{"id":9924,"date":"2009-03-23T04:52:00","date_gmt":"2009-03-22T17:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/2009\/03\/23\/minimalist-computing-from-new-zealand\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T03:33:55","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T17:33:55","slug":"minimalist-computing-from-new-zealand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/2009\/03\/23\/minimalist-computing-from-new-zealand\/","title":{"rendered":"Minimalist Computing from New Zealand"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>My Toshiba Satellite Pro 400CS went toes up in 2006 after many years of service. It died with a horrible grinding sound from the hard disc. I tried to bring it back to life, and bought a replacement HD, but I never could get it going and the project got sidetracked… until an e-mail from Kevin, ZL3KE, (see below) got me back in the old computer repair business.<\/p>\n

With long-distance help from Kevin I
1) Got a boot-able DOS disc, which got me to an A:
2) Partitioned and formatted my HD which got me a C:
3) Loaded DOS drivers for my CD ROM drive which got me a D:
4) Used the CD-ROM drive to load Windows 3.1 which really brought this thing back to life.<\/p>\n

I usually dislike working on computers, but with Kevin’s help and encouragement, this project was fun. And I can now use some old programs that I haven’t been able to use since the advent of Windows 95, like my favorite astronomy program “Distant Suns.” I’m also running ON7YD’s excellent QRSS transmit program.<\/p>\n

I always liked the audio features of this computer. With a bit of driver downloading, I now have sound. There are some nice audio clip files in this (birds chirping, machine guns, another gong!)
that may find their way into the podcast.<\/p>\n

Any thoughts on what else I can do with this machine? Any other Windows 3.1 applications?<\/p>\n

Here’s the message from Kevin that re-started all this:<\/p>\n

\n

Minimalist\/QRP computing<\/h1>\n
Friday, March 6, 2009 1:09 PM<\/nobr><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\n
\n
From: <\/div>\n
\n
“Kevin Ravenhill”
<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/a>To: soldersmoke<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Hi again Bill,<\/span><\/p>\n

I was amused to hear your comments about QRSS and the ever-so-slight<\/span>
discrepancy between the number of transistors needed for Rx and Tx…<\/span><\/p>\n

Maybe it’s time to introduce the concept of the “QRP Computer” – using<\/span>
older\/slower hardware generally regarded as obsolete, but otherwise<\/span>
perfectly serviceable and having a much smaller carbon footprint than the<\/span>
latest 2.5GHz+ machines! This is something which I’ve been working towards<\/span>
for some time.<\/span><\/p>\n

I’m typing this on an old 233MHz Pentium laptop (Toshiba Satellite Pro<\/span>
480CDT), with 64MB of RAM, a 3.8GB hard disk and an 800×600 screen,<\/span>
running a cut-down version of Win98SE with all web integration (IE etc.)<\/span>
stripped out. This will happily run pretty much all the <\/span>radio software<\/span> I<\/span>
need without complaint (such as MMTTY for RTTY, MMSSTV for SSTV, Digipan<\/span>
for PSK31, <\/span>Argo<\/span>, Spectran, IZ8BLY <\/span>Hellschreiber<\/span>, WSJT v4, etc).<\/span>
Just about the only thing lacking is WSPR, which I would very much like to<\/span>
run but I think it probably needs more resources than this machine has<\/span>
(<\/span>Joe Taylor<\/span>, are you listening? ;-).<\/span><\/p>\n

The rationale was\/is to find the simplest, smallest, most bloat-free<\/span>
programs to accomplish what is needed (minimalist computing, in other<\/span>
words) – and it must all be freeware or similar – bells & whistles are<\/span>
frowned upon, and definitely no commercial stuff allowed! I wouldn’t say<\/span>
I’m 100% there yet, but the journey so far has been interesting and<\/span>
rewarding.<\/span><\/p>\n

Although this was originally intended to be a dedicated machine for radio,<\/span>
I now find myself increasingly using it for things like web-browsing and<\/span>
email as I find the whole “no bells & whistles” experience quite<\/span>
refreshing (I use Popcorn email and a minimalist, no-javascript browser<\/span>
called “OffByOne” – my browsing needs tend to be fairly basic and I tend<\/span>
to regard any website which uses Java\/Flash etc. as not worth the effort).<\/span><\/p>\n

I think Mike AA1TJ’s quote on his “Reggie” page is quite apt here: “In<\/span>
anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there is no<\/span>
longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take<\/span>
away….”<\/span><\/p>\n

72\/3, Kevin<\/span>
ZL3KE<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My Toshiba Satellite Pro 400CS went toes up in 2006 after many years of service. It died with a horrible grinding sound from the hard disc. I tried to bring it back to life, and bought a replacement HD, but I never could get it going and the project got sidetracked… until an e-mail from … Continue reading “Minimalist Computing from New Zealand”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9925,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[260,127],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-minimalist-computing","category-new-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9924"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9926,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9924\/revisions\/9926"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}