Of Kits and Source Code

I enrolled in a local vocational high school to major in radio-TV electronics in Baltimore, Maryland, USA.

Upon graduation, I entered the US Air Force, working in the electronics field for 22 years. While in the Air Force, I worked on computer-based equipment and longed for the day that computers would be available for ordinary use.

In the early 1980s, I got my wish after reading a Byte Magazine series of articles on the Micromint SB180 CP/M computer. Smitten by what I read, I ordered the full kit of parts and assembled it. Immediately, I learned the problems that computers can present, then and now.

The power supply was defective. Replacing the power supply locally appeared to be the most cost-effective solution. However, I could not find a replacement. Hence a lesson was learned about buying offshore computer products with no local support. Fortunately, on a trip to Japan, I found a suitable replacement.

The SB180 was a delight to use. It used an enhanced version of CP/M, called ZCPR. For BBS (electronic bulletin board) use, I purchased a 300/1200-BPS modem. The printer was a Brothers electronic typewriter. I could run applications from any of the three 5.25'' floppy drives or the installed RAM drive.

For a monitor, I used a Wang serial monitor. It was during this time I became acquainted with WordStar for CP/M and a host of other applications.

Subscriptions to SB180/ZCPR newsletters, monthly floppy disks and certain computer magazines helped me to keep up with developments. Again, another lesson learned was about the fate of special interest newsletters and magazines. They die from a lack of financial support.

After owning the SB180 for over a year and a half, I saw an article on the NEC PC8201a laptop running NEC Basic. I decided I wanted one. Doing a little research, I found that NEC Thailand had decided not to support it because of a lack of local interest. Since their price was considerably higher than in Japan, I purchased it in Japan.

If you are wondering about my trips to Japan, travel there was free due to benefits enjoyed by US military retirees. Although I did not heed the lesson about purchasing offshore computer products that were not supported locally, I was fortunate that the PC8201a worked out of the box with no problems.

With this laptop, there were many peripherals one could install inside or connect externally. Applications could be run via a system slot connected to RAM cartridges or loaded from a data cassette recorder. It used a LCD display with 8 lines of 40 highly readable characters.

I enjoyed using this laptop very much. Radio Shack and Olivetti of Italy made similar models. Unfortunately, each used non-compatible versions of Basic. Radio Shack's version had a higher base of applications. I successfully converted many of them for use with my laptop, while all of the failures were due to functions in Radio Shack's Basic that were not available in the NEC Basic.

During the mid to late 1980s, I worked around the Middle East but was based in Bangkok. Between jobs, I took on the job of running the BUG (Bangkok User Group) BBS, calling it BUG II BBS, on a borrowed IBM PC. It did not have the popularity of its predecessor, mainly because of the BBS software used. I believe in trying new things, but this went against the way things are done here.

The Toys

First computer: Micromint SB180, 256K RAM, Hitachi HD64180 (Z80 compatible), three 5.25'' 782K floppy drives, processor HD64180 6.144 MHz, 300/1200 BPS modem. Built from kit. Computer used now: PC compatible, 550 MHz AMD K6-2, 256MB RAM, one 40GB HD, one 20GB HD, 16X DVD/40X CDROM drive, SCSI Zip 100 drive, one 3.5'' floppy drive, ADS-Cadet AM-FM Radio card, Hoontech 4DWave-NX sound card, SCSI controller card, Matrox G400 video card 32MB SDRAM. Epson 1200 SCSI scanner, Epson Color Stylus 880 USB printer. Using Mandrake Linux 8.0. On-line experience: Bangkok BBSes with my Micromint SB180, was Sysop of BUG II BBS. First local Internet account with IBM, 1997 and changing to my current ISP, Samart in 1998.

It was in the early 90s that I purchased my first IBM clone, a 486-100. Enabling me to play with Linux. The 486 is now history but my love affair with Linux remains. Some kind souls at Nectec allowed me to download Linux and copy it to the then prevalent floppy disk format - 5.25''. Fifty-two of them!

The number of disks dropped to 30-plus with the introduction of 3.5'' floppy disks. With CDs, initially Linux started with one disk, but recent distributions are up to two CDs. Extra CDs are applications and source code for Linux itself. More on this later.

The purchase of my first PC also started a long association with ZyXEL external modems. I have owned four of them. Two were given to me for being a beta tester of ZyXEL modems. These are excellent modems but they had trouble with many BBSes/ISPs using equipment that is optimised for USR Robotics products, which sounds familiar when compared with certain marketing techniques used today.

My 486 was a dual boot machine, meaning I could boot into DOS/Win 3.1 or Linux. Win 3.1 was used for the installed FM/TV PC card. At that time, Linux had no drivers for such devices, although Linux now has drivers for practically anything. The notable exceptions are for proprietary products and while this is changing, it is not happening fast enough for would-be or current Linux users.

Since my first PC, I have gone through several hardware upgrades to my current setup - a K6-2-550 based system with 256MB of RAM (see below) and the configuration reflects the hardware that has available drivers and supports Linux.

For would-be Linux users I recommend using any Linux distribution that comes with manuals, CDs including extra applications and source code. If interested, you can start by looking at Panthip or in large bookstores.