Road Warrior
While I was working with the
Superior Pawnee Computer Society in Nebraska in
October we needed to build an
Image Machine for each of their volunteer workers,
so they could work on refurbishing
computers at home during the winter when the snow might make it difficult for them to
come to a central refurbishing location. But we did not have enough 8 Gig Hard Drives,
so I developed a new machine that provided all of the capabilities of the original Image
Machine that we use 99% of the time, and used a much smaller hard drive.
Click photo to enlarge
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While I was in Nebraska Lee Pang was keeping HelpingTulsa going here, and in responding
to a request from the
Tulsa Urban League Lee had to take one of our Image Machines with him (i.e. "on the road")
to their facility to check out and refurbish a number of computers.
In our discussions after I got back to
Tulsa we came up with some improvements which would make it easier to work with an Image
Machine in the field, and the idea of a "Road Warrior" Image Machine was born. The
name was subsequently shortened to just "Road Warrior". When working
in the field one very seldom has a need to come up with a custom configuration of the software
on a system (something the full Image Machine can do, but which the initial Road Warrior
could not do), but the worker in the field sometimes needs to be able to check something on
our HowTo documentation, but he may not have access to the internet, and he may need some
drivers that are not on the Windows CAB files, and again he may not have access to the
internet to find those drivers. The new Road Warrior design addresses those needs, and
an updated Road Warrior B, released in August 2005, added the capability of installing a
custom configuration of the software on a system, so now Road Warrior can do everything the
old Image Machine could do, plus several other features it did not have. Because of that we
now say the old Image Machine is obsolete (although there are several projects still using
an old Image Machine). They say the shoe maker's children are the last to get new shoes,
and that must be true, because my main development machine changed from an Image Machine
to a Road Warrior just a couple of months ago.
There are many versions of the new Road Warrior. The DOS version takes only
200 meg plus whatever GHO files we need to be able to install, so it would work
on drives as small as 1 Gig, however we seldom make one of these.
Most Road Warriors have Windows, which initially comes up in DOS mode, just
like the DOS version, but with a few additional entries, and when one hits ESC to
terminate the DOS menu, it boots up into Windows 98SE, where one can use IE to read any
of HelpingTulsa's HOWTO files, and where one can copy drivers onto the Hard Drive
for the computer being refurbished.
The current Windows image takes at least a 6 Gig drive, but you can remove some of the
images to make it smaller. For example I have four images that I can put on a Road Warrior
so that it can make other Road Warriors:
- RW6 requires a 6 gig drive, and has all of my end-user images, and includes the Customize Software feature
- RW5 requires a 5 gig drive, and has all of my end-user images, but does not include the Customize Software feature (it just has the Wallpaper function)
- RW3 requires a 3 gig drive, just has my Child 1-6 image, and includes the Customize Software feature
- RW2 requires a 2 gig drive, just has my Child 1-6 image, but does not include the Customize Software feature (it just has the Wallpaper function)
The reason for creating RW3 and RW2 is that some applications only have one image that they
always use (and Child 1-6 is our most popular image). One of them could be installed on a larger
HD for a project that had its own images that it liked to use, and did not want mine.
Child16 image is about 570meg
Senior image is about 520 meg
Net image is about 740 meg
The Refurb folder (which is required to implement Customize Software) is over 1 Gig, and its deletion is what enabled RW6 to shrink to RW5, and RW3 to shrink to RW2
Before Net image, Coyote image, and Customize Software was added the image would fit on a
4 gig drive
Before Customize Software was added it was possible to fit Road Warrior with its driver
search capability and Windows, plus the Child16 image, on a 2 Gig drive, and if we dropped
Windows it fit on a 1 Gig drive.
One of our volunteers, Mike Stockton with the Church in Chains ministry, came up with two
new images, a Super Bible image, which added a number of new Bible programs to our
old Bible image, and
a Super Child image, which added them
to our old Child 1-6 image.
We got those images after the new version of Road Warrior had been distributed, so I
created a new RW8 image, which had everything RW6 had, plus has the two new Super images.
Click photo to enlarge
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Click photo to enlarge
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We have several volunteers for HelpingTulsa that we have provided RoadWarrior machines to.
Bobbie Smith works several jobs, and is only able to come over to help refurbish for
a few hours on Friday afternoon, when she does not have to work at any of her jobs, and
when her son is in DayCare, but with a RoadWarrior machine she can take several machines
home and refurbish them whenever her son is busy playing with his toys or watching TV,
and then she can bring them here on Fridays and pick up more machines to be refurbished.
To quote from Bobbie "the Road Warrior is
working just wonderfully -- awesome new tool!!!!" Bobbie recently moved to
rural Arkansas, and took her Road Warrior with her, where she anticipates starting a
computer refurbishing operation there.
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Richard Tanner is another HelpingTulsa volunteer we have provided a RoadWarrior machine
to. Richard lives in
Turley, and does not make it into Tulsa, particularly east Tulsa, that often, so with
the RoadWarrior he can take a number of computers to his house and work on them there.
If other members of the Tulsa Computer Society like the idea of what HelpingTulsa is doing,
and want to join us, please call Don Singleton at 918-622-3417. If it is difficult for you to come
to my house often, once we show you how we refurbish computers we can provide you with a
Road Warrior machine like Bobbie and Richard, and you can work on them at your own home.
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