On Tue, 16 Aug 2005, Tony Eros wrote: This is not only pathetic and ridiculous, it was entirely irresponsible, both on the part of the school district and the herd of jackasses that showed up to have a small chance to pay for a used computer. "People threw themselves forward, screaming and pushing each other. A little girl's stroller was crushed in the stampede. Witnesses said an elderly man was thrown to the pavement, and someone in a car tried to drive his way through the crowd." I'd make some wry comment at this point but these people are so beyond stupid they don't even deserve that much. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

I know of one large government organization in Washington DC that uses its PC's as nothing but 3270 emulators... and upgrades them every 1.5 to 2 years along with it's IT department recomendation. Tim.

On Tue, 16 Aug 2005 19:57:27 -0400 "Teo Zenios" <teoz at neo.rr.com> wrote: You'd be amazed at how wasteful school districts are with computer hardware money. I'm constantly amazed, at the auctions I attend. Most recently, it was a college auction, not a grade/high-school auction, but I found myself able to buy as many as several dozen Dell Pentium III machines for $5 each (I only bought six). Most sensible people will recognize that such hardware is still VERY usable. (I'll bring this comment back to semi-ontopic by mentioning that I was the person at that auction who got heckled when I tried to explain some of my bids by I was buying 'vintage' hardware.) Granted, I personally benefit greatly from the rapid-obsolescence-track they put all those systems on, as I no longer buy ANY computers new at retail.

an iBook would help her kid become a crack dealer, so that he wouldn't be stuck with going to Harvard?

On Tue, 16 Aug 2005, Teo Zenios wrote: To this I can only respond: Dignity (dig' ni tee) - it's not just a word in the dictionary. Used in a sentence: There is no dignity in a herd of 5,550 jackasses. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

And this is different than a buncha dweebs with a mailing list talking about "used computers"? 99% of the population would call us "pathetic and ridiculous". I think part of the story is broadcaster sensationalism, like when Oprah gave away cars. Except here who's promoting themselves? The newscasters? Tim.

huh. time for me to make a kill file for this mailing list... (and my first top posting! :-) -brad "'Computer Collector Newsletter'" wrote:

der> I've taken apart a couple of drives that were sufficiently dead der> I didn't care about them, and I didn't need anything but a set der> of torxes. I suppose this drive may be different, but certainly der> all the things I can _see_ are simple torxes.... Sometimes you'll run into "tamper-resistant Torx" which is regular torx with a pin in the center of the screw. You can get bits for that easily at professional tool outlets (any of the eletronic tools by mail order outfits will have them). Bits are labelled TT-n (instead of just T-n) for size n. If you have suitable size carbide drills, you can make your own out of regular bits. Or you could use a suitable tool to grind away the pin in the screw... paul

der> I've seen those, though not (so far) in disk drives. der> I have an interchangeable-bit screwdriver whose set of bits der> includes some three dozen "security" bits of various kinds. I der> don't know the names of most of them, but there are der> pin-in-the-middle torx, pin-in-the-middle hexagon ("Allen"), der> something I might call a three-bladed Phillips (like a Phillips der> but with one vane removed and the remaining three vanes at 120?? der> from one another), ... I've seen those used on airliner wings -- 737 perhaps. Don't know the name. der> and what I might call der> "butterfly" bits - I have no simple unambiguous name for the der> shape, but for those who know PostScript or who have a der> PostScript interpreter, "250 500 translate 0 -15 moveto 0 0 50 der> -40 40 arc 0 15 lineto 0 0 50 140 220 arc closepath stroke" der> gives a fair idea of it. Nice description. I think those are "Clutch" bits. der> Plus a bunch of non-"security" bits: regular hexagon (both inch der> and metric), square ("Robertson"), Phillips, ordinary flat, and der> something which I didn't recognize when I got it but thanks to der> an earlier discussion here I now know is called Pozidriv :) - der> all in various sizes. der> No, finding the screwdrivers is unlikely to be my problem. :) Sounds like all you're missing is Bristol Spline. Those seem to be rather old; the only place I ran into them is in a 1950s vintage Collins radio (51J-3). The Xcelite "99" roll pack toolkit has those, and you can get them separately too. A Bristol bit looks like a cylinder with 4 (small sizes) or 6 (larger sizes) square-bottom fairly narrow grooves cut into them. So it's very different from Torx (almost all groove, and round-bottomed) or Allen (hexagon); if you need to undo a Bristol spline screw, you'll need the real tool. paul

Tony> I've never seen Bristol spline tools in the form of hex insert Tony> bits. I haven't either. I have them in two forms: one is XCelite bits, which are full length shafts that fit into a handle -- and the other is in the same shape as an Allen wrench, the simple L-shaped kind. paul

They are also predominant in the R-390A geartrain. While the R-390A is a radio and thus off-topic, its geartrain is a very competent analog computer (power-of-two division, differential for adding, etc.) (OK, the R-390A does have a tube-based divide-by-two flip flop as well.) Tim.

At 03:12 PM 8/18/2005, der Mouse wrote: McDonald's Happy Meal toys and Nintendo gear also use them. - John

I assusme you've seen the Elektor GBDSO project? (Game Boy Digital Sampling Oscilloscope). Looked interesting, but too proprietary for my taste (no sources for the firmware are available, for example). Has somebody done a logic analyser for the Gameboy? Or is this just an idea of yours? -tony

[ELektor GBDSO] Actually, a low-bandwidth scope is still useful for looking for power supply ripple, looking at motor drive signals, SMPSU waveforms, etc. This one, like the Velleman LCD 'scope that I have, has the advantage that it's not connected to the mains, so it can be 'floated' (taking great care!) for looking at signals on the mains side of an SMPSU. [...] some with very misleading data sheets. Be warned that hogh-speed analogue design is not easy. 'Strays' (PCB inductance nad capacitance) matter even more than for high speed digital design. Op-amps misbehave, it's not at all uncommon for there to be significant phase shift at high frequencies -- enough to turn -ve freedback into +ve. If you're trying to get a low gain out of an op-amp -- that is, you've applied a lot of -ve feedback -- it's likely the darn thing will turn into a nice RF oscillator. -tony

der> I don't think I've ever seen that, neither driver nor screw. der> Perhaps they're more common on the European side of the pond? I der> seem to recall Tony talking about them a lot. Mine is in a Collins mil-spec radio, from around 1950. I think they may be obsolete at this point. der> The description makes it sound as though a flat-blade bit should der> work, if it's the right width to fit snugly into a diameter of der> the cylinder; it should fetch up against two of the splines, and der> while it likely would bend them out of true, it seems it should der> drive/draw the screw. That sounds possible in principle. It may not work in practice; the grooves are rather shallow, maybe 10-15% of the bit diameter. paul

[...] A bit - an hourglass with curved, not straight, "top" and "bottom" edges, and with a rather fat waist-pinch. Oh, and straight lines from the corners to the waist pinch, not the curves most hourglasses have. Oh, and I forgot to mention, in my enumeration of the bits, the regular torxes. Not that I think the omission terribly serious.... /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B