Test Equipment Anonymous

tggzzz wrote: ↑Tue Feb 20, 2024 4:43 pm
I have an asbestos/cement "garage"

The bigger worry w.r.t. compost is kudza a.k.a. Japanese Knotweed. When they first introduced garden waste recycling, they explicitly said you coul put Japanese knotweed in with the grass cuttings. Oops.

Or if not that, then some bugger has put weedkiller on plants and then recycled them. Allegedly some compost wouldn't grow plants beyond seedlings.

The roof of my garage is made of asbestos cement sections. It was the coming thing in the 50s and early 60s.

Asbestos is dangerous, but in my view rather too much is made of it.

As I recall when it started, recycling was a voluntary scheme. They didn't say when it ceased to be voluntary, but that clearly became the case. I've always had doubts about it.

Invasive species are another thing again.

I presume all of know why modern computers still depend on "tty" devices, most obviously /dev/tty*

I expect a few of us remember using such devices, latterly as VT100 terminals, before that ASR-33 terminals, and before that 5 channel "telex style" printers. To me the two-fingered thumping of an ASR-33 keyboard and slightly delayed thump of the character being printed is excessively evocative (not to say nostalgic).

Even so, I learned quite a lot from https://computer.rip/2024-02-25-a-histo ... e-tty.html

tggzzz wrote: ↑Tue Feb 27, 2024 10:06 pm I presume all of know why modern computers still depend on "tty" devices, most obviously /dev/tty*

I expect a few of us remember using such devices, latterly as VT100 terminals, before that ASR-33 terminals, and before that 5 channel "telex style" printers. To me the two-fingered thumping of an ASR-33 keyboard and slightly delayed thump of the character being printed is excessively evocative (not to say nostalgic).

Even so, I learned quite a lot from https://computer.rip/2024-02-25-a-histo ... e-tty.html

Until the advent of the excessively swish DecWriter my life was spent in front of ASR-33s at 110 baud, card punches and the occasional trip to the luxury land of a Tektronix 4010 storage tube graphics terminal.

Cerebus wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 10:01 am

tggzzz wrote: ↑Tue Feb 27, 2024 10:06 pm I presume all of know why modern computers still depend on "tty" devices, most obviously /dev/tty*

I expect a few of us remember using such devices, latterly as VT100 terminals, before that ASR-33 terminals, and before that 5 channel "telex style" printers. To me the two-fingered thumping of an ASR-33 keyboard and slightly delayed thump of the character being printed is excessively evocative (not to say nostalgic).

Even so, I learned quite a lot from https://computer.rip/2024-02-25-a-histo ... e-tty.html

Until the advent of the excessively swish DecWriter my life was spent in front of ASR-33s at 110 baud, card punches and the occasional trip to the luxury land of a Tektronix 4010 storage tube graphics terminal.

spent one summer traveling with a TI Silent 700 with acoustic coupler. our fearless leaders at ft huachuca bought a bunch of them because they had bubble memory......and we all needed bubble memory. we spent all day typing in telephone cable and line records and then were able to dial into their CDC6600 to download the data at night.

at first they tried sending out teams of female clerk typists for this mission. but there was much wailing and crying and none of them lasted more than two weeks. so they assigned the task to teams of GI central office installers and engineers, because they were accustomed to being on the road. we did not wail and cry about the travel (the per deim was gravy)......but there was much pissing and moaning about our talent being wasted. the engineers were silenced with overtime pay.....the GI's were told to just suck it up.

a year later the project was abandoned and some sys admin called low level me and asked if they could delete the files because the storage space was needed for something else. hell yes!

bubble memory.....it still makes me laugh.

A (new to me) YT channel has been presented to me by the YT algorithm:
PoC/GTFO

mnem

A table top role playing game from NASA:

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble ... -universe/

It comes with dragons:

mnem

Missed it last year, but it is returning and I'll be seeing this Real Man's Engineering again in June.

Should be a nice day trip...

The AZTEC pinball machine explained, step-by-step. It is one of the most complex electromechanical pinball machines ever built.

Part 1: Part 2: .
.
Perhaps there will be a part 3 (it mentioned at the end of part 2)

tggzzz wrote: ↑Thu Mar 07, 2024 4:40 pm Missed it last year, but it is returning and I'll be seeing this Real Man's Engineering again in June.

Should be a nice day trip...

Have similar but screw propelled on Lake Wakatipu at Queenstown, the TSS_Earnslaw
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TSS_Earnslaw

Been on it a couple times and at one stage if you asked nicely you could get access down below to the engine room.
The only remaining commercial passenger-carrying coal-fired steamship in the southern hemisphere.

I just about remember looking into the boilers of the coal fired Kingston power station. And up at the enormous piles of coal in the yard. (At the time my father had been using sand in our kitchen yard to investigate how coal did not flow out of hoppers; men climbed down inside, and poked the coal with a long stick!)

While that ship is interesting, little compares with those enormous piston rods and crankshaft whizzing around just out of touching distance of all the passengers. All with nothing preventing a passenger jumping over the barrier, other than common sense.

On a few trips, "Members of the Paddle Steamer Preservation Society will be able to visit the ship's bridge and engine room." Maybe I'll try smiling sweetly, and hope they don't mistake it for a scowl.

And watching the paddles churning through the sea is also hypnotic.

The last time I saw the Waverley was by accident, when I was on holiday on the Isle of Arran. I was driving along a coast road, instantly recognised it, and managed to catch up with it when it birthed at Brodick. Serendipity!

Recently, at the MIT:

https://news.mit.edu/2024/tests-show-hi ... ready-0304

Quote:
"Before the Sept. 5 demonstration, the best-available superconducting magnets were powerful enough to potentially achieve fusion energy — but only at sizes and costs that could never be practical or economically viable. Then, when the tests showed the practicality of such a strong magnet at a greatly reduced size, “overnight, it basically changed the cost per watt of a fusion reactor by a factor of almost 40 in one day,” Whyte says.

“Now fusion has a chance,” Whyte adds. Tokamaks, the most widely used design for experimental fusion devices, “have a chance, in my opinion, of being economical because you’ve got a quantum change in your ability, with the known confinement physics rules, about being able to greatly reduce the size and the cost of objects that would make fusion possible.”"

I took a trip on The Waverley about 30 years ago. The steam engine was impressive. I'm sure when I saw it there little brass model eagles on the big end bearings.

A few years later I was in Bristol docks and saw some huge cylinders with ports being handled by crane. I asked what they were and was told they were the cylinders from the MV Balmoral, which I think was owned by the same company as The Waverley. The engine was a two stroke diesel and the cylinders were worn and needed to be re-bored.

Zenith wrote: ↑Sat Mar 09, 2024 2:07 pm A few years later I was in Bristol docks and saw some huge cylinders with ports being handled by crane. I asked what they were and was told they were the cylinders from the MV Balmoral, which I think was owned by the same company as The Waverley. The engine was a two stroke diesel and the cylinders were worn and needed to be re-bored.

The Balmoral is now owned by a trust, which is desperately hoping to be able to do more than toddle around the harbour.

Two years ago I had a booked trip on it, but just beforehand it got cables wrapped around its props, and that took it out for the rest of the season - perhaps forever. Sad
https://www.thebalmoral.org.uk/

Interesting series of books:

Helping Engineers Learn Mathematics

https://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/mls ... workbooks/

bd139 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 13, 2024 10:41 pm Interesting series of books:

Helping Engineers Learn Mathematics

https://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/mls ... workbooks/

A quick skim of the z-transform topic makes me think I will be returning to it. Thanks.

The dream:



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boom_Overture

https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comme ... nd_united/

As much as it made my heart ache when they discontinued the Concorde, I still have my doubts this will ever be more than a cash sinkhole; by definition the intended customer has more money than brains, which group suffered a huge financial and population cull during the pandemic.

But the tech is at least interesting, if any of it actually manifests on the prime material plane.

mnem
The reality:

I found this on Youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sz4L_h_6I4

It's about an American's visit to a couple of computer museums in the UK; The Centre for Computing History in Cambridge and The Cave in Stroud.

I hadn't been aware of them. He might have slipped in a visit to TNMoC.

Zenith wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 11:31 am I found this on Youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sz4L_h_6I4

It's about an American's visit to a couple of computer museums in the UK; The Centre for Computing History in Cambridge and The Cave in Stroud.

I hadn't been aware of them. He might have slipped in a visit to TNMoC.

That video links to a written blog and to the places mentioned => a good video

I knew about TCC, but last visited there in the late 80s (gulp).

I didn't know about Retro Collective's The Cave. I'm not sure how interested I am in arcade games, but since I need to go to (West) Stroud it is only another 6 miles to Chalford.

I've often driven past The Cave and didn't realise it was there. It's not that far away and a pleasant drive.

Retro arcade games, are rather like calculators and a few other things, I can see why people are interested in them, and how I could have become an enthusiast, but I'm not. I wouldn't regard visiting The Cave as an ordeal.

I recall a lot of the microcomputers from the 80s. I don't have much nostalgia for them and Cambridge is quite a trek. It was interesting to see it as a video, and that's enough for me.

My gliding club is on top of the hill, so I used to got near Chalford at least once a week

When I next go to/past Cambridge, I'll drop in at TCC - and other places.

I too remember many of the computers, having been working in Cambridge 82-87. Never bought any, though: I decided to let the precambrian evolution phase go past.

There's https://www.museumofcomputing.org.uk/ in Swindon. I haven't been due to limited opening hours.

tggzzz wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 1:10 pm I too remember many of the computers, having been working in Cambridge 82-87. Never bought any, though: I decided to let the precambrian evolution phase go past.

I was vaguely interested in them but never bought one. They were quite a phenomenon.

I had a colleague who said that the only people who should be allowed near computers, were those who had to be paid a lot of money to be induced to do it. He said that the way to interview programming applicants was "I put it to you that you own a micro computer", "Is it not the case that you have had your hands on a ZX81?", "Do you expect us to accept the flimsy fabric of falsehoods you have woven, to conceal the fact that you own a microcomputer?".

tggzzz wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 1:10 pm There's https://www.museumofcomputing.org.uk/ in Swindon. I haven't been due to limited opening hours.

Visiting Swindon casts a cloud on my day.

Zenith wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 10:50 pm

tggzzz wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 1:10 pm There's https://www.museumofcomputing.org.uk/ in Swindon. I haven't been due to limited opening hours.

Visiting Swindon casts a cloud on my day.

Well, yes. But you can cheer up by thinking "I could be visiting Slough".

Alternatively, visit the museum (sotto voce: in Swindon), and on the way out have fun on the magic roundabout.

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5628573 ... a=!3m1!1e3