot cable leading from my office to here in the living room. I actually have 4 wires to effect this "wireless" connection. There are two power cables, one for the laptop and one for the adapter, one Ethernet cable and one mouse cable.
I suppose this exercise in re-incarnating obsolete hardware and software is like those guys who rebuild Model-T Fords. It's a lot of work for something you can't drive on the highway. However, with Thunk, I actually can use this for my work. And for those who think that NT is completely obsolete, the current speed of Thunk is about 50 times what it was when I first obtained it.
Why? Because W98 was a piece of 16/32bit hybrid crap, NT is pure 32bit; there was hardly any memory at first, and now there is 300mb; and there were all those stupid software packages running concurrently on it that only marketing people use; and there was some old W98-era virus software that ate whatever time and space there was left. Just to boot it up took 20 minutes or so. At first I was hesitant to even bother with it. Now it is a little work-horse that I use for network programming and other generic software. About the only thing MS still running on here is NT and IE, and everything else, compilers, languages, et al, are open source.
Now, if only my current employment didn't demand the use of Microsoft, I'd just replace all this with Linux. NT is lean and mean, compared with W98, but Linux would run circles around it.
No comments:
Post a Comment