On Thursday 21 March 2013 15:52:14 Len Ovens wrote:
On Thu, March 21, 2013 9:59 am, Neil wrote:
That's why my talk about audio production at
Ohio Linux Fest focused on
the
stuff that *didn't* go smoothly when I switched from Mac to Linux.
It is interesting how people's experience shapes what they expect.
I started in micros on a borrowed TRS-80 Model I.
http://oldcomputers.net/trs80i.html
With the cassette drive even. Writing games in basic and saving them to tape.
Ouch.
Apple
was always out of my price range and still is. I started out with an atari
mega and various bought/shareware/freeware/DIYware. It had a nice
sequencer and as I had only 4 tracks, putting MTC on one track gave me
drums and keys up to 16 tracks as well as three analog tracks. Got
interested in BBSs
BBSes. Started on an epson QX-10.
http://www.obsoletecomputermuseum.org/qx-10/
With a Hayes smartmodem 1200
http://www.cs.grinnell.edu/Hayes%20SMARTMODEM%201200
that cost me $1,200.00 for the modem and an extra $80.00 for the serial cable.
The BBS software was written in basic and I wrote extensive additions for it.
and set one up. only problem I couldn't do music
at the
same time. Got an old (even then) 286 MB and PS (no case) and put DRdos on
it and ran maximus.
When I got a pc compatible, I ran various bbs systems including fidonet stuff.
I wanted to go multiline and bought The Majot BBS by Galicticom
http://www.themajorbbs.com/bbs/index.php
I spent good money on that baby.
I still have the boxes sitting on a shelf in my office.
Probably the best hardware it ever ran on was a 386. Some version of DOS I
imagine. I think I only ever ran two lines. The board used to be listed in
the back of Computer Shopper. I think it was called the zotzBoard.
At first I ran that board out of a closet in someone else's apartment. Later
it moved to a bell towed at a local monestary where the transmitter for the
radio station I currently work for is located. This was before I worked for
the station though.
A friend had windows (3.1 back then) ran two lines,
when the second line connected, the first slowed down to 1/4... we're
talking 3kbaud here, and had to use a mechanical timer to restart the
system at least once a day. So when I went two lines I used OS/2 (IBM was
giving 2.1 away in hopes of selling 3.0) I could go on holidays for two
weeks and come back to a running system. One line had no effect on the
other. Then the Internet started to show up. I wanted to do networking,
but IBM wanted big money for network drivers for OS/2. Windows didn't
really have it either. and this was still pre win95. I ended up with Linux
about 93 or 94, Slackware pre 1.0. I ported my BBS over (hand coded the
lot) and have been with it ever since. Apple is still over priced and
windows has never really (for me) caught up, at least in the things that
matter. I have experienced windows in various ways. 95 on my wifes
machine, till it got infected, NT at work, saw lots of crashes, we used
Linux to load/back it up though, win ME was broken and never fixed, win 7
is slow, even Ubuntu vanilla is faster.
I think my first linux may have been slack as well. I was floppy based. (6
floppies?) The a friend and I started ordering Walnut Creek CDs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walnut_Creek_CDROM
So Apple has priced themselves out of my interest. I can't afford the
hardware, and most SW has to be bought. Windows still doesn't just work,
you seem to need to buy a boat load of utilities to keep it infection free
and keep it from slowing down, it really isn't a multi user system, but a
multiuser hack on top of a single user kernel (last I checked). MS does
not fix problems in a timely manner. The license seems to indicate that if
I make music on their system they own a part of it. They seem to have a
right to all the files on my disk too... not acceptable. (maybe the lic
has changed?) Anyone with that kind of license would have a right to add
access for themselves to my computer.
So for me migrating to Linux has never been an issue, it is where I
started, and every time I look at something else... switching looks really
painful, better to make what I have work.
all the best,
drew