I got a new computer, and I have named it Aleph-Patach - Allie for short! That is because the motherboard is an AOpen, so, aleph is for the A, of course, and open is patach in Hebrew…well…actually it’s “to be open”, but close enough.

We finally decided that my computer was just getting too old, so Calvin built me a new one about 2 weeks ago for under $500 - and here are the specs:

AMD AthlonXP 3200+
AOpen AK77-600 Max Mobo
512MB RAM
Samsung 120GB HD
NVidia GeForce 6600 256MB Video Card

And I even helped put it together! I put the processer in and everything! Well anyways, no sooner do we get it set up than it starts causing problems with EVERY single game I install. Crashing to desktop, random reboots, error messages - all while playing games. Calvin decided that it must be overheating (running 48-49C idle and 57-58C after a crash), so we put two more fans in the thing, one in the front and one in the back, and I haven’t had any problems since, not even in Neverwinter Nights, which was causing me the most problems. So, we’re crossing our fingers and hoping we solved the problem. It’s running about 41-42C idle and 47-48 after I close a game down, so I guess that’s good. It is a little loud though, between the 5 fans (2 on the chassis, one for my power supply, one for the processer, and one for the video card). Oh well. I can’t have everything, I guess.

Today, though, I decided to install one of my old favorites, Roller Coaster Tycoon, the original, and it’s expansion packs, and I get it all installed, and it runs fine. So, I transfer over my saved games from my backup and that’s fine too. However, obviously after a fresh install the game isn’t going to have my scenario progress information (it unlocks new scenarios after having won old ones). Seeing as I had won all the scenarios in the original RCT and all but two in Corkscrew Follies, the first expansion, I wanted that information! I tried copying over my entire RCT folder from my backup, but it didn’t like that too much and I broke it. Calvin said that was a bad idea. I don’t know these things! Anyways, I uninstalled it and reinstalled it and searched far and wide trying to figure out where it kept the saved game info. Finally, I find that it is kept in CSS0.dat, but you can’t just transfer the file over ’cause the new install won’t like the time/date stamp of the old file and it will just trash it. So Calvin came to the rescue as always, and opened up the old file (dating back to 2004) with notepad, put some random stuff at the top, and saved it. Then, he opened it back up, deleted the random stuff so it was back to the original. Then, of course, the date stamp said modified today, which matched the one of my new install. So we copied the modified old file over, and voila! It worked! I have all my scenario progress info, which makes me very happy!

What would I ever do without my own personal tech support?