Tag: computers

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HP Z420 Workstation

Even though I’ve posted about NAS devices as far back as 2005 I’ve never really run one at home until recently. I got OpenMediaVault running and it worked well, so when I was offered a free computer that could fit at least 6 drives I figured what the heck!? Let’s try the open source version of TrueNAS Scale.

Oh, I should point out that in 2007 I said “FreeNAS it looks like a cool solution, and something I may try to play with in the future” and hey, the future is now!? And honestly I still deal with some of the questions I asked back in 2007.

I should note a few things. First, the Z420 is a bit of a power hog but keep in mind I got it for free. So any extra energy cost can be traded for the fact this was zero-cost hardware, right? I don’t know if I will run this long-term but for now I can use it to learn TrueNAS.

The other thing is, you can easily just buy a Synology NAS and stuff it with drives. I say “easily” because they do a good job of building a ready-to-use NAS solution for most people… if you’ve got the budget. I like doing things on the cheap and learning the hard way though. You’re welcome!

Anyway, this post will focus on the HP Z420 Workstation. I’m sure I will post more about TrueNAS, but the installation was pretty simple. I flashed the ISO to a thumb drive, dropped a 256GB SSD into the case, booted it up, and ran the installer. Oh, I did remove one of the sticks of RAM because it showed an error (on the monitor) when I originally booted it. There is now just 12GB of RAM. I may try to re-install the DIMM or maybe get more RAM. 12GB might be plenty for testing though. (I tried to reinstall the fourth DIMM and it didn’t boot. I may give up on the fourth DIMM.)

I got the case open to see what I was working with… I should note I am not a person who has ever “built a PC” though I’ve opened a lot of machines. Tons and tons of Macs, from desktops to laptops and models in-between. I’ve also opened lots of Windows laptops which eventually became Linux laptops. Still as far as “towers” go my experience is with Apple hardware.

I had to procure three more SATA cables and added them to the one I found in a drawer and the two that were in the machine, but I got six drives connected. I popped out the optical drive and multi-card reader thing. Even though there is spaces for six drives I don’t have them in place yet… but they are all plugged in and… hanging about. It works.

I threw a monitor on for the install but it’s still attached for now as I get things up and running. Like other NAS products you pretty much do everything through a browser so no monitor is expected or needed. (Once your hardware actually works.)

I’ll need to 3D print some hard drive sleds (sled? caddy? whatever) and then get the drives more permanently mounted. These are mostly junk drives, old and smallish… I do have two 4TB drives ready to go and may have a third one soon. You really want a minimum of three drives for ZFS and more than that is even better. Again, I am trying to be economical in this project and not just spend a ton of money. If I wanted to do that I’d just buy a Synology box and call it a day.

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Apple ][+ Sketch

The Apple ][+ is where it all began for me. It was probably 1980 or 1981 when my brother brought one home, and it was our first “family computer” though as an 11 or 12 year old with few responsibilities I quickly became the one who used it the most. I remember at some point we put it on a desk in my room, which was pretty awesome!

I remember playing a lot of games, but I also remember learning to program in BASIC, often from typing in programs found in magazines, probably BYTE Magazine. I then discovered graphics! Lo-Res and Hi-Res blew my mind at the time… and here I am in 2024 drawing an Apple ][+ on an Apple iPad with an Apple Pencil.

I remember at one point I tried to write an adventure game in BASIC with Lo-Res graphics and I think that may have been my first “large” software project. I also remember abandoning it when I realized it was never going to work. Still, I learned a lot. When I got into high school and we used Apple Computers and did BASIC programming the teacher was none too pleased with me because I knew more than he did, and I think I let him know that a few times.

The best thing ever was MousePaint which was released in 1984. Since we couldn’t afford an actual Macintosh Computer you could connect a mouse to an Apple ][+ and use a version of MacPaint called MousePaint. Computer graphics without typing? Magical!

(Also, let’s take a second to appreciate that 40 years later I type in OpenSCAD to create graphical objects on screen that I then print as actual real-world objects using a 3D printer.)

I do these sketches mainly for fun, and to stretch my creative muscles using an Apple Pencil on an iPad with Procreate. If you ever want a framed print of my work please get in touch with me and we’ll work something out! Also, check out the Illustration page to see them all!

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New New Mac

I recently posted about my New Old Mac so it’s fitting to also mention my New New Mac. I mean, technically it’s not mine, it belongs to my employer, but I’m the one using it every day. It’s a 13″ MacBook Pro acquired in December 2019.

There are a few very striking features of this MacBook Pro. First, it is very thin, and very light. It makes my New Old MacBook Pro feel like a boat anchor. It fact, it’s almost too light. How is this even a computer!? Of course the size and weight comes at a price. When I took it out of the box I looked at it and turned it round and round and only saw Thunderbolt 3 ports. No USB, no SD card reader, no HDMI, no Mini DisplayPort… Nothing else.

So in order to use anything (that isn’t wireless) you need a dongle. Yeah, #DongleLife. It’s a little ridiculous, but as they say “everything is wonderful and terrible”. It is nice being able to use your MacBook Pro as a desktop and just unplug one thing to make it portable and go to a meeting. Of course if you need to connect to anything (that isn’t wireless) at the meeting, you’re bringing a dongle with you.

This isn’t even my full dongle setup. I added a USB cable for an Arduino and I’ve also got a USB thumb drive I use all the time. So after you buy a MacBook Pro you can get yourself a VAVA USB C Hub 9-in-1 Adapter with PD Power Delivery, 4K USB C to HDMI, USB 3.0 Ports, 1Gbps Ethernet Port, SD/TF Cards Reader along with an Anker 4-Port USB 3.0 Ultra Slim Data Hub and $75 USD later you’ve probably got the connections you need.

I suppose there are use cases where these things aren’t needed, but I connect to things all the time. Speaking of connecting to things, the other feature of the MacBook Pro is the Touch Bar. It’s a context-sensitive control that changes all the time. It’s, neat… I guess. I used it a bit at first but once I added a 4K display, and a keyboard and mouse to my setup I really don’t see the Touch Bar unless I’m using the computer at a meeting with the built-in keyboard. Speaking of keyboard, while I (mostly) love the keyboard on my old 2012 MacBook Pro, the keyboard on the super-thin 2019 MacBook Pro is a little anemic. The keys don’t have much travel, and as someone who has been typing for 40 years, I like a little travel in my keys. Of course I also realize that keyboard have become thinner and less mechanical over the years and it’s just the way things go… march of progress and all that.

So don’t take this post as a review, it’s really just personal observations. I’m sure someday I’ll get used to all the new stuff, but then again, I’m the sort of person who just purchased a serial to USB converter because I want to connect a pen plotter made in 1983 to a laptop computer made in 2012, so I’m probably an edge case…

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New Old Mac

So I got a new MacBook Pro… sort of. My old 2012 MacBook Pro, which I acquired in 2014, served me well. I used it almost daily, and carried it with me almost daily. Yeah, on average 5 or 6 days a week for about five years I carried this laptop with me, to work, to school, to the makerspace, and plenty of places in-between. Sure, things broke along the way, I had to repair and replace the charger a few times, I swapped out the hard drive for an SSD when the prices on 1TB dropped enough, and I moved the drive to the optical bay after the second drive connector cable failure. I think I also replaced the battery… but besides all that, it was good.

Around September 2019 I started having issues with the keyboard. Keys from T to P on the top row of letters began to work intermittently. I came up with a few workarounds including using a wireless keyboard that fit directly on top of the built-in keyboard, and yes, I did try to clean the key, but after a lot of research determined the keyboard needed replacing. You can get a replacement keyboard for fairly cheap, and it comes with the tools you’ll need to remove the 50 screws after you disassemble nearly the entire computer…

So my plan was to do this, eventually, but I had a few work commitments that required I had a working computer, and I didn’t want to start the process unless I had time to complete it, and I was short on time so… I researched replacing it, and eventually decided to get an Apple MacBook Pro 13.3-inch Laptop, Dual-Core Intel Core i5 Processor 2.5Ghz, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD… which yes, is the same model I had, except for the RAM/SSD specs…

I got the new one, moved over my RAM and SSD, and was up and running nearly seamlessly. I miss the days when you could do this with Apple hardware. I think everyone who remembers those days misses those days. I invested in 12GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD and they worked FINE, so to just throw that away by getting a new computer that could not use them seemed stupid…

And yes, I know new computers are faster, and do more things, like… faster… but it wasn’t worth it to get a new Mac, and have to pay a premium for RAM/SSD which I have, and that work, and damn Apple, you’ve lost your way. Really. Oh, also, I’ve got USB ports, and a Mini DisplayPort, and a built-in SD card reader, and even… FireWire! This machine is fast enough for pretty much everything I do, and it was affordable, at less than one third the price of an entry level MacBook Pro with less RAM and a tiny SSD. (Upgrading to a 1TB SSD in a new Mac would up the prices $600 USD!)

But don’t worry… I’m not avoiding new Macs… in fact I’ll have a follow-up post about a new Mac!

I also discovered that the battery in the new Mac is pretty terrible, and needs replacing, which means I’ll pull the battery out of my old one and swap that as well. It’s like Ship of Theseus over here! Oh, I’m also contemplating just using the old one as a desktop, because without being portable, and using an external keyboard and mouse, it should be a decent machine.

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A 1982 Joystick

byte-shop-joystick

Back in the 1980s my brother bought an Apple ][+ from a local computer store called the Byte Shop in Greenfield, Wisconsin. (And yes, there were other stores that used the same name.) I was lucky enough to be able to use the Apple ][+, and learn about computers and programming, and it was the start of my journey of understanding and using technology that has been part of my life for the past 40 years.

My brother recently gave me the receipt for the joystick I purchased in 1982. Yes, this is what 12 year old Petey was saving his money for, an analog joystick made by TG Products from Richardson, Texas. (And you knew it was from there because it was printed right on the top of the enclosure.)

The included “documentation” mentioned a method of removing the springs inside that centered the joystick when released, and I used the “hack” to utilize the joystick as a drawing device (which was quite difficult with the springs in place, and still difficult with the springs removed.)

I remember a lot about this joystick and using it with the Apple ][+ at the time. Computers were so scarce back then, and I don’t think anyone else I knew at school had one at home. I did my best to treat the computer with care, and even to this day, I’m sometimes shocked at the way people treat their technology, as if it’s disposable… but maybe that’s just how it is today, with computing devices being so ubiquitous and easily replaceable.

TG Products Joystick

Above is a great photo of the joystick that I borrowed from the Computer History Museum’s web site. Those buttons are still available, and I’m pretty sure I’ve used them for projects. (I may have even bought some from Radio Shack back in the day.) Also, check out that awesome ribbon cable! (Hey, it was an analog device.)

I did a bit of searching for this old joystick and came across a few links. Here one from a Vintage Apple site. It’s a bit weird because it’s extra long… what’s up with that? Well, see this tweet for some interesting info on that.

I found a few other TG Products online as well. There’s also a TG joystick at The Strong (which I wish I had known when I was there two years ago.)

And this one is a little weird… It’s a Super Game Stick for Apple II I found on Amazon which is obviously a clone.

The other strange thing for me is that back in 1982 I bought a computer controller (a joystick) and in 2019 I now occasionally build computer controllers, sometimes for work, sometimes for fun, and sometimes it’s a joystick.

Well, you know what they say… you can’t ESC your past.