Office Evolution

[Chris Savage]

Over the last 20 years there have been many, "Show us your workbench" threads on both the Parallax Forums as well as my original vBulletin-based forums. I remember one such thread in 2007 that really got me started on taking photos of my bench setup and sharing them with people who asked how my bench was set up.



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[Commander Data]

We hav discussed your setup there before but this is the 1st time seeing it. Very nice! Good luck redoing everythig when you move. 

[Chris Savage]

We hav discussed your setup there before but this is the 1st time seeing it. Very nice! Good luck redoing everythig when you move. 

Getting close! I should be moving my office within a few months. I need to try and get done what I can before then.

[Commander Data]

How is the new house thing going?

[Chris Savage]

How is the new house thing going?

Actually, we're no longer building a new home. The property was part of her family farm and there were two names on the original deed. The other person refused to sign, and now we're out of time to build. So we're looking for a house for sale. We had offers in on two. Got majorly outbid on one. Still waiting on the other.

[Chris Savage]

This weekend I will finally get the network line run to the upstairs. Once that is done, the rest should go fairly quickly. Without the network connected, I haven't had much motivation to put everything together.

[Chris Savage]

I haven't updated this article in a while because I had bigger, more important projects to work on around the house. Since winter weather hit, I have been working on some indoor projects. Recently I realized my workbench was so overrun with, not only projects, but parts organization, which I have been working on here and there.

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If you recall from the article linked above, and the photo above, I had a white shoe rack on the back of my bench to hold my scope, power supply and signal generator. Since then I had acquired that constant current load at the electronics meetup.

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I decided to add another shoe rack to the back of the bench to make better use of space.

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I finally got that put together this weekend, and this week will integrate it into the setup. This will give me more room to work on the parts cabinets and then I will be able to update both articles accordingly.

[Chris Savage]

Getting there...

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[granz]

Looking good, Chris.

What is that big, black thing, with gray sides on the far left side of the picture?

[Chris Savage]

Looking good, Chris.

Thank you!

What is that big, black thing, with gray sides on the far left side of the picture?

You mean, my PC? This one is a photo of it found on the internet. As a note, it weighs 65 pounds!!!

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P.S. - The lights don't work on mine anymore. Not sure why.

[granz]

Interesting! I don't think that I've ever seen that design for a case.

65 pounds! Well, the first computer that I worked on professionally weighed about 5-10 tons, not counting the twelve 1000 Lb terminals. And there were two of those monsters at our site (both for live Air Defense) plus another system that we maintained, half a mile away. The cost for the air conditioning was $1,000,000 per year per system. Not exactly portable.

[Chris Savage]

Interesting! I don't think that I've ever seen that design for a case.

It's an Alienware (now owned by Dell). It's in other photos in the actual Office Evolution article.

[granz]

Interesting! I don't think that I've ever seen that design for a case.

It's an Alienware (now owned by Dell). It's in other photos in the actual Office Evolution article.

Ahh, yes, I have seen it before. Now that you mention it, I remember seeing it - I guess that I just didn't think about it. IIRC, Alienware started out manufacturing modems; I seem to remember seeing a sign for Alienware modems in the window of a local (Pittburgh) computer shop, back in the early 1990s.

[Chris Savage]

IIRC, Alienware started out manufacturing modems; I seem to remember seeing a sign for Alienware modems in the window of a local (Pittburgh) computer shop, back in the early 1990s.

According to this Wikipedia Article, Alienware was founded in 1996 by two brothers, with the name being inspired by the TV series, The X-Files. interesting read.