The General Approach to Computing - A Ramble

Subject was:Re: AppleColor RGB Monitor (IIGS) help? Tony Duell writes: The most basic test is to remembner that a transistor has 2 diode junctions, one between base and emitter, the other between base and collector (no, you _can't_ make a transistor from 2 diodes!). So you can test each of those junctions as a diode using either an analogue ohmmeter, or more likely these days the diode-test range of a DMM. Well, thanks, Tony. This is the first time I was confident I had exactly the right info to help another list member diagnose a problem in a couple of months, and you go and spoil it. Sheesh! (Just kidding... mostly.) Complicated questions on specific equipment from companies whose equipment I have not used makes trying to help out on this list significantly more difficult. FWIW, I almost always learn something from your posts, except in those instances where your post confirms what I already knew, and gets there before I even read the question. You're quite an excellent resource for the list, and I heartily approve of your approach, in terms of being able to fix one's own equipment. That USED to be a necessary part of things. Back in the day of my IMSAI 8080 and CP/M 1.3, I was approached by a friend (since I had a computer, and they were magic) to keep a mailing list, with extra information, for a 500+ member newsletter. The director would keep track of changes, and come over to my place to make the changes on the list, and run the program I wrote to print the labels. One month, the director came over and caught me by surprise, it not yet being the very last day possible to print the labels. I invited him in, and expressed my willingness to get started. He began to laugh. I asked him why. He said "Don't you know what you just said? I asked if you were ready to add some names, and make some changes to subscription dates, and you replied 'Fine, I'll go get my soldering iron.' " That's not as odd as it sounds, and, no, it wasn't a hard-wired program. My IMSAI had 15 boards of 4K each of 2102 memory, and replacing chips was about an hourly task. Heck, I even wrote my CONST (console status routine for CP/M) such that if there was no character ready, it would test one memory location before returning. Made interesting patterns on the LEDs.) Computer clubs were places people went to get soldering tips as much as discuss programming, despite having Gordon Eubanks (Symantec, Basic-E, CBasic) as a member, and frequent appearances by Gary Kildall (author of CP/M) in the club, the software discussions were always for AFTER people had their machines running. Sorry for the digression. The point being that it used to be MANDATORY to be able to fix one's own computer, lest one become dependent upon the pity of others to get anything done. I find that approach still useful to some extent, and I've always been able to fix my own machines at least as well as the (generally) trained-chimp-level techs at local fix-it shops. That many orders of magnitude of complexity have come and gone since the IMSAI days are good, in terms of what one's money will buy today, but bad in that one is much less likely to be able to fix one's own equipment to component level. It's not as satisfying to say "Hmmm. You need a new video card" as to hold up the offending transistor and cackle. Or is that just me? I guess, to sum up this ramble, Thanks, Tony! I enjoy reading your posts, and appreciate your mind-set on the issues. Sincerely, Warren