My name is Mike Hader and computers are my passion, my obsession. I started Haderade’s Bits and PCs because I’m tired of working for someone else, doing what they want me to do. I enjoy working with computers because there is always a challenge and always something new to learn.

I was first introduced to a computer at age 10. It was an Apple IIe. I played this game where you had to place and position different sections of pipe to get the ball from over here to the can over there.

The first computer that I could call “mine” was an 8088 with two 5 1/4 floppy drives. One of the drives had to have the MS DOS boot disk and the other had whatever program I was running. The monitor was a green monochromatic, like 12 inches or so, big heavy cube. Ancient hardware by the time I got it.

My dad had a 286 computer which ran DOS 6.22, Windows 3.11, and Word Perfect 5.1 for DOS. I can remember when my friends got a 386DX, I was so jealous! It was faster and beefier that mine. Their computer could play Commander Keen flawlessly while mine was jerky and slow.

Since that time I have read books, disassembled, learned, and reassembled many computers, and built many more out of spare parts and junk I had lying around. I don’t have any 20MB hard drives any more, but I do have at least one 500MB drive.

Currently I have 4 computers at my feet all tied to a single monitor via KVM switch. They are as follows:

1. AMD Athlon64 3200+ (runs at 2.2GHz), 1GB DDR RAM, 120GB SATA drive running Vista Ultimate64, with 2 120GB IDE drives configured with software RAID = 240GB storage, and DVD RW drive.
2. Pentium M 1.8, 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 RAM, 40GB IDE running Vista Ulitmate32, 2 500GB SATA drives with software RAID = 1TB storage, DVD RW.
3. Dual PIII 800Mhz, 393MB RAM, 2 10GB IDE drives running Windows Media Center, WiFi G adaptor, notebook DVD-ROM, Zip100, and a tape drive.
4. AMD Athlon XP 3000+ (runs at 2.19GHz), 512MB RAM, 40GB IDE drive, DVD RW, CD-RW.

The first machine is my main computer, #2 is my storage server, although it doesn’t run any sort of server software currently, it used to. #3 is my test machine for hardware and software, and #4 is going to be my wife’s new computer. She has a Celeron - yuck. I’m currently testing a ported install from her Intel machine to #4, AMD machine because it is a better processor and board that the one she currently has.

Sometimes it can be comsuming, but I am always curious to see if maybe this will work or maybe that. I like to see what I can create with the parts I have.

Filed under: General, computer repair