Computer Names

Before 1994 I had first a Commodore 64, and then a large and ever-changing assortment of 386 and 486 based machines mostly running DOS and briefly OS/2, courtesy of my dad and the computer-review magazine he worked for.

playdoh · 1994–1995 · MacOS 7 · Great Barrington, MA
Parody of Plato, main Simon's Rock server.

solace · 1997–1999 · WinNT 4 · Amherst, MA
Primary home machine

eco · 1997–1999 · Linux · Cambridge, MA
After the semiotician. Main web/mail server of the 3e.org domain.

neko · 1999–2000 · Linux · Plainsboro, NJ
A play on eco, but also japanese for 'cat'. An AMD box used for development work. Caught on fire when CPU fan failed.

miso · 1999–2003 · Win2K · Plainsboro, NJ
The machine itself was the color of miso soup, also the name of a friend's cat, who happend to be miso-soup colored. Primary home machine (but see echo).

siam · 2001 · Win2K · Piscataway, NJ
Shares three letters with previous name, also vaguely in keeping with asian naming scheme. Short-lived; bargain-box built from parts, failed within months.

maki · 2002–2008 · MacOS X 10.0 · Piscataway, NJ
A Japanese food, and a play on iMac. Primary home machine. Sold to Seth's wife Kirsty.

eco · 2002–2004 · Linux · some cheap VPS hoster
3e.org finally had a dedicated server again, so it was fitting to call it eco again.

udon · 2003–2008 · WinXP · Philadelphia, PA
Miso's replacement. Daniel's primary home computer. Sold to Aaron.

neko · 2004–2005 · Linux · some cheap VPS hoster
Eco replaced with a Plesk-based system. The name neko recycled from the machine that failed before. This turns out to be a bad idea; the name neko is apparently cursed. After only a year of service neko was successfully penetrated by some nasty script-kiddies, and rather than deal with the damage, we closed up shop and moved all our domains to Dreamhost.

overlook · 2004–2005 · Linux · Endicott, NY
Primary backup server for eco/neko; performs full backup every day via rsync. is actually miso in disguise!

echo · 2004–2005 · Linux · Philadelphia, PA
Secondary backup server for eco/neko; performs full backup every day via rsync. Also media server for Daniel's apartment.

bento · 2005–2007 · MacOS X 10.4 · Philadelphia, PA
A Mac Mini. Emphasizing the Mini's small size.

vista · 2007–2011 · MacOS X 10.4 · Narberth, PA
Bento's replacement, an iMac.

lumen · 2011–2014 · MacOS X 10.6 · Bryn Mawr, PA
Vista's replacement, a MacBook Air.

lumen · 2013–? · MacOS X 10.8 · Brookline, MA
New MacBook Air.

pico · 2014–2020 · MacOS X 10.9 · Arlington, MA
New MacBook Pro (Retina).

atto · 2020–2023 · MacOS X 10.15 · Arlington, MA
Pico's replacement, a MacBook Air.

dromedary · 2021–2025 · MacOS X 12 · Arlington, MA
M1 iMac

zepto · 2023– · MacOS 14 · Arlington, MA
M2 MacBook Air

eco · 2024– · Linux · Hetzner Cloud
eco lives again! Hosting camel museum walkthrough, Cathedral, typeto.me, this site, various other things.

bactrian · 2025– · MacOS 15 · Arlington, MA
M4 iMac