I suspect that I'm not alone in observing this, but lately computer parts
have gotten so cheap that instead of struggling with CT under Windows, you
may want to consider a second machine for running CT and other DOS based
programs like RITTY etc.
I recently purchased a Pentium 166 motherboard for $89 with the CPU ! Cases
are going for under $20 and big hard drives are around $150. You may want
to consider replacing that 500 meg (or whatever size)drive in your "main"
computer with a cheap 4gig unit and move the smaller one to a DOS only
machine.
Not only are parts cheap, you may be able to snag a good 486 machine out of
the dumpster at your office too. Maybe you should make friends with the
network support guys now ! If you get a 486/66 or better, it can run Win95
pretty well too with 32m ram. 486/100's rival Pentium 66's and 100's in
performance.
Compaq DeskPro and Prolinea machines are real good for RF environments with
their full metal cabinets etc. Other commercial grade "boat anchors" that
companies are tossing out
would make an excellent contest machine.
Since I don't have space for a second monitor in my shack, I purchased a
device called an "Omnicube 2-Port" made by Belkin. This device allows me to
have one keyboard, one mouse and one monitor hooked to both computers.
There's a single button that switches between them on the box itself and it
also allows switching from the keyboard using a unique key combination.
This was a bit pricey at over $100. The benefit is that it provides
everything the connected PC's need to maintain keyboard and especially mouse
connectivity. The cheaper manual switches tend to lose the mouse.
In addition to all this wonderful stuff, Ethernet cards are getting real
cheap too. I bought some 10 meg Ethernet cards that have both the RJ45 and
BNC (10Base-T and 10Base-2) type connection for $9.95 each. These were in
both PCI and ISA format. If you use coax, this is the cheapest way to
network your CT machines with K1TTT's Ethernet TSR. I decided to use the
twisted pair method and got a 5 port 10meg hub for $29.
For Y2K compliance, you must have DOS 6.22. This was the most recent
version of DOS that "Bill" sold and they claim it's OK for Y2K.
What about CT and Y2K ?
73,
Bob N5NJ
Robert E. Naumann
N5NJ@worldnet.att.net
also V26RN, ex KR2J, W6V, WA2OVE
Plano, TX USA
Robert E. Naumann
N5NJ@worldnet.att.net
also V26RN, ex KR2J, W6V, WA2OVE
Plano, TX USA
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