so, i got distracted there.

as i'm dusting everything off and making sure it still works, which is not the first time i've done that, i'm realizing the need to rebuild the machines. i ultimately want to put the 32-bit machine in it's spot in the desk and plug it in, but i need to figure out what i'm putting in it and not putting in it, which has changed since i initially bought the parts for the 64-bit machine, which i haven't gotten around to building yet.

i should go back and check my notes from 2017 to see exactly what i wanted to do with each item, and each part for each item, before i commit to doing anything with them, now, just to make sure i don't miss any ideas i may have had at the time. 

i now have three pcs (the 90s pc, the 32-bit production pc and a new 64-bit machine that i haven't set up yet) and four laptops (two broken modern hps, a 90s laptop that still works but is impossibly slow and a falling apart expired ibm chromebook) to utilize, and need to figure out the best way to set them up, relative to what i want to actually do. back when i lived in the other basement apartment, i initially had the oldest pc set up in the living room as a streaming device to send youtube out to an old tv set, the hp laptop in my bedroom as a glorified typewriting gateway device and what i'm calling the 32-bit machine set up as my main production machine in the recording room. what happened was that both modern laptops lost their screens in sequence within a few months, leaving me without a good access point, and i decided i'd be foolish to buy another laptop, given that laptops are just mass manufactured garbage, in today's world.

it's just based on empirical observation; i've learned, by experience, that laptops are simply designed to break  - they're made of shitty components with intentionally short lifetimes. it's planned obsolescence. so, i decided i wouldn't waste my money on them, and i'd stick with good asus boards in all of my machines, moving forwards, instead. i'll never waste money on a laptop that is designed to break within a few months, ever again.

so, what i wanted to do was move the 32-bit machine into my bedroom to replace the broken laptop, and then use the new machine as the recording machine in the music room. the intent was to take large amounts of what is currently in the 32-bit machine (the recording stuff) and put it in the 64 bit machine. i think i even wanted to switch the cases, which i now think is insane.

i then wanted to convert the newer hp laptop - which has 8 gb of ram in it - into a video processing console, and connect it to the bedroom pc via a network cable. i was intending to use the other hp laptop as a real-time guitar effects processor. i had no plans for the oldest laptop, except as an emergency backup. 

when i moved to the apartment building, i went from three rooms to two rooms and that plan no longer made any sense. first, i lost my server room, which buffered the noise from the old pc, which it no longer made any sense to leave on all of the time. on top of that, there wasn't really room for the tv, which ended up sitting in a corner, and was ultimately left there; the 90s laptop was still able to connect to the internet with minimal effort, so it made sense to just use that by putting it on the coffee table, instead. so, i decided that i'd convert the old pc (which was no longer being used as a tv) into a 16-bit machine for recording, keep the 32-bit machine as it is, and build the 64-bit machine when it was time to do so. the idea was to swap between them using a kvm.  but, things did not work out there, and i never really got around to setting up any of these things.

after i moved into the space i'm in now, i kept using the 90s laptop as a tv and i bought a cheap chromebook, which was intended for use strictly as a mobile device, given that my laptops were now both non-mobile. this is, itself, now falling apart. it lost the battery several months ago, and i've got a usb mouse and keyboard attached to it, just like the other ones. that means it's no longer of use as it's intended purpose, leaving me in the same scenario as previously (without a mobile computer), although it still connects as an access device, which is what i've been using it as, recently. i can't type on a phone, which renders it useless to me - i just have no interest in it, i think it's useless. if i get my climate money in, i could conceivably use it to buy a new laptop for mobile use, and then convert the chromebook into a new tv. that would solve all of these laptop and tv problems, and clear up the 16-bit pc for further musical use.

it's a shame that i can't just use the old laptop, which is built like a tank and still runs. i mean, it's a perfectly functional device. i actually winlited an installation disc specifically for it, and specifically to use it as a tv, but it's of minimal use to me at this point because i need an html-5 ready browser to access youtube, now. that is the specific thing that broke the 90s pc, and the specific thing that broke the 90s laptop, too. this thinkpad should have no such problems for quite some time. so, i could use it as a tv replacement, in the medium to long run.

i want to go back, though, to make sure that i didn't have some other plan for this 16-bit pc, before i turn it back into a recording console.

it may seem obsolete, but i think it makes sense to keep dedicated 16-bit and 32-bit recording machines, on top of the incoming 64-bit machine. i have both hardware and software that only really works right with 16-bit drivers, and that is no doubt true in a 32-bit environment, too - although i truly don't know, because i honestly haven't tried. i have a very detailed winlited install disc with a complex script that was built for the 32-bit environment. i need to upgrade to get more ram - 4 gb is a real and hard limit - but i don't want to lose the functionality. so, it makes more sense to set the three devices up in parallel and kvm between them.

i just need to go back over my notes and remind myself how i wanted to do it.

so, that's the plan for the next few hours, and i should at least have the 16 and 32 bit machines properly rebuilt by the end of it.

but, if i'm going to be sitting at home all summer with a little bit of extra cash in my account, i should use it to fix these broken machines up, one at a time.