sandlewould -- You say there isn't enough energy. Does anyone know how many terawatts of energy would be produced by solar arrays on every roof in LA county? I know Thom said Germany, with hardly any sun, replaced 8 nuclear power plants by voluntary (but financially rewarding) homeowners putting solar arrays on their roofs.

Quote 2950-10K:DanneMarc: Sanders, Warren, Grayson, Schakowsky, Lee, Ellison, Defazio.....are just a few of the growing number of elected officials... who know what time it is. As you already so aptly put it.....they understand the yellow brick road and how to get us back to Kansas. Although I really don't know how they're able to put up with knuckleheads like Boehner, Cantor, Paul Ryan, Bachmann, Turtleman, not to mention all of the other Teabagger numbnuts.

2950-10K ~ Oddly enough, I was asking myself the same question recently. It was during a televised town hall meeting with Senator Al Franken. I couldn't help but imagine that if I was in the audience and given the mike I would have asked, "So Al, now after some time being able to mingle with the other side, how would you describe the experience? Are there any saving graces at all in their character that you respect? Are they really the way they appear though their public statements? Is there more to what is going on then that which we observers perceive? Please tell?"

I would so like to hear the response from any of our decent legislators concerning that question. Inquiring minds what to know!

chuckle8: Starting in 1960, if minimum wage had kept up with workers producing more, the minimum wage would be $22 an hour today. Instead the missing $14.75 an hour has gone into the pockets of those complaining they pay too much business tax. The thought that they might be screwing their employees doesn't even cross their mind.

10K -- Have you seen the plot in Robert Reich's book "Aftershock" of wages vs productivity? It seems like at the moment Reagan became president wages quit tracking productivity.

TAO Interdiction is a program by NSA's Tailored Access Operations..a "squad of digital plumbers" (remember the spies that broke into Watergate for Tricky Dick?). So, how's that brand new laptop, hard drive, router or other device working out for you...or perhaps you haven't bought one quite yet? Just know that TAO's Interdiction program has been interrupting shipments in order to sneak in special spyware that will easily enable them to remotely spy on everything you do on your computers.

Attention Shoppers!! We are having a Bluelight Special in Isle 13 on all computer equipment! Hurry, Hurry this stuffs now going for very cheap...ah, err..no guarantees of privacy, though.

Quote news.cnet:"According to the report, the NSA has planted backdoors to access computers, hard drives, routers, and other devices from companies such as Cisco, Dell, Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor, Samsung, and Huawei. The report describes a 50-page product catalog of tools and techniques that an NSA division called ANT, which stands for Advanced or Access Network Technology, uses to gain access to devices."

"For nearly every lock, ANT seems to have a key in its toolbox. And no matter what walls companies erect, the NSA's specialists seem already to have gotten past them," the report said. The ANT department prefers targeting the BIOS, code on a chip on the motherboard that runs when the machine starts up. The spyware infiltration is largely invisible to other security programs and can persist if a machine is wiped and a new operating system is installed.

Of course, some people are capable of programming and burning their own BIOS ROMS and those who are real threats will do so...so who are the NSA really interested in spying on?..The people, that's who!

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57616334-83/nsa-reportedly-planted-spyw...
http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/29/5253226/nsa-cia-fbi-laptop-usb-plant-spy
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-nsa-uses-powerful-toolbox-...

DAnneMarc: I haven't read anything about HP being on that list. But, I doubt that NSA would overlook anything.

While some of these vendors are making defensive statements, I don't know how much we can believe them..after all...if people stop buying their products..that'll put pressure on the NSA to stop their spying on us. The courts are sure not going to put a stop to it. I'm sure the NSA has way too much incriminating evidence against any particular judge, or politician, and are going to get their way. Thing is, that if the NSA can bully companies into rolling over and taking it from behind, like some prison b1tch, all they have to do is get those companies to include NSA malware in their monthly "security" updates...and we'd never know it till it was too late.

I've been thinking about getting another laptop... thinking about how they always load up a lot of junk on them that are really, often, "phone-home" malware anyway. One possibility is to buy a laptop from a company that is sensitive to those issues and offers a Linux O/S instead of Windoze. But a couple of years ago when Ubuntu 12.10 Unity came out, it was discovered that spyware was sending a history of ALL searches to Amazon. It was easy enough to turn that "feature" off. But lots of people didn't know about it and now Amazon knows a whole lot about it's potential victims...I mean...customers. And I wouldn't be surprised if Amazon dutifully passed that info up to NSA. One thing that Linux O/S has going for it is that it is "open" source instead of "closed" source. Windoze and Apple OS's are closed sourced OS's although Apple OSX is very nearly Linux anyway..it is still closed source...making it very hard for a lot of people to see what's inside...which avoids scrutiny...and keeps the bad stuff lurking out of sight... eroding the users security.

Quote article:A White House review panel report into the activities of the NSA suggested that the government was using the spy agency to launch cyber attacks against financial institutions and change the amounts held in bank accounts.

http://www.infowars.com/government-using-nsa-to-change-amount-in-bank-ac...

I often see strange activity on my home computer (which I built a couple of years ago) when monitoring pfirewall.log and using Wireshark. A typical example is: While watching a YouTube video (no not porn ;-}), my logs picked up something trying to "phone home"...but not succeeding..(no data is passed)..trying to connect to a RIPE server (port 80) site in the Amsterdam Area (but could be Germany). It tried to connect with that site... trying different incremental ports on my system... but eventually it gave up. It went for about 8 minutes scanning 164 sequential ports. Yes, I know that that YouTube video connection could have slipped in a JavaScript program which was trying to send some information back to the server...but it could have been a different server than where the video was coming from. NSA loves YouTube and Facebook and they also have a listening station in Germany. ;-}

I think this was one of the videos I watched..man, talk about paranoid...no, not me...the woman in the video...but then...could it be true?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5LraUJmBuk

DAnneMarc: I read that alleged Nasa document (what the woman in the YouTube video was squawkin' about)..all 100 pages..sounds like someone is smokin' some really bad stuff there.

But, I do wonder why Google bought Boston Dynamics. BD had some really scary robots...some could run 28 MPH and others could jump 30 feet. Google will certainly know who to sick Big Dog on to, and where they live.

Palindromedary ~ I just got a chance to see all that video. Didn't have the time last night. Now, generally speaking, I have a very open mind; but, if that really came out of NASA, either you are right on, or, its COINTELPRO on steroids. One of my strangest reactions was how the alleged document kept referring to "humans" in third person. If you read it, is that true? What are they implying? That is, who are the authors? Are they robots, gods, or extraterrestrials? Can they really put human brains into robots? They can't even put a human brain into a human. How can they accomplish mind control from a SMART meter? I'd really like to know that? I've had my "human" brain now almost totally in my possession for over half a century and I, myself, can't even control it. It doesn't make any sense to me logically that they would spread out that technology on every home where anyone can reverse engineer it; and, where anyone with a sledge hammer or a large rock can neutralize it.

Frequency based weapon technology I can understand. Anyone with a variable oscillator, an amplifier, deaf neighbors, and some idle time can recreate such technology. Basically, you can cause discomfort, pain, and confusion--just like is done routinely by Heavy Metal and RAP music. However, causing any kind of mind control that is productive, is far beyond anything I could imagine.

I--quite probably like you--studied electronic technology all my life because I hate a mystery I can't understand that seems like magic. The more understanding you have the less likely you are to be fooled into believing science fiction is reality. Of course, my understanding is naturally limited. I could explain how radar, a remote control, a computer, or to some extent, even the internet works; however, I am limited by what I know; and, more so by what I don't know. It sounds like we are to be led to believe that higher level technology has been kept secret. Secret, despite the potential to exploit it for commercial reasons?

However, if that were true, that would really help to support the claim that the Government has struck a covert treaty with extraterrestrials. It is far less likely to me that they developed all this new technology on their own. That would also explain the constant reference to "humans" in third person in the document. Please tell me, did you actually acquire this document from the NASA web site?

Your experience with military personnel is far superior to mine. However, I have noted that of everyone I know who have joined the military they all tend to have a deep commitment to the protection of this country and it's citizens. I can't for the life of me imagine a conspiracy that would run so deep, involve so many higher than the normal intelligence people, and contradict those principles so much, that it would be able to fly under the radar so perfectly without any whistle blowers from the inside coming forward; and, the only source of the info being a soccer mom, surfing the web, with way too much time on her hands. Please correct me if I am wrong; but, in my humble opinion, if this story had any real credibility, military personnel would have blown the whistle every which way the wind blows since day one.

Any more light that you could share on this story would be most appreciated. Have a very Happy New Year in the mean time.

Palindromedary ~ Who are the authors, indeed? Who perceives themselves as other than human? The elite? The illuminate? I doubt that. There is more to that question than meets the eye. Nevertheless, I must agree that this is Psyops 101. COINTELPRO on steroids. I also agree that the ends is probably to discredit real whistleblowers. Probably designed as a counter intelligence response to the Edward Snowden revelations.

Like you said every good con has a bit of truth in it. Sky Net surely can't be too far ahead. I remember when I studied digital electronics many years ago for my Senior project I designed an intelligent CPU interface that was capable of learning, making it's own decisions, and changing it's mind. It was a surprisingly easy feat to accomplish using basic logic gates and registers. My instructor kept trying to discourage me by saying it wouldn't work. The more he criticized me, the more determined I became. I never tested the circuitry; but, I did get an A+ in the course. I remember secretly hoping that he was right about it not working. With the advances of technology today, especially with ease of use--like your little Arduino project--only a fool would dismiss the future of AI.

Nevertheless, the idea that AI is possible I've accepted a long time ago. We Humans (first person) think we are so special and unique; yet, if that is really true then we should be creative enough to teach a simple machine how to think independently. Even the simplest one cell life forms known exhibit remedial independent intelligence. Thinking isn't really that complicated you know. You have an objective, and you formulate a plan of actions in order to achieve it based on stored data. The only tricky part is to get the machine to accept the objective on it's own. Even that can be achieved with a simple subroutine.

Intelligent machines are a fine idea as long as they aren't too intelligent. There has to be defined protocols in the machine operating language and most important of all, an off switch. Once a machine is capable of reproducing, self maintaining, having a conscious and an attitude then we've had it. Personally, I would like to think that the people who know that fact the most are the people who build the machines. Unfortunately, I must think back to my days in school and how my excitement and ego overruled my judgement and common sense.

One can only speculate whether that document was written by a COINTELPRO agent, an alien, a human with a super inflated ego, or, maybe, a machine :-O

PS. Do you have a link to that document? I'd like to have a look at it myself. (By the way, I couldn't watch the whole video myself either. Just enough to know I didn't need to watch any more.)

DAnneMarc: Thanks for those links. If I fold my $100 dollar bill just the right way, I can see a nativity scene with a little baby Santa Clause in the manger...beard, red suit and all. Rudolph is poking his red nose through the window. ;-}

http://www.whiteoutpress.com/articles/q42013/cia-leak-says-saudi-arabia-...

I am surprised that I hadn't heard about this sooner. I actually picked up on it when watching Thom Hartmann today when he mentioned the censored 28 pages that Bush wouldn't allow to be seen by anyone which implicates Saudi Arabia in funding and most likely working in concert with the Bush Neocons and Israel in pulling off 9/11. Of course, we all knew, even right after 9/11, that 15 or the 19 "hijackers" were Saudis. Al Qaida and Usama bin Laden had nothing to do with 9/11...it was all planned and funded by the US, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Israel key players.

I'm hoping all 28 pages will be leaked and hope that Snowden has something very explosively incriminating against those Neocon traitors.

So, do you allow any of these software companies...say..like Microsoft...or Firefox...or any other provider of software on your computer to send back information..like crash reports, or other problems? It all sounds very unobtrusive..they say they aren't collecting anything that would identify us specifically...but...According to the recent expose' by Der Spiegel on NSA spying...NSA actually gets hold of all that data to use as a way to know how they can exploit our computers. They have key data related to that crash report that can identify you...IP addresses..MAC addresses..processor id numbers..etc.

"NSA's alleged ability to spy on Microsoft Corp.'s crash reports, familiar to many users of the Windows operating system as the dialogue box which pops up when a game freezes or a Word document dies. The reporting system is intended to help Microsoft engineers improve their products and fix bugs, but Der Spiegel said the NSA was also sifting through the reports to help spies break into machines running Windows."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/29/nsa-hacking-tactics-_n_4515897....

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nsa-secret-toolbox-ant-unit-of...

Palindromedary ~ As always you are a virtual fountain of information. Let's start with Saudi Arabia. Fascinating and quite unbelievable that this story could fly under the radar for over a decade. The Patriot act, undermining the Constitution and three illegal wars? Talk about a day late and a dollar short. We should also add our voices to the Congressional efforts and not beg but demand that President Obama release these documents. The man promised to prosecute the Bush Administration for war crimes if there was credible proof. That time has come and gone repeatedly so far; yet now, he is clearly implicating himself as an accessory if he buries this compelling official information. He either acts now; or, finds himself brought up on charges as an accessory by a future Administration, or, by the court system. Of course, if this information somehow implicates the Obama Administration as well he might have to cover it up. After all, it was Obama who also charged us into the war in Afghanistan. A war that is supposed to last another 10 years. In either case, a revelation that Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda had nothing to do with 911 isn't going to help his popularity much. It beats the hell out of a war crime rap though. In either case, I sure am glad I'm not in his shoes right now.

Your computer hacking information was quite enlightening; though, I didn't quite understand all of it, I understood enough to realize what we are up against. Installing firmware in a motherboards BIOS is a most effective way of permanently compromising ones system. I take it that flashing the BIOS or resetting it has no effect? What about replacing it with the HDD together. It seems like the only way; however, if the string is set to load in the new operating system the BIOS could easily just be reloaded with it during set up. Henceforth, there is nothing that can be done about this problem short of finding an uncompromised operating system and/or writing your own. Furthermore, I see you mentioned Task Monitor; yet, you didn't mention how to identify any malicious tasks in the viewer. I find it hard to believe that the NSA would allow any malicious content to be observable so easily; especially, when it is embedded as far down as the BIOS and does it's main thing during the boot up sequence. I'm sure that if you knew any simply ways to check for malicious activities you would have included them; therefore, I must conclude that you simply want us to know what is going on and that there is little we can do about it other than learn to live with it?

Thanks for that heads up about crash reports. I've never allowed those things to be sent simply because I don't want Microsoft to have my information. I never dreamed it would also be beamed to the NSA; or, anyone else. Nevertheless, now I have more reason to be secretive. In the past, my experience has been that if there is a problem with my computer that I can't fix on my own I just have to wait for an upgrade, clean the system of the unwanted cause, or use a different computer. Computer crashes are common and occur for a variety of reasons. I have learned that those reasons usually involve something I caused and rarely involve the base software programming. Furthermore, sending information to developers is not going to help you get your system to work right. That is something that you have to do on your own. My motto has always been, "Back it up! And when in doubt FDISK it out!" The crash report only gives the illusions that someone is trying to help you.

DAnneMarc: Well, the HDD is a separate entity and gets it's initial commands in the POST operation from the BIOS/CMOS..which resides in a little chip on the Mother Board. Some just plug into a socket... others are soldered in. I've replaced the plug-in type..if you ever have problems with your computer and suspect the BIOS then there are companies that sell your brand of BIOS...eg: Phoenix or Award...etc...already programmed into the chip. But, if it is soldered in..that's tough! One can even get a burner and program ones own I suppose.

But, BIOS is rather dated anyway...that's been around quite a few years and now the latest rage is UEFI. BIOS has some limitations...like you can't use any drive larger that 2.2TB..unless you partition them into smaller partitions. I know because I bought a 3TB external drive for backups, and my system uses BIOS and not UEFI, and the 3TB didn't work the way I wanted.

BIOS uses MBR (master boot record)..UEFI uses GPT (GUID partition table). The BIOS points to the MBR and the UEFI points to the GPT both of which are on the HDD or SSD (Solid State Drive). And Bios uses 16 bit mode whereas UEFI uses 32 or 64 bit modes.

Of course one can "flash" ones BIOS with updated code which is always a bit risky.
'If it ain't broke, don't try to fix it." Even motherboard makers recommend not to mess with it if it is not having any problems. Not that I always follow that path. ;-} But, the most common problem is that the CMOS battery goes dead and one indication of that is if your computer won't keep correct time after restarting. The CMOS holds all the important settings that BIOS uses to boot up the computer.

BIOS is written in assembly language while UEFI is written in a higher level language called C (and that is barely a notch above assembly) which makes it a bit more readable and understandable..and it is platform independent whereas BIOS was very platform dependent. The O/S can interact with the UEFI and is not so hardware fussy as was BIOS. It's easy to customize as well.

UEFI started to appear right about 2002-2005 and because of some of the features I've mentioned it seems like UEFI would lend itself to easy manipulation by some government entities if they saw fit. While BIOS would probably not be easy, maybe impossible, to mess with remotely, I wonder about UEFI. BIOS was very touchy...if you messed with it...it broke..your computer broke...very obvious and disastrous results.

Yes, there are a lot of strange looking processes and services listed in Task Manager...which you can do a search on the internet for if you are curious. Are they rogue malware processes or just crummy memory and processor hogs wasting precious resources which slows down your computer...or spying on you, perhaps.

I recently had a problem where I couldn't start, then exit, the restart Firefox...even after I turned off all my extensions which are usually the cause. In order to start firefox again, I had to go to Task Manager and end the firefox process. I finally fixed the problem by doing Malwarebytes in Windows Safe mode and zapped that little sucker of a trojan. Evidently the trojan was keeping firefox process active after I thought I had exited it. I also learned that I could do a (firefox.exe -safe-mode) in Admin CMD window and reset firefox which helped initially to fix part of the problem. Now I can start and exit firefox all night and it won't lock up.

http://www.ilovefreesoftware.com/17/tutorial/what-is-uefi.html

DAnneMarc: I understand that computers that come with Windows 8 will have UEFI BIOS. You can also upgrade your present BIOS to UEFI but, from what I've heard, once you do, you can't get back to BIOS again if you change your mind. Although, you can turn off the function in UEFI that limits "signed-only" programs. UEFI sounds like it has some good things about it...but the only thing you can run on the computer is "signed" programs..unless you turn that function off. Probably the reason why some people change their minds and want BIOS again but by then it is too late...you can't go back...at least that's what I've read. After you change to UEFI you can't "flash" your BIOS to come back to life on BIOS. There's probably a way to get back to BIOS but it is likely very difficult.

I switched to SSD-Solid Disk Drive and now it takes about 60 seconds to login and then about 3 seconds for Windows to be ready. It takes much less time to shut down. My primary hard disk (the SSD) performance score went up to 7.9 and all my other scores are 7.4..I could make changes to improve those as well but I'm really not into gaming so I probably won't go that route. I did however like playing that Blender game...Yo Frankie! when I was learning Blender programming. Yeah, I know, Yo Frankie!...lame...huh? ...not exactly a shoot em up kind of game but Frankie the squirrel sure could zap those sheep! Loved the spooky-dreamy music. I also minimized many of the unnecessary startups as well. CCleaner has a Tools section to easily weed out the unnecessary startups. CCleaner is a free program that cleans a lot of junk off of computers and so does Malwarebytes.

I had to make sure BIOS was set for AHCI mode and I had to make a few changes in the registry. I had already installed my O/S...so I changed to AHCI after installing the O/S (some time ago). It's best to do this when doing a fresh OS install, ie: do the BIOS change to AHCI first..then do the O/S install. The registry changes can make it possible to get AHCI to work after the O/S is already installed. And there are a couple of registry changes relating to turning off unnecessary Hard drive operations that just wear out a SSD prematurely.

DAnneMarc: Yikes! That is bad news...I often wonder what happened to my motherboard in my last PC...it went out after I did one of those monthly Microsoft Security updates...right after! My screen went black...no video. A black screen of death...not blue! No, the monitor was ok...in fact I am still using that monitor.

Although, I sure thought that my computer was zapped by something from Microsoft...I later discovered that my computer was plugged into a wall socket that did not have a ground. I couldn't believe that all those years I operated that computer that it didn't get zapped much earlier. I also couldn't believe that I never checked the polarity of that wall socket prior to plugging in my computer when I installed it. Heck, I was in the business of making sure the equipment I installed had the right polarity and yet I somehow overlooked it in my own home. So, now it makes sense why my MOBO was zapped.

I even bought a little IDE POST-monitoring-board to plug in to see the error codes displayed on LED segments. Listening for sequence of beeps is usually used to see the state of a POST operation...indicated it was likely the mobo. I swapped out the monitor and cables. Checked the power supply voltages and they were ok. Removed components one by one...I even sent for new BIOS chips pre-programmed with my BIOS brand and revision. Of course, I ensured no static would zap anything. I didn't go as far as swapping out the mobo or processor though. So, I never did fix the problem..just decided to build my own.

Anyway, that was a special Fry's PC...almost a home built one...at least it wasn't a mass manufactured brand name one like HP or Dell. I decided to build my own PC. I selected a new wicked looking case, mother board, memory, cpu, video card, and other peripherals threw them all together and loaded my OS and mobo drivers. I had seriously considered dropping Microsoft for a Linux distro...but I caved in and spent the money for Windows 7. I had since gone to a dual boot...Windows 7/Ubuntu...that is, before I changed to an SSD..in which case I just started over fresh. Good practice! Still have my other drives with the O/S and data though. I didn't have to do it that way...could have just cloned it to my SSD..but my system was getting too bloated anyway.

I do remember that, when I worked in the IC manufacturing business, that I had read that, because of the theft of chips from manufacturers, they decided to serialize them....put the serial numbers right into the die...not external. I do know that the CPU chips have serial numbers that you can allow or prevent from being sent on to the internet. MAC addresses on Network Cards also get shipped onto the internet to identify you...although it is easy to spoof them. In fact, one mode of IPV6 actually includes the MAC address right in the IP number. I think I'd prefer the other mode...which is configurable.

Some of those chips were almost worth as much as gold...and if you compared them ounce to ounce...worth more than gold. I got a kick out of one IC manufacturer's fab that had an ingot of gold under a bell jar...as they needed gold in the manufacturing process of those ICs.

The thing about buying a computer from a name brand company...like you said..they tend to customize their components so that you have to buy only from them at much higher prices for replacements. They use special proprietary firmware embedded in the device's i/o chips..that have to match the proprietary BIOS. You can't just (easily anyway) buy cheaper parts from a third party vendor and plug them in. Although I have done so for hard drives inside of lap tops.

By building your own computer, you pretty much have control of what goes in and it is not hard to find parts, fairly cheaply, from a variety of sources. If I get tired of my mother board or my 6 core processor and want to change to another..I can do so. Slap in a new hard drive or extra memory, or whatever, I can do so.

One other thing that is a real pain when buying "name brand" from well-known manufacturers... is that they load up the computer with all kinds of crap trial programs...and even phone home spyware that eats up resources. It is a pain to get rid of it all. You get much less of it when you build your own...although some still comes with the mother board software. But you have control of whether to install it or not.

Quote DAnneMarc:There is one US manufacturer who screws all US customers by limiting access to cheap parts; but, makes cheap parts available everywhere else in the world. I won't state their name, but, they are world famous and their name begins and ends with an "X."

Hmmm...what company do we know that starts and ends with an "X"...not hard to guess. But, I'd venture to say that they are most likely not the only company that does that. They do that all the time with pharmaceuticals as well. Many of the pharmaceuticals that they push in the US are not made in the US and these companies who make these drugs cheap in other countries try to scare us against buying pharmaceuticals from other countries...like Mexico or Canada. They try to insinuate that they are unsafe..adulterated...fake.

Yes, they are putting the squeeze on us...not only wages and benefits...or sending our jobs overseas..but they are conniving to drain us of whatever little we have left before we die.

DAnneMarc: Cool! You've had a lot of good early experience on PCs. I have worked in the computer field for a long time even back when punched cards were the primary means with which to program computers...that or keying in instructions by hand using a panel of switches and using either hexadecimal or octal instructions depending upon the model of computer I had to work on. Wire memory was competing with core memory and 1k was graduating to 16k then to 32k then 64k.

I repaired and installed large mainframe computers as well as all of the smaller things like card punches, tape drives, disc drives, printers, card readers, card sorters, mass storage on drum. I also worked on Automatic Digital Network telecommunications computers forerunner to today's internet. They were called Data Communications Terminals..but were like fairly large cabinets that would print 132 characters per line and at great speeds. Drum printers, bar printers. And then there were little terminals as well.

Then I started working on minicomputers for businesses and later on I migrated to a job at a major government site maintaining their computers.

I took a couple of years of computer programming at local community colleges...in fact, one of those community colleges was where Edward Snowden was educated in Data Processing as well..although I had gone many years before he did.

I was fascinated with the smaller computers, when working on the larger ones, and read about them...how they worked, etc...but never got one until I went to Saudi Arabia.

My first PC was a Radio Shack TRS-80 model 16 that I bought in the US and had shipped to Saudi Arabia. I also had an Apple II but I can't remember if I had that one first or got it later, after my TRS-80.

I never actually built one until just a couple of years ago when I built the one I presently own.

There's a place in Sunnyvale, Ca called Weird Stuff Warehouse that I used to go for parts. I could pick up stuff for fairly cheap. They buy out various computer manufacturer's stocks in the bay area and old hard to find parts can often be found there.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/05/the-weird-stuff-warehouse-is-wher...

DAnneMarc: Interesting article. I don't remember the IMSAI microcomputer...I do remember DEC that looked similar to this IMSAI. This all reminds me of a podcast that I used to listen to all the time...Security Now. Steve Gibson of Security Now had a very strong interest in those old microcomputers..I think he had bought some PDP-8 computers and stirred up interest in his listeners. And they started manufacturing and selling PDP-8 kits and I think they had a very big success.

https://www.grc.com/PDP-8/PDP-8.HTM
https://www.grc.com/securitynow.htm