Saturday, July 14, 2007

Demise of an endurance hero. (Not really)

Today I found that one of the two Macintosh LC 475's that sits in the closet serving as web- and mailservers had crashed. But when I restarted it I was welcomed with this:

"The horror, the horror" as Marlon Brando muttered in Coppola's "Apocalypse now".

So, what to do? Go up in the attic and get my third LC 475, move the hard disk from the dead mac to that one, plug in the cables and start it, of course! :) Up and running again in just a few minutes, with no need to use a screwdriver since both the case and the disk just snaps in place. After a little troubleshooting the problem with the replaced computer was isolated to the memory. So, open case, replace memory, close case, start it up: It lives!


"The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated!"
- Mark Twain

I am so impressed by these macs, especially when you keep in mind that they are 14 years old and have been running non-stop the last 6 years. In addition, LC stands for Low Cost, being the first macs to be sold for the low price (at that time, 1993) of less than a thousand dollars. And the software is stable too, I can't even remember when I last restarted the mailserver, it is a couple of years ago now. The webserver software is a beta though, so it has to be restarted once or twice a year...

The headline of this post should perhaps have been "Good stuff that works, part II" instead.

/O.K.
(Listening to while posting: Dutch commentary of the tour the France)


Ps. I'm labeling this post with "cardboard box" since I was both lucky and the form factor of these macs often is referred to as "pizza box". :)

13 comments:

O.K. said...

When looking at the logs I realize it died on friday the 13th...

LS said...

I'll just say one thing:
MACS FOREVER!
My first laptop (PC) caught on fire. Suddenly smoke came out from the side of the screen. I had everything backed up though.

NOw I now where all old Mac computers end up - in O.K.'s attic!

O.K. said...

Macs forever? I'd never expected _you_ to say that.

"Now I know where all old Mac computers end up - in O.K.'s attic!"

Hey, there's only three up there. The other 12 macs of the household are down here...
I probably just condemned myself to eternal geek-doom by this confession. ;)

LS said...

Only 12? What about the basement? Did you count those? "Eternal geek-doom", haha! By the way, do you think there is a difference between a geek and a nerd? And what is the Swedish word for a geek these days?

O.K. said...

Fortunately there is no basement to store old macs in. ;)

According to Merriam-Webster:
Nerd: an unstylish, unattractive, or socially inept person; especially : one slavishly devoted to intellectual or academic pursuits [computer nerds].
Geek: an enthusiast or expert especially in a technological field or activity [computer geek].
Close, but don't call the self-proclaimed geek a nerd, he/she/it might then start acting like a geek in according to this definition: "a carnival performer often billed as a wild man whose act usually includes biting the head off a live chicken or snake".

Geek is translated into "nörd" (nerd), but I think people usually really mean geek, not nerd when they say that.
Are you a geek or a nerd? Are you into "biting animal heads off" or "academic pursuits"? ;)

"Var och en är idiot på sitt sätt"

O.K. said...

So what do you think of the fact that it died on friday the 13th? What are the chances for that? Now there is a conspiracy for you... ;)

LS said...

Friday the 13th is just a natural day to die on :) I don't believe in the conspiracy.

I think I am definitely a plant-geek, not a plant-nerd! ;) But geeks usually have lots of gadgets and I don't.

O.K. said...

"Friday the 13th is just a natural day to die on"

Only if you are camping by a lake...
(Friday the 13th)

LS said...

I just stay away from those kinds of horror movies, they scare me too much. Show me some scientific evidence instead that there is something special about Friday the 13th. Or maybe there isn't any?

O.K. said...

Even the origin of the idea that friday the 13th brings bad luck seems to be unclear.

LS said...

Well, well,
there is a conspiracy, kind of:

"Friday and 13 were both sacred to the Norse goddess Freyja, so Friday 13th was especially sacred. Christians who wished to suppress her worship said the day was unlucky."
from Wikipedia

Friday the 13th is really a GOOD day, and you can hear that on the name too : FREE-DAY/ Fridag

O.K. said...

Of course it is a conspiracy, one of many. You don't belive Jesus just happened to be born on the day when the winter solstice was celebrated, do you. Jul/Yule (wheel) refers to the sunwheel, being at its low point.
I think the only pagan holiday that hasn't been replaced by a christian counterpart is midsummer, even though they tried. Never heard of anyone celebrating John the baptist on that day.

It is interesting how the old traditions of the holidays lives on even though the reasons are forgotten.

O.K. said...

To make the last comment a little more on topic, I will just mention that the partitions on one of my macs hard disk partitions are named Odin, Tor, and Frej. Maybe the LC475 gave in because of me failing to worship Freja properly? :)