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Booting a 486 from floppy with the most up-to-date stable Linux kernel

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Re: Booting a 486 from floppy with the most up-to-date stable Linux kernel

#111

Post by lokedhs »

locao wrote: post #37

Does anyone else miss having this level of motivation? And that's not an isolation effect on me, I gave up on trying fun things like this for a long long time now.

In my mid-40's I still get this urge to play around with "useless" things. In most cases, I don't actually act on it, and instead spend an hour or two watching videos of or reading blogs by people who actually did it.

That doesn't mean I don't spend some time on these things. I've been doing some Atari 2600 programming, and have been playing around with an emulated IBM mainframe (TK4 on Hercules). I have also been working on a new demo effect on the Atari ST.

Note how the things I actually do follow through on, they're all working on emulators. It does give me the ability to take advantage of modern technology (such as Emacs) while still exploring the limits of old systems.

I'd like to think that getting older means you can appreciate both the old and the new, and I think my hobby projects reflect that.

Re: Booting a 486 from floppy with the most up-to-date stable Linux kernel

#112

Post by sitzkrieg »

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #98
locao wrote: post #37

Does anyone else miss having this level of motivation? And that's not an isolation effect on me, I gave up on trying fun things like this for a long long time now.

I really missed it. From when I was 11, until I was about 20, I enjoyed doing this kind of work. When I was 20, I got into a relationship with someone who was critical of it, and I ended up succumbing to their criticism, quitting my hacking, and going into IT industry instead. I did that for about 15 years, but all along, I missed doing this kind of stuff. I kept doing it a little here and there, but my jobs would ea…

sounds great, how do you sustain yourself, still working?

Re: Booting a 486 from floppy with the most up-to-date stable Linux kernel

#113

Post by forgotmypw17 »

sitzkrieg wrote: post #112
forgotmypw17 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really missed it. From when I was 11, until I was about 20, I enjoyed doing this kind of work. When I was 20, I got into a relationship with someone who was critical of it, and I ended up succumbing to their criticism, quitting my hacking, and going into IT industry instead. I did that for about 15 years, but all along, I missed doing this kind of stuff. I kept doing it a little here and there, but my jobs would ea…

sounds great, how do you sustain yourself, still working?

No, I have become freegan, which means I have abandoned the currency system and live largely without touching it.

Re: Booting a 486 from floppy with the most up-to-date stable Linux kernel

#114

Post by hak8or »

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #113
sitzkrieg wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sounds great, how do you sustain yourself, still working?

No, I have become freegan, which means I have abandoned the currency system and live largely without touching it.

Is, erm, is this satire?

If you are genuinely able to be genuinely self sufficient without interacting with currency while still bieng able to have power to go on a computer with an internet connection, I have to say, props to you.

I just hope you do not get hit with a serious medical issue. Or have a fire and then get hit with a fire Marshall tearing you a new one over your unpaid property bieng not up to code.

Re: Booting a 486 from floppy with the most up-to-date stable Linux kernel

#115

Post by porknubbins »

Baeocystin wrote: post #99
locao wrote: post #37

Does anyone else miss having this level of motivation? And that's not an isolation effect on me, I gave up on trying fun things like this for a long long time now.

I get where you're coming from, but at the same time... I've been there, done that. I don't mean that in a negative way- rather, it's just that I've already gotten the satisfaction I'm going to get out of projects of this nature. Same thing as when I was in to rebuilding V8 engines when I was younger. It was fun to figure out the system, and see what was possible with a few tweaks. Now that I've clearly defined where…

Yeah I enjoy having the sense of accomplishment and the knowledge gained but like you have trouble getting excited about repeating things. I think people who do their hobbies in a serious exploratory way are probably the minority though. I ride motorcycles struggle to understand guys who just want to go ride the same route 10 hours every weekend. I guess its a kind of emotional release rather than intellectual thrill.

Re: Booting a 486 from floppy with the most up-to-date stable Linux kernel

#117

Post by justapassenger »

locao wrote: post #37

Does anyone else miss having this level of motivation? And that's not an isolation effect on me, I gave up on trying fun things like this for a long long time now.

For most people I know (including me) tinkering like that dies down when you get an IT job. After spending 40h+ per week dealing with stupid computers, you rarely have enough motivation to do it again at home, as a hobby. You just want stuff to work.

But the tinkering urge isn't gone. I highly recommend finding different hobby, that can satisfy that itch. Gardening, woodworking, cars, motorcycles, 3d printing, etc. You can spend many hours doing "useless" things there, and have tons of fun.

For me, for example, I used to get happiness from spending 20h of my time to get Linux running on some old HW, worth $5. Now I get similar rush from spending 20h trying to build something from wood, that ends up costing me way more and looking more crappy that picking it up at the store.

Re: Booting a 486 from floppy with the most up-to-date stable Linux kernel

#118

Post by themodelplumber »

locao wrote: post #37

Does anyone else miss having this level of motivation? And that's not an isolation effect on me, I gave up on trying fun things like this for a long long time now.

It's also kind of a combination of motivation and depth. I've done some work coaching people who are seeking change like this, and you have to hack the process a bit, so that the depth-oriented part is tightly aligned with the subject and their history.

Without the depth consideration tied to something really firm (so to speak), it might as well be an article about how fun a challenge it is to casually travel to deep space, for how approachable it will be given even the highest level of layman's motivation.

Re: Booting a 486 from floppy with the most up-to-date stable Linux kernel

#119

Post by moonchild »

ifmpx wrote: post #89
aswanson wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Broadcom is horrible with datasheets. If you're not apple or intel, an f off should be expected in any request for a datasheet from them.

At work, we briefly considered deploying a fleet of raspberry pis as cheep ARM servers. We ordered an initial batch for evaluation, but then quickly realized just how little technical information Broadcom and the Raspberry Pi Foundation are willing to make available to their users. They were tight-lipped even with the bare minimums. We ended up abandoning the idea soon after. Unless these companies manage to break aw…

I've heard good things about the sopine clusterboard[1] + modules[2].

1. https://www.pine64.org/clusterboard/

2. https://www.pine64.org/sopine/

Re: Booting a 486 from floppy with the most up-to-date stable Linux kernel

#120

Post by marmshallow »

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #113
sitzkrieg wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sounds great, how do you sustain yourself, still working?

No, I have become freegan, which means I have abandoned the currency system and live largely without touching it.

This takes the cake for unexpected comment of the night. Could you explain where you live (location and housing situation) and how you feed yourself? I'm genuinely curious.
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