All of the photos in this set were taken in the late 1960s and were probably taken in the Lansing, Michigan area.
The first two photos were processed in October 1968 and are labeled 'Band Concert Potter Park'. It looks like the first was taken from the stage. There have been a bunch of photos from this event scattered throughout previous sets.
Vintage Photos - Lot 6 (361-364)
If I'm counting right, this is the eighth 5.25" disk I have documented the contents of so far (see the last one here). All of them so far are from a batch I picked up at a thrift store a number of years ago. As I have been digging through these disks, it has become obvious that at least some of them were once owned by someone named Connie A. Buys who used to run the "Close Encounters" Special Interest Group (SIG) on Delphi in the mid 1980s.
My understanding is that a SIG, as it relates to Delphi, consisted of forums, live chat and files to download centered around a particular topic or theme. In this case, "Close Encounters" was about relationships and sex, particularly as it related to the online world of the day. Everything was text based from whatever terminal program you used to dial in to Delphi's servers. Many of these disks have forum messages, e-mails and chat session logs. All of this is pre-internet stuff and I don't know if there are any archives in existence today of what was on Delphi in the 1980s. In any case, much of this stuff would have been private at the time and some of it is quite personal.
This contents of this disk (descriptively labeled "File Disk") will be split up into multiple posts since it contains a number of documents, some of which are pretty long. This first document (ARNE.DOC) is a series of e-mails questioning whether or not one of the participants in the SIG is of the appropriate age (i.e. 18+). Like most of the other documents, this one appears to be a raw terminal log so e-mails appear in the order read which isn't always necessarily chronological and it includes commands and other editing artifacts.
---
#11 14-OCT-1985 19:47:26 MAIL
From: BOS1A::CABUYS "CONNIE"
To: ARNE,@MGRS.DIS,CABUYS
Subj: Close Encounters SIG & Age Restriction
Hello Arne,
It has come to my attention that there is some question about how old you are.
One of the membership requirements we have in Close Encounters sig is that
one must be 18 years old or older.
This information has been included in many areas of the sig, including the
non-member message and new-member messages available to you when you first
accessed this sig. It is a formal part of my contract with Delphi that I
must enforce to the best of my ability.
This information is also available to you in the Announcements> Membership
section of the sig for review at any time and other such notices calling
*all* sig members attention to this have been posted to be read automatically
upon entry to the sig.
Just in case you missed it, tho, I would like to quote as follows:
"Membership in 'Close Encounters' is restricted to persons who are at least
18 years of age or older...Although it's difficult to verify age via this
medium, anyone found to have violated the age requirement will be denied
access to the sig at the discretion of the sig managers."
Other sig members have indicated that you are 17. If this is the case, then
I will have to remove you from the membership. If this is not the case, and
you can verify it by honestly telling me your age, then you can remain. If
you feel insulted that we are going to such great pains about this, then
perhaps Close Encounters is not really the sig for you.
Please reply to this message by Wednesday, October 16, before 11 PM EST or I
will have no choice but to take the necessary action.
Thank you.
-Connie A. Buys, Sig Manager
-John Yerger, Asst. Manager
-Joey, SysOp
MAIL>
#12 14-OCT-1985 20:38:01 MAIL
From: BOS1A::ARNE
To: CABUYS
Subj: arne
Dear Ms. Ca Bus ys,
It has come to my attention that there is some question about my age.
For the record, I am 28. S Naturally, th since this information is not being
imparted to you by one of your cronies from years gone by, I don't expect
you to belive it.
eve it.
Arne
MAIL> read 18
#18 15-OCT-1985 08:22:50 MAIL
From: BOS1A::ARNE
To: CABUYS
Subj: beinf g ornery
Well, connie, looks like i'm in the process of being canned for rom the sig...
guess you're just doin' your job....would "We'll always have Parie s s" be
laying in t on a bit too thick?
arne
MAIL> read 19
#19 15-OCT-1985 10:17:45 MAIL
From: BOS1A::JOHNWG
To: JOEY,JOHNMYSELF,CABUYS
Subj: Could you please give me an explanation of this? Thanks, John
From: BOS1A::SERVICE 14-OCT-1985 13:28
To: JOHNWG
Subj: I think ARNE didn't like being excluded from Close Encounters..
From: BOS1A::ARNE 13-OCT-1985 00:04
To: SERVICE
Subj: Close Enc SIG
Dear Service,
When I started using Delphi heavily about a month ago, several people
warned me in no uncertain terms about how cliquish the place was. I thought
they had an axe to grind for some other telecom service, so I just let it
pass.
Tonight the SIG managers of Close Encounters proved to me the hard way
that I was mistaken.
After joining the scheduled conf, the sysops started asking about my age
which never seemed to be a prob with any lem any other time in that SIG. When I
started joking about remembering World War I, they mde ade some rather Gestapo-
like comments about owing them straight answers, then promptly barred me
from the conference.
I had offered to call the SIG mgr and convince him voice-to-voice of
my age but the option of siml ply excluding someone who wasn't a SIG mgr
himself (or one of ther= ir older cronies) was apparently so much easier.
Later I learned that the mgr's traded quips about how strange I was
and not fit material for their SIG anyway.
When the heavi y usage I (and heavy bills) of September and October fall
back to the little-or-no-usage of the pro evious months, this first-hand
demonstration of cliquishness and cronie y-in sm in the Close Encounters group
is the reason why.
Very truly yours,
Arne
P.S. I/ 'm not yet quick enough to know how to send copies of this to
other users, so i but if you wig sh to send copies to JOEY, JOHNMYSELF, and
CABUT YS, I would appreciate it.
MAIL> read 1
#1 15-OCT-1985 18:28:37 NEWMAIL
From: BOS1A::CABUYS "CONNIE"
To: ARNE,JOHNMYSELF,JOEY,CABUYS
Subj: age question
Arne,
I honestly have no reason to *not* believe you about your age. I was simply
trying to clear up a misunderstanding before it got out of hand, but it appears
I was too late to do that.
I see no reason, now that you have answered my question, to bar you from the
sig and conferences. I do regret and apologize for any inconvenience this may
have caused you, and very much regret that such circumstances have caused you
to have a bad opinion of us. Please do understand that I was doing what I
felt was necessary as Sig Manager in accordance with the terms of my contract
with Delphi.
If you wish to discuss this any further, please do call me collect at
(904)-388-2531. I do wish I had been on line at the origination of all this
problem because I would have accepted your offer at the time about making the
call.
-Connie A. Buys, Sig Manager
MAIL>
#1 15-OCT-1985 18:33:06 NEWMAIL
From: BOS1A::CABUYS "CONNIE"
To: @MGRS,CABUYS
Subj: The Question of Age
It's true that we are having kids show up in the sig. And it's true that we
are having adults show up who are offended when asked their age.
From this date on, I will personally handle any question about age. Until I
can handle it, if I'm unavailable at the time of its occurrence, then the
member is to be treated as any other member of the sig.
Remember the users are paying our way here. We must not be harsh, or appear
offensive or unkind to them and they require handling with kid gloves. This
sig is young yet but has a good potential if we cultivate it carefully
Thank you both co-operation and understanding it this.
-Connie
MAIL> list arne.doc
#11 14-OCT-1985 19:47:26 MAIL
From: BOS1A::CABUYS "CONNIE"
To: ARNE,@MGRS.DIS,CABUYS
Subj: Close Encounters SIG & Age Restriction
Hello Arne,
It has come to my attention that there is some question about how old you are.
One of the membership requirements we have in Close Encounters sig is that
one must be 18 years old or older.
This information has been included in many areas of the sig, including the
non-member message and new-member messages available to you when you first
accessed this sig. It is a formal part of my contract with Delphi that I
must enforce to the best of my ability.
This information is also available to you in the Announcements> Membership
section of the sig for review at any time and other such notices calling
*all* sig members attention to this have been posted to be read automatically
upon entry to the sig.
Just in case you missed it, tho, I would like to quote as follows:
"Membership in 'Close Encounters' is restricted to persons who are at least
18 years of age or older...Although it's difficult to verify age via this
medium, anyone found to have violated the age requirement will be denied
access to the sig at the discretion of the sig managers."
Other sig members have indicated that you are 17. If this is the case, then
I will have to remove you from the membership. If this is not the case, and
you can verify it by honestly telling me your age, then you can remain. If
you feel insulted that we are going to such great pains about this, then
perhaps Close Encounters is not really the sig for you.
Please reply to this message by Wednesday, October 16, before 11 PM EST or I
will have no choice but to take the necessary action.
Thank you.
-Connie A. Buys, Sig Manager
-John Yerger, Asst. Manager
-Joey, SysOp
MAIL>
#12 14-OCT-1985 20:38:01 MAIL
From: BOS1A::ARNE
To: CABUYS
Subj: arne
Dear Ms. Ca Bus ys,
It has come to my attention that there is some question about my age.
For the record, I am 28. S Naturally, th since this information is not being
imparted to you by one of your cronies from years gone by, I don't expect
you to belive it.
eve it.
Arne
MAIL> read 18
#18 15-OCT-1985 08:22:50 MAIL
From: BOS1A::ARNE
To: CABUYS
Subj: beinf g ornery
Well, connie, looks like i'm in the process of being canned for rom the sig...
guess you're just doin' your job....would "We'll always have Parie s s" be
laying in t on a bit too thick?
arne
MAIL> read 19
#19 15-OCT-1985 10:17:45 MAIL
From: BOS1A::JOHNWG
To: JOEY,JOHNMYSELF,CABUYS
Subj: Could you please give me an explanation of this? Thanks, John
From: BOS1A::SERVICE 14-OCT-1985 13:28
To: JOHNWG
Subj: I think ARNE didn't like being excluded from Close Encounters..
From: BOS1A::ARNE 13-OCT-1985 00:04
To: SERVICE
Subj: Close Enc SIG
Dear Service,
When I started using Delphi heavily about a month ago, several people
warned me in no uncertain terms about how cliquish the place was. I thought
they had an axe to grind for some other telecom service, so I just let it
pass.
Tonight the SIG managers of Close Encounters proved to me the hard way
that I was mistaken.
After joining the scheduled conf, the sysops started asking about my age
which never seemed to be a prob with any lem any other time in that SIG. When I
started joking about remembering World War I, they mde ade some rather Gestapo-
like comments about owing them straight answers, then promptly barred me
from the conference.
I had offered to call the SIG mgr and convince him voice-to-voice of
my age but the option of siml ply excluding someone who wasn't a SIG mgr
himself (or one of ther= ir older cronies) was apparently so much easier.
Later I learned that the mgr's traded quips about how strange I was
and not fit material for their SIG anyway.
When the heavi y usage I (and heavy bills) of September and October fall
back to the little-or-no-usage of the pro evious months, this first-hand
demonstration of cliquishness and cronie y-in sm in the Close Encounters group
is the reason why.
Very truly yours,
Arne
P.S. I/ 'm not yet quick enough to know how to send copies of this to
other users, so i but if you wig sh to send copies to JOEY, JOHNMYSELF, and
CABUT YS, I would appreciate it.
MAIL> read 1
#1 15-OCT-1985 18:28:37 NEWMAIL
From: BOS1A::CABUYS "CONNIE"
To: ARNE,JOHNMYSELF,JOEY,CABUYS
Subj: age question
Arne,
I honestly have no reason to *not* believe you about your age. I was simply
trying to clear up a misunderstanding before it got out of hand, but it appears
I was too late to do that.
I see no reason, now that you have answered my question, to bar you from the
sig and conferences. I do regret and apologize for any inconvenience this may
have caused you, and very much regret that such circumstances have caused you
to have a bad opinion of us. Please do understand that I was doing what I
felt was necessary as Sig Manager in accordance with the terms of my contract
with Delphi.
If you wish to discuss this any further, please do call me collect at
(904)-388-2531. I do wish I had been on line at the origination of all this
problem because I would have accepted your offer at the time about making the
call.
-Connie A. Buys, Sig Manager
MAIL>
#1 15-OCT-1985 18:33:06 NEWMAIL
From: BOS1A::CABUYS "CONNIE"
To: @MGRS,CABUYS
Subj: The Question of Age
It's true that we are having kids show up in the sig. And it's true that we
are having adults show up who are offended when asked their age.
From this date on, I will personally handle any question about age. Until I
can handle it, if I'm unavailable at the time of its occurrence, then the
member is to be treated as any other member of the sig.
Remember the users are paying our way here. We must not be harsh, or appear
offensive or unkind to them and they require handling with kid gloves. This
sig is young yet but has a good potential if we cultivate it carefully
Thank you both co-operation and understanding it this.
-Connie
MAIL>
Dear Mr. Gibney;
During the early portion of our scheduled conference this past
saturday, Arne joined us. It had been brought to our attention that
he might not be over 18, a provision of membership as set forth in our
rules and the contract we hold with Delphi, and I thought to enquire.
He became evasive and refused to state his age directly. Tiglon, one
of our members was the only person who stated that he was 'old enough
to vote' but by this time he had already impressed me and several
others that perhaps he should not be at our conference. I then set up
a closed version of the conference until he left.
I have included in this letter, a partial transcript of that
conference covering Arne's arrival to my setting up the new conference.
I have deleted only the control characters (^M, ^H, ^G) and the extra
lines of input. (I run with echo set so my lines appear twice - the
duplicate lines are deleted). Sen messages have been kept in as well.
As you know, we do have a specified age limit of 18 and while we
recognize that we really connot verify that, it is our policy to
check if there are conflicting reports of an individuals age.
Otherwise, we question no one about their age preferring to
rely on their own honesty.
Also, a stipulation in the contract states that it is up to the
sig managers to enforce this age restriction. Had Arne been direct
I would have accepted that and let it be. However, he chose to remain
'mysterious', making 'smart' remarks about world wars, being way too
young to run for president and the like. While he did offer to talk on
the phone, he wanted a number to call 'collect'. Had he considered
having me call him, I might have done so, however, I refuse to give
out my non-published number for 'collect' calls. Also, in his case,
I probably would not give him my number under any conditions.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
partial transcript of conference 10-12-85
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
** ARNE just joined CLE - CENTERFOLD (4 members now) **
JOEY> Hi Arne
.Marti> Hi Arne!!
ARNE> hi, hi, hi
.Myself> lo, lo, lo
.Marti> Arne can be the centerfold...
.Marti> boy...I'm gonna like this magazine
.Myself> think he's too young 4 tht.
ARNE> smile when you say that!
.Marti> how young?
ARNE> how young am i?
/w arne
There is no information on file for ARNE.
.Myself> right
.Marti> yes, arene
ARNE> who cares?
.Marti> arne
.Myself> I do
JOEY> I do
.Myself> and I am in charge here.
ARNE> then i'm just your age or slightly older!
ARNE> and a shameless liar
.Myself> right , now if u pls - correct age
JOEY> (gasp) No profile on Arne.
ARNE> er, um, heh, heh, heh
.Myself> I know that already
JOEY>> I think he is a kid, also.
/s joey I understand he does
ILLUSION>> any idea how old he is?
/s joey I understand he does not meet the age limit
/s illusion too young - forget the actual number
ARNE> w'all ah dew 'member th' Great War -- fought in that one, by golly!
.Marti> Arne likes to be mysterious
JOEY>> Might want to check Clydeturbo too if he shows up.
ARNE> war to end 'em all, we liked to call it
.Marti> cute Arne
JOEY> Straight answers sure are nice.
.Myself> arne, I am afraid that you will not be allowed to remain. and I can
keep u out easily
ARNE> why????????
.Marti> what is the age limit?
.Marti> 18?
.Myself> because we have an age limit restriction which I understand u do not
meet -
.Myself> and its in my contract to enforce same.
ARNE> i'm well over 18, as aren't we all
.Myself> I have heard several reliable sources indicate otherwise.
.Marti> [gulp]
ARNE> if i were running for president i would be considered far too young
.Myself> yes marti
ARNE> that give you enuff clues
JOEY> We don't need clues.
ARNE> what, then do you need, hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?
.Marti> Are you under 18 Arne?
.Myself> your correct - no lie - age
ARNE> no, but if you'll make enough suggestions that i am...
.Myself> [and a letter from the Pope if u want to get smart abt it]
ARNE> ...we might get along REAL well
/w
GROUP LIST: 21:23:49
1) CLE - CENTERFOLD
Myself, JOEY, Marti, ARNE
- idle
AVAILABLE LIST: () = in conf
(ARNE), (JOHNMYSELF), (JOEY), (ILLUSION)
------ [4 in this area]
ARNE> so what's going on -- we sit around and cross-examine each other?
.Myself> not really -
JOEY> No, we talk straight.
ARNE> seig heil!
.Myself> we are going to have a discussion aft 9:30
.Myself> if anyone [else] shows up
.Marti> is connie cming?
.Myself> behave yourself and I might be induced to forget your not over 18
JOEY> Connie will be here.
.Myself> I hope so
ARNE> yeah, yeah, yeah a sexy talk about naughty mags -- whats the big deal
JOEY> Rod won't be, though.
.Myself> no deal - big or otherwise.
/w
ARNE> then why the cross-examination
GROUP LIST: 21:25:39
1) CLE - CENTERFOLD
Myself, JOEY, Marti, ARNE
- idle
AVAILABLE LIST: () = in conf
(ARNE), (JOHNMYSELF), (JOEY), (ILLUSION)
------ [4 in this area]
JOEY> Personally, I'm not ashamed of my age.
.Myself> mainly becasue of u sir
.Marti> Arne...we just want to make sure you're not a kid..
ARNE> personally your age is your business
.Myself> in this case, your age is my business.
.Marti> This is a somehwat special Sig.
.Myself> I have a sig to run, and the age limit is built into it for a variety o
f reasons
ARNE> ok, give me a phone number i can call collect...
.Myself> I made sure that with my partner, we would have that in to avoid
.Myself> potential trouble
ARNE> i'll talk to you and convince you i'm old enuff to vote
JOEY>> This guy's a smart ass!
.Myself> sorry, my phone bills are too high for collect calls
/s joey I will switch to a private group - stby
ARNE> then it cant be that important
** Tiggy just joined CLE - CENTERFOLD (5 members now) **
/t cle - sex mags & why read them
.Tiggy> right on time!
.Marti> Hi Tig!!!!
.Tiggy> marti!! hi!
JOEY> Hi Tig!
ARNE> hey, tiggy, tells these cretins i'm old enuff to vote
.Tiggy> john and joey hi!
.Tiggy> he is old enough guys
.Marti> cretins?
** <=== incognito
2) .Myself> ** PRIVATE group **
**********end of transcript**********
It is just possible that this matter could have been handled
a bit better and we would be willing to meet with Arne to discuss
this sig, and our rules and why we have them. However, I if he cannot
conduct himself consistant with the age he expects us to accept him as,
it is in the best interest of our membership not to allow him in.
Please note that our action involved only the conference itself. No
action has [yet] been taken to restrict access to the sig forum or
data bases as we are giving the benefit of the doubt as to his correct
age.
Respectfully; JOohn ohn P. Yerger.
Close Encounters Sig.
WS> dir##
The Amstrad CPC line of computers were not ones I had ever even heard of back when they were current in the mid 1980s to early 1990s. They were popular in the U.K. but virtually unknown in the U.S. and never commercially available here as far as I know. Amstrad Computer User was one of the magazines that covered these machines in the U.K. The April 1986 issue includes:
Amstrad Computer User (April 1986)
All of the photos in this set were processed in August 1967 and were probably taken in the Lansing, Michigan area.
It looks like all of these photos were taken at the same time and place. They appear to show a playground under construction.
Vintage Photos - Lot 6 (357-360)
Next to Electronic Gaming Monthly, GamePro was perhaps the most popular video game magazine for many years, at least in North America. I always preferred EGM but GamePro had some great content to. The April 1998 issue includes:
GamePro (April 1998)
All of the photos in this set were taken in the late 1960s and were all probably taken in the Lansing, Michigan area.
The first photo was processed in May 1967 and is labeled 'Girls Softball Clinic'.
Vintage Photos - Lot 6 (353-356)
It's been a while since I have written one of these computer troubleshooting posts. In fact, I think this is only the second and the last one was years ago (and still unresolved). These things can be so frustrating...
I have this machine that I built several years ago that, among other things, includes a Ryzen 5 3600 CPU and an nVidia RTX 3060 GPU. It is in an aluminum Lian-Li case that has been recycled for several builds over the years. I believe it started life as part of an Athlon XP based build so it is pretty old.
Anyway, while this machine worked well for a few years, it developed a very annoying problem. It would just randomly shut off at random times. Sometimes it would shut off before the boot process even completed (or sometimes even before post completed). Other times, it might be on for several hours before turning off. The problem got worse over time.
There are a few problems that might cause this. The first, and probably most likely, is temperature. Most remotely modern machines will shut down if they detect a CPU temp above safe limits. This is a nice feature that didn't always exist. I remember destroying a Duron CPU I bought at a computer show because the heatsink/fan they provided was not meant for that CPU. At least they provided a replacement.
Then next most likely cause is a bad power supply. A failing power supply can cause various instability issues so it is always suspect when your computer starts behaving strangely. In extreme cases (and especially with cheap power supplies), they can also take out other components when they fail.
Likewise, a bad motherboard or a motherboard with a failing component can cause random instability issues (Athlon XP/Pentium 4 era motherboard capacitor issues were notorious for causing stability problems). These are the worst because often you have to find them by eliminating all other possibilities first. The truth is, just about any failing piece of hardware can cause random stability issues but these seem to be the most common.
I eliminated temperature as a likely culprit pretty early on. When the machine was on long enough to check, temperatures seemed to be normal. All fans also seemed to be operating normally (well, the top blow-hole fan is kind of noisy but it was still spinning well).
Other problems are harder to eliminate unless you have spare parts to swap in. However, I tried reseating components, moving RAM around, unplugging drives, etc. None of these thing helped. Actually, after reseating components, things seemed to improve for a while but I think this was a false positive so to speak. The improvement didn't last.
Things finally got bad enough to make the machine unusable. It never stayed on for more than a few minutes anymore. Given the troubleshooting I had gone through, I had pretty much narrowed things down to either the power supply or the motherboard. I tested the power supply with a cheap power supply tester that I have and it tested ok (though sometimes things can be different under load). I didn't really think this was a power supply problem though. In my experience, power supplies usually fail in a way that either makes your computer freeze and/or prevents it from powering on at all and that wasn't what was happening here. Plus, it is a fairly high quality power supply that wasn't really that old.
Sadly, this meant the most likely culprit was the motherboard. However, I wasn't really ready to upgrade at this point. I have other machines though this is the newest and fastest.
I decided to take this machine out for one more round of troubleshooting. I was going to try swapping the GPU and the power supply even though I didn't really think that either of these things were the likely problem. At least I would be sure. It was at this time, before I have swapped anything, that I noticed a screen pop-up in Windows for a split second just before the machine turned itself off. It appeared to be the same screen that pops-up on your screen (depending on how you have things configured) that prompts you if you want to turn off the computer when you press the power button.
You can probably see where this is going. To make a long story a bit shorter, the problem ended up being the power switch itself. I tried reseating the switch into the button, unplugging and replugging the connector, etc. but wasn't able to improve things much. Until I can find a replacement, I have just unplugged the power switch from the motherboard header and moved the reset switch connector so that it now operates as the power button (most modern cases don't even seem to have reset switches anymore so no great loss). Problem solved.
I guess you learn something new every day. While I've experienced many failures over the years using and building computers, I had never seen a power switch go bad so it just didn't occur to me as something to check. However, it's something you should keep in mind if you are having random power off problems, especially if your case is older.
The above photo isn't mine but my case is identical except that mine has red lighting (primarily from LED fans) and I only have one drive in the bays, a single optical (DVD-RW) drive. I believe the model is the Lian-Li PC65B. I'll probably repurpose this case in the future for a retro Athlon XP, Athlon 64, or Pentium 4 machine. Except for the faulty power switch, mine is still in very good condition.
None of the photos in this set are dated or labeled. However, based on previous photos from this batch, these appear to feature Mackinaw Island in Michigan and are probably from the late 1960s.
The first two photos look like they were taken on board one of the ferries that go to the island and are looking back towards shore.
Vintage Photos - Lot 6 (349-352)
Dell's Latitude line was designed for business users. They tended to have more solid construction and be a little more subdued in their looks than the more consumer oriented Inspiron line. In general, they seem to be of higher quality than Inspirons, at least in terms of construction. This Latitude E6520 features:
Digital Archaeology: Dell Latitude E6520
All of the photos in this set were taken in the late 1960s and early 1970s and were probably take in the Lansing, Michigan area.
The first three photos were all processed in July 1968. The first one is labeled 'crown queen' and the next two are labeled 'plyg olympics'. I believe these were all part of the same event which was some kind of kids olympics.
Vintage Photos - Lot 6 (345-348)
I'm going to start posting my random computer questions here in the hopes that someone might be able to answer them. Now I am a software engineer by trade and have been building my own PCs for 20+ years. I'm not exactly a novice so whenever I ask a question here it's because I've reached the conclusion that it is computer demons at fault and am hoping that someone has a better answer because clearly that can't be right...can it?
This question involves a Dell Precision T3610 with an Intel Xeon 2697v2 (Ivy Bridge) 12-core CPU, 64 GB of DDR3-1600 ECC RAM and an nVidia Quadro K2000 video card.
When I first got this machine, it had a recent version of Linux Mint installed. It seemed to work fine. I installed BOINC on it (which I do with every computer I get my hands on) and added my typical projects - einstein@home, rosetta@home, milkyway@home and World Community Grid. After it downloaded work units and started crunching them, the computer started responding VERY sluggishly. While BOINC works a computer hard, it runs at low priority so typically it is only using what would otherwise be idle cycles and normally a computer running BOINC would still be very responsive. In addition, I noticed that the work units were progressing much more slowly than they should be. However, everything looked like it should otherwise...CPU was running at about 3GHz, BOINC tasks were using most of the CPU cycles, etc. Nothing looked out of place to indicate why it would be operating more slowly than normal.
Upon rebooting and paying closer attention, it looked like Linux was spitting out some error messages during boot that indicated corrected memory errors. I forget exactly what the errors were but when I looked it up it sounded like the problem MIGHT not be actual memory errors but a bad driver. Instead of trying to screw around with that I decided to install a fresh copy of Xubuntu (my normal linux of choice) to see what would happen. Perhaps unsurprisingly I got the same results.
Then I installed Windows 10. Windows 10 behaved basically the same way. It got very sluggish when BOINC started up its tasks. I did notice that the System task was using quite a bit of CPU (at least one full core) and also hitting the disk pretty hard. But this is so often the case with Windows that it's hard to say for sure if it is related. So CLEARLY this is a problem of bad memory, right? Well, maybe...but here is where it gets a little weird...
I discovered this "fix" quite by accident. When you install Windows 10, it defaults to putting your computer to sleep after 30 minutes of inactivity. Since I run BOINC I never want this to happen but I inevitably forget that setting until it happens the first time after a new install. So sure enough, I forgot to change that setting and the computer went to sleep after 30 minutes. I pressed the power button to wake it up and it woke up...but without the sluggishness it had before. Also, BOINC tasks seemed to be progressing at a more reasonable rate of speed. It seems whatever the problem was had been cured by a short nap. A fluke you say! But no...it's repeatable. If I reboot the computer, it behaves sluggishly when BOINC is running and runs much slower than it seems it should. Put it to sleep and wake it up again, and it performs normally until rebooted again. And when I say rebooted, i don't even mean power cycled...just rebooting brings the problem back.
I also ran Windows Memory Diagnostic and it found no errors.
This machine has the latest BIOS available and Windows does not show any missing drivers (and of course seemingly the same problem existed under Linux as well...not sure if a sleep and a wake-up would have fixed it there too or not). The memory is new but that doesn't eliminate the possibility of a bad stick (it has 4 16GB modules in a quad channel configuration). It just seems odd that putting the computer to sleep and waking it up solves the problem and rebooting brings it back. What could possibly cause that? Since the problem exists across multiple operating systems, surely it is a hardware issue of some sort.
Personally, I'm leaning toward a slightly more obscure solution than bad memory as I don't see how sleeping and waking could possibly fix that. Maybe a flaky memory controller on the CPU? I would think if that were the case though that I would see all kinds of stability issues but there are none, either in its "sluggish" state or in its "fixed" state. It can run for hours on end either way with no crashes or other signs of instability, all the while using nearly 100% of the CPU and GPU for BOINC tasks.
Poking around in Windows Event Viewer, I did find a whole crapload of WHEA-Logger errors that seemed to correspond to when the system was sluggish that say "A corrected hardware error has occurred. A record describing the condition is contained in the data section of this event." But the "data" section might as well be random numbers for all the use it is.
For one reason or another, I suspect that I am getting a constant stream of memory errors (that are ECC correctable so no crash) in the sluggish state and this is somehow resolved by sleeping and waking. Can correctable memory errors lead to a sluggish system? Why would sleeping and waking resolve this sort of problem?
Like I said, it's computer demons...
I guess by process of elimination I could try swapping out the memory and then the CPU, I just don't know if I have appropriate spares lying around at the moment. And it's not like this is my primary computer...it's just a toy to play with so as long as sleeping and waking it resolves the issue, then that's what I'll do. It just seems so weird.
Byte was perhaps the most successful early computer magazine. In its early days, it covered what would have been considered small business computers, hobbyist systems, and the first home computers. This issue from July 1981 is from shortly before the original IBM PC was introduced and includes:
Byte (July 1981)
All of the photos in this set were probably taken in the 1960s in Michigan.
The first two photos are undated but are labeled Mackinaw Island so they were taken in Mackinaw Island, Michigan. They are likely from the late 1960s.
Vintage Photos - Lot 6 (341-344)
In the 1980s, there wasn't much of an Internet to speak of so you got pretty much all of your computer related info from magazines. Hence the large size of what was probably the most popular PC specific magazine with this one coming it at about 400 pages. Contents for the June 1988 issue includes:
PC World (June 1988)
All of the photos in this set were taken in the late 1960s in the Lansing, Michigan area.
The first photo was processed in August 1967 and is labeled 'Plyg Olympics - Cornstock 67'. This was some kind of olympics style event for kids. It may have been a fundraiser for playgrounds in the Lansing area or perhaps just an event sponsored for kids.
Vintage Photos - Lot 6 (337-340)
For better or worse, Nintendo has always done things their own way. The Nintendo 64 is a good example. In an era when multimedia was king and CD-ROM was not only the wave of the future but had been well established, Nintendo decided to stick with cartridges for one more console generation. This is a little surprising given that Nintendo had worked with both Phillips and Sony to develop a CD-ROM add-on for the Super Nintendo (the latter famously leading to the development of the PlayStation). However, at the end of the day, Nintendo felt that CD-ROM just did not have the performance characteristics they desired.
The cartridge format has its advantages and disadvantages. The big advantage of course is speed. Accessing game data from solid state memory is far faster than reading it off of a CD. This meant virtually no load times. The disadvantages are price and memory limitations. While a CD costs pennies, ROM cartridges were far more expensive. A single CD could hold 650 to 700 MB whereas Nintendo 64 cartridges were limited to 64 MB primarily for cost reasons. These limitations led to there being only 388 games released for the N64 during its lifetime. By comparison there were around 1,100 games released for the PlayStation and close to 600 for the Sega Saturn. Both the NES and SNES had well over 700 games. However, despite the lower game count, the N64 still outsold the Saturn in the U.S. and the expense of producing cartridges meant that developers had to be much more careful with what they released, something that Nintendo tended to enforce to one degree or another over the years anyway. The average game quality was much higher on the N64 than other systems and a number of very influential games came from that system, including Mario 64, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, GoldenEye 007 and a number of others. Ironically, Nintendo has come full circle by eliminating optical media and supporting a ROM cartridge format on the Switch (though digital distribution is also supported).
The Nintendo 64 had very impressive hardware for its time and was essentially based on a super computing platform. It's use of the NEC VR4300 running at 93.75 MHz made it the first truly 64-bit game system (despite Atari's math with the Jaguar). Perhaps more impressive was the "Reality Coprocessor" which was a derivative of the MIPS R4200 and was developed by SGI. It ran at 62.5 MHz and it's main strength was the vector processing capability it provided. 4 MB of Rambus RDRAM (or 8 MB with the Expansion Pak) rounded out the package. All in all, pretty impressive for 1996 when it was released.
I didn't have a Nintendo 64 when it was first released choosing to go with the PlayStation instead. However, the N64 is an often underrated console and is the favorite Nintendo console of many. It's hard to fault Nintendo for their choice of the cartridge format as it was a good fit for this system but it would be nice to see what kind of games would have come along if there had been a CD add-on. Nintendo did design the 64DD which was a rewritable magnetic disk based add-on. However, it was significantly delayed and only ended up being released in Japan where it was a failure. It also only held 64 MB of data (the same max as the typical cartridge) and I suspect the disks were significantly more expensive than CDs.
The Nintendo 64 is definitely a game system every video game aficianado should try. There are relatively few games compared to other systems but there are still tons of great titles. Like most systems, the N64 has also been emulated fairly well at this point but its never the same as playing on original hardware. And for the collector, cartridges have always been more fun to collect than discs :).
What were your favorite Nintendo 64 games? While I didn't have the system until after its commercial life was over, I'm still fond of Mario Kart 64, Paper Mario, GoldenEye and Cruisn' Exotica among others.
The Fall 1979 issue of Compute! was the very first issue. I descended from The PET Gazette which exclusively covered the Commodore PET. With the transition to Compute!, it added coverage of other 6502 based computers. You may not think many people had computers in 1979 but the Apple II and Atari 400/800 were already mainstream choices based on the 6502 CPU. This issue of Gazette includes:
Compute! (Fall 1979)
The first photo is undated and there isn't much context to go by. Similar photos in earlier sets were taken in Colorado. It looks like this photo was taken in the late 1960s or early 1970s.
Vintage Photos - Lot 6 (333-336)
Byte was one of the first computer magazines published in the U.S. It covered a wide variety of 'small systems' including both home computers and machines made for businesses. However, it seemed the popularity of Byte faded the more the popularity of the PC grew. Nevertheless, for much of its life it was extremely popular and issues were huge including this one from November 1988. Contents includes:
Byte (November 1988)/a>
All of the photos in this set were taken in the 1970s. They were all probably taken in Michigan.
The first photo was processed in August 1979. This was taken on a farm. There have been a few similar photos in previous sets but I'm not sure exactly where this is.
Vintage Photos - Lot 6 (329-332)