Mastering Windows

Bob's Office

Here's the basic view of the main office. It's sort of a space capsule kind of hang out. This is the primarily sport where the books are written. I also do a lot of research here, by testing software and hardware, do general computing activities such as 'Net cruising, and designing and posting portions of this web site. (Much of the site was developed in Novato, California by Francisco Rivera and Teresa Vitus.)

Closer view of the right-hand side. To the right of the 17" monitor is the computer, with its drives all mounted on top of it. There's a DVD, CD-R, CD, two Jaz drives, and one Zip drive on top. Inside there's an 8G Maxtor EIDE hard disk. Then there's an ATI All-In-Wonder video/TV/video capture card, BusLogic SCSI controller, Media-Vision sound card, NE-2000 Ethernet LAN card, 64M of RAM. It's all powered by a measely Pentium 133. But it works well nonetheless. Who needs a PII?

Here's the left side of the room. Most of my writing is actually done on my laptop computers over here. I like the screens better, and they use less energy. I have a Compaq Presario 1680 P200 with 96M of RAM. CDs will play without the computer being on -- another nice feature. The speakers are bigger than on any other laptop -- it actually has bass! My Toshiba 486 (4850CT) with 16M running Windows 95 is still a brilliant writing tool, running Word for Windows. Under the desk is an old 33Mhz 386 I converted into a router. It connects all the computers in the house to the Internet via dual ISDN lines.

A closer view of the main desktop computer and its wires. It's a spaghetti explosion! There's also a Alesis Microverb digital reverb unit that I use when cutting audio CDs from classical music concerts I record in my home. There's also a Sony MZ-R2 MiniDisk recorder sitting there on top of a bank of modems. I use that to record the concerts. MiniDisks are a terrific audio medium. They are small in size, store 74 minutes of hi-fi audio, are random access, and can be re-written up to a million times. The modems are a US Robotics 28.8 Sportster Vi voice modem and a Motorola BitSurfer Pro ISDN.

Here's the communications center. Two digital answering machines, a cordless headset (the Hello Cordless 100), two memory phones (a wonderful old DAK job -- remember DAK? -- and a Rolodex, which basically sucks because the speaker phone sounds like a tin can and the internal software goes crazy sometimes, sending the whole phone into shrill caniptions), a call-forwarding machine, and a caller ID box.

In an adjacent studio, I have my electronic instruments. Here are two vintage synthsizers: A Synergy DK-1 (same as used by Wendy Carlos for her compositions and recordings such as the Clockwork Orange and Tron soundtracks), and a Prophet T-8 (one of the fattest-sounding analog synths ever made). In the background you see the Kaypro II that controls the Synergy. There's also a Mackie 8-channel mixer on the table, and an old Teac 4-track reel-to-reel deck. You might recognize the bass amp there. That's an Ampeg B-15 tube job I used to gig with when I played bass. I have a Hagstrom 4-string electric bass floating around somewhere in that room.....

In another adjacent office, there are some bookcases with a collection of current books in English.

Here's the collection of books that have been translated into some foreign languages. The Greek and Chinese are particularly interesting to read because certain words just don't get translated. You see things like "Wiley Coyote" or "ACME Explosives" or "Word Wide Web" surrounded by Mandarin Chinese characters.

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Bob's Office
	Here's the basic view of the main office. It's sort of a space capsule kind of hang out. This is the primarily sport where the books are written. I also do a lot of research here, by testing software and hardware, do general computing activities such as 'Net cruising, and designing and posting portions of this web site. (Much of the site was developed in Novato, California by Francisco Rivera and Teresa Vitus.)
	Closer view of the right-hand side. To the right of the 17" monitor is the computer, with its drives all mounted on top of it. There's a DVD, CD-R, CD, two Jaz drives, and one Zip drive on top. Inside there's an 8G Maxtor EIDE hard disk. Then there's an ATI All-In-Wonder video/TV/video capture card, BusLogic SCSI controller, Media-Vision sound card, NE-2000 Ethernet LAN card, 64M of RAM. It's all powered by a measely Pentium 133. But it works well nonetheless. Who needs a PII?
	Here's the left side of the room. Most of my writing is actually done on my laptop computers over here. I like the screens better, and they use less energy. I have a Compaq Presario 1680 P200 with 96M of RAM. CDs will play without the computer being on -- another nice feature. The speakers are bigger than on any other laptop -- it actually has bass! My Toshiba 486 (4850CT) with 16M running Windows 95 is still a brilliant writing tool, running Word for Windows. Under the desk is an old 33Mhz 386 I converted into a router. It connects all the computers in the house to the Internet via dual ISDN lines.
	A closer view of the main desktop computer and its wires. It's a spaghetti explosion! There's also a Alesis Microverb digital reverb unit that I use when cutting audio CDs from classical music concerts I record in my home. There's also a Sony MZ-R2 MiniDisk recorder sitting there on top of a bank of modems. I use that to record the concerts. MiniDisks are a terrific audio medium. They are small in size, store 74 minutes of hi-fi audio, are random access, and can be re-written up to a million times. The modems are a US Robotics 28.8 Sportster Vi voice modem and a Motorola BitSurfer Pro ISDN.
	Here's the communications center. Two digital answering machines, a cordless headset (the Hello Cordless 100), two memory phones (a wonderful old DAK job -- remember DAK? -- and a Rolodex, which basically sucks because the speaker phone sounds like a tin can and the internal software goes crazy sometimes, sending the whole phone into shrill caniptions), a call-forwarding machine, and a caller ID box.
	In an adjacent studio, I have my electronic instruments. Here are two vintage synthsizers: A Synergy DK-1 (same as used by Wendy Carlos for her compositions and recordings such as the Clockwork Orange and Tron soundtracks), and a Prophet T-8 (one of the fattest-sounding analog synths ever made). In the background you see the Kaypro II that controls the Synergy. There's also a Mackie 8-channel mixer on the table, and an old Teac 4-track reel-to-reel deck. You might recognize the bass amp there. That's an Ampeg B-15 tube job I used to gig with when I played bass. I have a Hagstrom 4-string electric bass floating around somewhere in that room.....
	In another adjacent office, there are some bookcases with a collection of current books in English.
	Here's the collection of books that have been translated into some foreign languages. The Greek and Chinese are particularly interesting to read because certain words just don't get translated. You see things like "Wiley Coyote" or "ACME Explosives" or "Word Wide Web" surrounded by Mandarin Chinese characters.