Short review of $550 power cord plus a new SWTPC 6800

[Roger Merchberger]

Rumor has it that Brent Hilpert may have mentioned these words:
>Fred Cisin wrote:
> >
> > Exam question:  what is actually measured by those numeric displays?
>
>The sucker index.

Yup. The numeric ones that I'd seen were just a bank of jumpers [shunts] 
individually programming each segment of the 7-segment LEDs.

This is (roughly) ontopic, as this was around 10 years ago when I did this 
- I was working as PC Technician (translation for Tony: boardswapper ;-) 
for the local injun tribe here and one of my cow-orkers[1] needed a new 
hard drive installed in her machine, a 80486SX 25, complete with the LED 
number

As the Pentium 90's were just coming out at the time, she asked if she 
could get a "speed upgrade" as well - I told her that I'd talk to the boss 
and see[2].

I installed the new hard drive and also switched the jumpers/shunts around 
for the display to show '90' when the turbo button was on or off, and 
removed the turbo jumper from the motherboard (It didn't seem to do 
anything anyway) and once she got her computer back, she was *amazed* at 
how much faster her computer had become!

My boss cornered me later about not approving the (obviously costly - P90 
kit then cost around $1000USD) upgrade she'd been bragging to everyone 
about in the department, and I asked him if I really *had* to requisition 
the 4 or 5 spare jumpers it took for the 'upgrade'... He about fell on the 
floor laughing. :-)

She never caught on when people would snicker at her having the "fastest 
machine in the department"... ;-)

Laterz,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger

[1] She was a 'systems analyst' and made 2x-3x more than me... :-O They 
call them thar peapul "ekspurts." Pffft.

[2] Which was a lie... I didn't bother, as I knew he wouldn't approve it; 
especially for someone who used her computer twice a week to type a couple 
reports.

--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger  --  SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers
  _±±_                          zmerch at 30below.com
(©||®)  If at first you don't succeed, nuclear warhead
  _)(_   disarmament should *not* be your first career choice.