I hoiked a little PC out of the cupboard for my new / old hobby ( I have recovered my ham radio license from the DTI*) hoping to use it for various radio interface stuff.
Its a tiny little 2006 ASUS Eee PC seashell series. pathetic little two core intel Atom, 2 gb memory and a 160gb sata drive running windows 7 starter. I tried stripping it back to basics, but some stuff got screwed so I did a recovery back to factory state using the hidden partition. There the issues started, Winbdows update refused to start, and Windows 7 Service pack 1 is now unavailable.
For a laugh, I thought - lets try, so I went to the now largely unadvertised windows upgrade web page and tried the old free upgrade to Windows 10 tool. It hummed away for a long time and said "lets go" so I did.
Result? I now have windows 10 running on what should be utterly pathetic hardware, in theory it should be as speedy as concrete. Ok its not snappy by any means, but it works and its working to a level its useable - in fact I am typing this post on the very same machine
To say I am suprised is an understatement, even impressed.
* Gave it up in 1983, a class B license, delighted to find that in the interveing years all the records got destroyed in some IRA bomb, and on sending them my paper license they have given me my old call sign back AND I now have a full unrestricted license.
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You are just repeating the word 'license' as often as you can!
Aren't you?
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>> Its a tiny little 2006 ASUS Eee PC seashell series
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I (or rather SWMBO) had one of those. I've just found the order online - it was 2009, and similar spec running XP Home.
I know I subsequently updated it to Win7 (ISTR there was something in the XP video driver from the factory that allowed the screen to be used at a customised compressed ratio - or something similar - which disappeared with 7).
It gave us quite a bit of life until it was passed on to No. 1 son as a plaything.
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What sort of radio stuff are you planning on?
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>> What sort of radio stuff are you planning on?
Dunno, its an itch that needs to be scratched. Not sure I can be rsed to get back deeply in it and festoon the place with masts & antenna, nor lash out thousands on gear. SDR will figure somewhere.
I lashed out the huge sum of 35 quid on a Baofeng, lashed up a ground plane round the velux window upstairs in the mancave, stuck a dipole out the window and was able to hit repeaters in Sussex and the Chilterns on 8 watts.
Its going to be basic VHF & UHF stuff I think. Involving the crossover multi activity camping vehicle.
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I gave away a not-much-used white Acer Aspire One on Freegle recently, similar age and spec but may have only been 1 Gb memory. I'd sold it once on eBay after putting Windows 10 on it but the buyer was unhappy so I refunded. When I gave it a bit more of an extensive test that just booting it up it was awfully slow so as I had no use for it anyway so someone got a smart 9" machine for free!!
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I am putting the up to date win 10 updates on it, then its going to be locked down. No more updates*, remove the superflous crap then see how it goes withg the stuff I want to run on it. Its all low graphic intensity stuff so it should be ok.
* I need to put some back level drivers on it for a few bits and bobs, and update will try and replace them.
I think what helps is it orginally came with 1gb memory, and somewhere in the mists of time I doubled it to 2. It certainly runs better than W7
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Well thats gone spectacularly well. It now has a stable locked down (updates wise) windows 10 home system on it, the back level usb-com drivers have been applied, and the interface programs loaded and tested. Libre office has been loaded and works quite well, needed as most radios take CSV files as frequency tables.
Impressed as little Asus Eee PC was on its way to the dustbin.
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blimey - Duncan
