![occ] HP Mini's 127 brackets --- agk's diary 9 July 2026 --- written on GPD MicroPC --- UPDATED after original entry. Got it workin'. I pulled the bottom off the HP Mini netbook. Took the battery out, and there's a weird little orange lever. Fiddle with it, and voila, it starts unzipp- ing the tabs that hold the bottom on. No screws. 4 screws hold in the hard drive caddy. I almost had to drill one out. The hard drive's right next to the dead cmos battery. Time to start it up with no hard drive. More cmos etc error messages, then a screen asking for input, but it gets nothing from the key- board. Plugged in the Model M keyboard via USB. Restarted with the SvarDOS-based word processor suite (usb-dos) USB livesystem plugged in. It booted! At the C prompt it types 127 "]" brackets. The Mini's keyboard won't delete, enter, or do anything. The Model M can delete brackets, but they return in milliseconds. It can't type anything following the 127th bracket. If I hit enter, DOS responds "Bad command or file name," then returns a prompt, which the Mini immediately also fills with brackets. C:\>]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]] ]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]] ]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]] UPDATE... it works... UPDATE... it works... UPDATE Emilio, who is participating in this year's old com- puter challenge, wrote that SvarDOS's input buffer is 126 characters. Cassie, birth mom of this netbook, was a lover of tea. "The keyboard is a matrix with 8 lines output (8 bits), so perhaps the tea short the combination of ']' character" --Emilio. Tekk, den mother of this year's old computer chall- enge, claimed I'm an early riser. Untrue. I got home from work in UTC -4, but online I use UTC. After sleep and math club today, I fixed the netbook. I write this to the soundtrack of my daughter comp- osing a midi tune on the Mini. It plays through the headphone jack to a stereo, for prettier, louder, more controllable sound. The Model M keyboard clacks as she makes. I had to drill out a screw, because my bad old tiny screwdrivers strip screw heads, but it only took three screws and an old library card to lift out the keyboard and disconnect its ribbon cable. With it gone... Removing the HDD or hitting F10 lets me boot what- ever I want. Removing the HDD is the better solution, because the BIOS forgets the boot order every time it's unplugged, at least until I replace the dead CMOS battery. The BIOS tells me it's 9/11/2016 at 11:57, and this machine was born January 2011. It's a HP Mini 100- 3000 with 1024 MB of memory and an Intel Atom N455 CPU @ 1.66 GHz. How's it do? * SvarDos-based usb-dos livesystem boots in 3 secs. * FreeDOS-based FUZOMA needs you to hit enter twice during boot; takes 5 seconds. * AntiX core (64 bit??? oops) with runit boots to a getty in 45 seconds. I didn't run the installer, a livesystem "installed" to a flash drive might boot faster or slower. * The Windows 10 install on the HDD boots to login splash screen in 2 minutes 45 seconds. * FuguIta stalled during boot, never got to an inter- active prompt Ok, notes: Every edutainment title in FUZOMA and every program in my writer's usb-dos fork works. Sound works but I don't know how to change the volume. No screen flicker. VGA out only works with the AntiX livesystem. The screen stretches out the pixels to fit its wide aspect ratio in the writer's usb-dos. The midi composer in Amy's Primer (in FUZOMA) gets stuck in a mid-C beep on exit, but loading any other program that plays an intro song fixes it. It's nice there's no need to plug in two things to a wall outlet (a computer and a monitor). It's easy enough for a 5-year-old to turn off and on, trouble- shoot, and use. The netbook's up on a box and the keyboard and mouse are at desk height, so it has a desktop/family computer vibe, and good ergonomics. She did something that froze the "coloring book" drawing program (in School Mom Plus) as I was finish- ing this. Turning the Mini off and on again with the power button fixed it. Conclusion: a netbook with stuff pulled out and a keyboard/mouse is awesome. I'll keep developing for it. Next: Things I tested a few days ago and a 2007 HP Pavilion dv9700 "Entertainment PC" laptop with AMD Turion 64 (X2) Mobile Technology TL-60 CPU @2000 MHz and 2048 MB memory. Can I undervolt/underclock it???