{As a sidenote, I don't think you can find a larger collection of "generic" computer parts in any one house without looking real hard.}

      Seeing as how I am a bit of a technophile as well as other things, I occasionally feel the need to ask others about the systems they use. In an attempt to reciprocate here is a quick run down on my machines and the LANs.

Portal
      Portal is an IBM Thinkpad 760C. It has 32MB ram, 12.1" TFT display, a 720MB HD, the little "eraser-head" pointer, and a pcmcia ethernet card (Cnet CN40BC). It lacks the CDROM, sound card, and other goodies, but I can access most of that through nfs so I figured it wasn't a priority.

Panik
      Panik (currently on loan to a friend) is an old pentium 90 that I bought used. It has 48MB of ram (old fast-page), three drives (520MB, 520MB, 810MB), a Mozart sound card (DOOM!), ISA ethernet card, and a 12X CDROM. The video card in it is a mostly unsupported Trident, but it seems to work alright. I realize that it is nothing earth-shaking, but it serves my purposes and runs just fine.

Satin
      Satin, (no, not satan) is my newest computer, she is an AMD K6-2 350. Within her minitower case is 96MB ram, 2 HD (1.25GB and 265MB), a PCI ethernet card, and a 1MB Trident video card. Before you ask what the hell I was thinking when I slotted a crappy video card into a new machine, realize that she is headless and only serves the other machines. The only real reason I bought it was to act as an X-server and to run seti@home.

Clarisse

      Clarisse is an old "Digital(tm)" 486DX33 (upgraded to a DX2/66) with 12MB ram, 165MB drive and an ISA ethernet card. She is currently the oldest machine still on the LAN.

Bingo
      Bingo was the fileserver and was perhaps the saddest machine on the LAN. It was a 468DX25 with 8MB memory (30 pin, joy!), 3.4 GB HD, and an ISA ethernet card. Bingo was a half-baked, but wholly reliable machine. It was shamelessly murdered by a moron ex-roomie who decided that it was OK to play with the power switch and kept flipping it off and on sporadically while I was on vacation.

The nameless ones...
      Many of my old machines did not come with me when I moved, but I list the ones I liked here. The 386 was/is a great machine. It is serving it's days and nights running linux-router for the guy I gave it to. There was also a 468DX? that I sent off to college. It was a pathetic excuse for a computer, but it was loyal as could be - once running it was solid. The 286's (2 of the beasts) had a fatal encounter with a dumpster (stubbed my toes one too many times on them). The 486DX66 that used to be my firewall was sold into slavery to my old roomies.

Znux and the others.
      Znux is made from a 486 embedded sysytem. Within the bowels of it's tiny case Znux has a 486DX/2 66, 64MB ram, 520MB drive, ethernet and 56K modem. Znux was a labor of love and it shows. It has never faltered of even stumbled even under some rather adverse conditions (survived a lightning strike that cooked a few of the other machines). Znux is probably the best of the 486's and my most favorite machine, but I rarely get to touch it anymore, as it is running on a remote LAN.

Why so many?
      After I moved, I had no excuse to have more than one computer so I setup the LAN for entertainment. I occasionally have my co-workers over for a game of Doom now and then and I also do a bit of "Internet training" on the side. What can I say, I like my old 'puters. :)