Self Portrait in Computer Case Art One of the most interesting projects I have done, The Grump Case was designed to be a quiet and powerful computer system, as well as a handsome work of technological art. Its design, rather the side panel design, was created to depict the avatar I used on many forums around the Interweb - the…
This is a blast from the past. I wrote this article in June 2003. Case modding was relatively new at that time and I stumbled into it during my search for components to use in a new computer build. I wrote this about case cutting because there was so little information about it available at the time. This is presented…
Functional Design was named in memory of my friend and business associate, Larry Furth, who owned a furniture and floorcovering store, Functional Designs of Reno, NV. This project began in 2003 as a simple search for components to build myself a new computer. Although I had assembled several computers for friends and family, repaired and upgraded many other PCs, (more…)
More than a year ago - yeah really, that long ago - I wrote What My Other Foot Wants. This was/is my own personal "bucket list" or as I called it, my "other foot list." Well, things have changed in the last year. My health hasn't gotten better, but I have a different attitude and my priorities have changed. I…
“The Mad Modder” was a tag I picked up sometime in 2003. I was known as “Grump” for a long time – not an undeserved nick-name – and in ’03, I was hanging out a lot in case modding forums. I built the computer you see in the picture (click it to see a larger version) and it impressed someone at CPU Magazine and it was featured in the October 2003 issue and I became the first “Mad Reader Mod.” Of course, the title was derived from my nick-name and a few people in the modding circles began calling me “the mad modder.” I even got the domain name, The Mad Modder dot com, which at one time had a pretty nice forum – another one of those things I had to give up when I got sick. (more…)
This was originally one of the pages of the very early version of GrumpsPlace.com, one of my first websites way back in 2003. Here it is reprinted for my enjoyment – and maybe yours too.
I prob’ly spend way too much time on my computers, but they are just so fascinating. I got my first one in 1991, intimidating as Hell, but needing something to help me keep the books. It wasn’t long before I was fiddling around with the settings, trying to squeeze more performance out of a 386DX with 1MB RAM, a 4MB HDD and running MS-DOS 5. Then I discovered something quite different from my pet peeve about working on cars (more…)