Date: Thu, 08 Oct 2009 21:23:36 -0400 From: Allen <GedankeZauberer@comcast.net> To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD text based games - Dungeoncrawl - My test box Message-ID: <4ACE9098.3040602@comcast.net> In-Reply-To: <4ACE5B3B.2050902@daleco.biz> References: <4ACC7CE0.8070801@comcast.net> <a534c7c30910070508nb6c80d9yd8e00cec7e9c59d0@mail.gmail.com> <d7a53080910071101w54ba778fj793c03f2012474e5@mail.gmail.com> <4ACE5B3B.2050902@daleco.biz>
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Kevin Kinsey wrote: > christopher floess wrote: > > >> All in exchange for taking someones "trash". > > Indeed, you can run a piece of junk computer on FreeBSD > and do things Windows never could ... well, I shouldn't > say never, but it can't now, unless you're still willing > to install 3.1 from floppy or Win95 from the 14th-generation > CD-R copy of your original from 14 years ago. I wasn't around for those days... Heh, I have a fairly pristine copy of Windows 95 and two copies of Windows 98. They're in good condition because when I got my VERY first computer, my Mom bought it from my Uncle, it was running Windows 95, had I think a 133 MHz CPU, and like 32 MBs RAM, but I'm not even sure... This was September of 1999. I know the month and year I got my first Computer, because I had started using it, got hooked on the idea of a machine I controlled, and two weeks after getting it, without manuals to read, without help, I started screwing with it until I figured it out. Some people who know me think and say "How is it you can fix any computer no matter what it's running, without a manual, without classes... And you seem to understand how your fix worked?" and it's because the night I started, I still remember opening Microsoft Word, sitting there for two hours screwing with buttons on it, and then figuring out "OK, I highlight the text, and THEN press that "B" and then it's in Bold.. Ahh OK!" And then going from there. The next night I started messing with Explorer, and saw all the files and so on, and got how to move files around. I was lucky enough not to try system files. I just used dummy files. A week later, I was done with everything in the start menu except this "weird little box called MS-DOS prompt" which didn't seem to have many buttons, and typing stuff didn't help because it just said bad something or other"... Yea lol I know, dumb. Hadn't ever seen a command line before so cut me SOME slack though ;) You have to understand that before this, I had not ever touched any computer except for an AppleII for 5 minutes at school when I was like 4. So I literally had only touchbed a computer for 5 minutes before this and it was an Apple II I knew nothing about. On week two, I had learned what online meant, and "accidentally" watched my Uncle type in his Prodigy password to go online. He left for a week and I had un-restricted access. I still thought "Restart your computer" meant restarting it from scratch and I'd lose all programs, so I always shut it down and turned it back on after an installation, which I figured out myself too. So I wasn't by any means good at it. I saw the Prodigy home page and got online for the first time one afternoon, and thought "Wow.... This thing has neat pictures of Pamela Anderson" lol... Hey, I'm a German American and damn proud of that, we like nudity right? lol. And for a 17 year old punk rocker this was a new experience and I loved it. On week two of having a computer, I signed up for an account on Bolt.com and started learning what a social networking site did, and since they always said "this person joined on this date" that's how I knew when I got a computer; I had memorized it. So, I've had a computer since September of 1999, and within 6 months, I screwed up the machine bad by opening something by accident. See, within a few months, I learned what Computer Security meant. The idea someone could control a computer from somewhere else, grabbed me hard.I LOVED the idea of security in computers. I started slow by seeing what those weird DoS tools were, and thought "OK, annoying, but the idea is interesting" and then I started a virus collection because I didn't collect baseball cards and every boy needs a hobby ;) That would seal the fate of that PC. A friend I had met who was into this stuff too, said he found some great ones for my collection, and I grabbed a floppy disk to store them on, and he was like "by the way, one of these isn't Zipped, be careful" and I'm like "OK man".... I was a little side tracked by porn at the moment, and when I went to close a Window that had all my new viruses on it, I for some reason Double Clicked on the one he warned me about.... OK, just for the record, I was just collecting these. I wasn't infecting a Company or something, I just thought the idea of them was kind of neat, so I collected them. Just making sure no one thinks I was one of "those" kids. Now, this thing turned out not to be a virus at all. Instead, it turned into the ONLY ONLY ONLY .exe I've EVER come across that does PHYSICAL damage to a machine.... I'm in no way kidding. I saw what I had done fast.... I had went to close the window and accidentally double clicked on it instead and instantly hit for the power switch to shut the machine off.... It was to late though. I saw a DOS Prompt come up saying something or other, and when I turned the machine back on, it wouldn't even boot. This machine ran Windows 95, had a lot of MP3s, and some movies and pics. When that happened, I couldn't even get Windows 3.1 to install. A friend and I worked on it all the time, and I was shocked. I couldn't do anything.... I managed to install PC-DOS on this thing, and then when I tried to install Windows 3.1, it said the drive wasn't big enough! I the next day, went and bought my first paidfor computer, and used it insted which I still have, but the fact that later in life when I started using Linux, about a year later, I tried again to install Linux on the drive that thing killed. Linux wouldn't install either, it said the drive was screwed up and couldn't even fix it except for a small DOS partition which was like, a few MBs. I remember shutting the power off before it finished running, but it was FAST, and this thing actually killed somehow a portion of a disk drive, and had it run all the way probably wouldn't have allowed DOS either. Fdisk couldn't even work on it. I was literally shocked. 9 years later, I can still remember it, and I STILL have the floppy disk I copied all that stuff too he sent me that night. And yea, I STILL have that executable that destroyed my first PC lol. I didn't know about hardware at the time so the fact that a new drive would have been a better fix didn't cross my mind until it was too late and I had given the thing to a friend's Dad. To this day I don't know what's on that thing, and yes, I've popped the floppy in since then to look, and saw all those olden days of my later teen years sitting there... And the thing that ripped up the disk drive, which I've now zipped up and made a tarball just in case lol. I still have it, and friends have asked for a copy, and haven't ever figured it out either how it did all that. > > Oh, and games. It's like heroin. Don't start, or > your life gets sucked into the monitor ;-) > > Thanks, Java, for six months of wasted life over the last > 5 years. Java isn't Heroin, it's Crack ;) > Kevin Kinsey > ________________
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