F.A.Q.

I figured I could get a lot of the questions I get asked out of the way right here. Some of them have become somewhat tiring but I understand they come from a sincere place most of the time.

Data General Update?

As of right now, very little has changed. It’s been a combination of a few things. But I’m starting to work my way towards beginning to think about starting on it. Yes, I really am going to be that vague because I don’t have any kind of solid plan for it at the moment. It was a “shoot first and ask questions later” purchase and I really didn’t think through a plan on a proper restoration process first.

This is my first task of this size, complexity, and rarity. And I want to emphasize each of those things. The larger cabinet weighs almost 500lbs when it’s loaded. Some of the components are too heavy for me to lift on my own. So if I take something out, it has to be for a purpose. I need to call in help, and then it stays there until I’m ready to get help to put it back.

The complexity may be counter intuitive for some people. Newer computers may seem more complex because the parts are smaller and do more things. But just the Nova 4 has about 8sqft of PCB in it, that’s a lot of stuff to look over and make sure everything is in good shape and likely to work. It’s also differently constructed than a normal computer. The service notes I mentioned it came with are full of hand written, hand made modifications to the system to keep it running. It was a machine that was serviced. It isn’t something you would just toss a part and get a replacement on.

And then if I made a mistake that required a replacement, it would both be extremely expensive to get the part and likely take a long time to find it. So I want to avoid causing any damage as much as I possibly can.

Believe me when I say, I really want to work on it and get it going, very badly. But I don’t want to, and for some things can’t even, approach it quickly and piecemeal like most of my projects. Really, I should start out by forming a solid plan of the steps I should take. It’s not the fun way to proceed, but it is the smart way.

Really, Linux?

I use linux on all of my “modern” computers, anything I do actual work on. I prefer to use some version of Ubuntu with KDE as my desktop environment. On some systems that means I have kUbuntu installed, and on others possibly more custom setups like Pop_OS! with KDE on top of it. It depends on different aspects of the system that are related to the hardware and what I do with it.

I switched to using Linux after trying a beta version of Windows 8. I wasn’t a fan of the direction Microsoft was taking the operating system. The additional freedoms of the software are now a feature in itself to me and I couldn’t see myself going back to Windows now other than for things I cannot do on Linux.

I do know the “proper” name is GNU/Linux. I will continue to say “Linux” on video though. But for the most part anyone who doesn’t know that already will either not care, be confused by hearing “GNU”(which is pronounced weirdly), or just join in on pedantic name correcting. Since the first two groups are far more likely to be common, I’m going to take the route with the lowest common denominator.

Repair Requests?

I don’t offer any repair or modding services, sorry. There are so many problems with the idea of that. I don’t want the responsibility of handling or shipping other people’s equipment for one. But repairs take a lot of planning and research to do on the strange variety of things I cover. It’s not possible to be an expert in all of this and it’s definitely not possible to offer any kind of guarantee that I can fix something.

Email

I’m really bad at responding to emails I’m, like, months behind. I am not a socially outward person and I wasn’t really prepared for the amount of communication Youtube would bring to me. I treat email in the “classic” sense and when I do send an email I usually put too much thought into what I say. I do the full “Hello, person. Thank you, Shelby” thing and think more formally about what I say. I’ve tried to be more lackadaisical about how I respond to get more out but it never works. So I’m sorry if you emailed me and I haven’t got back to you, I will try to get to it eventually. Usually if you mention me on Twitter or Discord I’ll get back to you sooner since there is less formality there and lower length text capabilities.

I will say though, I just can’t respond to low effort or incomplete messages. I don’t have the time to spare throughout the day to tease a question or comment out of someone. It’s much better if you just say something outright. But if I don’t really have a good answer or it’s not something I really have a response to I may not respond. I get a lot more communications than I can really handle so I have to prioritize them.