About

I’m a mid 40’s Gen-X Right-Wing Republican with strong 2A beliefs. (“LIBERTY OR DEATH”)

I have been interested in computers and electronics since the early 1980’s. I miss the days of computers being a hobby. Having to figure out how something works. Or just seeing if you can get something to work even. That stuff was fun when I was kid. BSD kind of brings me back to those days. There is not a lot of instant gratification in it. But my first computer was literally a “Trash-80”.

Side story here… I honestly found a TRS-80 Coco III in a trash can while riding my bicycle down an alley in Connersville, IN while visiting my grandparents (Dad’s side) for a week on summer vacation. I threw it in the basket and eventually found out how to use it. I think I was going into 3rd grade that fall. I figured out it had an RF modulator built-in so I hook it up to a TV using my Atair stuff. Still had no clue what to do with it… it was just a screen.

Luckily there was a stack of magazines in the trash can along with the console. HA! HA! HA! ROFLMAO!!!! When I look back now I would really love to know if the previous owner of that machine actually intended for it to remain in the trash or if it was just a temper tantrum because he couldn’t get some piece of code he or she I guess was working to play nice. HA! ha ha ha…. Their loss and my induction into the world of technology. No one I knew shared my interest at that time and actually a long time after. I had to teach myself everything at that time. And that is where those magazines saved me.

Being what? About 8 years old. I didn’t have the money to buy any external storage and no one else was going to buy it for me so there was no persistent state of anything on that machine. I remember Radio Shack being my favorite store as a kid. I always had a copy of their catalog. So I knew what a tape drive and modem were. In those early hobbyist magazines they would have source code in with the articles and the coolest thing was that they had working code for all the major players at the time. Find your machine, copy character for character and your code ran. For an 8 year old kid who didn’t know how to type, this was a multi-multi day process and the machine had to stay powered on or I was right back at line zero. Everything lost. My favorite project back then was a down hill ski game. I liked it so much I keyed it in multiple times. I also experimented with the code and figured out how to change certain things and what made things do what… Kind of…

I did not have any reference manuals nor do I know if I comprehended that such a thing existed. I did not have anyone guiding me. Glass half full view is no one was actually holding me back. I just absorbed what I could when I could here and there. Played with ugly original TRS-80, vic-20, C64, TI-something, Apple IIe/c and my first DOS pc a Tandy T-1000 w/640K ram, dual? 5.25″ floppy, no HD, green screen, mouse? I think NO. But I put a modem in it and found the dial in number for the local university and received my first taste of vax and what was to eventually become the internet.

I was probably in 8th/9th grade at this time. Still not a lot of money, I was working outside though. Computer shit was way expensive back in the day. Not easy for a kid to fund alone. Aside from some shareware games I really didn’t know what a lot of software was for. Besides writing a book report. But with this computer came my next helpful bit. It came with the M$-DOS and GW-Basic manuals. SCORE!

I finally learned what it was I had been typing into the TRS-80, it was the basic programming language… Cool! And now, this DOS manual full of commands and switches and batch files. I finally had the damn instruction manual on how to make this machine do exactly what I want it to do. After discovering those manuals I picked up every book and reference I could get my hands on and started my own little library. I could make that command line my bitch! As I progressed thru school I picked up Mac System 7, MS Windows, a little Novel networking and when I made it to college in the fall of 1995 I discovered Slackware 2.2.0.

I dont remember where I found the entrance to this path. I was in Dallas, TX going to college for electronics engineering and computer information systems. This was also my first exposure to a “REAL” bookstore. (Now I will argue that the “real” bookstores are the independents and everything else is just an Amazon warehouse) First time in a Barnes & Noble, I was amazed what I could find. It seems like somehow maybe a clerks suggestion or something a book called “LINUX Unleashed” entered my library. It came with a CD that included Slackware 2.2.0. Seems like my bookshelf filled up with various O’Reilly books on unix topics and the rest is history.

Years passed and computers became an off and on hobby like ham radio and electronics. I wasn’t working in the industry so I didn’t try to keep up on the latest and greatest. I just didn’t care. My stuff, and I have a lot of stuff, does what I need it to do. I’m not exactly bleeding-edge on tech, but I have a good setup. Everything talks to each other. Not a big fan of windows but I picked a new PC a month ago running 11pro? Hooked it up to the TV, put wireless keyboard on it and it does everything I need it to do. Streaming services, browse web, play XBox games, play home library and be a full functional personal computer if need be. And its the size of my apple TV. Intel hardware, plenty of power… over powered and worked straight out of the box. Other than entering my Micro$oft id, zero setup. Cool! BOORING!!!!

I missed the feeling of putting a kit together, troubleshooting and tracking down errors. Trying or seeing something that just might work better. I started on Linux, but that environment has become too chaotic for me. BSD just feels like a better fit. And it is giving me exactly what I need. I don’t need to compile and operating system from code nor do I need to solder together a laptop. Combine two out of the box working products and build and customize till my heart delight.

I chose BSD because how clean, neat, organized and logical its design and structure is. Currently working with FreeBSD14, on an old hp2k (2009-ish amd of some sort 4 gb ram,nothing impressive) trying to make an installation/configuration script to run on my other machines and I want a fully functioning system. Maybe someday I will want to recompile every single piece of code on the machine to run as optimally as possible on the hardware of that physical machine and have zero code or instruction that is UN-necessary. Maybe with my scripting project here that is the end goal. A self compiling operating system optimized to run on whatever hardware it self-installs on.

Well, thats about it. Point and purpose given. Any questions and helpful comments feel free to shoot some electrons my way.

Emial: n9tig.bsd@gmail.com