Jul
18
2009
The Machine.
Being a bachelor has its perks. Sure, single income’s a bitch, and I can’t pass off chores on the wife, but them’s the breaks. For my trouble, I get to pursue my batshit crazy tech projects. Today, for example.
The cast:
- Two year old computer, built for video games
- Core 2 Duo E6500
- Geforce 8800 GTS 320mb
- ~1 TB hard disk
- 2 GB ram
- Widescreen Hanns-G LCD Monitor, turned clockwise 90
- Wall-mount fixture
- Wireframe table, 26″ tall
- 25 feet of DVI to HDMI cable
- Glass of decent whiskey
Plenty of other components, but you get the idea. I was formerly using an 8 year old machine, stuffed into a Shuttle XPC 41G, but I found that when using a web browser, MP3 playback would skip. Needless to say, video playback was rancid.
Oh, but what’s the point of all this junk? It’s my armchair console, of course. I loaded the Windows 7 RC onto it this morning, being that I detest Windows XP and Vista is an unstable pile of doo doo berries. It’s for my day to day web browsing, which was handled by my MacBook Pro until the power cable melted. It does my music CD ripping, since the 8 year old computer takes a half hour per disc. It plays the music since it doesn’t skip a beat when running Mozilla products at the same time.
The best part, the original intention, inspiration if you will: it’s the perfect comic book reader. The full size of the widescreen monitor turned on end displays the full page, entirely readable and with no scrolling. Bliss.
Yes, that does mean the screen is attached via a wall mount to the wireframe table. The arrangement is not currently ideal, but I’ll get there. I’ve discovered in the last hour or so that looking to the side is a recipe for neck pain. Tomorrow I may do a little more shifting of hardware.
As a bonus, I can send anything over to the big television over the fireplace. I prefer the Xbox360 for video gaming these days, but there’s still more than a few PC classics that I wouldn’t mind hitting up again, from time to time.