For Thursday, September 18, 1997 Drummer Column, Gibbs, 703 words

Frankenstein Computer Co.

I have to talk about computers. I can't help myself. I've been sitting here resisting the urge for 40 minutes. I started a riff about my upcoming jury duty, but deleted it about 100 words in. I didn't want to think about it. Besides, I'm not due to serve until next week, and I may not even have to go in. You know how you call the night before, fingers crossed, listening to that dreaded recording, hoping your number isn't up. In case my number isn't up, it's no use creating a tempest in a teapot.

I'm sure I'll have material for the week after next. My daughter, Kristi, will be married next weekend.

Just now I'm smothered in volatile RAMs and GUI mice. So, here goes.

First off, I again want to thank people who donate old computers to my class. Thanks to them, second-year tech student John Fisher and I were able to piece together several nifty new Frankensteins. I have a handsome row of working systems ready to be entrusted to a huge team of first-time technicians. In a few weeks my new students will perform thorough diagnostics on each system. Then they'll take them apart, down to the last nut and bolt, and put them back together again. If the Frankensteins return to life once the electricity is applied, the students will become the Victors.

I also have a short stack of old CD-ROM drives. Students will practice installing them. We downloaded all the drivers off the Internet. We even have ethernet cards and hubs for making networks.

After a month of working with working computers, we will begin troubleshooting. We will dig into our pile of spare parts and build another army of machines. I'll chose a few computers to fill with bugs, and we'll see who can fix them. Beyond this point we will be ready to give away systems to classrooms. Students will then become tutors and field technicians.

However, the best system of all, our pride and joy, the Bride of Frankenstein, got built a few days ago.

Last weekend I went to the monthly computer fair in Vallejo and bought the makings of a high-speed Pentium MMX computer. It only cost us $438.60. That's a great bargain. You see, all I needed was a board, CPU, memory, CD-ROM, video card, and RAM. The case and power supply came from Judy "recipes" Riedinger. The super-gig hard drive came from Marnix Van Ammers. The monitor was Jim Noack's. The floppy drives came from Joe Madal.

Right now it is in my classroom, plugged into my television. I keep lecture notes on PowerPoint and scroll through them with my remote mouse. It helps students with their note taking.

Today we held a faculty meeting. A central topic was the technology plan for the district for the next three years. Anita Patten, the motherboard of our computer science department, passed out the nicely detailed guidelines in glossy white binders.

Each grade-level objective was laid out. I flipped to freshmen. Near the top of the list was proficiency in PowerPoint and desktop publishing. Cool.

This Friday a company is coming to the school to demonstrate their LCD projectors to the staff. All who are interested will come to our baby stage in N2 at 2:30 for a wide-screen PowerPoint presentation. If we find a good projector, and can buy it, that will be neat.

On the home front: I considered installing a high-speed ISDN Internet connection to my den. I called PacBell, my old employer, and asked about prices. Ouch. Full ISDN/ISP service is a few cents under $50 a month. Then, weekday connections are three cents per channel for the first minute, and a penny per channel for each additional minute. Off peak hours, I'd get 200 hours, divided by channels. Heck, I could use that up in one night.

I'll continue to clog the analog.

Here's why I'm swamped. I told my computer repair students they could use class time later to upgrade their home computers. Three kids brought their systems in the next day. We have two more coming in this week. They're disassembled on a table in my room. Right now it's a lunch time activity.