Peter and I were hard at work after midnight this morning. Yesterday was the day we’d set for installing the “new” refurbished FM computer. It would have been much easier if we actually could have installed it. I use the term “‘new’ refurbished” because none of the computers for our dual language project are new. They are just cleaned up with new hard drives and upgrades to the operating systems and other software.
We had run into a bit of a puzzle when I had the new FM computer almost ready and tried to install a new video adapter so that we could spread the desktop over two monitors like the old FM computer. When I powered up the refurbished computer with the new adapter installed, nothing happened. No power on self test, no beeps, no humming of hard drives, nothing but a blank black screen. So I tried a known good video adapter from my own computer and had the same problem. I wondered if the power supply wasn’t up to the job. So I unplugged everything but the motherboard and one hard drive. Still no joy. It looks like the video slot on the motherboard itself is bad.
That brought us to plan B which we executed last night. Plan B was not too difficult because both the old and “new” computers have the same motherboard. We pulled all three new hard drives from the refurbished machine and when the broadcast day ended at 11:00 pm last night, we shut down the old FM computer and went to work. We removed all the hard drives from the FM computer and gave the inside of the machine a good cleaning. Next, we popped in the new drives and connected all the internal cables. The next step was to put the computer back in its cubby hole and hook up all the external cables.
When we powered it up, we found out that it was confused about which drive was which. That was an easy fix. Then I installed the drivers for the dual head video adapter and the audio card (which was slightly different from the one in the original “new” computer). After making some adjustments to the audio levels and screen resolution, we were off to the races.
Once we tested everything we could test, we headed for home. I got to bed about 1:00 AM. I know, that’s not late for many of you, but I usually get up at about 5:30. This morning I slept in till about 5:55. After putting on some clothes, I stumbled to the office on the other side of the house from our bedroom and turned on the radio. At precisely 6:00 the Honduran national anthem began to play. Had Mildred been awake and had I been a little more awake, I may have quoted young Anakin Skywalker when he first started up the pod racer he’d built – “IT’S WOORRRKIIINNGGG!!!!” Let’s pray that it keeps on working so I don’t have to. 
Dual Language Short Clip from Jerry Petersen on Vimeo.
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