17 May
2005
17 May
'05
3:50 p.m.
From: "Randy McLaughlin" <cctalk at
randy482.com>
In the 1940's how many people were able to build a radio reciever with what
they found in the battle field (razor blade, safety pin, knife, wire,
headset), how many could today? The same applies to computer technology.
Hi
I could. Junk today has more useable parts than the
junk they had then. Making a AM radio is quite easy today.
Dwight
17 May
17 May
4:06 p.m.
>From: "Randy McLaughlin" <cctalk at
randy482.com>
>In the 1940's how many people were able to build a radio reciever with what
>they found in the battle field (razor blade, safety pin, knife, wire,
>headset), how many could today? The same applies to computer technology.
^^^^^^^
what kinds of wars litter the battlefields with spare headsets?
On Tue, 17 May 2005, Dwight K. Elvey wrote:
Hi
I could. Junk today has more useable parts than the
junk they had then. Making a AM radio is quite easy today.
Dwight
You are NOT typical of current society (that is a compliment, not an
insult)
How many people saw that Nova? PBS session where they handed ENGINEERING
undergrads a battery a bulb and a handful of wires? Many of the students
were adament that it was impossible to light the bulb without a socket.
Many of them made a dead short across the battery, and then touched one of
the bulb contacts to that. etc.
4:35 p.m.
From: "Fred Cisin" <cisin at xenosoft.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 6:06 PM
Every battlefield since WWI has had "spare headsets" laying around, usually
>From:
"Randy McLaughlin" <cctalk at randy482.com>
>In the 1940's how many people were able to build a radio reciever with
>what
>they found in the battle field (razor blade, safety pin, knife, wire,
>headset), how many could today? The same applies to computer
>technology.
^^^^^^^
what kinds of wars litter the battlefields with spare headsets?
On Tue, 17 May 2005, Dwight K. Elvey wrote:
Hi
I could. Junk today has more useable parts than the
junk they had then. Making a AM radio is quite easy today.
Dwight
You are NOT typical of current society (that is a compliment, not an
insult)
How many people saw that Nova? PBS session where they handed ENGINEERING
undergrads a battery a bulb and a handful of wires? Many of the students
were adament that it was impossible to light the bulb without a socket.
Many of them made a dead short across the battery, and then touched one of
the bulb contacts to that. etc. from damaged radios.
When a field radio was damaged in a firefight it was abandoned, carrying
around a dead radio while bullets are flying doesn't make any sense. Later
it was extremely common for soldiers with the right knowledge to pick up the
headset and build AM receivers, with spares they passed them on to buddies
to use. WWII field radios to too bulky for the average GI to carry around
compared to just enough material to make a simple AM receiver.
For the record they were not used for tactical use just to listen to music
etc while sitting in foxholes.
Randy
www.s100-manuals.com
4:41 p.m.
On Tue, 17 May 2005, Fred Cisin wrote:
How many people saw that Nova? PBS session where they
handed ENGINEERING
undergrads a battery a bulb and a handful of wires? Many of the students
were adament that it was impossible to light the bulb without a socket.
Many of them made a dead short across the battery, and then touched one of
the bulb contacts to that. etc.
Wow, comedy for nerds. I have to see that.
--
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 ]
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5:27 p.m.
> How many people saw that Nova? PBS session where
they handed ENGINEERING
> undergrads a battery a bulb and a handful of wires? Many of the students
> were adament that it was impossible to light the bulb without a socket.
It's worrying that I could do this before I even went to primary school...
Many of them
made a dead short across the battery, and then touched one of
the bulb contacts to that. etc.
Wow, comedy for nerds. I have to see that.
6:59 p.m.
On Wed, 18 May 2005, Tony Duell wrote:
How can somebody even consider a career in "engineering" if they've never
even made their own flashlight ("torch" on the other side of the pond)
Well, I don't know whether to laugh or cry...
I cried.
I try to teach beginning programming in C and "intel" assembly language.
But I don't have enough common ground to even talk to people with NO
concept of the world around them.
Does anyone else remember that show (about 6 months to a year ago),
and have any references to a write-up of it?
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
> How many
people saw that Nova? PBS session where they handed ENGINEERING
> undergrads a battery a bulb and a handful of wires? Many of the students
> were adament that it was impossible to light the bulb without a socket.
It's worrying that I could do this before I even went to primary school... Many of them made a dead short across the battery, and
then touched one of
the bulb contacts to that. etc.
Wow, comedy for nerds. I have to see that.
18 May
18 May
4:34 p.m.
On Wed, 18 May 2005, Tony Duell wrote:
How can somebody even consider a career in "engineering" if they've never
even made their own flashlight ("torch" on the other side of the pond)
Apparently, engineers don't make things, that's what technicians are for.
While this may be true, I'd not accept an electrical engineer who
couldn't light a bulb under such conditions...
And we live in a world where curiousity is frowned upon. The whole idea
of schools seems to be to remove curiousity from children -- fortunately
they failed in my case.
-tony
> How
many people saw that Nova? PBS session where they handed ENGINEERING
> undergrads a battery a bulb and a handful of wires? Many of the students
> were adament that it was impossible to light the bulb without a socket.
It's worrying that I could do this before I even went to primary school... 
7:53 p.m.
Tony Duell wrote:
My father was a Radio Shack fan and always kept me supplied with "Lil'
Electricity Kit" stuff, so same here.
Was the Nova staged or something? Surely engineering undergrads would know
how to make a light bulb light up. I call bullshit.
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org)
World's largest electronic gaming project: http://www.MobyGames.com/
A delicious slice of the demoscene: http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/
Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/
>How many
people saw that Nova? PBS session where they handed ENGINEERING
>undergrads a battery a bulb and a handful of wires? Many of the students
>were adament that it was impossible to light the bulb without a socket.
It's worrying that I could do this before I even went to primary school...
8:12 p.m.
>>>How many people saw that Nova?
No,
not Nova. "Minds Of Our Own"
>> PBS
session where they handed ENGINEERING
>>undergrads a battery a bulb and a handful of wires? Many of the students
>>were adament that it was impossible to light the bulb without a socket.
Was the Nova staged or something? Surely engineering
undergrads would know
how to make a light bulb light up. I call bullshit.
It does seem hard to believe. But it wasn't staged.
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/cfa/ep/almanac/797.htm
Some thought that it "could not be done" without a socket.
Very few realized, even with a broken bulb at hand, that a bulb has two
contacts.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
17 May
17 May
4:24 p.m.
From: "Dwight K. Elvey" <dwight.elvey at amd.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 5:50 PM
My point is that while you and I can how many others can? The same applies
to certain computer technology.
Randy
www.s100-manuals.com
From:
"Randy McLaughlin" <cctalk at randy482.com>
In the 1940's how many people were able to build a radio reciever with
what
they found in the battle field (razor blade, safety pin, knife, wire,
headset), how many could today? The same applies to computer technology.
Hi
I could. Junk today has more useable parts than the
junk they had then. Making a AM radio is quite easy today.
Dwight
5:25 p.m.
In the 1940's how many people were able to build a
radio reciever with
what
they found in the battle field (razor blade, safety pin, knife, wire,
headset), how many could today? The same applies to computer technology.
Hi
I could. Junk today has more useable parts than the
junk they had then. Making a AM radio is quite easy today.
Dwight to certain computer technology.
Ditto for making a processor from SSI/MSI chips (I've done this for a
special-purpose programmable device, turning it into a processor would
not have been hard), reading/writing microcode, etc, etc, etc.
Mind you, these days most people can't even wire an RS232 cable and get
it right....
-tony
6:37 p.m.
Or at least I am darn sure I could still make a
crystal set the hard way
The amazing thing some WWII POWs did was to make a radio detector
with a rusty blue razor blade and a short piece of pencil carbon.
Or was that some Poles. Poked around with the razor blade to hit
an actively-rectifying spot, ala galena cat's whisker.
It wasn't like making radios from literal garbage (eg. no
electronic components AT ALL -- NONE) was widespread or anything
in ye olden dayes. It still took spectacular ingenuity and a good
handful of fundamental knowledge. Probably more people today could
do it.
It does obviously require massive output AM transmitters
to detect. We're talking gains << 1 here. Try that with XM...
18 May
18 May
4:32 p.m.
Or at least I am darn sure I could still make a
crystal set the hard way
The amazing thing some WWII POWs did was to make a radio detector
with a rusty blue razor blade and a short piece of pencil carbon.
Or was that some Poles. Poked around with the razor blade to hit
an actively-rectifying spot, ala galena cat's whisker. 
17 May
17 May
8:17 p.m.
to certain
computer technology.
Ditto for making a processor from SSI/MSI chips (I've done
this for a
special-purpose programmable device, turning it into a processor
would not have been hard), Mind you, these days most people can't even wire
an RS232 cable and
get it right....
Of course, it doesn't help that most equipment manufacturers can't wire
an RS232 connector and get it right (true almost regardless of your
definition of "right" in this context).
/~\ 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
18 May
18 May
4:39 p.m.
I know I can do that, because I have. Back in the
late '70s, at the
University of Colorado, I took a computer hardware design course. It
was very hands-on, and the term project, if you will, was to construct
a small 4-bit computer from SSI/MSI TTL. (The most complex chips used
were an ALU - 74181, I think it was - and some static RAM.) Not much
You remembered correctly, I think. The 74181 is, indeed a common TTL ALU
chip.
memory space, 16 4-bit words, but fully functional
within its design
limitations.
IMHO every hacker with inclinations towards hardware should do something
like this. Actually get the TTL chips and solder/wire-wrap them together.
Doing it in an FPGA with schematic capture entry is a very poor
substitute. Doing it in VHDL doesn't count at all!.
You will soon discover that the most complicated part (to understand) of
your project is the wire!
Mind you, these days most people can't even
wire an RS232 cable and
get it right....
Of course, it doesn't help that most equipment manufacturers can't wire
an RS232 connector and get it right (true almost regardless of your
definition of "right" in this context). 
19 May
19 May
8:07 p.m.
On Tue, 17 May 2005 23:17:50 -0400 (EDT)
der Mouse <mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca> wrote:
I know I can do that, because I have. Back in the late '70s, at the
University of Colorado, I took a computer hardware design course. It
was very hands-on, and the term project, if you will, was to construct
a small 4-bit computer from SSI/MSI TTL. (The most complex chips used
were an ALU - 74181, I think it was - and some static RAM.) Not much
memory space, 16 4-bit words, but fully functional within its design
limitations.
One of the things that REALLY doesn't help is that the RS232-C standard
(by this I mean the 'current modern variant' in case there are any
pedants present) is an expensive document that you have to pay the ANSI
folks a BUNCH of money to even read.
Not that it would particularly help most of the people who can't wire an
RS232 cable, but WHY are standards like that still locked down and
rationed out like trade secrets?
-Scott
to certain computer technology.
Ditto for
making a processor from SSI/MSI chips (I've done this for
a special-purpose programmable device, turning it into a processor
would not have been hard), Mind you, these days most people can't even
wire an RS232 cable and
get it right....
Of course, it doesn't help that most equipment manufacturers can't
wire an RS232 connector and get it right (true almost regardless of
your definition of "right" in this context).
18 May
18 May
1:17 a.m.
Hi,
Tony Duell said:
Or at least I am darn sure I could still make a
crystal set the hard way
I did that some years ago just to show someone how it was done, the only
bit I couldn't make was the phones.
(Coil wound on cardboard box, tuning cap made of kitchen foil and card,
xtal made from a piece of coke and a steel pin.)
--
Cheers,
Stan Barr stanb at dial.pipex.com
The future was never like this!
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days inactive
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16 comments
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participants (10)
-
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
cctalk＠randy482.com -
chenmel＠earthlink.net -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
dwight.elvey＠amd.com -
mouse＠Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA -
stanb＠dial.pipex.com -
tomj＠wps.com -
trixter＠oldskool.org -
vcf＠siconic.com