Loyd Case came to computing by way of physical chemistry. He began modestly on a DEC PDP-11 by learning the intricacies of the TROFF text formatter while working on his master's thesis. After a brief, painful stint as an analytical chemist, he took over a laboratory network at Lockheed in the early 80's and never looked back. His first 'real' computer was an HP 1000 RTE-6/VM system.In 1988, he figured out that building his own PC was vastly more interesting than buying off-the-shelf systems ad he ditched his aging Compaq portable. The Sony 3.5-inch floppy drive from his first homebrew rig is still running today. Since then, he's done some programming, been a systems engineer for Hewlett-Packard, worked in technical marketing in the workstation biz, and even dabbled in 3-D modeling and Web design during the Web's early years.Loyd was also bitten by the writing bug at a very early age, and even has dim memories of reading his creative efforts to his third grade class. Later, he wrote for various user group magazines, culminating in a near-career ending incident at his employer when a humor-impaired senior manager took exception at one of his more flippant efforts. In 1994, Loyd took on the task of writing the first roundup of PC graphics cards for Computer Gaming World -- the first ever written specifically for computer gamers. A year later, Mike Weksler, then tech editor at Computer Gaming World, twisted his arm and forced him to start writing CGW's tech column.
The sheer volume of our personal data is exploding. Digital photography, music, video, and games gobble up hard drive space like Cookie Monster set loose in Mrs. Fields. As we load up our home systems with more storage-consuming media, the value of that media becomes greater than the dollar cost of the underlying hardware. Its […]
Weve been covering AMDs 64-bit x86-64 “Hammer” architecture for quite some time now and are intrigued by its combination of 32-bit compatibility and performance, as well as the promise of a 64-bit future for desktop PCs. AMD divides up their 64-bit world into the Opteron and Athlon64 lines. The Opteron series is targeted at workstation […]
Once a loyal customer of Norton Antivirus, Loyd has switched to a competitor. Why? Because Nortons activation scheme breaks too frequently, leaving his computer at risk. Putting Customers at Risk Until a couple of years ago, Id never been much of a user of antivirus software. Mostly, it was because I had been lucky. After […]
As our society increasingly values mobility, the need to carry data with us becomes more important as well. While we can always schlep around notebook PCs, PDAs, and even music players, sometimes you just want a tiny repository for miscellaneous bits of information. On a more mundane level, having portable storage is also very handy […]
Imagine a spinning glass platter overlaid with an ultra-thin magnetic film. Then imagine a magnetic head flying above the platter, based on GMR (giant magnetoresistive) head technology originally developed for desktop and server hard drives. As that little mental picture develops, it sounds suspiciously like were talking about a hard drive. In reality, Cornice — […]
External drives are nothing new. Weve been building them since back in the days of 50-pin, SCSI-1 connectors – anyone want a Micropolis 9GB SCSI drive? The advent of FireWire (IEEE 1394) and USB 2.0, however, have made low-cost external drives practical. Last February, ExtremeTech reviewed Maxtors 5000DV external drive, the first incarnation of its […]
Disclaimer: This is a preview based on a very early release of Microsofts next-generation operating system. It lacks the modern user interface elements that will be in the final version. Given that the code is far from final and may contain many debug elements, the systems performance will likely improve in subsequent releases. Any statements […]
At first blush, DVD recorders are very cool. You can use them to back up files (up to 4.7GB) or archive data. In practice, DVD recorders have caused nearly as many headaches as solutions. One major problem has been the bifurcation of media. Early on, it was DVD-R and DVD-RW, supported by the Recordable DVD […]
A Digital Interface for Digital VideoThe march to a fully digital experience in the living room has been glacial at times. HDTVs travails, and issues of content protection, have made both consumers and manufacturers skittish about adopting new technology for the living room. After all, who wants to go through another Betamax cycle again? However, […]
Sony recently released the specs for the Playstation Portable, aka the PSP, which isnt slated for release until late 2004. When Sony first discussed the PSP at last Mays E3 Expo, most people initially thought that Sony was targeting Nintendos Gameboy line of portable gaming devices. But if you take a look at the specs, […]