21 Feb
1998
21 Feb
'98
3:44 p.m.
<Snip>
The oldest part is toshiba 1.44 I have no idea
how old but I think it was about 5 years old. Hard to find a good
floppy drive that will last that long now. But tell me if there is
one out there that good and costs $40 and I will take it!
What's happening to prices? Just returned from a show...Mitsumi FDD's, $16,
sound cards $12, speakers $10...cases $18!!!
Only problem with disposeable PC if the makers gives
us the >machines
too non-standard and hard to expand n' upgrade
...a la Packard Bell...but now
it seems EVERYONE is making purpose-designed
motherboards and cases. The best thing about keeping older PC's going (just
to keep this on track) is interchangability of parts: P/S, for example.
What's gonna happen to us electronically challenged types when the HP
Pavilion P/S smokes -- am I going to go, hat in hand, to HP for another --
at their prices?
22 Feb
22 Feb
7:02 a.m.
New subject: Prices & Rants(was: Future Computing Trends. Still is, I gu
<Snip>
Manney and other disbelieving guys...
Missed my point; I prefer to buy quality one if I can find one and
that floppy example is what I'm driving at.
Mitsumi and Epson floppy drives are junk. I had too many of those
fail before year is up and use was not that heavy. Panasonic and few
Teac is just o. k. but not on my esteemed list. Also those cheapo
stuff that you have shown these prices, that is also junk unless it
uses ESS chipset for sound cards. Cases for 18? That is not what I
like about these. The chassis is not as rugged (I can crush one in
my hands) and not precise as I like when fitting parts into it and
very scary sharp edges. Those cases is hard on hard drives as
vibrates too much due to too flexiable sheet metal and naturally
more noisy. PSU have cheap parts inside and fan will fail inside. I
do have bunch of PSU's with failed fans and all of them are sleeve
bearing type, very doubtful of finding one with ball bearing fans
stuff there. Same with CPU heatsink with fan. I had few 10 to 15
dollar range thingy fail on me in a row and currently using a tall
heatsink without fan. Original the last in series, heatsink fan
failed within a month and using a PSU ball bearing fan with paper to
direct airflow on bare heatsink and similar fan is inside that PSU.
Smooth and very quiet, no failure for last 2 years of 24 hours use.
Add extra 10 to the $15, extra 20 to $30 and extra 50 for $100 to
individual parts so on and you get a wonderful stuff in a box and
keep cheap users happy and worry free for years to come.
The worry about the disposeable machines if they went too far on cost
and used too cheap stuff in it there will be too much problems.
So this would be fad thing in next 2 years and gone like the PCjr and
VLB thing. This have happened already to PB and most of PB users
who got one for first time and upgrades come around discovered
everything to their distaste then swore off PB next time around and
stick to good stuff. IBM machines are not that bad now that they're
using ATX boards. Many machines including Dell, Micron, GW2K etc are
on the ATX buswagon now and that means any guys who prefer their own
boards could swap out their boards for specific ones.
Aceropen stuff is not too bad too even their cases are on par with
Elan Vital cases.
Jason D.
email: jpero(a)cgo.wave.ca
Pero, Jason D.
The oldest part is toshiba 1.44 I have no idea
how old but I think it was about 5 years old. Hard to find a good
floppy drive that will last that long now. But tell me if there is
one out there that good and costs $40 and I will take it!
What's happening to prices? Just returned from a show...Mitsumi FDD's, $16,
sound cards $12, speakers $10...cases $18!!!
Only problem with disposeable PC if the makers
gives us the >machines
too non-standard and hard to expand n' upgrade
...a la Packard Bell...but now
it seems EVERYONE is making purpose-designed
motherboards and cases. The best thing about keeping older PC's going (just
to keep this on track) is interchangability of parts: P/S, for example.
What's gonna happen to us electronically challenged types when the HP
Pavilion P/S smokes -- am I going to go, hat in hand, to HP for another --
at their prices?
1:22 p.m.
New subject: Prices & Rants(was: Future Computing Trends. Still is, I gu
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12:13 p.m.
New subject: Prices & Rants(was: Future Computing Trends. Still is, I gu
Well, I've never had a Teac drive fail in a way
that it couldn't be
fixed. Ditto _old, full height_ Shugart and Tandon, but they're not
applicable here.
Very few teacs were dead but last few years quality seemed to go
down
a bit so I have no idea if it still holds up.
The one advantage of Teac drives is that you can get
the service/repair
manual. I have it for several versions of the FD55 (5.25" drive) and the
FD235 (3.5" drive). It means you can be _sure_ your drive is correctly
aligned.
In my case, I have a teac 3.5" with a blown stepper ic. And it's
Teac designed IC. :(......
What floppy drives would you recomend?
Old
Toshiba (Citizen lookalike as well) and Old Sony after long
resoldering session.
Snip!
Actually, sleeve bearing fans can last for a very long
time _if_ you
dismantle them from time to time and oil them. But that's _quality_
sleeve bearing fans, not the cheap trash that you find in this sort of PSU.
You're asolutely correct but who we know is one we can have with that
kind of quality level?
a schematic printed on the box that the keyboard came
in (which I'd cut
out and filed), but (I guess) not too suprisingly it was incorrect!.
Hee hee. I
liked those keyboards with mechanical switches on a
soldered PCB besides BTC's.
Snip!
given in the IBM TechRef. It fails to work properly
with Linux, for example.
Checkit will show that instantly too but I have not seen
cheapo fail
like this. Or I missed something vital?
more than 6 months? OK, I exagerate a bit, but most
modern monitors are
worse than the 17 year old Barco I happen to have...
True. These days, All of
them are all over the map on quality
issues and play games with who wins the most damage by shipper.
We have one or two shippers won this award already.
-tony
Jason D.
email: jpero(a)cgo.wave.ca
Pero, Jason D.
23 Feb
23 Feb
8:18 a.m.
New subject: Prices & Rants(was: Future Computing Trends. Still is, I gu
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22 Feb
22 Feb
3:52 p.m.
New subject: Prices & Rants(was: Future Computing Trends. Still is, I gu
;-) Clearing the snow from my glasses, I saw jpero(a)cgo.wave.ca typed:
[snip]
Mitsumi and Epson floppy drives are junk.
I
dunno... I've had a 7-year-old Mitsumi on my CoCo for... well... 7 years
or so, it seems to be running fine... OS-9 loves that 80-tracks!!!
Teac is just o. k.
Never had a Teac fail,
either.
The chassis is not as rugged (I can crush one in
my hands) and not precise as I like when fitting parts into it and
very scary sharp edges.
definately true-- just assembled one of them (that's what they wanted...)
Had to be careful to not cut myself.
Aceropen stuff is not too bad
Uh, really? Last I knew, Aceropen was a division of Acer, which everything
I've seen is some of the nastiest junk in the world (read: worse than
Packard Bell)...
Just my $0.00002,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
--
Roger Merchberger | If at first you don't succeed,
Owner, MerchWare | nuclear warhead disarmament should
zmerch(a)northernway.net | *not* be your first career choice.
12:04 p.m.
New subject: Prices & Rants(was: Future Computing Trends. Still is, I g
;-) Clearing the snow from my glasses, I saw
jpero(a)cgo.wave.ca typed:
[snip]
That is wrong
date range I experienced. These ones was between '90
and '95 makes.
Mitsumi and Epson floppy drives are junk.
I
dunno... I've had a 7-year-old Mitsumi on my CoCo for... well... 7 years
or so, it seems to be running fine... OS-9 loves that 80-tracks!!! Teac is just o.
k.
Never had a Teac fail, either. definately true-- just assembled one of them
(that's what they wanted...)
Had to be careful to not cut myself.
Yeah, at my end of work day, I have few
bandages or sucking on a cut
fingers and few scars when I worked for period at a nasty reseller.
Aceropen stuff
is not too bad
Uh, really? Last I knew, Aceropen was a division of Acer, which everything
I've seen is some of the nastiest junk in the world (read: worse than
Packard Bell)... Just my $0.00002,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
--
Roger Merchberger | If at first you don't succeed,
Owner, MerchWare | nuclear warhead disarmament should
zmerch(a)northernway.net | *not* be your first career choice.
email: jpero(a)cgo.wave.ca
Pero, Jason D.
23 Feb
23 Feb
8:44 a.m.
New subject: Prices & Rants(was: Future Computing Trends. Still is, I g
;-) Clearing the snow from my glasses, I saw jpero(a)cgo.wave.ca typed:
[snip]
That is wrong
date range I experienced. These ones was between '90
and '95 makes.
Uh... '98 minus 7 = '91... '90 < '91 < '95 ... seems it fits
your target
date just fine mathimatically...
[ Please don't mind me -- that's just the smart-ass in me that comes out
every so often... ;-) ]
What was last time???
I've seen AcerOpens for a couple of years, and I haven't seen a machine I'd
let my dog pee on yet, let alone use. I've dealt with Acer's a lot longer
than that, and the same holds true.
But, of course, that's just me -- and I'm weird (but thankfully, not
clueless!)
Mitsumi and Epson floppy drives are junk.
I
dunno... I've had a 7-year-old Mitsumi on my CoCo for... well... 7 years
or so, it seems to be running fine... OS-9 loves that 80-tracks!!! Lucky u. :) I have a teac with blown stepper IC it
has PIT on
to. Have to find it and give # for it.
I've seen a few blown stepper IC's as well -- but that's because the people
hooking up the floppy put the cable on upside down, and all the +'s went to
gnd, and all the gnd's went to +. Can't blame that on the drive! ;-)
I don't think there's any totally clueless folks on this list, but just in
case: The red stripe means *Pin 1*!!! ;^> [An aside: are there any
computers out there where this isn't true???]
Aceropen stuff is not too bad
Uh, really? Last I knew, Aceropen was a division of Acer, which everything
I've seen is some of the nastiest junk in the world (read: worse than
Packard Bell)... > Just my $0.00002,
> Roger "Merch" Merchberger
Oh, and as per a previous mail by someone that you had replied to with a
hotmail.com account (so this isn't at you directly, but I cannot find the
intermediate mail): Last I checked, Russians don't use dollars, they use
Rubles. I have a 1990 5 Ruble proof coin I purchased in East Berlin while I
was there in my collection. (25 years ago, most coins were cheaper than
computers -- now it's the other way around!) So I was making a statement
about the pitiful (IMHO) status of the American dollar, just to clear
things up.
Have fun,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
--
Roger Merchberger | If at first you don't succeed,
Owner, MerchWare | nuclear warhead disarmament should
zmerch(a)northernway.net | *not* be your first career choice.
8:01 a.m.
New subject: Prices & Rants(was: Future Computing Trends. Still is, I
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9:20 a.m.
New subject: Prices & Rants(was: Future Computing Trends. Still is, I
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2:43 p.m.
New subject: Prices & Rants(was: Future Computing Trends. Still is, I g
At 01:44 PM 2/23/98, you wrote:
I don't think there's any totally clueless folks on this list, but just in
case: The red stripe means *Pin 1*!!! ;^> [An aside: are there any
computers out there where this isn't true???]
Yes! LOTS! Including a HP 9133 disk drive that I just worked. FWIW
the triangle on the connector is also supposed to point to pin 1. But
I've seen cables where the stripe was on one side and the triange on the
other.
Joe
9641
days inactive
9643
days old
10 comments
6 participants
participants (6)
-
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
jpero＠cgo.wave.ca -
manney＠nwohio.com -
rigdonj＠intellistar.net -
shoppa＠alph02.triumf.ca -
zmerch＠northernway.net