Re: SETI like tass project

[Peter T Mount <peter@retep.org.uk>]

At 15:27 29/01/2002 -0800, Chris Albertson wrote:

>--- Gamble family <dgamble1@bigpond.net.au> wrote:
><SNIP>
> > I have an old PC I could resurrect if CPU speed is not critical,
> > however
> > like Tom I am not particularly keen on learning LINUX from scratch.
> > Would it
> > be possible to distribute an installation CD that would set up the
> > operating
> > system and all the necessary software for the pipeline?
>
>Yes that could be done.  It could boot off the CD and run
>linux on a RAM disk without installation but I like my
>"black box" idea better.

Chris, I agree with you. Two jobs ago, I ended up building several "Black 
Boxes" to act as routers.

In that case they were literally a motherboard, a cheap graphics card (most 
BIOS's won't run without one), 2 network cards and a floppy drive. The 
entire OS was on one floppy. They are still working fine 2 years on.

Also, why not have the disks in removable carriers? That way, any update to 
the software can be done remotely, and also means that the data once on 
disk can be sent easily by snail mail.

Peter

>PCs with no CRTs are dirt cheep to build from surplus parts.
>Not having a CRT, keyboard or any way to interact with a human
>the feature/complexity creep problem is kept at bay as the end
>user sees zero and therefor has an upper limit of zero to learn.