Software Update

[TireSmoker]

Added some customization. That's the piston from my first blown up 400 in the pre-Tiresmoke era. 1999, I think. The enormous piston is a TRW piston for an earth mover given to me by Dorothy Skowrunski when I worked at TRW Shared Services. I got some 3.2 Quattro badges to highlight the AMD 3.2GHz quad-core processor, and topped it with a vintage Hot Wheels Camaro from my personal childhood collection, as well as some Matchbox cars that I figured were worth finally removing from the packaging for this cause.

-Dave

[MostMint]

Nice - we need a "cowl induction" emblem to put under the hole where the CD drive would go.

[Basement Paul]

Now it's gearhead approved. Well done!

-BP

[wxo]

What do you think about a TireSmoke logo? Maybe over the Dell badge or anywhere else? I can probably help with that if you like the idea.

[TireSmoker]

If you can whip something up, I'm more than happy to stick it on there.

-Dave

[wxo]

What is the diameter of the badge? Is it flat or convex?

[TireSmoker]

1.125" and slightly convex.

-Dave

[wxo]

Thanks, Dave. I'll get my best people on it.

[TireSmoker]

There is a new Dark mode if you like that kind of thing (I do) -- go to your username in the upper right, click User Control Panel, click the Board Preferences tab, and change the My Board Style setting to "prosilver_dark"

-Dave

[MostMint]

I just noticed I don't have an avatar anymore not sure if what I used before is not support by the upgrade?

[TireSmoker]

Actually, I think that existed prior to the upgrade. I'd just try re uploading your avatar. There are certain size limitations that I cant remember right now, though.

[TireSmoker]

Not really a software update, but Tiresmoke has been moved to new hardware! For the past 3 years, It's been running on a Linux virtual machine using Oracle VirtualBox on an old Windows 7 box that is probably 11 years old. (Dell Inspiron 531) Sometime in the past year, I bought a Dell Optiplex 580 from Penske for $25. I bought this box because it has an AM2 CPU socket which would accept the quad-core 3.2GHz processor I salvaged from another PC that died. The stock processor was a dual-core 2.x GHz something. I added an 8GB ram kit (12GB total) and a 256GB SSD. So we're running on a souped-up hotrod!

I loaded up VMWare ESXi 6.0 which is enterprise quality virtualization and migrated Tiresmoke into that environment. One of the things I could never do (satisfactorily) with VirtualBox in Windows was to get the Tiresmoke virtual machine to start automatically on bootup. It was a manual process. It's problematic when something happens and I'm out of town. The new hardware is configured to always turn-on when power is restored, and ESX will auto-start the Tiresmoke virtual machine. Should work pretty nice for a long time.

-Dave

Well, 4+ years later, and Tiresmoke is due for another hardware update. The Dell Optiplex 580 is probably from 2010-ish, which is limiting me to VMWare ESXi 6.0 (old) , which may have been a factor in the vandalism back in January. It's been acting flaky the past few months too. Regardless, its old hardware that has more than served its purpose. Quick calculation says its been online for 35000+ hours. (24*365 * 4 yrs)

I bought a Dell Optiplex 5050 on ebay with an Intel i7-7700 CPU (4 cores, 3.6GHz), 8GB RAM and no hard-drive/SSD for $125/shipped. I think it was new in 2017, and this board will support a whopping 64GB of RAM. This setup should offer a huge increase of performance while also using a lot less energy. I was able to get VMWare 6.7 loaded on it, which is a big improvement over 6.0 (hopefully 7.0 will work).

I'm still waiting for a network card to arrive, but should hopefully have everything migrated in the next few days.

-Dave

[Basement Paul]

Hmmm. Upgrades.

-BP

[TireSmoker]

We are live on the new hardware!

-Dave

[Basement Paul]

Is that '57 Chevy a barnfind?

-BP