On Fri, 3 Feb 2006, Mark Tapley wrote: Colorado Springs, CO to St. Louis, MO to drop off HP2100 Minis to someone who could actually use them (see below) Mapquest says 835 miles each way, though it seemed longer... This, of course, doesn't really qualify as I didn't take anything home on the return trip, not wanting to promote domestic violence... (see below) Colorado Springs, CO to Toronto, Ontario, Canada for HP2100 Minis before my wife actually saw how big they really were... Mapquest says 1578 miles each way, though it did seem longer :-) Bill

On Saturday 04 February 2006 02:11 pm, Gene Ehrich wrote: Is there much interest in this stuff at all? I've scrapped some of that sort of thing (if anybody needs any model-specific parts...) and I also have a couple of big old printers in storage, one being an NEC "Spinwriter" (uses a thing they called a "thimble" instead of a daisywheel but it's the same idea) that I know works and another one that's comparable in size that's a daisywheel but I forget if it works or not. I was going to scrap these out, but if there's any interest I'd be happy to part with them instead... Contact me off-list if so. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin

In article <m1F5Wcq-000IyKC at p850ug1>, ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) writes: Ever been to the Henry Ford Museum in Michigan? You'd be surprised what you learn by seeing the evolution of an item historically by just sitting all the items side-by-side. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/> Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty <http://pilgrimage.scene.org>

In message <m1F5pF0-000IyLC at p850ug1> ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: I've been to New York (had a look round NYC, stayed on Long Island), Connecticut (Mystic Seaport) and Orlando (Florida). You aren't missing much :P One of these days I intend to go to one of the VCF events, but there's no way I could manage it ATM. The CBM 1541. (in)famous for the *BANG* sound you got when the head hit the end stop. Probably why they ended up going out of alignment quite quickly... At least, I *think* it was the 1541. Same drive that had a stupidly underrated power supply that tended to blow with the slightest provocation. -- Phil. | Kitsune: Acorn RiscPC SA202 64M+6G ViewFinder philpem at dsl.pipex.com | Cheetah: Athlon64 3200+ A8VDeluxeV2 512M+100G http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | Tiger: Toshiba SatPro4600 Celeron700 256M+40G ... The wise don't merely stalk their prey, they make the kill.

Indeed they did :-( The infamous LA36 does this, but I thougth it detected the end stop by a lack of pulses from the shaft encoder on the back of the motor. We had an LA36 in the lab where I worked. The plastic key in the carriage drive sprocket broke, and the motor therefore didn't stop when the carriage hit the end stop, it just kept on turning very slowly against a heavy load (the friction of the sprocket on the shaft). The result was the motor got hot enough to burn the insulation off the windings, and at that point the carriage motor fuse blew. Well it didn't take me long to track that fault down. The motor drew 4A charged some ridiculous price -- about \pounds 150 I think -- for a new motor. Since research student's time is not worth much, another chap and I spent an afternoon rewinding it. A few years later, that LA36 was scrapped. No I didn't take it (one of the few DEC items I didn't grab), but I did take some bits out of it. I still have the carriage motor with the 'rewound by ARD and AMG' label on it. -tony

In article <200602041732.26210.rtellason at blazenet.net>, "Roy J. Tellason" <rtellason at blazenet.net> writes: Spinwriter? This doesn't use a diablo style print wheel, does it? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/> Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty <http://pilgrimage.scene.org>

On 2/6/2006 at 12:34 PM Roy J. Tellason wrote: Think of a cup, whose sides have been slit into many 1/8" or so wide strips. At the end of each strip where the cup rim would be, you find a character molded into the plastic. Basically a daisywheel where someone has severely punched in the hub. The hammer strikes from the inside of the cup. NEC was about the first on the scene after Diablo and Qume with any sort of daisywheel-like technoloty. The pritners were definitely lighter-weight than the corresponding Diablo "built like a brick outhouse" version--and they seemed more cheaply constructed. No clear benefit to the thimble technology and a little more difficult to change thimbles. I don't think daisywheel printers were terribly popular in Japan, due to the limited character set. On the other hand, the Japanese took dot-matrix technology and refined it to a fare-thee-well. I recall being very impressed the first time I saw an Okidata printer with a 22-wire printhead. At the time, the Oki reps weren't even sure that they were going to market the printer in the US, because the thought was that no one wanted to pay for high-quality dot matrix printers with huge character sets. Sanders was pushing a multipass 9 wire printer for higher quality. Cheers, Chuck

On Monday 06 February 2006 01:46 pm, Gene Ehrich wrote: I've never heard of a 6000 before, but the difference between the 6100 and the 6300 (which I've also run into) was the width of the carriage, "normal" vs. "wide". -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin