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Blew in from the Canadian prairies
- Thread starter IcedMuons
- Start date
cjs
Experienced Member
I'm originally from Edmonton, Alberta, myself, so welcome! I loved Saskatoon when I visited there. But I'm now living far, far away in Japan.
There's another Albertan on here too, but he's from Calgary, so foo on him. :-)
There's another Albertan on here too, but he's from Calgary, so foo on him. :-)
Welcome. I've never been to the Canadian prairies, but I'd like to go someday. Are there any particular older devices that you prefer to restore or collect? I like mostly IBM and compatible stuff, but I've got some Commodore 64 and a tiny bit of Apple stuff too.
WSM
Experienced Member
IcedMuons: Welcome aboard.
cjs: At least I lived and worked in Edmonton for 11 years before seeing the light and coming back to Calgary
That took a detour via a stint in Toronto and now to a more relaxed lifestyle in Okotoks. However, I'll give Edmonton ONE credit ... it has a hockey team that will likely make the second round of the playoffs.
cjs: At least I lived and worked in Edmonton for 11 years before seeing the light and coming back to Calgary
That took a detour via a stint in Toronto and now to a more relaxed lifestyle in Okotoks. However, I'll give Edmonton ONE credit ... it has a hockey team that will likely make the second round of the playoffs.My wife and I met in Calgary while we went to university there. Had to get out soon after, was way too expensive for us at the time... we still return to Alberta several times per year and we usually end up in Lethbridge, Calgary, Red Deer, or Edmonton at least once/year for conferences or kids' sports events.
Just IBM compatible now... mostly because I want things that are practically functional for work or related tasks. I had several C=64 systems over the years, along with lots of fun extras (multiple floppy drives so I didn't have to switch disks for some things), FastLoad cartridge, lots of modems, a printer, etc. etc. I had lots of fun doing voice synthesizer stuff with it back in the late 80s but never found the program again that I'd been using - everything I could find was worse. I spent a lot of time on BBS's trading software back then from our small town. I still have fond memories of how much of a revelation Geos (a graphical operating system) was.
I had a Compaq Portable 386 back in '99 that I wrote my honours thesis in chemistry on (running DOS 6.22, Windows 3.11 and Word). I was able to listen to mp3s on it, get on the Internet, etc. It was a big novelty to be using it back then. I had it in the lab because the department didn't have the money for individual groups to have their own computers. I'm in the process of trying to resurrect a Compaq Portable 386 and a Compaq Portable III (286) now. The 386 is my priority, but there's lots of problems with the power. I've replaced the blown capacitors but it's still not powering on and has a short somewhere, and this is just enough beyond my expertise I may be stuck.
I've also got a nice collection of older laptops. My favourite one is a Toshiba Satellite laptop I got at an auction right when I moved to Calgary. I can't even remember how I heard about it or how I got there or anything, it was 23-year old me in very early 2000 moving with a group of people from room to room through a business that had gone bankrupt. When we got to the room with all the computers I had the winning bid on the laptop and got told off by some guy twice my age LOL. It's VERY nice. It has an infrared port (back in 2000 I was using it to sync my Palm Pilot V, LOL), it's also got a CD-ROM drive and an external 3.5" floppy drive, two PCMCIA cards (one for ethernet and one modem), as well as a single USB port on the back. With all the extras, especially the CD-ROM, ethernet, and USB I'm still able to span multiple computer eras and still forge on with it.
My one device I *wish* I had kept was an ~500MB external hard drive that I got in '97 or '98 that connected via the parallel port and got its power from a Y-adapter cable for a PS2 keyboard port. I had an adapter back in '99 that let me power it from my Compaq Portable 386's keyboard and I felt like a total boss with all that extra hard drive space. The company that made it was Shuttle Tech. I still have all the drivers, but lost track of that device many many moves ago and I no longer have it. I haven't even seen one posted online anywhere but the drivers were pretty simple to get working in DOS.
~I
Just IBM compatible now... mostly because I want things that are practically functional for work or related tasks. I had several C=64 systems over the years, along with lots of fun extras (multiple floppy drives so I didn't have to switch disks for some things), FastLoad cartridge, lots of modems, a printer, etc. etc. I had lots of fun doing voice synthesizer stuff with it back in the late 80s but never found the program again that I'd been using - everything I could find was worse. I spent a lot of time on BBS's trading software back then from our small town. I still have fond memories of how much of a revelation Geos (a graphical operating system) was.
I had a Compaq Portable 386 back in '99 that I wrote my honours thesis in chemistry on (running DOS 6.22, Windows 3.11 and Word). I was able to listen to mp3s on it, get on the Internet, etc. It was a big novelty to be using it back then. I had it in the lab because the department didn't have the money for individual groups to have their own computers. I'm in the process of trying to resurrect a Compaq Portable 386 and a Compaq Portable III (286) now. The 386 is my priority, but there's lots of problems with the power. I've replaced the blown capacitors but it's still not powering on and has a short somewhere, and this is just enough beyond my expertise I may be stuck.
I've also got a nice collection of older laptops. My favourite one is a Toshiba Satellite laptop I got at an auction right when I moved to Calgary. I can't even remember how I heard about it or how I got there or anything, it was 23-year old me in very early 2000 moving with a group of people from room to room through a business that had gone bankrupt. When we got to the room with all the computers I had the winning bid on the laptop and got told off by some guy twice my age LOL. It's VERY nice. It has an infrared port (back in 2000 I was using it to sync my Palm Pilot V, LOL), it's also got a CD-ROM drive and an external 3.5" floppy drive, two PCMCIA cards (one for ethernet and one modem), as well as a single USB port on the back. With all the extras, especially the CD-ROM, ethernet, and USB I'm still able to span multiple computer eras and still forge on with it.
My one device I *wish* I had kept was an ~500MB external hard drive that I got in '97 or '98 that connected via the parallel port and got its power from a Y-adapter cable for a PS2 keyboard port. I had an adapter back in '99 that let me power it from my Compaq Portable 386's keyboard and I felt like a total boss with all that extra hard drive space. The company that made it was Shuttle Tech. I still have all the drivers, but lost track of that device many many moves ago and I no longer have it. I haven't even seen one posted online anywhere but the drivers were pretty simple to get working in DOS.
~I