Updated:
12/26/99 11:51 AM
Jump to Most
Recent Update
[Sunday] [Monday]
[Tuesday] [Wednesday]
[Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday]
Sunday, December 19, 1999
TOP
[Wakeolda Home]
[Email Steve]
[Sunday] [Monday]
[Tuesday] [Wednesday]
[Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday]
Monday, December 20, 1999
This is going to be a quick update. I've spent the last couple of
days scratching my head because I could not make a new machine I want to add to my domain
communicate with the network.
I had mentioned earlier that I want to get the "stuff" to bring
up a Linux box. I attempted to bring up a Linux machine earlier, but the equipment
flaked out on me. The ps/2 ports for the mouse and keyboard took a dump so I shelved
Linux at the time. I have not gotten some inexpensive equipment to build said Linux
machine and am going to be calling on Brian Bilbrey
from the DayNotes gang for assistance. I hope
his earlier offer still stands. Anyway, it looks like it will be a while before I
pester Brian for the Linux installation.
As I said, I put together some inexpensive pieces to build said Linux
server. I got a no-name motherboard locally from Computer
and Software Outlet (actually I bought an El-cheapo case that came with the he
motherboard, CD-ROM, floppy and one of those cool slide out trays for the hard
drive). I put an Intel Celeron 400 in the box with 64 megs of memory. That
will be a GREAT Linux machine. This board features built in VGA, sound, modem and
10/100 network adapter. Unfortunately it has one only one shared ISA/PCI expansion
slot. I plan to put two NICs in this machine, which doesn't leave me any room for
trouble. I am concerned about the lack of expansion capabilities.
Since I was unfamiliar with the integrated NIC( it appears to be a DAVICOM
9102, which I never heard of) I figured a quick install of Win NT workstation would be a
wise move before heading off to Linux. Just to make sure the NIC was communicating
with my network.
And this is where my troubles started.
The install of Workstation went just fine and when it came time to select
the NIC, I chose Have Disk and instructed NT for go to the CD and get the drivers for the
davicom9102, which reported back it was a 10/100 network adapter. It gave me choices
for Auto or to set the card as a 10 or 100 full or half-duplex card. I naturally
chose auto.
I then declined DCHP and inserted my static IP address and DNS address.
I use the private network address of 192.168.1.x with a subnet mask of
255.255.255.224. All was fine. I rebooted and tried to join the TUCKER domain,
but was greeted with the nastygram that no domain could be found. Hmmm.
I then went to a dos window and pinged both my network and the outside
world. Was able to ping around the world as it should, but still couldn't connect to
my domain. I have a primary domain server and two backups on my network and all 3
were up and running, so there should have been no problem.
But I still couldn't connect with my domain. This was odd.
I checked all of the obvious things like IP address and netmask and
everything looked ok. I sent an email to my friend and author of O'Rielly networking
and NT books, Bob Thompson, and asked him if he had
any ideas. He suggested to check the things I had already checked, so I
double-checked. He also mentioned to install NetBEUI on two machines just to make
sure they were communicating. Hadn't thought of this.
Before I went the NetBEUI route I reinstalled NT Workstation one more
time, this time installing as a new setup vs. upgrading. Still nothing.
Now I went the NetBEUI route and guess what, I could see both machines.
Barney is the machine giving me so much trouble and Fred is my main NT server.
Barney could see Fred and access all of its services. I took this opportunity
to install service pack 5 from Fred, which was accomplished without problem. I then
deleted NetBEUI on both machines and rebooted. Since I knew Barney was communicating
with Fred I was heading back to TCP/IP which yielded me nothing. I can not tell you
how many times I got the domain not found message. I was getting ticked.
For a brief moment I got the message at one time Welcome to the TUCKER
domain and I thought I had 'er knocked. When I tried to access some of the remote
machines it went away and I was back to square one. Now I couldn't even ping the
network or an outside address.
Thinking that I remembered that my 3Com Office Connect ISDN LAN Modem may
have a limit on the number of workstations it can handle I went to the net with another
machine and downloaded the latest firmware upgrade. This modem now allows you 25
workstations vs. 10 in the earlier version. I didn't even have 10 workstations on my
router, so I don't think that was a problem.
I could get to the world from this machine before, but now I couldn't.
Then my next brainstorm. I have the Windows 2000 Professional
Release Candidate 2 and since it's supposed to be plug and play I decided I would give
installing this on Barney a whirl. It installed fine, but once again I could not see
my internal network or the outside world. The CD ROM with this motherboard also has
a LAN diagnostics tool, so I opened up a dos box and ran the diags and it reported that it
could not find this adapter. I thought I had really screwed something up.
My next move was to boot Barney from a floppy and run the diags, which
by-the-way reported no problems as far as I could tell.
The next move was the format the hard drive and start from scratch.
The one thing I had not mentioned to this point is I had put a second NIC
in Barney. When I get Linux up a and going I want to use this box for a
firewall and proxy server and will need two NICS at that point. Bob has also brought up
the idea of a mail server, but conversation can wait.
My next step was to try to install Windows 98 on Barney just to see what
would happen and if I could see the network. My thinking here was the networking
component in Win98 would be much simpler.
Since I had a clean hard drive the Win 98 installation was pretty simple
until it got to the network card. The install routine readily identified the NE2000
compatible card I installed in the system, but there was no mention of the imbedded 10/100
NIC on the motherboard. I closed down and removed the NIC from the machine, deleted
the adapter from Windows Networking and attempted to install the NIC that's imbedded.
I say attempted because it took several tries.
When installing the NIC, I would select the Have Disk button and try to
install the DaviCom 9210 NIC. Windows would report this was a plug-n-play device and
instruct me to shutdown the system so Windows could find it. To make a long story a
little shorter I must have spent about an hour trying to get this card installed and am
happy to report that I finally got it installed and even got Windows Networking to access
my NT server. I can even see all of the machines on my network and better yet access
them. I hope I am not bragging too early. I have gone through a couple of
reboots and have come back.
The one thing that is missing now is I can not get to the outside world
from this machine. Must be something that I have changed with the firmware upgrade
and this particular installation. I can still get to the internet from all of the
other machines, just not Barney.
Needless to say this project has eaten up quite a bit more time than I had
intended to spend on it, but it goes along with everything else I have ever tried to do on
one of these little idiot boxes. Nothing with computers is ever simple.
Now I have to spend some time to figure out why Barney can't get outside.
It can't even ping from a dos box. I don't usually have this kind of problem
with networking.
UPDATE: Go ahead and throw stones at me. I
have been bitten once again by the using inexpensive equipment bug. Bob Thompson had
suggested this to me this morning, but I guess I wanted to try to force my machine to work
rather than take the case off and move one jumper. He called again tonight and had
done some research and mentioned that these components may not be the best quality.
So I finally shut Barney down, moved the JP6 jumper to turn off the internal NIC and
installed a 10/100 card I had available.
The result was the network worked instantly.
Now I could have saved myself a lot of trouble and aggravation if I had
done this same thing a couple of days ago, but then again I am VERY hard headed and
stubborn. I suppose I have proven this point once again.
Now I have to talk with Computer and Software Outlet and let them know of
the troubles I have been having. I want to talk to them about upgrading the board
and if that is not satisfactory, we"ll have to talk about my original plan, which was
to buy the parts and build my own machine. I at least want a NIC that will have
Linux drivers and should think about a more name-brand board. I don't have to go all
the way to Intel, but should consider an Epox board at the least.
It's amazing how easy the networking stuff was once I used parts with just
a little quality, he says kicking himself in the butt all the way.
TOP
[Wakeolda Home]
[Email Steve]
[Sunday] [Monday]
[Tuesday] [Wednesday]
[Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday]
Tuesday, December 21, 1999
A friend of mine mentioned this a couple of weeks ago, but I failed to
post it here. Viagra is going to be sponsoring a Winston Cup team in 2000. We
both got quite the chuckle out of this, wondering what the reception will be and what the
best jokes will be from such a manly sport. Jeff Fuller and his Eel River racing
team will have the honors. Barry Dodson, who piloted Rusty Wallace to his only
Winston Cup championship is going to be the crew chief. Look for No. 27 to be right
up in there in 2000.
Wonder if Bill France will be joining Bob Dole and Dan Rather in Viagra
commercials?
POLITICS IS A STRANGE ANIMAL. With his big war
chest George W. Bush is not going to be taking matching funds for his national
presidential campaign from the Federal Government. This has put the politicians in North
Carolina in a tailspin. Seems that since Mr. Bush has elected not to take these
bucks from big brother that he will not automatically be included on the North Carolina
May 2, 2000 primary ballot. Therefore, the Busch campaign in hustling to get the
necessary signatures by the January, 2000 deadline so George W. can appear on our ballot.
If you feel the need to contact Bush's North Carolina campaign, here the email link.
HOW'S THIS FOR A BLACK HOLE. There was a report
this week that the U.S. Government has spent nearly $8.5 billion, that's with a B, on its
Y2K preparedness, which is some $40 million over budget. Doesn't the government
always spend more than budgeted? Our government has determined 6,343 of its machines
perform "mission critical" tasks. Now, that's one list I would love to
take a look at.
MY MAILBOX IS BEING filled this week with last minute shopping offers
from the auction sites and some e-tailers. Merry Christmas.
I TOOK A BREAK FROM my computer woes for a while yesterday to
go to the movies with the kids. We saw Stuart Little, which was quite entertaining
for a the lead roles being played by a mouse and a cat. It had some very amusing
slapstick humor, which was good therapy after I almost had a heart attach at the
concession stand. There's got to be some kind of law against the price-gouging they
get away with for some very low cost items like popcorn and soda. But they do have
you captured and what's a visit to the movies without popcorn and Coke. I think the
kids may want to go more for the snacks than the movie or at least it's impossible to
bypass the rip-off stand for us.
Suzy spent most of yesterday out in the battlezone of Christmas shopping while I chose
to stay home with the kids and intermittently work on my problem. I also tackled the
chore of cleaning our refrigerator. Some of the stuff growing inside there would
make a good science project for Katie. To late, it's long gone, thankfully. We
also mentioned that our pantry could stand a good going-thorough, but Suzy quickly added
that was a job she would tackle. Guess she doesn't want me throwing away the
"good stuff" in my ruthless tossing.
TOP
[Wakeolda Home]
[Email Steve]
[Sunday] [Monday]
[Tuesday] [Wednesday]
[Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday]
Wednesday, December 22, 1999
I think I have decided what I am going to do about my Linux box dilemma.
I am going back to square one and build the machine myself vs. grabbing some
pre-made barebones box.
I stopped by Computer and Software Outlet yesterday afternoon and
explained my dilemma. Maybe because they recognize me in there or maybe it's because
it's their return policy or maybe because I spoke with April, but at any event, she told
me to bring back the barebones system for a return. I've had this box about 10 days
and have not hurt it. Turns out she is not a proponent of integrated systmes boards.
Good advice, April.
Now this leads me to what I want to build this machine with. I told
April I definitely did not want a no-name motherboard and that I was shying away from
integrated parts like a network adapter. She pointed me to the Seattle board which
had NO integrated adapters. No video, no sound, no LAN. Well, maybe I could
live with sound and video on the board after all if there were enough expansion slots to
accommodate a card when the on-board stuff failed. I mentioned that I had this
socket 370 Celeron and that led April to the Intel CA810 board, which they stock. I
asked her to put one aside until I could come back with the case and make the exchange.
She pointed out this board had no Slot 1 slot, so it would not be the board for me
if I intended to upgrade to a Pentium III or anything like that in the near future.
I am sure by the time I move to the P-III there will be a better board and for my Linux
machine, this board should do just fine.
In discussing the issue with Bob Thompson last night, he also suggested
the Intel CA810, but he was suggesting the upgraded CA810E and of course CSO doesn't have
that one in stock.
What's my hurry? I would like to build this machine over the
holidays. Give me something to do while tucked away in our computer room. The
kids can play with their toys and I could be playing with mine.
I decided to do my own comparison of the two CA810 boards:
The CA810E supports both Pentium III and Celeron Processors, 133/100MHz
system bus for the P-3 and 66 MHz for the Celeron. The CA810 only has support for
the Celeorn via the 66 MHz system bus.
The CA810 has the Intel 810 chipset and the CA810E had the Intel 810E
chipset. Both seem to deliver 3D graphics through Dynamic Video Memory Technology.
Both offer integrated SoundBlaster Audio PCI 64
Both boards are offered optionally with the Intel 82559 LAN controller.
I don't think the CA810 at CSO has the LAN option. Thankfully.
Both boards offer the LANDesk Client Manger for remote monitoring of
system conditions.
Both boards have two 168-pin DIMM sockets, Ultra ATA/66 hard disk
support, four PCI slots and dual USB connectors. Both boards come in the Micro ATX
from factor.
CSO locally does not carry the CA810E, or at least does not have it in
stock. Their selling price on the CA810 is $129, so I decided to check around the
net to see what was available. I landed at CMP Express, where I have always found
good prices. Here's their price comparison:
|
No LAN |
With LAN |
| CA810 |
$106 |
$137 |
| CA810EA |
$138 |
$168 |
If I were smart I would hold out for the CA810E, but
knowing me I will grab the CA810 at CSO, partially because of my impatience, partially
because I asked them to set one aside for me until tomorrow and partially because they are
allowing me to return the Amptron barebones system. At any rate I will be purchasing
an ATX case from them.
AND YOU THOUGHT IT WAS TOO late to still send out
Christmas cards. You can e-mail a card to your friends from Blue Mountain Arts.
My sister sends us e-cards from Blue Mountain peridiocally. Have fun with
this animated snowman card.
I have noticed the Christmas tree lots around town closing earlier this
year. Usually you see trees at the lots through Christmas eve, but this year I have
noticed several lots closing at least a week before Christmas. One of these lots is just
around the corner from our house. It was all closed up and cleaned up, just as if it
had never been there yesterday. I wonder if says are better than normal or if they
just didn't bring as many trees as normal down from the North Carolina mountains?
Maybe it's a Y2K thing!
NASCAR ANNOUNCED YESTERDAY THAT Bill France has some form
of cancer. They were mum about what form of the disease he had been diagnosed with.
Their PR rep said it was a private family matter, but was treatable.
TOP
[Wakeolda Home]
[Email Steve]
[Sunday] [Monday]
[Tuesday] [Wednesday]
[Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday]
Thursday, December 23, 1999
I got the barebones system returned today and picked up the following from
Computer and Software Outlet:
Intel CA810A Motherboard
48x Mitsumi CD-ROM
104-key Mitsumi Keyboard
ATX Case
April was very gracious in working out the return. I owed CSO $14 to
boot, which was not a bad upgrade. I used a floppy I had in my supply cabinet
(actually, one I took out of another machine I am trashing) and if you figure the $20 cost
of a floppy, then you could say I now have a system with a real Intel motherboard for just
a little more than $30. Then add in the network card, another $15. I had two
of these cards "in stock", so I placed them in the build out.
Actually I have a whole lot less time invested in building this machine
and getting it working than I did in the barebones box. Plus, I have room for
expansion. I am not even going to count the two days I screwed away trying to get
the networking to work on the Amptron motherboard. I don't usually trash any
equipment on this site, but I would stay away from, rather run away from, an Amptron board
with built in DaviCom networking. That is, if my personal experience has any bearing
on how their equipment really functions. I should say the motherboard seemed to
function okay, but the networking module was a piece of crap, especially considering the
Intel board was just a few bucks more. What is it they say about hindsight.
You might also say something about being cheap at this point.
It's amazing how things work when you use quality parts. I guess
that's true in just about anything. Bob Thompson says people sometime question him
when he always suggests name brand parts when it comes to something like motherboards and
network adapters. With my experience of the past week maybe I should sign up to that
thinking.
Bob and Barbara were over yesterday afternoon to bring the kids their
Christmas presents and take Malcom to an outing. Bob and I retired to the basement
office to build the system. I went together very smoothly. I would say we had
maybe an hour and half in the total build time, including taking the drive down to bare
metal and installing Win NT Workstation.
I put two 32-bit 10/100 PCI network cards in this machine and when we
installed the driver for the card, NT immediately brought both cards on line. See
how much better things work when you use the right stuff, although I will admit the
network cards are no-names that I bought online.
After the install we upgraded the video and sound via the CD Intel
furnished with the board. Intel also included a copy of Norton Anti-Virus. The
interface for installing these video and sound components was very slick and very
intuitive. But then you wouldn't expect much less from an industry leader like
Intel.
MY WINDOWS NT SERVER is a Pentium 166 and of course I
toyed with the idea of moving my drives from this machine over the new Barney (400 MHZ
Celeron). After talking it out loud for a few minutes I decided I would leave well
enough alone. The P-166 is just used as a file server and for Win NT authentication.
I might hit a web site once in a while, but this machines does not get heavy use at
all. I am going to stick with the plan to make Barney a Linux machine whose future
use will include firewall and proxy server and maybe even a mail server down the road.
MY NEXT PROJECT was to try to get my SCSI Envisions 8800S scanner working on the SCSI bus on the
IBM Intellistation. We tried all of the obvious options to no avail, so I broke down
and placed a call to IBM's Intellistation Tech Support. They were stumped as well.
My scanner is an older 24-bit scanner with the Envisions name, but it was
actually made by UMAX. It's a UMAX Vista S-8.
It was a hot rocket when I purchased it several years ago, but that was long before
USB, etc. I cringe at what I paid for this scanner when I see better models today
going for 20% of the price. The cost of being a geek and just having to
have the latest in technology.
This scanner has a 50-pin centronics SCSI connector on the back of the
scanner as well as a 25-pin D connector to daisy chain off to another SCSI device.
The termination is a weird pass through SCSI centronics block. Connect the block to
the cable and then to scanner and you have termination. Take the block off the cable
if you are in the middle of the chain.
In addition, I also happen to have a Kodak Color Photo SCSI printer.
In the past I've had the scanner connected to my NEC 166 (Bambam) and the Kodak
connected to the scanner. The connection between BamBam and the scanner was a 50-pin
HD SCSI connector to a 50-pin centronics. At one time I even had a SCSI 2 gig JAZ
drive in the chain.
When the IBM Intellistation took up residence in our house it came with an
integrated Adaptec 78xx two channel SCSI controller. One channel was used internal
for hard drives and the second channel went to an external 68-pin SCSI 2 connector.
Since I had only the 50-pin SCSI 2 cable I visited my favorite computer store (CSO) and
picked up the appropriate new cable. Thought I would just connect the cable to the
scanner and we would be off to the races. No dice.
Before calling IBM I went though everything that I thought might be
causing a problem. Bob T. took a look as well and we finally decided a call to IBM's
database might be in order. I got connected to a tech support rep in Toronto, Canada
and we went through every possible scenario.
I then had the bright idea on asking the Adaptec SCSI bios manager
(CTRL-A) to scan channel B for devices and there it was, right on device 5 where it should
be. The drive scan would see it, but the bios would lock up when it reached this
point during the boot.
After about an hour of frustration, the IBM techie and I decided that
maybe I should give UMAX a call. At least I had eliminated an idea that the cable
might be bad (or at least we thought since it appeared in the drive scan that the cable
was ok). There has to be something going on with this scanner and causing a conflict
back to the SCSI adapter.
To try one last thing, I left the cable attached and killed the power to
the scanner and left the Kodak printer powered up. The SCSI bios identified the IBM
hard drive on channel A and the Kodak printer on channel B and then promptly booted to Win
NT. Solidifying our theory that something was going on within the scanner.
I hope either Envisions or UMAX can help.
SUZY'S BROTHER, SAM, ARRIVED late Tuesday night.
The kids always look forward to their uncle spending the holidays with us. In fact,
Andrew had been counting the hours until Sam arrived. Such excitement and
anticipation in a 7 year old. Sam has been spending the holidays with us since we
have been in North Carolina, say about the last 15 years. He's also into computers,
but maybe not as insane as his brother-in-law. I can remember the days when he would
lug his desktop and monitor and a suitcase full of software. Now he arrives with a
notebook in a briefcase an a small CD case. Times, they have changed.
IF I AM GOING TO BUILD THIS Linux Box and use the PCI
Network adapters I currently have in the machine, then I am going to need some Linux
drivers. I originally purchased these cards from Computer Geeks in California, so I
fired off an email late Tuesday night. I appreciate their quick response, which
included a copy of the email they received from their supplier. Yes, my stomach sank
when I read the first line.
From: Tek Geek [tekgeek@compgeeks.com]
Thank you for your email. These network cards do not have
drivers for linux at all. I did contact the manufacturer on these cards www.accton.com and they did tell me this:
Dear Sir:
According to your mail, your adapter is our EN1207D-TX/WOL
adapter. This adapter is compatible with Realtek 8139(A)’s chip. So the customer can
use Realtek 8139(A)’s driver in Linux. As fas as I know, the newest Linux has
built-in Realtek 8139(A)’s driver in the system.
So this should just work with the drivers that are
built into linux
Here is a Linux link to the RealTek PCI driver.
I ALSO INSTALLED ICQ on BamBam yesterday and signed up
for the service. My ICQ number is 5868982. Currently ICQ is just loaded on BamBam
and with so many machines to play on I can't guarntee when I will be around for
chat. If you need a chat, better email and set up a time.
TOP
[Wakeolda Home]
[Email Steve]
[Sunday] [Monday]
[Tuesday] [Wednesday]
[Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday]
Friday, December 24, 1999
Bob and Barbara Thompson were over on Wednesday to give the kids their
Christmas presents and naturally Bob and I retired to my computer room to work on
computers. I think I probably mentioned all of this yesterday, but bring it up again
because I have finally gotten around to something I should have a long tine ago.
Bob has suggested that I post pics of my computer area. Several of the daynotes gang have already done this, but I have been
dragging my feet.
When Bob was over I mentioned that I was going to clean up the mess over
the holidays and then post the photos of a nice clean computer work area. He
threatened to post photos he had taken with his digital camera showing the real work area
at Wakeolda if I did this. Threat taken, I pulled out the Sony Mavica and shot a
couple of pictures. I didn't have enough of a wide angle lens to show all of the
junk, so there are several shots. Instead of cluttering up this note area, I put the
photos of the office on
a separate page for your viewing pleasure and potential editorial comment. Be nice.
One of these days I may even post a phot of myself. Maybe even
before the end of the year. No promises.
In these pictures you will see the junk closet that Bob has mentioned from
time to time and my work area. There are currently five PCs running in this room,
coupled with a couple of printers. No need for extra heat. You might even
notice some music CDs. You see I do more than work on computers, albeit rarely.
For some reason it's hard for to get into swing of things in moving the
current bookmark on these pages. Or is it I just want to see if you are paying attention?
I'll try to do better.
I HAD SOME ITEMS I NEEDED to scan yesterday, so I moved
the Envisions 8800S scanner back to Barney and of course Barney recognized the scanner
right away. I took this opportunity to call UMAX technical support (I wanted to get
to them before the Christmas rush) and the best suggestion they could come up with was
that my SCSI adapter may be too good for my scanner. This was in sharp contrast to
what I had been experiencing with the barebones box earlier this week. Anyway, back
to the scanner. UMAX suggested the Adaptec 7895 may be too fast for the scanner and
suggested to attempt lowering the transfer rate to 5 or less I assume this is megabytes of
data per second). As my luck would have it the lowest bios setting is 10.0. I
promised IBM I would call them back with the results from my call to UMAX and maybe they
might have a contact at Adaptec that can suggest a workaround. I really wanted to
connect the scanner to Rubble, mainly because I have run out of desk space, not to mention
that the Kodak printer daisy chains off the scanner. The fact that Rubble has 256
megs of memory and dual 400 MHZ Pentium processors has nothing to do with it either.
Call me persistent if nothing else. Since the scanner worked fine on
Barney I thought I would reboot Barney and go into SCSI bios to see how it was setup for
the scanner. The Adaptec card in this machine is an 1520B Adaptec low-end card.
The first thing I noticed was the transfer rates for all devices are set for 10
megs per second. Thinking that was the lowest setting in 7895 I went back to the
IntelliStation and brought up the SCSI bios screen and there it was staring me in the
face...an option to turn wide SCSI off for the devices. I selected NO for channels
No. 3 and 5, the printer and scanner respectively, and rebooted. The bios screen
still did not report the scanner, but the bios reported it had installed ok and NT began
to load.
My next step was to go to the scanner and viola, I got a successful scan.
And then I had to go back to the bios and tweak. When I went back to
the bios I noticed I had set both the printer and scanner for 5 megs, so I changed both to
10 megs, just like they were in Barney. This was a mistake. This changed took
me back to where I was previously. The SCSI bios would not load as long as the
scanner was powered. I was scratching my head. I changed the device settings
back to the positions where they had worked (at least I thought so), but SCSI would no
longer boot. I tried a full shutdown vs. a reboot, tried rebooting with the scanner
turned off, which allowed SCSI to load. I then went back and tried to add to scanner
to the chain. No dice.
I then whipped around to Barney which still had the working SCSI setup
displayed and started to compare all of the settings and discovered on the 1520B card that
a switch for "send start signal" was turned off. I made this change to
SCSI bus on the 7895 and rebooted. For the first time the scanner and printer showed
up in the SCSI bios at boot and all devices were working. I have rebooted a couple
of times since and everything is still there, so hopefully we have this SCSI delimenia
solved. I just need to keep my hands off it and not make any changes. Please
encourage me to take this advice to heart!
DAN SETO, ONE of our DayNotes
gang has written a little 'Twas the night before Christmas piece that involves many of us
in the DayNotes circle. If you have never read some of the other DayNoters, take the
time time to check these guys outs.
I MEANT TO POST this message earlier in the week, but
somehow it slipped through.
From Robert A Johnson [bjohnson@moonstar.com]
Greetings to the Steve Tucker
family!
Just stopped by for a brief visit
to see what's happeing on your end and wish you'all a Merry Christmas!
Must say I was surprised to read
about the Viagra sponsorship.........thought maybe you were going to say Dick Trickle
would be the driver.....can you imagine the play that would
get..............LOL....anyway, I do enjoy your site, keep up the good work, gosh, I
have already learned a lot of helpful computer "stuff"......and I do use your
links to access NASCAR.com.....
Take care , hope your family has a safe, healthy
and Happy Holiday season!
I knew it wouldn't take long for the Viagra jokes to start.
In fact I heard some pretty good ones at the office the next day
EXCITEMENT WILL BE in the air at the Tucker household
today as two kids eagerly anticipate the arrival of the jolly one. Hope you get
everything you wanted for Chritmas as more. Take a minute and stop to remember the
real reason for the season. Merry Christmas.
UPDATE 12/26/99 11:51 AM: I am
rolling the dice. We have this one present for Andrew that needs to be placed by the
tree when we put out the Christmas presents. It's a present, but it's not from
Santa. It's too large to wrap and it has no box. I will let you in on the
secret tomorrow. Anyway, when Suzy and I brought this present home we were wondering
where we could hide it and then as I drove into the driveway a brainstorm hit. I
thought we could store it in the basement of our elderly neighbor, so I called Mrs. Hobson
and she was delighted to participate in our plan.
When I arose this morning the kids were still asleep, so I hatched another
plan. I would move Andrew's present to the unfinished part of the basement and cover
it up. Justification for the new plan: It would be late when the kids are all
snuggled in bed tonight. We would need access and Mrs. Hobson would surely be in
slumber land when we needed to put our hands on this item.
Here's where I am rolling the dice. The kids have a free roam of our
house and sometimes venture into this unfinished basement, but not that regularly.
So I am betting for the next 16 hours Andrew and Katie will not take the trouble to go
there. Heck, it almost as junk filled as the computer room, so Andrew may not be
able to see it anyway. Not. It's sitting right at the door covered up, well
partially as Suzy points out. Heck, here's a picture
looking in from the door. Is that more computer junk in the background? Yes
sir. There are several 386's in AT style boxes and what you can't see ont the right
are several old monitors and a box (the boxes 10 reams of paper come in) full of old hard
drives. There's even a stack of 3.5 and 5.25 floppy drives that I have no idea if they
work. Another thing you can't see is a stack of DOS software, including dBase III,
PageMaker and some other high end goodies from the mid-1980's. Any antique computer
collectors out there?
I FAILED TO MENTION EARLIER THIS WEEK that we had
received our Christmas letter from Bob and Ingrid Weeks in Daytona Beach, FL. We
knew Bob, Ingrid and Trey when we lived in Daytona Beach. We both worked from NASCAR
and Bob has quite a history in racing. Seems he migrated to Florida from a short
track in Tennessee. Ingrid is a great calligrapher and the whole family are, as we
say here in the South, "Just Good People." We stole the idea of including
a Christmas letter with a card to keep our friends up-to-date on what the Tuckers have
been doing the past year. In fact, here's this year's version of the
Tucker letter. When we received the Weeks' letter Bob mentioned that he has been
spending quite a bit of time on the internet doing genealogy research and has found some
long lost relatives. Bob included his email address in this year's letter, so
naturally I took the opportunity to drop him a note. We've corresponded several
times over the last couple of days.
All of this background is a segway into mentioning his latest email.
Bob sent us information that Dennis Huth, a NASCAR vice-president whose
responsibilities have included oversight of the Winston Racing Series short track program
and starting the NASCAR SuperTruck Series. Dennis was also instrumental in NASCAR's
venture into Japan for three Winston Cup exhibition races. When the Winston Cup
exhibition ended, he provided the opportunity for the Winston West competitors as they
ended their season at Twin Rings Motegi for their season-finale.
Needless to say, Dennis has been a keep player in NASCAR's rocketship growth through
the 1990s.
Then the surprise announcement earlier this week that he was resigning to "pursue
other opportunities." It may be true that Dennis has another career lined up, but in
the the business world, this wording in a press release usually means something entirely
different.
Mike Helton, NASCAR's Chief Operating Officer, also said NASCAR would continue to work
with Dennis on a consulting basis.
Maybe the bloom was off the rose for Dennis and NASCAR and it was time to make a
change. Maybe Dennis has some mega deal working and need to be free. I hope
the latter is the case. He's been a valuable asset to NASCAR.
BOB THOMPSON MENTIONED on his page that I may not have been
forthright when I posted my photos of the computer room/office at Wakeolda
"Steve Tucker finally got around to posting pictures of his office.
Don't believe him that he didn't clean up the office first, though. I know because I can
see the carpet. I never knew what color it was until now."
I must confess. Bob is partially correct. I had
thrown some stuff away, but as you can tell from the photos it wasn't a concentrated
cleaning effort. In the days before these photos were taken they were a couple of system
cases lying about with the system in one area of the floor and the cover in another.
I think I mentioned earlier that I had actually thrown some computer junk in the
trash, highly unusual for me.
Anybody have need for a 300 or 1200 baud modem?
AND ANDREW has just reported that it is snowing outside. The
office has no windows. I wonder if this is a flurry or could we be in for a White
Christmas. A White Christmas, that would be cool here in the land where snow is
infrequent. I am sure some of our neighbors to the north would be happy to send us a
couple days supply. If it really is snow, wonder if it's Y2K compliant? In
checking furtherm the Weeather Channel does say we might have some snow showers today.
Guess I missed that one last night. Proably won't stick or last, but surely will be
enough for all of the grocery stores here to empty their shelves of milk and bread.
That happens anytime there is a winter forecast.
TOP
[Wakeolda Home]
[Email Steve]
[Sunday] [Monday]
[Tuesday] [Wednesday]
[Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday]
Saturday, December 25,
1999
From all of us at
Wakeolda
It's a beautiful day here in North Carolina, a little brisk, but a bright
beautiful sunny day.
We're having a great day. The kids were up at 7:00 AM and ready to
head downstairs to see what might have happened during the night. However, they were
patient as always while the adults drug themselves out of bed. We all finally
attacked the basement where the presents were residing at about 7:30 AM. It always
amazes me that Andrew takes his time opening the gifts while his older sister tears into
everything right away.
The biggest hits had something to do with Pokemon. Both of the kids got
new rollerblades and Andrew got a new BMX bike with pegs, the hot item on this list.
However, the bikes seems to be just a little tall for him today. He needs to
grow about three inches overnight! We had this same problem one year when Katie got
a new bike for her birthday. Today, Katie ended up with Molly's flute recital
outfit. The Pleasant Company really produces quality accessories for the American
Dolls. Katie chose Molly -- the All American Girl -- several years ago and has been
collecting for Molly on special occasions ever since.
As for Mrs. Tucker it was some warm outer wear from Lands End while I, the
good Republican that I am, will be enjoying both George Bush's All My Best
and Ronald Reagan's memoirs "Dutch"
for my reading pleasure.
I have been building my appetite all day and we're about to sit down for
the Christmas feast that Suzy has been busily preparing all morning-afternoon. We
usually eat about 5 PM on Christmas day. We make it last around here. Suzy has
just arrived to say the Turkey is out of the oven, so I must retire to kitchen and carve.
Hope all had a very Merry Christmas.
I HAD AN INTERESTING GRUESTBOOK entry from George
Khobotjev [hobot@ropnet.ru], a reader in Russia.
Here's the message he left last night if you have a chance to check it out.
TOP
[Wakeolda Home]
[Email Steve]
|
