Born in Fargo ND, grew up in Cedar Falls, Iowa. My first "computer" was a tic-tac-toe machine built out of pinball machine parts while in junior high school.  In high school, designed a 3200-tube machine capable of playing checkers with a human - this science fair project won a scholarship to MIT in 1959.  After early industrial experience with IBM, I worked for various companies in the computer graphics field until the 1980s.  Then I founded my own small company to design and market an entry level CADD system (Diacad).  Later I reused the Diacad name for my present semi-retirement business, which consists of configuring, upgrading, and repairing PC-clones in my locality.  My Filipina wife since 1977 is a recently retired pediatric psychiatrist (Marcosa J Santiago MD). 

I am interested in Linux Mint as a possible basis for minimal computer systems on older and/or less powerful hardware that will perform tasks normally expected by the average user.  The goal is to save still useful computers from the scrap heap and to utilize heavily discounted hardware now available in the marketplace.