* * * * *

                    Spring cleaning just a tad too early …

So I finally decided to clean the Computer Room.

It's not like I have a death of projects I'm working on, but one of the
projects is finally getting NetBSD [1] installed on two HP/Apollo 400's I
recieved a few years ago but couldn't because of a few problems.

The original intent was to write an OS for the things, but information about
the HPs weren't that easy to get (not that I tried really hard). After a year
or two I learned that NetBSD was ported.

That lead to problem number two: I had the wrong keyboard. The HP/Apollos I
received had the Domain keyboard/mouse, which NetBSD doesn't support, and
apparently the boot process for DomainOS is undocumented enough that no one
has really bothered. Had I an HP-HIL keyboard/mouse, then I would be in
business.

Well, I recently borrowed one and my friend Mark [2] is working on getting me
an HP-HIL adaptor so I can use an IBM keyboard like God intended instead of
the abomination that HP calls a keyboard.

Have I mentioned I'm very picky about keyboards? That the only keyboards I
use are IBM AT or PS/2 style keyboards? Anyway, I digress …

So, easy enough to proceed, right?

Nope. Problem number three: there is no more space in the Computer Room. I
could barely make my way into the room. So, before I can install NetBSD I
have to clean the room and rearrange it. It was so bad I didn't even recall
how the network was set up (thin-net, aka cheap net. I had black cables
running everywhere).

So I spent most of last night schlepping computers out to the living room and
dining room. The Computer Room is now clean, but the rest of the house …

So now I'm in the process of schlepping everything back, only I don't want to
schlep everything back in. I have no idea what I'm going to do with half the
stuff. I don't use half the stuff and that's the problem.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to get NetBSD reinstalled and I'm having to recompile
Linux on my primary server here in the Computer Room because it doesn't have
RARP (Reverse Address Resultion Protocol) built in, which is needed to do an
initial netboot of NetBSD.

Blah … where's a bulldozer when I need one?

[1] http://www.netbsd.org/
[2] http://www.conman.org/people/myg/

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