Nirenjan’s Space

For those of you who don’t know what QBasic is, then you should do some research before reading this. Just kidding. QBasic is, essentially, Microsoft’s interpreter for the BASIC programming language.

I was digging through my old files today evening when I noticed an archive file titled QBasic. It’s been a very long time since I have programmed in QBasic. The last time I did something like that was about 6-7 years ago.

Digging through the archive, I found some pretty interesting programs that I wrote just for fun way back in ‘97. Just looking at them is a reminder of those glorious days. No design, no documentation, no review, no appraisal, no client visits, no on-site trips, no adherence to quality guidelines, in short, no process to follow :D.

There was one program that pretended to be a dialer, it would print some number on screen and play a tune from the PC speaker. You’d think that it was almost real. Then there was another program which pretended to be a RADAR. Then there were a few programs based on the TV shows of the early 90’s. Most of these programs were written based on my childhood fantasies. They seem almost absurd now, but then again, it’s a kind of window to my past.

I learnt BASIC when I was in the 7th and 8th grade as it was a part of my curriculum. I was so enthusiastic about learning a new language that I bought “Programming in BASIC” by E. Balaguruswamy. This was based on the early BASIC language in general.

After I finished my 10th, I got a new PC - Pentium II 233 MHz, 32 MB RAM, 2.1 GB HDD, 3.5″ floppy drive, 24x CD-ROM, Windows 95. Top of the line back then. (And the same system where the kernel panicked). Anyway, it had Microsoft QBasic installed as well, and I wound up re-learning BASIC all over again. QBasic provided a more structured approach to programming than the old BASICA interpreter did. And then the unexpected happened.

I never thought it would happen really. After a few years of working with BASIC, then Pascal, then back to BASIC, I finally discovered the world of Windows programming with Visual Basic. After I discovered the true power of VB, QBasic took a back-seat and never resurfaced, until now.

Now, however, I prefer programming in C, and my knowledge of QBasic is almost zero. C has the power to do almost anything, something which you cannot even dream of in QBasic. However, QBasic is, and always will be, one of my pet programming environments.

Remember the panicky kernel? Kernel panics. I junk it.

Besides, the modem itself behaves just nicely as a firewall/router…

By now, I guess most of you would be knowing about A. R. Rahman’s programme on Monday the 15th Saturday the 20th, weather not playing spoilsport at Jeppiar College of Engineering.

Anyway, there’s a practice session tomorrow (the 14th), and the Chennai Traffic Task Force and the Citizens for Safe Roads are practicing for regulating the traffic flow.

From the press release:

Netru Indru Naalai is a benefit programme in aid of The Banyan. This mega event calls in for a lot of traffic management. People who have registered themselves as CSR’s (Citizen for Safe Roads) and who are interested in lending a helping hand for this occasion, are requested to kindly volunteer.

A bus belonging to Jeppiar Engineering College bus will leave from the bus stop opposite Malar Hospitals at 3.00 pm sharp tomorrow, 14th August for a preliminary or dry run of traffic control. Please ensure to be there on time. A return bus will be made available upto Adyar.

For any further information, kindly contact Shanthi Krishnan at 94440 09851 (Adyar area), Fizal at 94444 06769 (Choolaimedu area) or Ravi Damodaran at 93810 35015 (Chetpet area).

Transport to and from Adyar will be available for CSR’s. MTC buses are available from the venue to various destinations on the day of the programme.

Chennai Bloggers, I’d be much obliged if you could repost this on your blogs so that more people are aware of this.

No, not at work, but at home. “Hectic?”, you ask? What could be so hectic about a weekend? Let me take you back in time - 48 hours.

Saturday morning: I have an old computer which we bought for somebody else. This computer had an ultralong password, which we couldn’t even fathom out. Choices: Format the hard disk & reinstall everything, or remove the password somehow. Obviously, I chose plan B. The question was, how? Pretty simple if you have physical access to the machine. Windows stores usernames and passwords in an encrypted form in a file called SAM somewhere in the WINDOWS folder (system32\config to be exact). I hooked up the hard disk as a slave device and deleted the SAM file. Voila, instant password deletion.

Saturday afternoon: My dad & I had a lot of plans to sort out our confused computer network and cabling. We have an old Pentium II which we plan to convert into a router. I also have a second 20 GB hard disk (Seagate) with nearly 15 GB of MP3z, all neatly ordered, labelled, grouped and renamed. Unfortunately, my computer doesn’t recognize this hard disk if I try to club it with my primary 80 GB Samsung hard disk.

Enter Ritchie Street. Head towards Supreme Computers. Purchase one mobile HDD enclosure, one keyboard, one modem, one adaptor cable. Not to mention one big 1 KVA UPS for the home. Total burn in pocket - Rs. 7300/-, inclusive of all taxes, coolie charges, parking charges, etc., etc., etc.

Saturday evening: Hook up the 20 GB into the hard disk enclosure and plug it into the USB port. Error: This device cannot start. Hmmm, what could be the problem here? OK, take the 5 GB from the old comp (the one I removed the password from) and plug it in. Working… all files detected. OK, try the 20 GB again? Same issue. OK, put in the jumper to make it a master. Working! Note to self: Always plug in the jumper to make it a master device before placing it into the enclosure.

Now, it’s already pretty late and so we couldn’t set up the network fully. Warning to my sister: Computer will not be available from 8.00 AM to 8.00 PM on Sunday, 7th August 2005, due to maintenance.

Sunday morning: My sister complains that she has some important work to complete. OK, we say, but you have only 1/2 an hour. She’s up and away. Half an hour later, we’re burning a few CDs containing microdistributions of Linux, specially optimized for routing and firewall purposes (namely IPCop, SmoothWall and Live CD Router).

After shutting down everything, we disconnect all the cables and start cleaning the place first. A few months of neglect is enough to assure a layer of dust at least half an inch thick. Vacuum everything, from the floor to the keyboard. Blow out the dust collected over 4 years inside the SMPS. In short, a complete revamp.

We finally connect one PC together and plan the layout for the router. The router software is yet to be installed. Connect the system and insert the IPCop CD. Boot from CD and see a warning “All data on your hard disk will be deleted”. Yeah yeah, I know this. Confirm by pressing Enter. The boot process starts up, only to end with this message “Kernel panic: Aiee, attempting to kill init!”.

???

Retry with Live CD Router and SmoothWall. Same problem. Attempt to reload RedHat Linux 9 which was already there on the hard disk. Same problem. Try to format and install Windows 98. System stops responding. Try Win 2000. STOP error. I was practically ready to throw the system out the window.

Last option. Plug in the hard disk into the enclosure and format it from within Windows XP. Reconnect it and try IPCop again. Installation successful!!! “Yes! I am invincible!!!”. Reboot. “Kernel panic: Aiee, attempting to kill init!”. AAARRRGGGHHH!!!