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To add a fun story where Linux saved my live. Back in the 90‘ we had a Clipper / dBASE based DOS app used for capturing orders in a call center after TV commerc

To add a fun story where Linux saved my live. Back in the 90‘ we had a Clipper / dBASE based DOS app used for capturing orders in a call center after TV commercials. In this case a prime TV show to generate donations. Full house with >100 agents busy. Then the Novell Netware server crashed, and was unable to mount the disks. We managed to switch the users to an older server so they could continue to work. But it first seemed the HDD and files got corrupted and unrecoverable by disk tools from Netware. We thought of using a commercial recovery service, but this would cause delay and cost $$$$. So I removed the disks from Netware, fired up a Linux PC, connected the HDD to the Adaptec SCSI (Luckily install prior for a CD drive). The file system was not mountable, but something like dd /dev/sdb1 |strings „JJJJMMDD“ discovered lots of salvage records. This literally saved my ass and the company.

outsidein 5y ago
Last year I finally ditched some spare i386 CPU and memory modules (sort of 1, 2, 4 MByte) after getting no response on eBay.
outsidein 5y ago
The HP Laserjet 2100 M (PCL and PostScript) is still running. Someone interested into the original PCL Language book which came with the printer?
- tinus_hn 5y ago
  Be aware that these old HP printers consume a rather large amount of energy no matter whether they are in use or in standby.
  - outsidein 5y ago
    Sure. It is disconnected from power 99.9% of the time. I only fire it up when required. For convenience I used a dedicated external network print server (you know, the printer is centronics only, and centronics long ago vanished for thevsake of usb on PCs). This print server consumed about 10-20 watt, much more than the printer which was actually one of the first with power saving / standby. The print server has been replaced by an usb-2-centronics dongle recently to reduce energy consumption further. An about 25 year old laser printer running almost flawlessly mechanically, with latest MacOS and Windows 10 OS, supporting PCL6 and PS is a thing. He is on the 3rd toner cartridge (at least 5 years old). Only needed for rare cases of government mandated written docs like passenger locator forms. Paper transport has been unreliable almost from day 1 based on dried up rolls and paper.

outsidein 5y ago

Last year I finally ditched some spare i386 CPU and memory modules (sort of 1, 2, 4 MByte) after getting no response on eBay.

outsidein 5y ago

The HP Laserjet 2100 M (PCL and PostScript) is still running. Someone interested into the original PCL Language book which came with the printer?

tinus_hn 5y ago
Be aware that these old HP printers consume a rather large amount of energy no matter whether they are in use or in standby.
- outsidein 5y ago
  Sure. It is disconnected from power 99.9% of the time. I only fire it up when required. For convenience I used a dedicated external network print server (you know, the printer is centronics only, and centronics long ago vanished for thevsake of usb on PCs). This print server consumed about 10-20 watt, much more than the printer which was actually one of the first with power saving / standby. The print server has been replaced by an usb-2-centronics dongle recently to reduce energy consumption further. An about 25 year old laser printer running almost flawlessly mechanically, with latest MacOS and Windows 10 OS, supporting PCL6 and PS is a thing. He is on the 3rd toner cartridge (at least 5 years old). Only needed for rare cases of government mandated written docs like passenger locator forms. Paper transport has been unreliable almost from day 1 based on dried up rolls and paper.