I go back a long way with them too, first Cogo, then Cogo A+, then TerraCad, the change to TerraModel, then the bad day when I received a letter saying Plus3 had been sold . . . You are right, great sotware, that has been ignored.
Ken
I'm using Win7 64 bit and have found nothing that will not run under it. But I would go with as much RAM as you can possible afford as others have already said.
> Those that are using Terramodel and StarNet - any problems with with old parallel port locks in XP emulation mode on a Win7 machine?
First, some terminology for clarification: under Win7 there's "XP Compatibility Mode" and "XP Mode." The first is a setting in the application shortcut that causes Win7 to allocate certain resources required to allow the application to run properly under Win7. The second is a virtual machine (VM) that has to go through a bootup process, after which you can launch the desired application in a virtual XP environment. XP Compatibility Mode is transparent to the user once the shortcut property has been set; XP Mode is a pain in the butt, and while the application may run fine in the VM, you may have trouble getting it to communicate with peripherals.
Star*Net v6 runs fine under native Win7. I'm not even using Compatibility Mode for it -- it works just like it did under XP, dongle and all. I may have had to update the Sentinel driver, but I don't recall for sure.
I can't comment on Terramodel, as it's not an application I have.
:good:
I agree w/the two-monitor setup. Good suggestions big-e
Oh, and also you need Windows 7 Professional version to do the VM.
Thanks Jim.
I have StarNet V6, so that is good to hear.
Did not know there are 2 XP modes in Win7.
Ken
If he doesn't work out, I have a son-in-law that is starting up building PC's. Let me know.B-)
Don't go cheap on the power supply.... buy the quietist one you can afford and you probably need at least 400 watts. Take some time to research this... you'll be glad you did.
> Those that are using Terramodel and StarNet - any problems with with old parallel port locks in XP emulation mode on a Win7 machine?
I don't know the answer to that, I use a laptop exclusively and I purchased a Brainboxes RS232 port that works very well, better than any USB / RS232 dongle I have tried.
I run the virtual WIN7 XP for a few pieces of software, but none requiring a parallel or serial port, those may or may not work under the VM. I used to run VMware for the same thing pre WIN7 with the VM built in, I could NOT get the ports to work with that emulator.
I upgraded dongles to USB a few years back when the parallel port went away on laptops, later followed by the disappearance of the serial port.
SHG
You are creating a miserable mess for yourself...It sounds like you want to upgrade your hardware, while keeping all your old software. That's a recipe for disaster, although you can manage it if you REALLY want to... Wouldn't recommend it, myself.
But if you go with a Win7 computer, I'd say don't waste your money on 32-bit. Make sure you go with 64-bit. And if you do so, I'd say go with a 2nd-Gen i5 or i7 with a min of 8GB RAM. 16GB is better, but 8GB will typically work OK. RAM is cheap these days, so 16GB is a better buy.
DVD writers are cheap, and also write to CD. So don't know why you'd go with anything else.
Good sound card is completely unnecessary. Inboard audio on virtually every MOBO you can get these days is completely fine, unless you're a professional musician, and intend to do professional audio recording on the computer as well.
3.5 floppy - OK, that can be an issue. Make sure your MOBO can accept it, although a lot of the recent ones will not. But as mentioned in another post, best bet may be an external USB floppy drive. Same with the serial port - may need to get a separate card or USB adaptor that will run that old stuff, since most MOBOs don't longer have any built-in serial ports.
For graphics, don't believe Autodesk's garbage about needing a Quadro - even if you're on Civil 3D, it won't use any features that aren't in a GeForce. A GeForce 500-series will work awesome. I like the GeForce 560 Ti, but I think there's been some new releases lately that might be even better. Not sure if they're worth the price, though. The absolute best you can get for C3d is the GTX 670. It's not a whole lot better, though than the GTX 660 Ti, which is probably 1/3 the price. Both of those last two out-perform (as least as far as C3D is concerned) the Quadro 6000, which can run you something close to $4000. Now if you're running something like 3DS Max and NavisWorks, you might want to reconsider that, but if you're just on C3D, go with a GeForce.
I also agree that you want a PS that is at least 400W for this sort of setup... I tend to like to pump it up a bit, maybe even up to 550W if you have extra hard drives in there, because it decreases the chance of failure, but you don't really need anything more. And SSD's can decrease your power needs significantly, but at a higher cost for the drives. Should you go that route, your SSD should be your primary drive, and make sure it's the biggest you can afford (at least 120GB on a Win7 x64 system), or 80GB if you want to cut the edge. Another (cheaper but almost as fast) solution is a RAID1 solution, using something like two WD 10K Velociraptors, as your primary drive. Next would be something like two 15K SAS drives in a RAID1, but that will jump your costs a fair bit. After that, you can look at various RAID5 or RAID10 solutions of various drives (probably should avoid a RAID01, which is a variant of the RAID10), but again that's getting more expensive with little gain, and the RAID5 solutions create more problems as far as reliability. The most-reliable and easiest-to-fix solution is to have a RAID10 setup, which involves 4 hard drives - two of them double each other, and two of them work in conjunction with each other, so any data written will be doubled on two drives (making for almost 2X, but closer to 1.5x the write speed), and if any drive fails, you can swap it out for an identical drive, sometimes without even shutting down your computer (depending on your MOBO and drives). But you're buying a lot of drives for that ability. I tend to think two fast drives (either veritcal-write 7200 RPM or 10K Velociraptors) in a RAID1 are the best buy in a desktop, while an SSD is best buy in a laptop (since the SSD uses less power, increasing battery life, while decreasing weight). But this is all in flux, as technology continues to change.
And I suppose the final detail is that the difference between a 7200 RPM vertical-write drive vs. an older 7200 RPM drive is that the vertical-write drives will "pile on" bits at the same point, so they can write data significantly faster than the older style. Most of the latest Seagate drives (among others) are now vertical-write drives. So even though they spin slower than a 10K Raptor or 15K SAS drive, they can work at similar data transfer rates, and at lower power consumption. They don't quite seem to manage the same data transfer rates as a 10K Velociraptor or a 15K SAS, but they are really close, and are much cheaper. Then throw two of them into a RAID1, and you have a monster system.
And before anyone chews me out, I guess I should explain a RAID5, because some people like them (although I don't).
What it is is basically a RAID1. That means that when data gets written to the two main drives, half is written to one drive, while half is written to the other drive. Net result is that write speed is significantly increased. Then "checksums", or combinations of the writes, are written to the third drive. So you need three drives for a RAID5 setup. It's not quite as fast as a RAID1 setup, because of all the checksum calculations. But should one maain drive fail, it's theoretically capable of "recalculating" the data on the other drive, based on the checksum data on the third drive. However, this process doesn't always work, and never works if something happens to more than one drive, so I'm not a big fan of this setup. It's a lot of extra expense, for minimal results. Instead, I recommend spending that extra money on a far-more reliable backup solution, such as a tape-drive system, or better yet, an off-line backup solution like Mozy or Carbonite that happens at least once a day, and without the need of someone carrying the physical tape off-site every day (or every week, should you feel comfortable going that long).
