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Vintage Compaq Presario SR1610NX

Who remembers the old Compaq Presario SR1610NX?

Finished this Compaq Presario SR1610NX up tonight — circa 2005, it’s in totally mint condition and sports an Intel Pentium Dual Core E2200 processor @2.20 GHz 64bit (threw a 500GB HDD into it just for good measure)

Operating system is the Microsoft Windows 10 Professional 21H1 build 19043.1202

Compaq computers are still around. The ancient, older than dirt units can be found in places like Newegg and Ebay going anywhere from $35 to $70 (with $70 shipping of course) that contain all of the original hardware and software.

Compaq Presario
Compaq Presario SR1610NX (tap or click image to enlarge)

I got this Presario from a kid that works at Albertsons, who studies computer sciences at our local college. I think I gave him $30 for it, and it came with all of the original components, including a licensed version of Windows XP with a recovery partition, in tact, on the original IDE 70GB HDD.

The case, as you can see, is in stellar condition. No scratches, wear, or other signs of extensive use.

This box sat on my shelf for quite a while because I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do with it.

I’ll take in old, run down units from people (sometimes I’ll purchase for the right price) on occasion, so I’ve got plenty of perfectly good components laying around collecting dust.

Acer Aspire M5641 Desktop
Acer Aspire M5641 Desktop (tap or click image to enlarge)

The other day I was wondering what I wanted to do with this old Acer desktop box I had. It was pretty beat up and it didn’t have a very practical design.

I had installed Microsoft Windows 10 on it and left it at that.

Acer was never really in to producing attractive units, and boy-ole-boy, this Acer box was uglier than a mud fence … even with Windows 10 installed, I figured that it would be a pretty hard sell just on account of it’s looks, or rather in this case, lack of looks. A 1963 Dodge truck came to mind every time I looked at it.

Not too unlike someone putting a 327 cu. in. Chevy engine into an old 1950’s International pick up truck, I pulled the hardware out of the old Acer and put it into the Presario case.

I also installed a NVIDIA GeForce GT 730 video card (DVI, VGA, HDMI). The motherboard from the Acer unit also has on-board HDMI, but I’ve found that running HDMI through a video card always works out better in the long run. (video card uses it’s own RAM and spares on-board RAM for other things)

I also added TP-Link Wireless WI-FI @150mbps to it because, who needs wires anyway?

This box build doesn’t have UEFI/BIOS or any TPM, (I could install a separate TPM 2.0 module to run bitlocker) so there’s no way it will ever run the new Microsoft Windows 11 due to be released October 5. But with that being said, It’s a unit that will run any Windows 10 build from now until 2025 when Windows 10 reaches EOL.

I’m still not exactly sure what I’ll do with it. It’s a rather nice unit. I’ll probably fire it up on occasion and just look at it … take it for a spin around the internet once in a while. You know — sort of how we do with our classic cars.

Happy trails

Thanks for the read.

Frank Borell – Natural Beauty

Sitting back, enjoying the Montana summer evening, away from all of the business of the day.
Frank Borell is the perfect fit for evenings like this.

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For more than 20 years the musician Frank Doberitz a.k.a Frank Borell from Bonn is one of the most popular international downbeat, lounge, chill out and electronic music producers from Germany.

Frank Borell is well-known for his ambient and electronic music projects like Ibiza chillout, café abstrait, lounge del mare, dream café, island of chill, ibiza chillout café, young grooves, kaffeehaus lounge series, Ibiza beach house and many more made Frank Doberitz a.k.a Frank Borell is one of the most important artists of the electronic music scene.

Visit Frank Borell’s website: https://www.frankborell.com/

Windows 11 system requirements

Microsoft has always written it’s new operating system builds with some sort of system requirements going forward. Other OS companies like iOS, Mac OS, and Linux also have required various system requirements as well whenever a new version of their operating system is released.

The push forward for new things like security, for instance, is always going to happen because that’s just how things are in the industry.

Windows 8 brought significant changes in 2012, and since then, Microsoft hasn’t changed much. It’s no surprise that these new requirements are catching people off guard.

Since about 2015, however, we’ve noticed that the Microsoft systems requirements have pushed whole swaths of perfectly good and running hardware out of the way and resigned these to the rubbish heap. 64 bit single thread processors took the hit in 2015 as you might recall, along with other such peripherals/hardware such as video and sound cards — some printers that were very new and worked perfectly fine were also resigned to the back ends of obsolescence with the new Microsoft Windows 10 build.

Now here we have Windows 11 poised to make yet another round on the obsolescence circuit.

Before I list all of the new system requirements that Microsoft has for it’s new Windows 11, I’ll touch base on what’s called “TPM”.
If you have a computer that is about 3 years old or newer, you already have TPM.

The Trusted Platform Module, or (TPM) technology is designed to provide hardware-based, security-related functions. A TPM chip is a secure crypto-processor that is designed to carry out cryptographic operations. The chip includes multiple physical security mechanisms to make it tamper resistant, and malicious software is unable to tamper with the security functions of the TPM.

Most newer machines already have TPM 1.2, but not the TPM 2.0 that Microsoft is demanding they have. If you have a custom built computer/gaming computer, the chances of your unit having any sort of TPM write are practically zero. Other machines have TPM built in, but it isn’t turned on in the BIOS by default.

This is what Tom Warren at The Verge had to say about TPM:

TPM seems to have been a sticking point for a number of people since Microsoft made the Windows 11 announcement. My advice currently is to wait and see how this will all play out going forward. Windows 10 will be supported until 2025, so there’s enough time for you to purchase a new machine if for some reason your current new machine won’t run Windows 11.

Another drawback to the installation of the Windows 11 operating system is that you will be required to create a Microsoft account before you can install it.

Here are the other current system requirements for Windows 11:

5G support requires 5G capable modem.

Auto HDR requires an HDR monitor.

Bit Locker to Go requires a USB flash drive (available in Windows Pro and above editions).

Client Hyper-V requires a processor with second level address translation (SLAT) capabilities (available in Windows Pro and above editions).

Cortana requires a microphone and speaker and is currently available on Windows 11 for Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Spain, United Kingdom and United States.

DirectStorage requires 1 TB or greater NVMe SSD to store and run games that uses the “Standard NVM Express Controller” driver and a DirectX 12 Ultimate GPU.

DirectX 12 Ultimate is available with supported games and graphics chips.

Presence requires sensor that can detect human distance from device or intent to interact with device.

Intelligent Video Conferencing requires video camera, microphone and speaker (audio output).

Multiple Voice Assistant (MVA) requires a microphone and speaker.

Snap three-column layouts require a screen that is 1920 effective pixels or greater in width.

Mute/Unmute from Taskbar requires video camera, microphone and speaker (audio output). App must be compatible with feature to enable global mute/unmute.

Spatial Sound requires supporting hardware and software.

Teams requires video camera, microphone and speaker (audio output).

Touch requires a screen or monitor that supports multi-touch.

Two-factor Authentication requires use of PIN, biometric (fingerprint reader or illuminated infrared camera), or a phone with Wi-Fi or Bluetooth capabilities.

Voice Typing requires a PC with a microphone.

Wake on Voice requires Modern Standby power model and microphone.

Wi-Fi 6E requires new WLAN IHV hardware and driver and a Wi-Fi 6E capable AP/router.

Windows Hello requires a camera configured for near infrared (IR) imaging or fingerprint reader for biometric authentication. Devices without biometric sensors can use Windows Hello with a PIN or portable Microsoft compatible security key.

Windows Projection requires a display adapter which supports Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) 2.0 and a Wi-Fi adapter that supports Wi-Fi Direct.

Xbox (app) requires an Xbox Live account, which is not available in all regions.

Welcome to Zorin OS

Since it’s being rumoured lately that Microsoft plans to charge a monthly fee for use for it’s operating system going forward in 2022-2024, now might be a good time to try out any one of the many different Linux operating systems that are available.

Linux based Zorin OS is currently my go-to operating system, and I’ve been using it for a couple of years now.

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Zorin OS is a personal computer operating system designed and promoted for users new to Linux-based computers. One of its built-in features lets users change the interface to resemble those of Microsoft Windows or macOS.

Wine and PlayOnLinux can be easily installed in Zorin OS, allowing users to run compatible Windows software for ease of transition. Zorin OS’s creators maintain three free-of-charge editions of the operating system, and an “Ultimate” edition for purchase.

The current releases are Zorin OS 15.3 Ultimate, Zorin OS 15.3 Core, Zorin OS 15.3 Lite, and Zorin OS 15.3 Education. The new editions continue to use the Ubuntu-based Linux kernel and GNOME or XFCE interface.

Though you can download the Zorin OS for free, you can pick up your Ultimate Zorin OS for about $40 USD at this link — https://zorinos.com/ultimate/

The real Roswell UFO incident

The real Roswell UFO incident

The real Roswell UFO incident as it relates to Top Secret government operations has proven to be quite an economic boon for the general public.

Case in point? The real Roswell UFO incident — with it’s cottage industry of figurines in the shape of little green dudes with big eyes, flying saucer key chains, and most recently, a full length movie named Paul.

Fiction is seemingly way more fun than the presumed actual events and the government had no problem in accommodating the general public in that regard.

Below, is a summary of what probably really happened just outside of Corona, New Mexico back in the day.

The Roswell UFO in question actually came down outside of Corona, New Mexico, so already we see how it’s all going to play out as far as the accuracy of the story goes from it’s very beginning.

By the time of the so-called Roswell (Corona) incident in 1947, the United States government had already been testing rockets since the early to mid 1930’s. In the 1930s, Roswell was a site for much of Robert H. Goddard’s early rocketry work.

V2 Rocket photos 1947
V2 Rocket photos 1947 – White Sands Proving Ground, Las Cruces, NM (tap or click image to enlarge)

According to NASA, on March 7, 1947, (the Roswell incident happened in July of the same year) not long after the end of World War II and years before Sputnik ushered in the space age, a group of soldiers and scientists in the New Mexico desert saw something new and wonderful in these grainy black-and-white-photos – the first pictures of Earth as seen from altitude greater than 100 miles in space. Just the year before in 1946, scientists like John T. Mengel, a NASA pioneer who later oversaw the Vanguard Program, began experimenting with captured German V-2 rockets.

So, as an experiment, cameras were installed into the nose of these V2 rockets. As far as experiments go, it’s anybody’s guess as to what our government might have been experimenting on in those days. A good guess as to what the government might have experimented on could include anything that involved animal, vegetable, or mineral.

We might, in theory, suggest that even humans could have been experimented on. What affects could space have on human tissue directly, for instance. Could there be a chance that cadavers were used to test the effects of space on human tissue? How would we be able to design and build a space suit for humans unless we knew precisely the affects of space on the human anatomy? Flash freezing a human body, only to have it thaw quickly upon reentry to our atmosphere might have produced some unusual appearances. Cartilage in the ears, nose, and other parts of the body could have broken off thus causing the cadaver to look “other worldly”.

Third Reich saucer shaped craft 1944
Third Reich saucer shaped craft 1944

As far as technology is concerned, quite a lot of it was acquired from the Third Reich after the war. Jet engines (F14 Fighter), rocket engines (Ballistic Missiles), the flying wing (B2 Bomber), and yes, even prototype plans for a saucer shaped flying craft were recovered.

The proving ground at White Sands was a top secret facility, and even the President wasn’t privy to many of the black projects that went on there. Testing went on without thought to ethics, morality, or even the societal norms of the day.

Since White Sands is located near Las Cruces, it makes sense that anything fired from there would come down anywhere between Corona and Roswell (when you consider the earth rotating under the craft sent into the stratosphere). I’m pretty sure that guidance systems were all but in their extreme infancy at the time.

Enter Farmer John

W.W. Mac Brazel
W.W. Mac Brazel

Actually, his name was WW Mack Brazel, a local rancher. It was his ranch where most of the debris fell. He spoke of strange alien materials and a seemingly invincible square of foil which could not be cut or damaged. Since Nylon was invented in 1938, it was used by our burgeoning military industrial complex long before it was ever introduced to the general public. Aluminum was also used during the war, but it too wasn’t widely used by the general public because it was extremely expensive at the time. (Aluminum was mostly used during the production of aircraft).

Many of the materials witnessed at the crash site weren’t readily available for public use or consumption at the time, so it would stand to reason that it would present itself as “other worldly”. Various materials like some metals and polymers that were new or extremely rare in those days were most likely classified as top secret by the military just like how GPS was when it was first developed .

And about the bodies? Well, how many ranchers in New Mexico during the period were there that had actually seen a human body that had been exposed to the rigors of outer space unprotected by a space suit? Many? A few? None?

White Sands Proving Ground
White Sands Proving Ground

What crashed in New Mexico wasn’t a weather balloon, nor was it balls of gas or plasma caused by tectonic plate movement within the earth (as some have so very eloquently surmised). What crashed in New Mexico was an actual machine. A machine who’s origin emanated from the far away and distant planet known to us as the White Sands proving ground.

The federal government would rather the general public believe the lie of a Roswell UFO, than to have it’s black op’s exposed. It’s all for the sake of national security. Top Secret means that the government doesn’t want others to know what it’s been up to.

When you combine government secrecy, new technologies of the day that most are unaware of, Buck Rogers on the radio since 1932, and wild imaginations, we can only end up with real life science fiction like the Roswell incident … you just can’t help it. A perfect storm of misinformation coupled with a great deal of fear and ignorance has made millions of dollars over the years for anyone that dared to take the UFO Myths to it’s ultimate conclusion.

As an aside … A Roswell UFO did fall just outside of Corona, New Mexico. It was an unidentified *flying, (or rather *falling) object to us, but it wasn’t a UFO at all to our military. Our government knew exactly what it was, and as with anything else deemed Top Secret, the government won’t be privy to telling us what it was any time soon.

Happy Trails, and thanks for the read.