Hiya from El Paso

[NathanAllan]

Hello!
I am from El Paso, TX and have been into older computers as a hobby for about three years now. Money's tight so I don't have that many but I really, really like them. I like to make them do specialized functions, and be creative. I've built a few systems and fixed quite a few. I have a room full of parts and pieces (to my wife's dismay) and love to tinker with them. Totally self-taught, never been to college for them and since I have been looking at the school "market" I doubt I ever will be at least on my dime. Though you never know. I found this place from a link posted on the Obsolete Computer Museum Helpline forum where I normally go for this kind of discussion. Feel free to contact me if you like!

Nathan

[Erik]

Welcome to the VC Forum!

I can empathize completely with wives and computer collecting/tinkering hobbies not mixing well, but my wife has been a trooper and tolerates my eccentricity well.

Please post some of the "specialized functions" that you've made your old machines do.

Enjoy the forums!

Erik

[NathanAllan]

What I should have said is that I push the machines to the limits, not any one specific thing. I had a Compaq LTE 386s/20 that I made into a virtual audio entertainment center (minus tuner card) with the dock. I have had more ideas than projects though, here are some:

USB controlled cassette tape deck
TV remote simulator for my Compaq C120
SmartMedia card as a hard drive on my toshiba laptop
386 AT controlled refrigerator

My main accomplishment yet is to make a 386 laptop work as a ROM programmer, and as a novice I am pretty darned proud of that one. The ideas I think are good ones and I would love to be able to have the time and funds to make tham happen, but alas I gotta work, heh heh.

Thanks for the warm welcome!

Nathan