The Alcoa Node - Where It All Began

CoyoteNET Digital System Solutions was founded in 1994 during the days of Microsoft Windows 3.1 running on 8MB of RAM, a 600MB hard drive, and an Intel Pentium 75MHz CPU. At that time, we wanted to play Doom. Not the version that runs under Windows (that had not been invented yet), but the good old DOS version. We kept booting out to DOS to play, only to be confronted with things like "Mallac Stack Overflow, etc." We got frustrated. We upgraded and tweaked, only to find that the platforms of the time had inherant errors caused by propriatary software and hardware and the arguments between the two. This was not good. We spent more time tweaking than we did playing and after some time, got fed up. There had to be a better way.

In those days, the internet was largely text based and AOL version 2.5 was the way to go. A modem running at 14.4KB per second was more than fast enough, and files were small. Then, Microsoft got the bright idea that we needed a new operating system and bigger hardware to run it on. We watched and waited for the technology to advance to the Intel Pentium 233MMX based platform. About this time, AMD was kicking butt with their K6 CPU's and we dove in. Our first real power machine was born. We called it Oscar, naming it after the charactor in the Sesame Street TV show because we made it out of parts that were destined to be thrown away. We forgot all about Doom, finding a real use for a PC besides playing games, and that was making music.

You see, we have always been into music. The Head Nerd was a Picker long before he was a Geek. He knew from experience that recording music was an expensive and complicated process that was out of the reach of many good musicians. These new AMD CPUs and larger RAM stacks with bigger drives were promising as platforms for record cutting, and so the Head Nerd began to do some serious research. At the time, Macintosh had a leg up on WinTel. However, great as they were, Macs were costly and rare. There had to be a better way.

The AMD K6-2 500MHz platform did a pretty good job as a multitrack recorder until more than eight tracks were needed. It made a great MIDI platform but lacked as a wave editor. The year was 1998. Intel was regaining the lead as a high speed solution. The Head Nerd took a second look and discovered that Intel was the way to go. He had uncovered many shortcomings in the AMD platform where compatability with certain soundcards and the software they ran was concerned. He began to design a system based on chips yet to come from Intel.

In 2000, after two years of grueling study, the hardware finally caught up to the software and the parts were ordered to build what was then a very powerful system that could do sixteen or more tracks and mix them down to a stereo master. In 2001, the system was completed. It was a rousing success. Several records were made on it. Upgrades continued and today, the system is in the control room at Walnut Hill Productions where it serves as the post-edit mastering machine as well as the main data server for CoyoteNET Digital System Solutions.

In 2002, after many upgrades and a move to a bigger case, the machine was a flagship and template for others of its kind. We labeled it the "P4 Titan Class Techstation", naming it after the Gigabyte Technologies motherboard at its core. We called it Delilah, Alcoa Node Data Server #1.

In 2006, the machine was given a new lease on life as a powerful dual-CPU data server with additional hard drives and a new core based on the Gigabyte Titan with Intel P4/865PE technology.

Folks would come by to see the huge computer. They marveled at how fast it was compared to the ones they owned. They had questions and we had answers. They wanted to know why the systems they owned ran so slowly when theirs were more powerful than ours. They wanted to know where we got the cool software we ran, and why the operating system on our machine had features theirs lacked. And so we told them.

We said that background applications were stealing precious clock cycles and RAM, clogging up the drive with much useless data. We showed them where the problems were and how they came to be. We had learned much, taking the factory computers of the time and ringing them out for performance at the cost of convenience. Kind of like comparing a straight shift to an automatic transmission. Yes, the automatic is easier to drive, but the straight shift lets one feel the power of the car.

Factories like to install internet clients that they get paid for installing, along with hand-holding titles that rarely get used and provide only limited help. They like to promote software by installing trialware to get customers to buy the full package if they like what they see. Most of this stuff never gets clicked on. To tell the truth, it is in the way. We found that when we got rid of all this bloat code and ran only the software needed to operate the machine, it ran much faster and was much less likely to crash.

People listened. They wanted a machine like that, fast and solid. So we began to fill orders.

Being a small outfit, we charged up front for the cost of the parts and levied a fee for assembling them. When the customer got their rig, it was paid for and ready to go, having been tested as if we were building it for ourselves. We would answer calls when customers got stumped. We would go out to their homes and show them how things worked. We gave away our time to make them happy. They told their friends, who came to us for solutions. To this day, we still do things this way. Our customers love us for that. We do not loose money. We earn it instead.

The first six years for CoyoteNET Digital System Solutions were spent on research, with very few systems actually being sold. We had to put on our virtual repelling gear and climb a learning curve that went straight up. The trek was worth the effort and we had zeal.

In 2003, CoyoteNET went global and started networking. We learned much about how to get a line of communication open between computers that was fast and secure. We experimented with hardware and software, learning what to do and what not to do along the way. We began to design websites for people to promote their music. Most of our customers were musicians and wanted to get the word out on their records. We began to specialize in computers built for music production. We put together the Walnut Hill Node, a network of machines based in Alcoa, Tennessee under the Alcoa Node Workgroup name.

In the early winter of 2007, the company moved to the high desert town of Ridgecrest in Kern County, California. Since that time we have done a lot of research into what kind of machine would best suit a rapidly developing sector of the music industry, the Virtual Theatre Pipe Organ. Since the company is now statigicly located deep in the heart of the Silicon Valley, we are bound to grow in the days ahead.

We only build music computers. These machines run power hungry software for hard hitting sessions where data simply cannot be lost. We make our machines so tough that hospitals could depend on them for mission critical work. They are not cheap, but a thing worth having rarely is. For us, only the best will do. Experience has born out the fact that cost cutting only costs folks more in the long run.

Although mainstream machines are good enough for most folks, there are those who need the power only a large, high performance custom made computer can offer. To these people, cost or bragging rights are not issues. Neither is a space saving design. Factories do not openly offer such configurations as they are outside the marketing scope of these companies.

We build large, heavy duty computers that live in huge cases with lots of fans. They are overbuilt. We don't want them back in the shop. We want them to last. A computer that only needs occasional tune-ups and cleaning is what we want to see, not one that requires frequent service or replacement. We want our customers to be happy with the system they paid hard-earned buckage for. When they are ready for more power, we want them to buy from us. And they do, indeed.

If people cannot aford our computers, we tell them about the factories that still make decent machines, like Dell. We even sell the complete line of Dell computers because they build machines simular to ours, albeit at a much cheaper price. Why? Because Dell, like other factories, buys in quantity and economizes here and there. They use smaller cases and fewer fans. Most come with only one hard drive. The machines are mass produced and inspected after manufacture. Most of the time, this works out. And Dell is one of the few companies we trust to do it right. Much of what we know we learned from Dell. Yes, Dell makes a fine machine.