Those Old Computers from the 80s ...

Yersterday I was browsing the web randomly and hit the Old Computers Online Museum website. Then a short time travel begun...

When I was 13, my brother brought home the first computer I'd ever seen. It was a TK-83 with 2 KBytes of RAM, an 16 KBytes ´expansion card´ and a Zilog Z-80 8 bits processor running at 3.25 MHz.

Around 1984, I made a deal with my parents: I´d sweep the backyard for 6 months and then they´d buy me a CP-400 with 64 Kbytes of RAM and a Motorola MC6809E 16 bits ´risc´ processor at 0.89 MHz. It was a huge advance: 16 colors thanks to a Motorola MC 6847 video controller.

About one year later, I changed the CP-400 for the best computer I've ever had, a MSX 1 (Expert XP-800): 64 KBytes of RAM, Zilog Z80A processor @ 3.58 Mhz and a Texas Instruments TMS-9128NL video processor with 16 KBytes of video RAM (!). I just couldn´t believe those astonishing graphics with 256 x 192 pixels of resolution and 16 colors. And there was also a General Instruments AY-3-8910 programmable sound generator with 3 channels and 8 octaves!!! Its sound quality was just amazing.

Nowadays, any mobile phone has much more processing power than any computers from the 80s. For those who were born sorrunded by computers, it´s not easy to imagine how those old machines could possibly catch a tenager's attention. The fact is that they´d cought mine, for the good and the bad ...

What was your first computer ?

Bacula Storage Daemon 5.0.3 for Windows

I've been a happy Bacula user since version 2.2.26, and then decided to upgrade it to version 5.0.3. Unfortunately, according to Bacula 5.0.0 manual, "The server daemons (Director and Storage daemon) are no longer included in the Windows installer. If you want the Windows servers, you will either need to build them yourself (note they have not been ported to 64 bits), or you can contact Bacula Systems about this.". Well, I didn't feel confortable to contact Bacula Systems, so I downloaded the source code, enabled the Storage Daemon and cross-compiled Bacula 5.0.3 for win32. The Storage Daemon is working fine for me using a network attached storage. If you want to get a copy of this enhanced Bacula 5.0.3 for win32, click here.

http://www.canani.net.br

Version 0.1 of Ricardo Canani's Web Log is online.