• Tag Archives digital archaeology

  • Digital Archaeology: Dell Latitude D531

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    The Dell Latitude D531 is an AMD based laptop. The Latitude was Dell’s business line of computers. Recently, they’ve changed their naming schemes to be much more generic as if to obfuscate things. The vast majority, even at this time, were Intel based. However, the D531 was released as a budget model.

    Basic stats include:

    • CPU: AMD Turion
    • RAM: 3 GB
    • Video:
    • Screen: 1280×800

    For more complete specs, check out the output from HardInfo.

    AMD based laptops at the time tended to be lower end units. The reason being that AMD processors were slower than their contemporary Intel counterparts and less power efficient. The advantage in this case is that you got a bargain priced machine with the build quality of a typical Latitude. Whereas many AMD based laptops might have crappy keyboards, lower quality displays or flimsy chassis, that was not the case here.

    In addition, despite the AMD options being slower, this wasn’t necessarily noticeable if the machine was being used for basic office tasks, which many Latitude’s probably would be. However, the extra battery life of a Core 2 Duo based machine would be an advantage if you were often using your laptop for extended periods disconnected from an AC outlet.

    There’s not a significant amount of upgrade potential with this laptop. There are faster AMD processors that would work in it but it wouldn’t make a huge difference. The current 3GB of RAM can be upgraded to a maximum of 4GB. Like most older laptops, upgrading to an SSD would probably be one of the best upgrades you could do. The fact that at least 8 GB of RAM is not supported is always disappointing in a 64-bit system.

    Though this laptop can technically run Windows 10, it won’t perform very well especially given the maximum limit of 4 GB of RAM. Windows XP should be lightning fast on this machine and Windows 7 should run reasonably well. Linux will run OK as well. It’s really modern web browsing that suffers the most on older hardware like this. Currently, I’m running Xubuntu on this machine.

    Like all machines I use, this one has BOINC installed and crunches various tasks when it is on. It is still capably of crunching tasks for all of the projects I normally participate in including Einstein@home, Milkyway@home, Asteroids@home, Universe@home, Rosetta@home, and World Community Grid. You can see how it is doing overall at FreeDC.


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  • Digital Archaeology: Floppy Disk #14 – NOV84.DOC

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    A summary for those that haven’t been keeping up with this series:

    I found a number of 5.25″ disks at a thrift store a number of years ago (sometime in the late 1990s to the best of my recollection). I finally got around to acquiring a 5.25″ disk drive and extracting the contents a several years back. Since then, I have been occasionally posting the content here.

    Based on the contents, most or all of these disks were apparently once owned by someone named Connie who used to run the “Close Encounters” Special Interest Group (SIG) on Delphi in the mid 1980s.

    The following description of this SIG was found in a document on one of the disks: “This SIG, known as ‘Close Encounters’, is a forum for the discussion of relationships that develop via computer services like the Source, CompuServe, and Delphi. Our primary emphasis is on the sexual aspects of those relationships.”

    This service was text based and was accessed via a modem and whatever terminal program you had available for your computer to dial in with. Many of these disks have forum messages, e-mails and chat session logs. All of this is pre-internet stuff and I am not aware of any archives in existence today that contain what was on Delphi in the 1980s.

    This post includes the contents of NOV84.DOC. Similar to the last few posts in this series, this appears to be a report that gives details on the usage of the SIG (how many hours each user spent in the SIG, etc.). This is in the from of an e-mail from someone named KELLY who was presumably an employee of Delphi. The e-mail is dated December 6th, 1984.

    There are two SIGs (Special Interest Groups) that have been mentioned repeatedly in these files. One is the “Close Encounters” SIG and the other is the “Friendship Circle” SIG though I’m not entirely sure they were different. “Close Encounters” may have evolved from “Friendship Circle”. In any case “Closed Circle” is mentioned in this report but maybe this is an alias or the name changed again at some point.

    This report includes username, sessions (number of times the user called), prime minutes (this was probably online time during peak hours when a more expensive per minute charge was applied), and offprime minutes probably online time during off peak hours that were either “free” with your monthly subscription, or at least much cheaper).

    This file is dated September 2nd, 1985 and was in a subdirectory titled “SIGUSAGE”.


    =-=
    OCT84.DOC
    =-=


    —

    From:   KELLY           6-DEC-1984 14:54  
To:     CABUYS
Subj:   Usage Report

Usage report, by time, for Closed Circle Sig
============================================
                                      PRIME     OFFPRIME
     USERNAME             SESSIONS    Minutes   Minutes
     --------             --------    -------   --------
     ACE                         3          5         15
     ALESSAN                     5          0        101
     ATLAS                       1          0         32
     AVENUES                     1          0          1
     BAT                         1          0         15
     BGS                         8          0        281
     BIALI1                      3         78         30
     BIRDMAN                     2          0         32
     BITSLICE                    3          0         59
     BLT                         1          0         15
     BOSE                        1          1          0
     BOSTONROCK                  2         65         28
     BOUCHIE                     1          0          9
     BRIGHT                      1          0          6
     BUSSIGMGR                   2          0         27
     BZ                          2          0         99
     BZIMMERMAN                  1          0          3
     CABUYS                    206         84       5940
     CBS                         1          0         37
     CDSVP                       1          0         14
     CHARQ                       1          0         10
     CJ                          1          0          1
     DARKSTAR                    1          0          9
     DEOGBURN                    1          0          1
     DJR                         4          0         27
     DMANDELL                    1          1          0
     DOUGLEVY                    2          0         27
     DPEYTON                     2          0         20
     DRJAZZ                      1          0          1
     ELT                         1          0          5
     FRIED                       4          0         24
     GCCS                        1          0         75
     GES                         1          0          4
     GORE                        1          0         13
     GRENDEL                     1          0          8
     HAL9000                    12          0        105
     HANSOLO                    45         10       1055
     HICK                        2          0         26
     HYPR0N                      1          0          2
     INTER                       1          0         14
     IVY                         2          0        245
     JCG                         1          0         11
     JESMITH                     1          0          2
     JMEL                       50        110        655
     JOHNMYSELF                 37          0        551
     JOHNP                       2          0         26
     JOSEPH                      1          0          7
     JS                          4          0         33
     KB5Y                        1          0         46
     KBS                         1          0         11
     KINGST                      1          0         28
     KJF                         1          0         12
     LADYLOVE                    5          4          8
     MARTI                      26         42        553
     MAVEN                       2          0         73
     MDPARKER                    1          0          3
     MEC                         5          8         34
     MICROMD                     1          0          7
     MIKE                        5          0         55
     MORGAN                      1          0          4
     NAGMAN                      1          0         23
     NFSA                        3         31          0
     NINJA                       1          0         13
     NYCSHRINK                   1          0         25
     PENTEX                      1          6          0
     PEPPERS                    13          2         83
     PRINCESS                   57         14       1241
     PRINCESSLEIA                1          0          1
     QUICKRODNEY                13         10        138
     RABBI                       1          0         32
     RDM                         3          0         40
     RM                          2          0          9
     RODM                        6          0        205
     ROSSKING                    1          0          3
     SGRANT                      1          0         29
     SMILE                      23          0        406
     SNOWFIRE                    2          0         22
     SPARKY                      1          0          8
     SUMMER                      1          0         14
     SUZIE                       1          0         34
     THESTRANGER               118        152       2546
     THORKILDSEN                 1          0          4
     TREBOR                      1          6          0
     TREK                        2          0         93
     TROPICAL                    5          0         50
     WULFE                       1          0         26
     WZ                          1          0          5
     YOSHI                      20         10        442
------------------------------------------------------------
Totals in Minutes              760        639      16027
                                         10.65    267.12 hours

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  • Digital Archaeology: Dell Latitude D430

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    The Dell Latitude D430 is meant to be an ultraportable. Even by today’s standards, it is still pretty small for a laptop. In terms of depth and width, you can’t really get much smaller and still have a full size keyboard and trackpad. I suppose that modern ultraportables have gotten a bit thinner but not that much.

    There are always tradeoffs for size though. Being this small means that there isn’t a lot of space for useful things like larger batteries, robust cooling, or extra ports. Or less useful (these days) options like optical drives. And of course there’s the smaller, lower resolution screen. A discrete GPU is really out of the question and to make up for the smaller battery and reduced cooling capabilities, a slower ultra low voltage (ULV) processor is used.

    Hardware in this laptop includes:

    • CPU: Core 2 Duo U7600 @ 1.2 GHz
    • RAM: 2 GB DDR 1066
    • Video: Intel Mobile 945GM/GS Express
    • Screen: 12-inch @ 1280×800

    For more complete hardware specs, check out the output from HardInifo.

    One other sacrifice made for the small size is with the hard drive. It has a 1.8″ drive instead of the more common 2.5″ size in most laptops. It also only runs at 4200 RPM. It is fairly low capacity (60 GB) and is going to be slower than the average hard drive.

    I guess something this size could be a possible alternative to a tablet if you really needed something that would fairly easily slide into something like a purse. Otherwise, I’m not sure why you would make so many sacrifices to get something this small. I mean if you are carrying a backpack or laptop bag anyway you might as well get something a little bigger with a lot more power probably for the same price, even at the time.

    Despite being a low voltage processor, the one in my D430 runs pretty hot when under full load, occasionally even throttling. This is a pretty old laptop so its possibly I just need to take it apart clean out the dust and reapply thermal paste. It seems pretty clean though so I’m not sure that’s the issue. It could just be that the small size and design makes for poor cooling. The heatsink and fan are small by necessity.

    This laptop would have originally shipped with Windows XP though I am currently running Xubuntu on it. In addition to the Windows XP sticker on the palm rest area in also has a “Core Duo inside” sticker. Seems a little odd as the CPU is a Core 2 Duo. Normally, the sticker would reflect that.

    It’s not going to break any records, but like all the machines I run, this one is running BOINC and crunching tasks for various projects including Einstein@home, Milkyway@home, Asteroids@home, Rosetta@home and Universe@home. Universe@home hasn’t had any tasks lately but this machine should be able to crunch them. It also hasn’t received and Rosetta tasks but the 2GB of RAM may not be enough for that project. You can see how it is doing overall at FreeDC.


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