Entry 5: Installing an Operating System
The next step after the construction was to actually turn the computer on. The first time I turned it on (video) was actually pretty nerve racking because I had no idea if it was going to work or not, and I also heard stories of computers catching fire.
Anyways, the computer seemed to work fine when I turned it on. I was greeted with the BIOS right away. The BIOS is pre-installed in the motherboard and it is firmware that is used to control things like the boot sequence and installing software. This is what the BIOS on my computer looked like:
As you can see, when I go into the boot sequence all of the drives are not being detected by the computer. This prevents the computer from accessing any of the information that may be in the CD drive or hard drive. To solve this problem I just went into the drives folder and turned on the corresponding drives. As you can see below, that did the trick and the computer can now recognize and find the drives that I needed in order to install an operating system.
The next step was to actually find an operating system to install. Windows 10 can be anywhere from $30-50 and plus you had to wait for it to be delivered. Instead of spending money and waiting, I decided to scrounge through my dad's office... here's what I cam up with: →→→→→→→→
These discs are a combination of old operating systems and old versions of Microsoft Office. I did some research to find which operating system was the newest and I found that it was Windows Vista which is from 2007. Yikes. The latest version of Office he had was also from 2007. Yikes x 2.
Unfortunately, that's all I had to work with so I inserted the disc into the CD drive and let the computer do the rest of the work.
In about an hour of installing I had this screen before me! →
TED Talk Progress:
Now that I have a fully functional computer, I will be able to create a PowerPoint on it. I will be presenting my TED Talk on the computer that I made!
I'd also like to add that I changed to topic of my talk and rewrote the script. I feel way more confident about my topic and I'm excited to present!
This is so cool! I especially like the idea of using the computer you built for the TED Talk PowerPoint...that's a clever way to "show" your progress. That one line about the boot sequence "As you can see..." was particularly funny to me because, quite frankly, all I see is a bunch of letters that mean nothing to me.
ReplyDeleteYour resourcefulness is truly admirable. I would have just spent the money immediately, but you persisted and found a functioning operating system at no cost. You did great in your Ted Talk by the way! You sounded like an expert in computers and probing the unknown. Maybe you'll build the "future Mac" for your next computer.
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