Critical Review

[yogi]

Mildly Happy Meal

LionChoice.jpg (65.48 KiB) Viewed 774 times

As promised, I will now present you with my critical review of my DoorDash experience.

My order from Lion's Choice consisted of the following items
1 - Regular Roast Beef Sandwich
1 - Bag of house chips
1 - Side of cheddar cheese sauce
1 - Regular drink, sweet tea + regular tea mix
1 - Frozen Custard, vanilla

The sandwich, chips, and cheese were packed into a single bag, the custard in a bag of its own, and the drink stood alone by itself, all placed on my front porch by a fellow named Joseph within the appointed time slot. He used what looked like his own car to drop off the delivery which I suppose is standard for the DoorDash system of delivery. Joe took a picture and texted me with proof that the order was delivered, reminiscent of what Amazon Prime does.

Immediately after fetching the delivery from the front porch I opened it up and laid it out on the table, per the picture above. My first thoughts were that the drink was too large and the sandwich too small. It was only slightly bigger than a regular McDonalds burger which is about half the size of what a burger should be. As you can see in the photo there was no overflowing abundance of beef as was the case in the picture on their website. They did offer a larger version but I didn't order it because the regular one looked more than adequate. I suppose I should have known better.

Lion's Choice is about a 13 minute drive from my front porch, and the burger was still slightly warm upon arrival. Hot would have been better, but apparently Joseph didn't use thermal insulated containers to transport the order. The portion of shaved beef was adequate but did not come to or go beyond the edge of the bun as I expected. The bun was soft and mushy as is the case with most fast food fare. My first bite was unimpressive, which is not to say it was disappointing. It just wasn't the glorious tasting beef sandwich I was hoping for. The second bite didn't go as smoothly due to the stringiness of the meat. I could not bite through it, but it was easy enough to pull apart. By this time I noted there wasn't much taste. I suppose that could be my taste buds, but more likely it was simply the beef. It was too simple in fact. By the time I was nearly half way through the sandwich it occurred to me that I could dip it into the cheese sauce, which I did. That improved the taste of the sandwich dramatically. That second half also is where all the salt happened to be. I didn't taste any on the first half but it was definitely applied to the last half. I thought it could be the cheese that was salty, but that did not show when I sampled the cheese by itself.

I love to make my own chips, and I buy Billy Goat homemade chips from Dierbergs all the time. So when Lion's Choice offered house made chips as an option to fries, I took them up on it. I was not disappointed at all. They were wonderful tasting potato chips. I got the cheese for the chips and that did enhance the eating experience. But the cheese served a better purpose when I dipped the sandwich into it.

What can I say about sweet tea that you do not know already? I rarely drink the stuff so that I don't have much to compare it with. Diluting it half with sweet and regular tea suited my tastes very well. The rest of the choices for drinks were all sodas which I do not favor, or plain water. I'm glad I got the tea.

Frozen custard is not like ice cream which is why I ordered it. The only place I know around here that offers it besides the Lion place is Culver's, and Culver's is not a member of the DoorDash syndicate. That's about a pint of frozen custard and I must say it arrived in perfect condition. It was very spoonable, meaning it was not frozen rock hard or melting from the 90+ degrees weather. The taste was totally awesome and it is the custard that made this whole adventure worthwhile. I only ate half so that I will have some for a future celebration.

When I finished eating I was satisfied, but not full. Most of the satisfaction came from the dessert in fact. If there is a next time I will be sure to order the super giant sized sandwich, which probably is more like what a regular sandwich should be. I'll have to say that I was expecting more given all the good reviews I have read in these forums, but I can't say I was disappointed. I would recommend Lion's Choice to anybody who likes these kind of sandwiches. On a scale of 1 - 5 I would give them 3.75 stars.

[Kellemora]

Hmm, they must have cut down their sizes. Their smallest one was always more than enough for me, but I always had it with BBQ sauce on it, which I put on from the packet of BBQ sauce they sent.
Sounds like they have the same problem now as other fast food places. They don't care how they schlock it together.
It is their seasoning salt that helps make the sandwich, and many folks order with double seasoning, I don't because for me that is way too much salt.
Sad thing yours was tough. I've never had a tough one in all the times I've eaten there.
Unless of course I had them nuke it if they served it too raw for my tastes, then it is tough as leather.

I wish you had a better experience with them. Each time I was in St. Louis, that is all I would eat, because I know we can't get anything like it down here, not even close.

[yogi]

My experience with Lion's Choice was not terrible, but it was not the high quality I expected. Then, too, you should know that I can be quite fussy especially when I'm preparing for a critical review. LOL

The menu might have been customized for use by DoorDash, but there were a few kinds of beef sandwiches offered. The one I got was the minimal plain version but they also had a larger version which might be what you have been ordering in the past. There was an option for sauce and the "original" bun, but I didn't go that route because I wanted to know what their standard fare was. Thus, it's possible they still offer the size sandwich you like. I just had no familiarity with it.

The stringy meat was a minor thing. Unfortunately it was part of the sandwich meat and needed to be mentioned as part of the critique. It should be emphasized that the string or two I found was not a show stopper. I have in fact run into that situation with several beef sandwiches in my past, but those all had much thicker sliced beef and were not shredded thin as was the Lion's Choice.

I don't know what to say about the salt. It certainly was not evenly distributed, and it did in fact add to the flavor. My hopes were that the beef would not need a salty enhancement. To me tasteless beef is a detractor from a place that is supposed to specialize in beef sandwiches. Should I order from them again I will try the sauced up version of the sandwich. However, I must say that the melted cheese sauce could be a popular item if they offered it as a standard sandwich item. I can see why they don't because the cheese in my case had more flavor than the beef.

If you ever make it back to this area again, I will be more than happy to accompany you on a trip the the Lion's Choice down the road a piece. My review of their product might not have been stellar, but I would not mind doing it again, especially if a knowledgeable friend came along with me.

[Kellemora]

I was really surprised when you said you hit some stringy meat.
Lion's Choice shaves their meat across the grain, so it almost melts in your mouth. But can by super dry without the cheese sauce or BBQ sauce poured on it. After they put it on the bun, it is placed on a steam jet panel and steam shot through it. Then it gets wrapped in the wrapper.
Arby's is who cuts theirs in thin slices, and as I said, back home, they had to use processed beef, where down here they use a fairly decent, but still semi-processed roast beef, so it is better than Arby's back home.

On another note: Our Newest Computer, the one I bought for Debi, but have up here since she didn't like it.
Well, It DIED this morning. It comes on and starts to boot up, sometimes makes it almost to the log-in screen, then shuts itself off. But most of the times I tried to get it going again, it would start, beep, show the boot run starting then shut off.
I've turned it all the way off and will leave it that way for a day to see if the reason it is shutting off so fast is it is overheated.
I have a few computers here I need to both clean out the dust on the CPU heat sink, and replace the CMOS battery in. But I can't do much for those that the video section has burned out on.
This means the ONLY computer still working right now is the Silver Yogi and I have no other backup that works at all.
Bummer Dude! I hope the Silver Yogi keeps on humming like a Swiss watch!

I wish I was able to travel. I would love to head back to St. Louis for a day. But my health is a lot further downhill than I let on it to be. I now have to use O2 even sitting still at my desk here, not constant, but at least every hour or so. If I get up and walk over to my other desk and back, I drop like a rock to under 90 which is not good at all.
But I keep smiling and pushing on!

[yogi]

I've not been to traditional fast food restaurants since I left Chicago, and I seldom patronized them up there. Oh, wait, we did go to a Five Guys that was brand new just a few months ago. In any case, I'd not even consider the standard junk food places if it were not for two recent developments. One is your high marks for Lion's Choice. I love roast beef sandwiches and your words were encouraging. Then there is the DoorDash gift card I received for Fathers Day. Plus wife was out of town and, well, Lion's Choice was not a terrible choice given the all the other places DoorDash lists. The classic beef sandwich was made at Russels back in my teenage days. They were located next to a mini golf course and a go cart track so that I spent more than a few nights in that area. They too were well known for the sauce they put on their sandwich. It probably would taste terrible without it, but with the sauce the lines were always long no matter what time of the day. So, when I do try out somebody's beef sandwich, I think of Russels. Nobody has come close yet.

It's not easy to troubleshoot computer problems at the distance we are apart, but that won't stop me for offering a comment or two.

The first impression I got when reading your description was that the power supply is losing power. But if that were the case you probably would not be able to see anything on the monitor to tell you it was trying to boot. Overheating does strange things but typically the heat doesn't build up enough until the processor or video card has been running a while. That's the case even with a cabinet full of dust bunnies. Then, too, I suppose some silicon could have been damaged from previous sessions of over heating. There is thermal protection in most computers and they will shut down at unexpected times when that circuitry is activated. Thus it is possible heat damage is the cause.

Going out on a limb I can also suggest that malware would do what you describe. Instead of booting into the operating system you could try to enter EFI or BIOS or whatever boot firmware you have on that machine. If you can get into that stage, then the operating system would be suspect. If it all shuts down before you can get into the BIOS, that would not be a good sign. If you can successfully get into BIOS, try booting into an operating system you have installed on a USB stick or some other memory device.

I know we talked about passing on this ASUS tower to you, and I still would do it if circumstances were a little different. I have my heart set on building a new computer but at the moment my resources are insufficient for me to start that project. My original plan was to have it all done by now, but it might not take place now until next year. Hopefully you will be able to revive that old machine.

[Kellemora]

I have another super old computer that also died, but I could get into the bios on it. Ran the complete 45 minutes of system checking, memory, drives, everything else it does, even the monitor.
I got it because it would not boot into Windows XP anymore. I installed Linux Mint 18 on it back when I got it and it would work, but with only 1 gig of memory, not for much. I did up it to 2 gigs, and got it running, but not time to figure out why no LAN is working on it.
When you try to start Windows XP you get the blue screen of death, saying there is a serious fault in the system. Which is why I ran the entire diagnostic program, and it came out with flying colors. I doubt it has a virus or malware since it has never been connected to the internet. But then I don't remember long enough back, 5 years ago when I installed Linux Mint on it, if it was from only a DVD which is likely, and probably why I didn't install Debian, which uses a Net Install.

The computer that DIED was the NEW ONE I just bought last year, or the year before for Debi with Win10 on it. She hated Win10 and how slow the computer was. I brought it up here and installed Debian and Linux Mint on it, and usually had it running with Linux Mint 19.3 up, which gets all new Kernel updates as they are issued. Too many updates in fact, hi hi.

Sorta sad, 8 computers here, 9 actually, and something seriously wrong with each one.
The two computers we have that are matching computers, one for me and one for Debi, bought at the same time, on hers the Video stopped working, so here it sits in my office taking up space, and mine like it had the Power Supply go south. I guess I could take the power supply out of hers, since they are identical computers, maybe even steal the RAM from it too. If I had time and enough energy to do that.
The old ATX size Dell that I've used for so long for side jobs, flat out died. I really do think just replacing the on-board battery might fix it. But it used to fire up and I could set the clock by hand, or let the Internet reset it from the time server. But then now, it starts to boot up, then stops and shuts off, just like my newest computer, which I can't even get into the bios on it now. Maybe it remembers the battery is dead and won't start until I replace the battery. Who knows. I'm no computer tech, hi hi.

I can buy used machines from my computer guy for 200 to 300 bucks, with Windows 7 or 8 on them, and load Debian on them.
Which is something I may just have to do, so I do have a backup here I could use on-line for the things I do on-line, but I know they would be a whole lot slower than the Silver Yogi, even without the GFX card in it, it is lightning fast.

Seems everybody these days uses Laptops, and I can't stand Laptops at all.
It would be nice if I could afford to have a new computer built for me. But now with no money and everything going up exponentially, it is even hard to pay our now higher utility bills, much less buy medicines we need.
Oh well, that's the way the cookie crumbles I suppose, hi hi.

[yogi]

New computers should last a minimum of three years trouble free. There are things you can do to stress them and cause premature failures, but in general three years is not an unreasonable life expectancy for a computer. It seems unlikely that you have a software issue since that computer has never seen a network where it could pick up something like that. That leaves only the hardware and generally silicon is very reliable. The exception would be heat damage. A brand new computer only a few days old can die from heat exhaustion if it's not being cooled properly. A combination of internal dust blockage and external restriction of air flow might be enough to damage memory and or certain other sensitive IC's.

Regarding the CMOS battery, you make a good point. Those too are made to last a long time, but they have been known to die early in their life. A lot of laptops and motherboards have a reset button which disconnects the battery and discharges the system. This forces the BIOS firmware to reinitialize so that anything corrupt in that memory can be fixed. Resetting the BIOS, however, will not fix damaged silicon or defective capacitors in the power supply. I've looked for that reset switch several times and only about half the computers I've taken apart actually have such a thing. There may be two pins with a jumper instead. Or, I think it was the Toshiba I had that didn't have any visible BIOS reset. It had to be done in software somehow.

I feel your pain and know I would be totally lost if I didn't have the laptop as a backup. It's main purpose is for portability on the road and to do beta testing, but this ASUS computer is good enough to replace the existing tower desktop system. It's a gaming computer and some of the software they made specifically for gaming doesn't work. Asus obviously has not figured out how Windows 11 works just yet. This is also the computer that has no speaker audio output on any Linux operating system I boot into. The headphones work fine, and all the test programs in the OS claim the audio is working. It probably is except for that last stage that connects the speakers to whatever amplifiers are ahead of it. And, of course, ASUS gets around this faulty design by stating they don't support Linux operating systems. If it were not for that single flaw, I have been tempted to swap the functions between the desktop and the laptop. The screen on the laptop is only a couple inches shorter than the NEC monitor I use, and the built in keyboard can easily be bypassed with an external one. But, if I make the laptop my go-to system, then it must be able to multi-boot (which I'm sure it can) and play nice with all Linux distros (which I'm sure it cannot).

Well, my wife was in Illinois over the weekend visiting the daughters and attending a birthday party for her sister-in-law. The party never happened because SIL tested positive for COVID the day before the party. So the kids and wife went over there and left the gifts at the garage door. I guess they did manage to talk to each other across the distance of the garage but no party was to be had. There is a lot of food in somebody's house that is standing around waiting to be eaten. LOL And, while wife was there she bought 4 lottery tickets. I guess the name of the lottery is the same but the cash payout from an Illinois ticket cannot be given in Missouri. The drawing is tomorrow, Tuesday, and like the Missouri tickets I don't expect much. But, if we do win big time we will make the trip to Illinois and I will be buying new computers, one of which may find it's way over to Knoxville. But, don't hold your breath. You need to keep that O2 level up.

[Kellemora]

I had old Windows 95 and 98 computers I brought with me when I moved down here 20 years ago.
They would still boot up and run. But slow as molasses by today's standards. The reason they still ran is because once I got them set-up and running the way I wanted them too at the time, I never changed them after that.
I still have one of the CGA monitors sitting out in the garage, but have thrown away the computers about 3 years ago after I took the IDE drives out to use for other things.
The first computer I had built-up for me down here, was still working also until last year when the power supply went out. I had a few power supplies here, but none were exactly like the one in there, so there it sits.

I got the old XP machine small form factor jobbie, up and running, but no Internet. The card tests OK, but just doesn't appear on my LAN, won't even light up the light on my Switch. So I assume it is probably dead. I haven't had time to play around with it much. It is old, one of the first that came out with XP, and a store bought Dell model. My other ATX size Dell was working until the battery went dead, now it won't boot up at all. Both of those machines only had 1 gig of memory in them. Maybe the ATX size Dell has 2 gigs, I don't remember anymore.

I didn't mention this before, but on the way back from the doctors visit, I swung into a pawn shop to see if they had a computer for sale. At one time they used to always have a whole shelf of them, some quite nice too, but priced higher than I wanted to spend. In fact, if I remember right, I got the ATX size Dell from them for only 200 bucks, and at the time I bought it, 2-gigs was a lot, since most computers of that era only had 1/2 gig up to a gig. I bought it because the it was a 10/100 LAN port and I needed the 100 side, hi hi. It worked well enough I've been using it ever since, until a few weeks ago.

It's all the newer computers that seem to not live very long. Sad.

I'll cross my fingers, eyes, and toes, and hope you win the Lottery. But I won't hold my breath even if I had any breath to hold, hi hi.

[yogi]

A couple days ago I read a short article from NASA regarding some mission to planet mars that has been going on for about 19 years now. They decided it's time to update the software on that probe ... to Windows 98. That means for the last two decades they have been using XP. I had to laugh at first, but then I was a bit awe struck. Why are they running WINDOWS? I would have expected a homebrew operating system or even an early version of Linux. Well, it's not for me to reason why. I guess if Windows is good enough for NASA, it should be good enough for me.

I had the Silver Yogi built by a computer shop that we used to deal with at Motorola. Apparently they did custom things that you can't find on store bought computers and some of the engineers liked the quality of their work. I dealt with those people for several years, which was not easy to do. It seems as if they moved to different locations still within the same suburb about every two years. They never sent out notices of the move. The only way I found their new locations was to visit the old store and hope they had a sign on the door saying where they moved to. The last move did not have any sign and I had to do a Google search to find them. Since they built the Silver Yogi I wanted them to build another one for the Windows 8 going on 10 era on the horizon. The owner, as it happens, had a heart attack in between my visits and he only built new systems for special people, like me, an old time customer. However, at the time he could not build one I could afford. He said he had a warehouse full of old computers and he would look through his inventory to see if he had something close to what I wanted for a reasonable price. I waited on him for nearly two months but never got the call. So ... I built my own. The moral of this story is that those fix-it shops take in and save more stuff than you. Hard to believe, but I know they do. It's possible and even likely your favorite builder has something stashed away in a corner that you could afford and would be usable for your purposes.

You did the right thing with all those old computers, i.e., you got them working and used them until they literally died of exhaustion. Most people don't do that. They just go buy a new machine when the whim strikes them. You certainly get your money's worth with computers, and like NASA you don't have to be using the latest and greatest software/hardware to be productive. I have been trying to keep my computers going for ten years, and so far it has worked out. Unfortunately at the rate technology is changing ten years might be too long.

[Kellemora]

Wait a minute here Yogi. It was NOT running Windows 98.
"The ESA had to replace the probe’s ancient software, which was originally developed in a Windows 98 developer environment."

"This post originally stated that the Mars Express probe ran Windows 98. The original developer environment for the probe software was built around Windows 98, but the probe itself is not x86-based and does not run any variant of Windows."

What software does the Mars rover use?
Past Mars rovers have used proprietary OSes, largely from the software company Wind River Systems. The same is true for the Perseverance rover itself; the machine has been installed (Opens in a new window) with Wind River's VxWorks, which was used on past Mars missions.

There have been nine successful US Mars landings: Viking 1 and Viking 2 (both 1976), Pathfinder (1997), Spirit and Opportunity (both 2004), Phoenix (2008), Curiosity (2012), InSight (2018) and Perseverance (2021). The only other country to land a spacecraft on Mars was the Soviet Union in 1971 and 1973.

What language does perseverance use?
The flight software runs on the VxWorks Operating System, is written in C and is able to access 4 gigabytes of NAND non-volatile memory on a separate card. Perseverance relies on three antennas for telemetry, all of which are relayed through craft currently in orbit around Mars.

What code do Mars rovers use?
The code is based on that of MER (Spirit and Opportunity), which were based off of their first lander, MPF (Sojourner). It's 3.5 million lines of C (much of it autogenerated), running on an RA50 processor manufactured by BAE and the VxWorks operating system. Over a million lines were hand coded.

The VxWorks Operating System is built on a highly modified version of the Basic stripped down Linux Kernel!

***
When the old man owned the computer shop, he would take anything in on trade, working or not working. But his main reason for doing so was to obtain parts to keep all the companies he services computers for up and running, when certain parts are no longer available. I brought in several sleeves of individual RAM chips from old computers, as well as the more modern slot mounted RAM chips. He looked through them, took them all, and gave me 100 bucks for all of them. And I was going to throw them away as being useless, hi hi.

When the old guy owned the shop, he had at least 50 used computers on display for sale, with a printout showing what each one contained and a page of ratings for them too. But since he could build me brand new ones for only 300 bucks at that time, that is what I usually went with, and was never disappointed.

Now that the kids have taken over, they only have a few used ones, most of them were gaming quality machines, so quite high priced. They can still build me one, but the cost is now up around a grand for a new machines I would like.

You got that right. The computer I was originally using for my genealogy work and accounting, still had a parallel port, CGA monitor, and NO USB ports, they were not invented yet, hi hi. I did my backups on an external IDE drive so it was no problem copying the data to a newer but still old computer with USB ports.
The closest computer store to me, only does Laptops and nothing else. But then he sits right off the college campus too.

Unless you want to pay triple what a computer is worth to get a decent one off a retail store shelf, you still never get exactly what you want. And most are not expandable either. Built as cheaply as possible too.
If you want something decent, you have to get it from a place that builds computers, and who knows what they are doing too.

[yogi]

After reading your comments about martian space craft I am going to have a very hard time believing you when you tell me about your poor memory. Unless you were doing a copy and paste, you certainly have a lot of detail stuffed between your ears.

I can't find the article I read to verify what it said about Windows 98. It didn't seem likely to me that a mission critical NASA project would be doing that, but I found it on the Internet so that I assumed it was true.
_______
UPDATE: I found the article. It says the software was based on Windows 98, but does not go so far as to say it is Windows 98: https://gizmodo.com/mars-express-spacec ... 1849114156

Computers are one of the few things that are getting cheaper over the years. The money coming out of your wallet is way more than it was even half a dozen years ago, but then the capabilities and functionality of today's computers would have been considered military grade back then. AMD's ThreadRipper 5000 series processor is close to $7,000 for the CPU chip alone. You might think that is phenomenally expensive until you discover it has 64 cores and a video card built in and can run at 4.5 GHz clock speed. So when you think about it, 7 Grand for 64 computers isn't such a bad deal. My first computer from HP was nearly that price, was an 8 bit system, And had a full 16KB of RAM and zipped along at 625 KHz - that's KILO not MEGA. It came with a tape drive for storage but I upgraded to use an external floppy drive which is where the operating system was stored. They had a BASIC interpreter built in but I was able to bypass that and use CPM off the floppy drive.

I'm sure you are well aware of the costs involved but that still leaves you without a spare computer. You also are smart enough to know what to expect from a computer and realize you can't buy that kind of machine off the shelf. Custom built computers are the best value for the money, but you still have to pay somebody to do it. Even if you got a minimal system in this modern world I don't think you can build anything from scratch for less than $700. That amount of cash can buy a computer that would outperform all the broken ones you are saving even when they were at their peak. At the moment neither of us has the cash to spend on computers. We didn't do well in the Illinois lottery, but there is a Missouri drawing tonight and I'm in the pool for $2. That's the $2 I won off one of those scratch cards, for which I paid $1. Even if I should win big I probably won't be able to get one of those $7000 ThreadRippers. At the moment they are only available in China and in limited quantities. It's just as well. I don't know what I'd do with 64 cores anyways.

[Kellemora]

If you read a little further in that article it says "A Martian spacecraft has been running on software designed more than 20 years ago in a proprietary environment based on Microsoft Windows 98, and is long overdue for an upgrade."
It is true Windows 98 was used by the Developer to write the code in C language, but no part of Windows anything ended up on the Mars Rovers.

The only reason I knew a bit about the Mars Rovers was it is a hot topic of discussion, and more than just a few folks are mad as wet hornets at those folks claiming they were powered by Windows software. So they have tons of data to show it isn't true and never was true. The type of computer used by a developer to write the operation programming in C language for the Rovers is technically irrelevant to the Rovers themselves.

Besides, they tell you in the line I quoted that the software in use was proprietary, but didn't say it was VxWorks which runs on the basic stripped down Linux Kernel.

My very first computer was a Heath/Zenith Octal Entry kit I put together. I bought an old used paper tape drive to go with it. I had a lot of fun playing with it, but it was basically useless other than as a learning tool. This is why I was not afraid to buy the Apple One motherboard which came with nothing, other than instructions for powering it up. I had a device that converted the monitor output to channel 3 on an old black n white TV set I used with it. Had a big fat keyboard in a box to do the entry, and believe me, it was a very crude set-up.
I loved it though, enough so when the APPLE II came out, I jumped to buy one. It used cassette tapes for data storage. And I still used my old b&w monitor in channel 3, hi hi. I bought an Apple II+ about 6 months later and added external floppy drives, two of them. I started writing things I used at the flower shop to make my work easier and faster, and this is why I eventually forked over 1,600 bucks for an Integral Data Systems 9 pin dot-matrix printer.
And once everything was up and humming and looking good, I started doing computer billing for some small companies around me who wanted to look like big companies. Made enough money doing that i paid for my computers, and later newer computers. But the expensive Lisa system was paid for by the florist for the florist. And that was after uncle Clarence saw all I was doing on the little Apple computers. The Lisa System was actually not a very good system at all, but the salesmen selling it knew where to hit CJs tender spots, hi hi. Good thing it had a couple of 5-1/4 drives with it besides the two big 8-1/2 inch drives or I couldn't have made my existing programs work on it.

I know how fast our computers become obsolete dinosaurs, but for me using the old machines even after I got a newer faster machine, I would dedicate the older machine to things that ran just as fast on either machine. Like my accounting program, and maintaining the genealogy database. But I told you about the woes of never upgrading that program, and their new programs can't read their old programs. This is why I now do everything on Ancestry, which is really only a display program. It does not have the bells and whistles a stand-alone genealogy program has, but proprietary methods of saving data has burned me out on most things proprietary. At Ancestry, I can do a Gedcom Dump and have all of my data intact to upload onto any newer or other genealogy program. A Gedcom is only the actual genealogical data, no extra stuff like pictures or source files, etc.

[yogi]

I now understand from where you got the information about the martian space ships, and your vehement defense of the Linux kernel now makes sense.

In general you are correct to say that the binary for any operating system can be generated on just about any computer that can run a compiler. The problem isn't with the system that develops the code, but rather in the code itself. Programmers are not perfect people in spite of what they think of themselves, and that is true even for the guys working for NASA. However, I must admit that NASA has a superior software development team out of necessity. There is no room for mistakes a few million miles away from the surface of the earth. That's why I raised my eyebrows when it looked like Windows was in anyway involved with critical missions in outer space.

Motorola got a boatload of Lisa computer from Apple. That happened because Apple was using the processors made in Arizona by Motorola. Some of those Lisa machines were put on the production floor to build cell phones and CB radios. Yes, Motorola made CB radios for a while. The function of all those factory Lisa computers was to run the racks of test equipment and to collect the test data. The software that collected the data and compiled reports for management was made by some other company. All I can say is that it was obvious that the control programming people didn't have much of a clue about what Lisa computers were designed to do. LOL

One interesting side note was that i got to repair a few of those Lisa machines when they broke. There were a few in our collection that were autographed inside on the chases by the development team. It was an interesting touch but those machines didn't work any better than the rest. However, I sure would have liked to have one of those originals. I'm sure they are worth big bucks today. Sadly, Motorola had a policy that disallowed any of the employees from acquiring either Motorola products in house or any of the old obsolete test equipment. I shed a tear or two when I looked at the dumpster full of discarded Lisa computers at the end of their life cycle.

There would only be one aspect of genealogy that might strike my interest. That would be in building and maintaining a database for all the entries. What you did and are doing to compile the history of your family is remarkable. I doubt that anyone in your family appreciates all the time and effort you put into your research. I know only enough about it to convince me I would not have the patience to do all that investigation. Now, entering the data and generating reports from a database is a different story. I don't think Ancestry.com can do justice to your family tree, but it certainly is the easiest way to go about preserving it and is definitely accessible to anyone with an interest. You have quite a legacy there my friend.

[Kellemora]

The only real reason I like Linux is because of the freedom it gives me to change it the way I want it, and without having to learn programming to do it. Mainly because others who know programming have already done the hard work and packaged it and tested it so it will run on a stable kernel without problems. I normally only upgrade to a new version when I get a new or different computer. I say normally because I have LInux Mint on the computer that just died, and I got updates, including Kernel Updates every time they came out with one. But as far as the Silver Yogi goes, I still have the version of Debian I installed on it, but do apply upgrades. And now that I think about it, yes I have upgraded Distro's a couple of times on it as well.

I actually liked my Apple II+ much better than that Lisa System. And later on when I started my Wonder Plants business downtown, I went with a Mac Plus and two Mac SE's for the office, and a cheaper Mac for back in the shipping area. They were all on the TOPS networking system. I don't think we had internet back then, or if we did I didn't have it in the machines we used for business.
Our big change at the florist was moving up to a WANG VS Mainframe, which virtually paid for itself, since WANG used it to run other clients work on, of which we got paid for their computer time. This was all done over dedicated telephone lines I think.
In any case, whatever they were doing never interfered with what we were doing.
The only thing was, we could not run backup at any time of the day, it always had to be done between either 4:30 and 5:30 pm, or later on like between 7:30 and 8:30 pm, because they needed the Hard Drive not in backup mode, where we had to switch out those big platters to run backup, and then put them back in the machine again before that time. There were a couple of times they called me on the telephone and told me not to start backup until later, because a long program was running and wouldn't be done during my normal early backup allocation time.
I knew when they were running something big, because the AC system would be running for longer intervals than usual. Other than the hard drive spinning, the machine was basically silent. WANG was good to us for those few years we had their mainframe.

I just used normal files for a lot of my stuff, rather than making a database. I figured it was safer, and anyone could figure out how to search a file for something, especially the way I laid out all the folders for each project.
There really is no way to send someone a large file using e-mail, so when they want something, I will upload it to my dropbox and send them a link and tell them to get it right away, because I'll be deleting the file in 3 or 4 days. Most folks will go fetch it right away and tell me they got it, so I can put something else up for somebody else.

Have a great weekend Yogi!

[yogi]

Wang was an awesome company. I heard stories about them while I worked at Motorola, and never heard anything bad that I can recall. Most of the servers were running some kind of IBM software that connected to corporate when necessary. In the factories themselves we ran whatever the local computer jock felt he was comfortable with. That practice was halted after a while and we all had to standardize on what the IT department would support. I am not positive anymore but I think the individual factory client computers were all Apple II; at least those were the ones with Motorola chips in them. Once Apple decided to start using Intel chips the IT folks got a contract for Dell's running NT workstations. While I wasn't feeling too warm and fuzzy about it we did have a direct line to Microsoft tech support 24/7. Apparently when you buy 10,000 licenses at a time they treat you special. Dell would "maintain" the computers by simply swapping out a defective one with a new one. I don't recall ever repairing a Dell, but I must have installed a zillion OS images on new computers. Looking back it's hard to say which client computers were less trouble. I had a love affair with the servers running UNIX and those desktops/workstations were just a nuisance. LOL

It was during my tenure as first line network administrator that I learned to appreciate databases. Everything ended up in a database eventually. Oracle was THE software of choice and I can't begin to tell you how complicated it was. I learned some of the very elementary techniques just so that I could do minor fixes and backups. Today entry level database admins make six digit salaries and all I can say is they deserve it. That's especially true now that databases are the targets of so many bad actors.

You got to take much of what I say about Windows vs Linux with a grain of salt. Maybe some Tabasco too. LOL It's just human nature to do whatever we are comfortable with doing. As I mentioned a few times already I can slip into a Linux environment for most of what I do here and not lose much in the process. Some of the most recent Linux updates I've installed are vast improvements over what the OS was just a few years ago. Even Debian works most of the time these days. The problem I have with that is what you happen to like the most. It's too damned easy to change things and no two Linux distros are alike. That's understandable but the bugs are often "upstream" and don't get fixed easily, if at all. Many of the bugs I see come from my desire to multi-boot and run VM's and, my favorite, use Linux on a Stick. The typical Linux user might know about those things, but the support forums are full of complaints from users who don't. I found out enough to be comfortable with what I'm doing and no longer see a need to migrate away from Microsoft's pride and joy. I'm comfortable with Windows and the last few upgrades have been free. So the cost argument makes no sense to me. Then, some day I will get a new computer and come back to eat my words. LOL

[Kellemora]

Most of Dell's corporate accounts were set up that they didn't repair anything, only replaced their equipment. I know this because of a couple of guys who used an old motel room to stash all the Dell's they picked up and replaced. When they got enough to fill a box truck up, one would come and they would load it up with them, not carefully either, hi hi. I have no idea where they went, but know it wasn't to a dump. Probably a place that repaired and resold them.

I only use Debian STABLE which is not updated very often, except for security releases. Some of the programs that run on it are updated often, but never the Kernel. There are other Debian releases such as Testing, and a couple of others for those who want the latest and greatest.
But this is why I keep Linux Mint on one machine. That way I know of new kernels, and new changes right away. Linux Mint 19.3 often has a new update every other day or more often. Right now that computer is broken, it was Debi's machine that died.
And the only other machine that works at all, does not have internet for some reason. So I can't update the Linux Mint I have on it, and it is an older version too.

I guess once folks learn the odd places Windows programs put things, they then think Windows is easier to use.
But I would bet, if you found someone who has for example never used msWORD or LibreOffice Writer. And let them start using LibreOffice Writer first, they will learn it much faster than trying to use msWORD. In fact, when they switch to msWORD they will find it very hard to use, much harder than LIbreOffice Writer. The main reason is, they wouldn't know where ms HID the simple commands they need to use.
And I know I've harped on this before. Why is Formatting a Page, which should be under Formatting Operations, HIDDEN under File Operations, when Formatting a Page has absolutely NOTHING to do with the File System or its Operations.
And you say this is easier! But that is only because you learned where they HID that command, which too a long hunt and search to find, and then you had to memorize the fact that a page formatting operation is hidden under file system operations. It is things like this why I say, Windows program are ILLOGICAL, and Linux programs are LOGICAL.

[yogi]

I happen to have a fair understanding of why you like Linux. Your reasoning is sound especially when it comes to the cost of maintaining the software. My reasons for not favoring Linux over Windows are based mostly on technical issues that you never see. We are, after all, doing two different things with our computers. It's amusing to see you claim LOGIC is better than my claim things JUST WORK. Both of those claims have little to do with the operating system. It's all what you and I as individuals feel comfortable with at the keyboard. I also understand your criticism of MsWORD. But, to use that as an indictment against the operating system is a misjudgment. It's true that Microsoft the corporation produced both Windows and Office, but they are two different things that do not need each other to work. I happen to be using Libre Office these days and prior to that I used Open Office. The last time I used Ms Office software was when it was released in 1998. I have a lot of experience with the open source word processors of which you speak and I spend a lot of time looking for commands that should be obviously placed but are not. I look for things you don't, I'm sure, and that is the reason what is logical to you is hidden to me. Neither Ms Office nor the Open Source versions are logical. They all were made by programmers who never had to use a word processor in their entire career. Yet they are writing software for people whose livelihood depends on their judgment. MsWord isn't cheap or perfect (although free versions of it are available), but the Open Source counterparts are just as bad. Then again, you generally get what you pay for.

In the world of Linux Debian has taken on the sanctity of the Bible. Their stable release was flawed for many years and they never bothered to address the problem because their user base never even thought of UEFI booting or using Debian with advanced video. It's a basic and crude operating system which I would expect to work well given what does not come with it. I can't argue that it is well liked by many people given how many distros of Linux operating systems are based on Debian. The issue I have with that is whatever flaws are built into Debian stay there forever. The FOSS community only takes responsibility for their own add ons. If the Debian or Ubuntu base has known issues, Mint developers, for example, dissociate themselves from anything upstream. You won't hear a lot of complaints from people who only use one operating system and are happy with it. That's fine with me too, but all those Linux distros are supposed to work together. Debian never intended for it's user base to use anything but Debian, and those people who go through life in that rut are perfectly happy. I would dare say Debian "just works" for them. That same Debian, however, is often a catastrophe for guys like me.

[Kellemora]

I started using Open Office way back when I was in the Tri-Fold printing business, mainly because msWord screwed things up royally all the time. And the reason being was it was geared to whatever printer you had installed for some of its settings.
It also didn't let you set bleed edges and things like that so items would print right at a commercial printer. But the worst thing was, images would jump around from where you put them, even if you anchored them. I was forever fixing pages so they would work on the printers machines. Once I switched to Open Office Writer, I never had another problem and everything always came out just right, and exactly the way I wanted them too. And the printer was happy I was not wasting his time anymore.
Naturally, the open source programs don't have all the fancy bells and whistles the proprietary programs keep adding, which makes those programs super bulky as well.
I just saw where PhotoShop added a one-touch background removal tool that would replace the background with any image you selected prior to hitting the one-touch button. So it is not really just one-touch.
I'm going back a lot of years here, but I was doing photo restoration work by hand, and some of those I was asked to redo were ones they same customer had another company do using PhotoShop or whatever. Those one-touch features rarely do what you hoped they would do.
The other thing is, why would I want to pay 1000 bucks for a program, when the FREE program suits my needs perfectly?
And that paid for program will become obsolete all too fast, requiring upgrades, which are not cheap either.

I guess that is where we differ. I've always had problems with Windows and the programs that run on it. Wasted a lot of money on hardware that was supposed to work and didn't. Even went as far as buying a matching computer system for the hardware and it still would not work. That was a lot of money down the hole for nothing. I did however get it to work on an older computer, so was able to use it until it broke. And the expensive computer I bought brand new was the first one to die.
Then HP burned me again with their garbage printers, TWICE. So that makes a total of FIVE TIMES I've been badly burned by HP and their garbage products.

Nearly every server farm out their uses GNU/Linux and Debian. A few large businesses use RedHat paid version.
Almost all businesses use Windows out on the floor, but those days are dwindling down as companies have their own server fed screens and forms which can be connected to from any brand or type of computer, and because of this, you are finding more and more GNU/Linux based machines in the front-end workforce.

It's not the Linux world who keeps coming up with CRAZY things to try to keep the proprietary guys on top.
It is the proprietary guys trying to make it HARD on everyone else.
YOU MUST COMPLY with whatever WE come up with! And WE will have the PC makers make sure you MUST COMPLY WITH our hairbrained DEMANDS. That's the way I see it!

[yogi]

Using computers correctly is not as intuitively obvious as most people think it is. A lot of the complaints and problems I read from people with isuescan be traced back to a misapplication of the tools in hand. I'm reminded of this misuse every time you tell me how terrible MSWord is at publishing trifold brochures. The simple reason for that is you were trying to use a word processor to perform a desktop publishing task. To be blunt about it you were using the wrong tool for the job. I have praised your creative mind and all your out of the box solutions to problems that you tell me about. I am very sincere in my admiration for your ability to repurpose things in ways they were not intended to be used. However, it's obvious to me that you were expecting a word processor to do things it was not designed to do. I believe the open source folks at Oracle and their development of Open Office (or lack of development) did not intend to change the nature of the product Sun Microsystems invented, but it happened to be able to do what you needed to have done. Likewise for LibreOffice. The design philosophy underlying the open source office suites that met your publishing needs simply are not present in Microsofts Office package. The problem isn't that any of those software developers are misleading their customers. The problem is that some customers are not using the product as intended.

All those "crazy add ons" to proprietary software originate from two sources. One is the obvious and standard business practice of planned obsolescence. The other motivation comes from the intended users whose needs change as time moves on. If the needs of your customers change it behooves you to meet those needs, which means adding on to or changing the functionality of your product. It's mass confusion, but it's the way software is. Nothing remains the same and you must go with the flow if you want to stay in business.

I would seriously question your assertion that Debian rules the server world. That might be true in a client/server central processing scenario. But today the commercial computing world is going to distributed computing scenarios, i.e., cloud computing. Also, Debian would have nothing to do if it were not for all those Windows clients attached to the Linux servers. Why can't Debian accommodate their largest user base? It really doesn't matter any more with the advent of cloud computing. Virtual machines are taking over the business world and people like Microsoft are major players in that game. You could still argue that Linus dominates even in the cloud environment, but you can't say it's better. Just about every major server farm supplying cloud services via containers and virtual machines has been compromised. Every time I read about a breach I ask myself whatever happened to the argument that Linux was more secure than Windows? Well, it's not. These days cloud computing is widely hosted internally by many large corporations. The old server/client model of information technology is being deprecated before our very eyes. I honestly don't know what those internal clouds are running, but I have a feeling it's not Debian. As far as the commercial clouds go AWS (Amazon's cloud services) does use Linux, but it's a home brewed version, not Debian. I know Microsoft isn't dominated by Linux servers either. And while I never looked into Google or Apple it would surprise me greatly if their clouds were powered by something like Debian. I can't argue about Debian being well liked, but it looks to me like it's days are numbered.

[Kellemora]

I've used several different types of publishing software, both proprietary and Open Source. They are great for making display signs and the like, but I still always fall back to Gimp to get things the way I want them before adding them to a document.
I forget the name of the expensive publishing program I bought for Windows XP. It was complicated to learn also. And although it is designed for publishing, it too did not allow for 3-sided bleed edges, or galleys. This is another reason I fell back to Open Office back then, and LibreOffice now. You can do a lot with their IMPRESS program, if you want to bother to learn it, but there too, it never considered tri-fold pamphlets in its design, but works great for greeting cards and the like.
Seems more like it is made to make slides you display on a screen, and is what we used to put words up on the screen at church.

Hmm, most cloud servers don't actually use an OS, they are independent program driven, but still use the Linux kernel.
So I don't think I would have said server farms are running just Debian, they have many OSs available on their access computers.

I don't see the Cloud as much more than any other server farm, except they are open to the public and just sell storage space that you can assign others to be able to access at various levels of security.
But just like you can have a catastrophic event take place at your home or office, so can server farms.
Also, if you can't afford to pay for all the storage you need, and stop paying, you lose access to your data.
You laugh at me and my redundant storage methods, especially back when I was backing up everything to a HD at my brothers.
But now I've been more lax and not keeping up with my duplicates in the office and in the house like I used to. I really should get around to making another backup for down at the house.
Speaking of which, the NAS I got from you has died. Sounds like the bearing may have gone out of the HD, was making a horrible noise, so I turned it off. I wasn't using it much, but Debi has placed some photo's from her old computer on it.
I'm hoping it is just a fan bearing that went out, but I've not had time to pop the case to see.

The two biggest Distro's out there are built on top of Debian, namely Ubuntu and Linux Mint, so I don't think Debian is going anywhere for a long time.