Welcome To Hellville - Part 4 (2/2) By Rich Mills 11th November 2040

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It's a hobby of mine, digital archaeology you could call it I suppose, but only at an amateur enthusiast level. No way could I ever compare to the professional Digital Archaeologist, with their full-immersion (VR2) bio-interfaces. All I have to work on is a half-dozen old Personal Computers of various ages, from late 20th century Pentium classification of PC, through to not so old Solidarity classification of PC (the last solid-state architecture PC ever produced).

Collecting old PC's is becoming a side obsession to my main obsessive practice. And ultimately I would love to get my hands on a MITS Altair 8080, the DIY PC kit that is noted as being one of the key pieces of computer technology in the late 20th century.

I do have a hard-copy of Popular Electronics from January 1975 stored away safely somewhere. The Altair made the front-cover of that issue. The real nerd would be shooting for an Alto, which came two years before the Altair. But that is when you know you are being really sad! (I do admit that I enjoy the odd game however of Pong, the simple software instructions I coded myself, and burnt onto an EPROM around which I built the relatively simple electronics to have a pretty spot-on replica of the Atari 1972 original, from what I understand.)

It's like the VHS versus Betamax thing back in the video dark-ages. I don't own any Betamax format equipment, even though I know there is still stuff out there if you can be bothered to search for long enough, and pay the stupidly inflated prices.

Even though the nerds will mono-tone on about it being the better format, the simple truth is it didn't take-off so is not worth squeezing into what is already limited house space. It has minimal if any functionality. I collect for function and utility, not to be left to stand collecting dust just because I can. What's the point in that?

I do also have a small proto-type hybrid 2-D Directional Bio-interface that I managed to come across. However I am loathed to use it, as the side-effects of non-personalisation status of the wet-ware router exchange device cause me severe headaches and nausea. So I'll stick to the 'old fashioned' way of doing things thank-you very much. Like I said before, I've seen these things mess people up, big-time.

Also among my inventory of investigative resources are a number of video-tape and audio-tape players/recorders, once again of various ages and states of repair. None of these are in their original state, but have been cannibalised and reconfigured over the years to loop and link, and play-back and record via various data stream formats and comm's transfer protocols. They are all just a mass of wires and spliced in broad-band ariels, power and band-width limiters, expanders, compressors, supressors, I don't know what.

I mean I really don't know what! I may have taught myself to wire all this lot together by trial and error mostly, and thus have a working knowledge of fault-finding in order to keep it all ticking over. However ask me a techie questions and I'm totally lost. I don't do all that jargon shit! 13th November 2040 I've been at it now for 48 hours straight, and need to get my head-down. What I have found it seems, is a journal of sorts. A record of someone's life at the turn of the century, as I can best place it. My next job is to start transcribing this stuff but for now, dreamtime is calling out to me.

Continued Welcome To Hellville - Part 5 By Rich Mills.. Next Page

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