Free
Computer
Shop

This is the home page of the Free Computer Shop. This page is about all that is left of the FCS. It is a place for me to post things I want to share. Those are in the FAQ section, just below.

After the FAQ are some sections of historical interest. In other words I am retired, slow, and distracted; I have not gotten around to updating it.

Free Computer Shop: (FAQ)

Free Answers to Questions.

Frequently asked; maybe not, but if your question is here, the answer is free.

: Is the command " rm *~ " guaranteed to remove only backup files?
: How does the server for this page work?
: How can literate programming be done in Scheme?
: Why does a dodecahedron have twice as many faces as a cube?
: What's happening with WLUG (Worcester Linux Users Group)?
: What is the problem with your ISP?
: How can I get a computer for no money?
: How can a wireless router be added to a wired network?
: What have you written lately?
: What strange behavior does Debian exhibit with two ethernet cards?
: What is a Modified Discrete Cosine Transform (MDCT)?
: What does NB stand for?
: Why am I totally failing to get TX interrupts on my MCF5272 evaluation board?
: What did Zarathustra say?
: What should be done to install DSL if I have an old burglar alarm?
: What does the invention of the smiley :-) tell us about computer security?
: How do I get a special character (like "⊆") into an HTML document?

Free Computer Shop: What was it?

Around the year 2000 the Free Computer Shop was a rented storefront in Worcester. I sold a few computers, mostly via phone and email; I don't recall anyone walking into the store other than the landlord. I didn't lose money, but I didn't make much either, and most of that was from software development.

I decided to give up the storefront and for a while ran the business out of my basement. I wrote:
This is the Home Page of the Free Computer Shop, now at its new home in my basement…

Update 2023-September: Because of problems with my ISP (Internet Service Provider) this web page must make major technical changes soon. In particular it may longer be possible to serve up web pages from my basement. That link describes the ISP problem and asks for advice. Everything below is left as it was.

Update 2024-11-01: Indeed, this web page is no longer served from my basement. It is now "in the cloud"[1]. A VPS in the cloud runs my email server (postfix), and web server (apache). I no longer run my own name server. Most of the rest of this page is still the same, but I am starting to make changes. In particular I have added to the FAQ.

[1] There is no cloud; it's just somebody else's computer. In this case, at least I know whose computer and where it is. It's in New York and owned by Afterburst.
> https://afterburst.com is a link to Afterburst.

Check the bottom of this page for information on how to contact me.

Free Computer Shop: What is it?

So what is the Free Computer Shop? You give away computers? Well, no. We don't give away the hardware. (You didn't really expect that, did you?) But the software is free. Not just software for no money, but software you are free to copy, free to learn from, and free to change.

The Free Computer Shop has undergone a change of business plan since I first put up the web page. The original plan was a computer store specializing in Free (Open Source) software. We would sell computer systems with Linux installed. In the past year or two, several large corporations have taken up that project, and seem to be doing an adequate job.

Well, I can't make computer chips, and there is not much money or glory in retail sales. It seems to work better if I stick to doing something I do well, so the Shop is now a software contracting service.

Here's a copy of the FCS Licence and Guarantee I have been giving to clients. Other licences are possible if you have reasons to want it changed.

If you have a specialized project, we can write special purpose software to your specifications. Projects completed in the past include:

: -- a boot ROM for an embedded Motorola ColdFire processor
: -- integration of an Oracle database into a robotic production line
: -- X.25 communication software
: -- compiler porting and modification
: -- PhD in computer science (University of Pittsburgh)

Free Computer Shop: Where is it NOW? (and how do I contact you?)

The storefront has been closed down, it was taking too much money without adding much to the new plan. The shop is the Web page you are looking at.

Email:: I have had the address kwright@free-comp-shop.com since forever. It is at the point that more than 99% of mail coming to that address is stinking spam. So mail to that address will probably be rejected unless it has the string [fcs] somewhere in the Subject: header. Put those three letters in the Subject, or you may have your mail rejected.
That seemed like a good idea, but I could not figure out how to do it without torquing up something else.
Web:: http://www.free-comp-shop.com

This page is standard validated HTML 4.0.
( Checked 2024-11-23 )

This page best when viewed through the bottom of a beer mug...
but any browser should work, so if it looks wrong to you, let me know. I'll try to fix it, not blame it on your software.