29 Dec
2005
29 Dec
'05
6:28 p.m.
Does anyone have one?
They apparently were crappy designs and tended to die fairly readily,
making them hard to find. They were manufactured in Salt Lake, but I
haven't seen one since I used them in Delaware around 1980!
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ:
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Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty
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29 Dec
29 Dec
6:54 p.m.
On 12/29/2005 at 7:28 PM Richard wrote:
They apparently were crappy designs and tended to die
fairly readily,
making them hard to find. They were manufactured in Salt Lake, but I
haven't seen one since I used them in Delaware around 1980!
I used to have a couple of early-to-mid 1970's era Beehive terminals.
Quality of construction was actually pretty high--wonderful keyboard.
8008-based "smart" editing terminals.
Beehive had several terminal models. I didn't care for the later
VT-100/VT-220 compatible boxes; IIRC, they were pretty buggy.
Cheers,
Chuck
8:35 p.m.
In article <200512291854250435.16ABE996 at 10.0.0.252>,
"Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> writes:
On 12/29/2005 at 7:28 PM Richard wrote:
Any chance you have pictures of them? I haven't even been able to
find any pictures of some of the models we used at UDel.
They apparently were crappy designs and tended to
die fairly readily,
making them hard to find. They were manufactured in Salt Lake, but I
haven't seen one since I used them in Delaware around 1980!
I used to have a couple of early-to-mid 1970's era Beehive terminals. Quality of construction was actually pretty
high--wonderful keyboard.
8008-based "smart" editing terminals.
Maybe I was being a little harsh :-) ... a colleague mentioned
something like the capacitors always dying and needing to be replaced.
I can't recall the specifics. I do recall that when the terminal room
heated up in the summer time, the character memory RAM would start
flipping bits randomly causing your screen to corrupt over an editing
session. We all learned quickly how to rapidly execute the key
sequence that would i) take the terminal into local mode, ii) clear
the screen, iii) bring the terminal back online and iv) issue a
command to the editor to refresh the buffer.
Beehive had several terminal models. I didn't
care for the later
VT-100/VT-220 compatible boxes; IIRC, they were pretty buggy.
The ones we used would have been around 1978-1980 and they were most
definately not VT-anything compatible. I remember the detachable
keyboard on one of the models had a cable that seemed as thick as a
DEC RL01 disk drive cable or 5-line keyset phone cable of the period,
although much more flexible than either of those :-).
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ:
<http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/>
Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty
<http://pilgrimage.scene.org>
9:22 p.m.
On 12/29/2005 at 9:35 PM Richard wrote:
Any chance you have pictures of them? I haven't
even been able to
find any pictures of some of the models we used at UDel.
No, but they sound about the same. Beige pebble-painted slab-sided cases
with a sloping top (I think they were actually made of welded sheets of
aluminum), detachable keyboard with a thick grey cable and some keys with
little bi-pin lamps under them to indicate modes. Rotary control on a
small black panel on the back to set the bitrate from 110-9600(?). Shift
register memory and some 1702s for ROM. IIRC, end-of-line was something
like 0x1f. Bronze-tinted sheet of plexiglass over the screen. Keys were
light brown and the keyboard mask was dark brown. IIRC, the thing couldn't
actually display and scroll at 9600, so handshaking at higher speeds was
required. I still may have some code around that I used to drive one. I
think I remember that you could fire off some combinations of codes that
would cause them to hang.
Cheers,
Chuck
30 Dec
30 Dec
12:23 a.m.
In article <200512292122510380.1733CE16 at 10.0.0.252>,
"Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> writes:
No, but they sound about the same. Beige
pebble-painted slab-sided cases
with a sloping top (I think they were actually made of welded sheets of
aluminum), detachable keyboard with a thick grey cable and some keys with
little bi-pin lamps under them to indicate modes. Rotary control on a
small black panel on the back to set the bitrate from 110-9600(?). Shift
register memory and some 1702s for ROM. IIRC, end-of-line was something
like 0x1f. Bronze-tinted sheet of plexiglass over the screen. Keys were
light brown and the keyboard mask was dark brown. IIRC, the thing couldn't
actually display and scroll at 9600, so handshaking at higher speeds was
required. I still may have some code around that I used to drive one. I
think I remember that you could fire off some combinations of codes that
would cause them to hang.
YES! These are the exact models we used. Of course we were across
town from our PDP-11/70, so even with the "hard wire" modem we never
got more than 1800 baud out of them.
Which reminds me of an interesting story. These modems were only
rated for 1200 baud. We used them at that speed for several weeks
before I said "why not just turn up the baud rate and see what
happens?" -- one of those questions young teenagers ask because they
don't know any better :-). So we tried 2400 baud. Garbage. We then
tried 1800 baud and they worked flawlessly. Sweet! 50% bonus just
for being experimental!
--
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Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty
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2:08 p.m.
On 12/30/2005 at 1:23 AM Richard wrote:
Which reminds me of an interesting story. These modems
were only
rated for 1200 baud. We used them at that speed for several weeks
before I said "why not just turn up the baud rate and see what
happens?" -- one of those questions young teenagers ask because they
don't know any better :-). So we tried 2400 baud. Garbage. We then
tried 1800 baud and they worked flawlessly. Sweet! 50% bonus just
for being experimental!
I remember doing exactly the same thing--those Racal-Vadic modems didn't
seem to be too sensitive to data rate. I recall using one at 2000 baud
with no problems, even though I couldn't get 2400 to work at all.
Anyone remember the old Bell 103 modems? IIRC, the design was something
like a big pile of passives and only a couple of transistors. But then,
300 baud was as good as they got. WE was pretty good at designing circuits
that used the minimum of active components; IIRC, the DTMF touch-tone
dialing circuit was a single transistor.
Cheers,
Chuck
2:35 p.m.
In article <200512301408500115.1ACCD268 at 10.0.0.252>,
"Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> writes:
I remember doing exactly the same thing--those
Racal-Vadic modems didn't
seem to be too sensitive to data rate. I recall using one at 2000 baud
with no problems, even though I couldn't get 2400 to work at all.
These were rather large boxes -- about the size of a Yellow Pages
phone book -- that I believe were supplied by the Phone company and
operated on dedicated lines. (They never had a dialtone and only connected
directly to our computing center across town.) They had a blue case
with a white front panel and a couple toggle switches and some LEDs.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ:
<http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/>
Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty
<http://pilgrimage.scene.org>
4:17 p.m.
Anyone remember the old Bell 103 modems? IIRC, the
design was something
like a big pile of passives and only a couple of transistors. But then,
300 baud was as good as they got. WE was pretty good at designing circuits
that used the minimum of active components; IIRC, the DTMF touch-tone
dialing circuit was a single transistor.
I thought the touch-tone keypad was 2 transistors, one for the column
frequencies, one for the row frequencies. But I've never seen one.
As regards old/odd modems. The GPO 300 baud Modem (Modem 2B IIRC) was a
metal case about 15" square and 6" high. Inside were 4 modles that slid
in from the font. One was a PSU, one was the modulator, one the
demodulator, and the last the control. The Control circuitry was relay
based with a few transistors.
The demodulator was a bit odd by today's standards. The incoming signal
was filtered, then mixed with a local oscillator to shift it up in
frequency. That was fed into an FM discriminator (I can't remember which
one, it was one of the standard ones that I've seen in FM radios), the
output of that went to a schmitt trigger and thesce to the RS232 output.
The filters were a string of LC tuned circuits contained in a flat metal
can about the size of a tobacco tin.
I have a much more modern modem which, IIRC, does 1200 baud full-duplex,
and uses a 8088 as the DSP (!). And a leased-line modem stuffed with
interesting logic (some AMD 2900-series bit-slice parts and an 8*8
multiplier chip from what I remember)
-tony
5:51 p.m.
On 12/31/2005 at 12:17 AM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote:
I thought the touch-tone keypad was 2 transistors, one
for the column
frequencies, one for the row frequencies. But I've never seen one.
No sir, it used only a single transistor. Transistors were viewed as the
least reliable part of a telephone and so usage was minimized. Here's a
schematic of the dial on one of them:
http://www.bellsystemmemorial.com/images/2526bm_schematic_2.gif
I remember learning this from a friend and being more than a little
skeptical. But 'tis true - a dual mode oscillator. There's also a
reference on this forum:
http://www.castalk.com/ftopic8083-15.html
I think WE doesn't get nearly enough credit for creating some really
bulletproof designs.
Cheers,
Chuck
31 Dec
31 Dec
6:24 a.m.
> I thought the touch-tone keypad was 2 transistors,
one for the
> column frequencies, one for the row frequencies. But I've never seen
> one.
No sir, it used only a single transistor. [...]
Here's a schematic
I have a telephone of probably about that era; it's the same
form-factor as a traditional rotary phone, but it has a 12-key keypad
instead of a rotary dial. I took it apart, and the dial module has
wire colours and component counts which fairly closely fit the "DIAL"
portion of your schematic, allowing me to supply some relevant but
otherwise missing information.
I assume that the Xes (eg, at the "k u" and "w x" points) are NO
switches and the single-line-cross (eg, "z y" and "e v") are NC
switches - except that my phone has one NC switch too many and one NO
switch too few to match the schematic. (One NO and one NC switch share
a contact, making them effectively an SPDT switch; I can't tell whether
it's break-before-make or make-before-break. Also, one of the other NC
switches breaks well after the other NC switches.)
Unfortunately it is assembled in such a way that I can't easily get to
the etch side of the PCB without being destructive (the connections
from the switches to the PCB were spot-welded after the
PCB was
assembled to the button panel, and while it might be possible to work
around this, I would need a thin (ca. 1mm thick) wrench or pair of
pliers, to get to nuts that are between two layers). While I might be
able to be destructive in a way that could be repaired, I don't think
curiosity is worth risking breaking the one really good DTMF phone I
have, so I can't trace my circuit to tell how well it matches your
schematic.
Also important, but not shown on your schematic, is that many of the
inductors are wound on the same axis and thus are magnetically coupled
together. There are two axes on which the inductors are wound; I
conjecture that one is for vertical and one horizontal - ie, one
high-tone and one low-tone - but where the inductors shown near the
transistor fit into this I can only speculate about. I conjecture that
one of each of the two inductors shown as being wired in series in each
of the pairs near the transistor is wound on each axis, because I don't
see any other reason for using two inductors in series like that.
The devices which I'm matching up with the black diamonds with small
white lines are small black plastic cylinders with rounded ends,
in-line axial leads, maybe 4mm in diameter and 9mm long. There is a
colour band, which is yellow on three of them and green on the other.
Seeing one in isolation, I would take them for diodes or capacitors,
but only tentatively.
The three capacitors are one cermaic disc labeled .0051 and two yellow
plastic cylinders, each labeled ".0442?F" and "?5%"; I conjecture the
two are the ones in the keypad circuit and the one is the one near the
transistor. This conjecture is reinforced by their physical placement,
which has the cermaic disc next to the transistor and the yellow
cylinders on the other side of the board.
I find only two objects I recognize immediately as resistors; they are
banded 5K1 10% (green-brown-red-silver) and 810 10%
(grey-red-brown-silver). The object I am assuming is the third
resistor is a two-terminal device which looks as though it might be
uninsulated carbon-film; the unused side is marked "45R3J". Their
positions do not lead to useful inferences as to which is which.
The transistor is in a metal-can package (the size some 8mm in diameter
and 7mm high); it is marked "12D" in three places around the top and
"3-73*" where the * represents a small black diamond, or (if you
prefer) square turned 45?, near the bottom.
The inductor assemblies are marked "2597-AS" and "573" on one,
"2597-AR" and "473" on the other.
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7:40 p.m.
New subject: OT: touch-tone phones, was Re: Beehive terminals
der Mouse wrote:
I don't think
curiosity is worth risking breaking the one really good DTMF phone I
have, so I can't trace my circuit to tell how well it matches your
schematic.
Well, I was curious: here's the schematic of my 'main' phone, an
Automatic Electric touch-tone from 1969.
... makes a little more sense than the Bell schematic.
http://www3.telus.net/~bhilpert/tmp/touchTone1969.gif
You can see the one transistor formed into an oscillator
with two resonant circuits. I too was rather surprised/amused
at it's simplicity when I RE'd it.
1:18 p.m.
On 12/31/2005 at 12:17 AM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote:
I stnad corrected.
I thought the touch-tone keypad was 2 transistors,
one for the column
frequencies, one for the row frequencies. But I've never seen one.
No sir, it used only a single transistor. Transistors were viewed as the least reliable part of a telephone and so usage was
minimized. Here's a
schematic of the dial on one of them:
Interesting. I think the Post Office in England thought the same way at
one point. They had a little transistorised signal tracer with a 4 (?)
transsitor amplifier in it. Most of the amplifier was a potted module,
but the transistors were mounted on top and soldered to pins sticking out
of the potting compound so they could be replaced.
I think WE doesn't get nearly enough credit for
creating some really
bulletproof designs.
I find it a great pity that now that transistors have become so cheap
(particularly when in ICs), most people don't care how many are used, and
most modern designs use far too many of them. It's amazing what could be
done with 2 or 3 of the things, but those clever designs have been mostly
forgotten.
-tony
8:56 p.m.
I find it a great pity that now that transistors have
become so cheap
(particularly when in ICs), most people don't care how many are used,
and most modern designs use far too many of them.
"Too many" in what sense? :)
It's amazing what could be done with 2 or 3 of the
things, but those
clever designs have been mostly forgotten.
Yes...at least in part because they tend to need a pile of other
things, like capacitors and inductors, which are difficult to stick
onto ICs. I'm not convinced there's anything wrong with using several
dozen transistors on a chip die instead of a couple of transistors and
a half-dozen miscellanous discrete passives.
Well, except that it leaves less opportunity to express hack value.
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1 Jan
1 Jan
10:17 a.m.
I find it a great pity that now that transistors
have become so cheap
(particularly when in ICs), most people don't care how many are used,
and most modern designs use far too many of them.
"Too many" in what sense? :) It's amazing what could be done with 2 or 3
of the things, but those
clever designs have been mostly forgotten.
Yes...at least in part because they tend to need a pile of other
things, like capacitors and inductors, which are difficult to stick 
11:19 a.m.
Yes...at least in part because they tend to need a
pile of other
things, like capacitors and inductors, which are difficult to stick
onto ICs. I'm not convinced there's anything wrong with using several
dozen transistors on a chip die instead of a couple of transistors and
a half-dozen miscellanous discrete passives.
Anyone that has even a shred of experience on a factory floor would take
the more complex IC, maybe even more pricey, over even a small pile of
discretes, SMT or thruhole.
There is MUCH MORE to good engineering than what goes on the schematic or
breadboard. In fact, production issues are often more important than the
circuit itself. What are these production issues? Things as obvious as the
extra work the board stuffers have to do and extra inventory/warehousing
costs, to increased failures from QA errors to increased health costs for
the workers. These issues can kill even the best design, if not handled
properly.
I am curious - who has experience with hardware production issues on this
list? The real, walkin' the factory floor, experience? I suspect that it
is very thin.
William Donzelli
USR Integration/QA
aw288 at osfn.org
11:56 a.m.
On 1/1/2006 at 2:19 PM William Donzelli wrote:
Anyone that has even a shred of experience on a factory
floor would take
the more complex IC, maybe even more pricey, over even a small pile of
discretes, SMT or thruhole.
Maybe, but consider the AT&T business model--there was a lot more to it
than production floor issues.
AT&T leased all of its equipment to customers, so it retained perpetual
ownership. That really skews the ROI curve--just about any reasonable
thing you can do to extend product life (30 year old 2500 series desk sets
in working condition are not an anomaly). At the time of their
manufacture, AT&T had good reason to suspect that transistors may represent
a particular vulnerability in a design. Note also, that the transistor
did not affect the telephone's ability to receive calls or the customer's
ability to flash the operator in an emergency.
AT&T footed the bill for repairs on their equipment. Anything that can be
done to improve reliability pays huge dividends. Passive components like
capacitors and inductors, if propery designed and specified are almost
bulletproof. And AT&T had a guaranteed market in the millions of units.
Finally, AT&T was tightly regulated. They were allowed a certain maximum
profit margin--it really didn't matter if a few dollars could be saved here
or there.
Cheers,
Chuck
12:12 p.m.
Maybe, but consider the AT&T business model--there
was a lot more to it
than production floor issues.
AT&T and IBM, and a few others that leased equipment, were VERY much an
exception, and yes, the maintenance issues made a difference. For nearly
every other company, this was lower on the importance list. For example,
for every keypunch IBM leased, Zenith probably made 1000 TVs. For every
AT&T/WE PBX there were probably 1000 Commodore 64s. About the only
exception I can think of is the humble desk telephone set (and as some
have pointed out, they are amazing balances of clever engineering, cost
cutting, and maintainability).
Anyway, the AT&T/IBM leased market model practically died years ago.
William Donzelli
aw288 at osfn.org
12:29 p.m.
On 1/1/2006 at 3:12 PM William Donzelli wrote:
Anyway, the AT&T/IBM leased market model
practically died years ago.
Yes, just so--AT&T in whatever form they exist today, would never consider
marketing a "designed to last 50 years" desk telephone. Better to market
a "designed to last 6 months" set, like cellphones.
And this relates to any sort of retrospection. Would I want to go back to
using punched cards? Not if that was the only thing that changed. Would I
sacrifice my terminal in exchange for lifetime employment with benefits and
pension, but with relatively crude health care? That's a harder question!
It reminds me of those people who feel nostalgia for old radios or hula
hoops and Nehru jackets. The last two are just ridiculous in today's
contexts and the first will still receive only talk radio and gangsta rap,
no matter what you use for A and B batteries.
Cheers,
Chuck
1:02 p.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
It reminds me of those people who feel nostalgia for
old radios or hula
hoops and Nehru jackets. The last two are just ridiculous in today's
contexts and the first will still receive only talk radio and gangsta rap,
no matter what you use for A and B batteries.
Well See 'Dave' about his Xtal Sets, you can do a lot with No batteries.
http://www.schmarder.com/radios/index.htm
"The Birmingham group will be hosting the 2006 DX contests.
1) The next Crystal Set DX contest will be held January 13-23, 2006.
2) The One-Active-Device (1AD) DX Contest will be held the second and
third weekends in February. The dates are February 10-13 and 17-20, 2005. "
3:31 p.m.
On Sunday 01 January 2006 03:29 pm, Chuck Guzis wrote:
It reminds me of those people who feel nostalgia for
old radios or hula
hoops and Nehru jackets. The last two are just ridiculous in today's
contexts and the first will still receive only talk radio and gangsta rap,
no matter what you use for A and B batteries.
I used to work on old radios for a guy, he'd re-do the cabinets and I'd re-do
the innards. Only criterion he had for what he picked up was that the
cabinet had to _not_ be made out of plastic. One in particular that I
remember well was not only AM-FM, but had some shortwave bands as well. The
stuff I picked up in the trailer I was living in at the time was pretty
amazing, considering that I tested it inside the trailer and used some handy
hunk of wire for an antenna...
Notstalgia? Not really, I don't miss tube stuff, even though that's where
things were when I started working with electronics. What I miss is quality,
and the good sound that tube stuff had, you don't see it in later gear, not
at all. Nor the quality, either.
(Aside: I wonder why somebody hasn't come up with some kind of a filter to
get that sound? They'd make a mint!)
--
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
8:52 p.m.
Roy J. Tellason wrote:
On Sunday 01 January 2006 03:29 pm, Chuck Guzis wrote:
Well unless you want Pantented - our chip only Stereo Am a good, radio
is still not that hard to build
or still find parts for. Then, like now Quality is always money. I
suspect it is distortion using transistors and
standard diodes or questionable IC's now days. <foot in mouth> With AM
radio all loud 80' rock and roll
people never noticed the distortion because it made that crap sound
louder and more impressive.</mouth in foot>
I think the real term is **listener fatigue**.
It reminds me of those people who feel nostalgia
for old radios or hula
hoops and Nehru jackets. The last two are just ridiculous in today's
contexts and the first will still receive only talk radio and gangsta rap,
no matter what you use for A and B batteries.
I used to work on old radios for a guy, he'd re-do the cabinets and I'd re-do
the innards. Only criterion he had for what he picked up was that the
cabinet had to _not_ be made out of plastic. One in particular that I
remember well was not only AM-FM, but had some shortwave bands as well. The
stuff I picked up in the trailer I was living in at the time was pretty
amazing, considering that I tested it inside the trailer and used some handy
hunk of wire for an antenna...
Notstalgia? Not really, I don't miss tube stuff, even though that's where
things were when I started working with electronics. What I miss is quality,
and the good sound that tube stuff had, you don't see it in later gear, not
at all. Nor the quality, either.
(Aside: I wonder why somebody hasn't come up with some kind of a filter to
get that sound? They'd make a mint!)
9:19 p.m.
On 1/1/2006 at 9:52 PM woodelf wrote:
Well unless you want Pantented - our chip only Stereo
Am a good, radio
is still not that hard to build
or still find parts for. Then, like now Quality is always money. I
suspect it is distortion using transistors and
standard diodes or questionable IC's now days. <foot in mouth> With AM
radio all loud 80' rock and roll
people never noticed the distortion because it made that crap sound
louder and more impressive.</mouth in foot>
I think the real term is **listener fatigue**.
Could someone point me to harmonic distortion data, transient analysis or
some good old scope traces to prove that a couple of 6B4's in class A
push-pull deliver better sound than a pair of MOSFETs can? I'm not trying
to start an argument, but am not convinced that vacuum tubes are better
(having owned my share of tube amplifiers) than semiconductors.
Cheers,
Chuck
P.S. I use #16 zip cord for my speakers.
9:43 p.m.
Could someone point me to harmonic distortion data,
transient
analysis or some good old scope traces to prove that a couple of
6B4's in class A push-pull deliver better sound than a pair of
MOSFETs can?
No. Such data can prove that the sound is different. Which is
_better_ is a matter for judgement and opinion; it is inherently
impossible to "prove" a subjective judgement ("better sound") with
objective data.
Even something as apparently unarguable as "lower THD" does not equal
"better sound"; indeed, there are companies making good money selling
devices specifically designed to introduce distortion of various kinds,
devices which wouldn't be used unless _someone_ thought the resulting
sound was better than the un-distorted sound. My own power amp even
includes such deliberate distortion capability.
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10:28 p.m.
der Mouse wrote:
Even something as apparently unarguable as "lower
THD" does not equal
"better sound"; indeed, there are companies making good money selling
devices specifically designed to introduce distortion of various kinds,
devices which wouldn't be used unless _someone_ thought the resulting
sound was better than the un-distorted sound. My own power amp even
includes such deliberate distortion capability.
It also depends on the music played. The only thing that seems to be
better with modern
digital recording is sound effects and synthiszed music, Most music may
loose a lot in compression
and digital conversion. I like my amp becuase it seems 'transparent' to
the my hi-fi music
or computer games or DVD's..
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.
2 Jan
2 Jan
4:57 a.m.
New subject: yikes. drifting OT.
On Mon, 2 Jan 2006 00:43:17 -0500 (EST)
der Mouse <mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca> wrote:
Could someone
point me to harmonic distortion data, transient
analysis or some good old scope traces to prove that a couple of
6B4's in class A push-pull deliver better sound than a pair of
MOSFETs can?
No. Such data can prove that the sound is different. Which is
_better_ is a matter for judgement and opinion; it is inherently
impossible to "prove" a subjective judgement ("better sound") with
objective data.
Even something as apparently unarguable as "lower THD" does not equal
"better sound";
The principle of High Fidelity is perfect reproduction. The
amplifier stages should introduce NOTHING into the signal.
'Better sound' means as near to an exact reproduction as
possible. Granted, this isn't possible for a lot of recordings
of music, where the whole recording is a collage of
faked/tweaked/doctored snippets. Listen to live recordings of
acoustic piano sometime. You want ALL the crap between you and
the original sound ripped out and thrown away.
indeed, there are companies making good money selling
devices specifically designed to introduce distortion of various kinds,
devices which wouldn't be used unless _someone_ thought the resulting
sound was better than the un-distorted sound. My own power amp even
includes such deliberate distortion capability.
If it makes a recording sound subjectively 'nicer' to you then
that's fine. But that's just one step removed from a box that
'simulates' stereophonic sound from a monophonic recording.
Anything that changes or adulterates the signal runs against the
principles of High Fidelity. My Yamaha integrated Amp even has a
bypass switch on it that cuts out ALL the tone controls and
signal doctoring the Amp otherwise is capable of.
Ultimately, once you discard the founding principles of High
Fidelity, "it's all just entertainment, folks." Which can be
very nice. But let's not confuse the issue.
11:47 a.m.
New subject: yikes. drifting OT.
Scott Stevens wrote:
The principle of High Fidelity is perfect reproduction.
The
amplifier stages should introduce NOTHING into the signal.
'Better sound' means as near to an exact reproduction as
possible. Granted, this isn't possible for a lot of recordings
of music, where the whole recording is a collage of
faked/tweaked/doctored snippets. Listen to live recordings of
acoustic piano sometime. You want ALL the crap between you and
the original sound ripped out and thrown away.
I got a DVD player that has DVD Audio -- 24 bit @ 96? sampling but I
have yet
to buy a DVD out here in that format.
If it makes a recording sound subjectively
'nicer' to you then
that's fine. But that's just one step removed from a box that
'simulates' stereophonic sound from a monophonic recording.
Anything that changes or adulterates the signal runs against the
principles of High Fidelity. My Yamaha integrated Amp even has a
bypass switch on it that cuts out ALL the tone controls and
signal doctoring the Amp otherwise is capable of.
Now here is information on just what ALL the sonic controls are.
http://www.tubecad.com/articles_2002/Missing_Sonic_Controls/index.html
12:54 p.m.
New subject: yikes. drifting OT.
woodelf wrote:
Now here is information on just what ALL the sonic
controls are.
http://www.tubecad.com/articles_2002/Missing_Sonic_Controls/index.html
Oh for goodness sakes... Some of that is inaccurate ("loosen the
cabling and the sound becomes defuse") but moreso just as pretentious as
the snobbish world of wine tasting, circuit diagrams or not.
May I suggest "The Ten Biggest Lies In Audio" as a somewhat related
counter-point? Article here:
http://www.theaudiocritic.com/downloads/article_1.pdf
--
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/
1:17 p.m.
New subject: yikes. drifting OT.
On 1/2/2006 at 2:54 PM Jim Leonard wrote:
May I suggest "The Ten Biggest Lies In Audio"
as a somewhat related
counter-point? Article here:
http://www.theaudiocritic.com/downloads/article_1.pdf
I wish someone would come out with some diefinitive answers to questions
like "MOSFET vs. Bipolar" or "Switching PS vs. Linear". Seems to be
plenty
of snake oil in most matters audiophile.
Cheers,
Chuck
1:50 p.m.
New subject: yikes. drifting OT.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
I wish someone would come out with some diefinitive
answers to questions
like "MOSFET vs. Bipolar" or "Switching PS vs. Linear". Seems to be
plenty
of snake oil in most matters audiophile.
Information is the best cure for snake oil. The biggest new idea is the
first few watts audio power
is where most of the music and voice is heard rather than how loud your
amp is or was in the past.
Most audio is 90% status with very few people listening to music 24/7.
I often listen to muic alot when
I remember the hit to change the CD. LP's I like because they are
shorter, CD's are often way too long
for say 1/2 hour of music after supper.
I am still in search of mid-fi ... something between the $20
gettoblaster and 20K of snakeoil.
Cheers,
Chuck
1:39 p.m.
New subject: yikes. drifting OT.
Jim Leonard wrote:
entious as the snobbish world of wine tasting, circuit
diagrams or not.
May I suggest "The Ten Biggest Lies In Audio" as a somewhat related
counter-point? Article here:
http://www.theaudiocritic.com/downloads/article_1.pdf
Well I differ in a few points 5) The feedback lie -- Few amps have
just the right amount of feedback.
Low distortion design then feedback, but who knows what a amp has today
with a schematic.
2) I have a 6 watt SE -ultralinear tube amp, and nothing to compare it
with solid state or otherwise.
3) Digital CD Audio has too low a sampling rate and often too few bits
of DAC. I still like LP's
but dirt is the bane of them. Once you get real sampling rates and good
DAC's output then Digital
is better, but can one get the less mainstream music nowdays on CD.
"Those where the days", by
Mary Hopkin is a good example. No comments from people in the UK, as I
am in Canada.
3:02 p.m.
New subject: yikes. drifting OT.
woodelf wrote:
3) Digital CD Audio has too low a sampling rate
Incorrect. Unless you have magic ears that can pick out a 22KHz tone
from a 21Khz tone, don't say the sampling rate is
too low. That's one
of the biggest lies. Yes, there are people who say that
the inaudible
frequencies carry vibration that affects the listening experience, but
that's another load of crap I don't want to get into (and the only way
you're going to prove to me that your speakers can even reproduce that
is to send me a video of an 'scope showing me >22Khz output).
However, all that being said:
and often too few bits of DAC.
Correct. 16-bit is nice, but 24-bit is actually discernable at most
sampling rates (ie. it actually shows up on A/B blind testing with quiet
material). What hurts more is that many early 1980s CDs were mastered
with *12-bit* equipment, which is why many audiophiles from that era
still discriminate against them (even though those problems were
corrected across the industry by the mid 1980s, although many post
houses still highpass at 20KHz, something I don't necessarily endorse).
48Khz @ 24-bit is the valid audible range of all humans, "golden ears"
or not. When I do my own work, I sample at 96KHz/24-bit and work with
multiple tracks internally 32-bit, but that's only so that nothing is
lost mathematically in my mixing. My end delivery output is still
48KHz/24-bit.
but dirt is the bane of them. Once you get real
sampling rates and good
DAC's output then Digital
is better, but can one get the less mainstream music nowdays on CD.
DVD-Audio has such technology; so much so that traditionally analog-only
artists like Neil Young and the prog rock group Rush are embracing the
technology.
--
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/
3:20 p.m.
New subject: yikes. drifting OT.
Jim Leonard wrote:
woodelf wrote:
It more of the case
that music is not just sine waves. It is a mix of
everything.. My ears I think are good only to 15khz.
but the brain does a lot of processing of information. A square wave --
snap of a twig by a sabar tooth tiger ment life
or death for early man, and that is what our ears are ment for.
3) Digital CD Audio has too low a sampling rate
Incorrect. Unless you have magic ears that can pick out a 22KHz tone
from a 21Khz tone, don't say the sampling rate is too low. That's one
of the biggest lies. Yes, there are people who say that the
inaudible frequencies carry vibration that affects the listening
experience, but that's another load of crap I don't want to get into
(and the only way you're going to prove to me that your speakers can
even reproduce that is to send me a video of an 'scope showing me
22Khz output).
3:38 p.m.
New subject: yikes. drifting OT.
----- Original Message -----
From: "woodelf" <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Monday, January 02, 2006 6:20 PM
Subject: Re: yikes. drifting OT.
Jim Leonard wrote:
You mean the sound of shuffling dress shoes on carpet near your cubicle
informing you of the presence of the pointy haired boss. Most people
complained about the cutoff at 20Khz because the filters used messed up the
sound at lower frequencies. Most people can't pick out higher frequencies in
sound, but I think they can pick up the the lack of any content in those
frequencies in a quiet room while concentrating (something rarely done).
woodelf wrote:
It more of the case
that music is not just sine waves. It is a mix of
everything.. My ears I think are good only to 15khz.
but the brain does a lot of processing of information. A square wave --
snap of a twig by a sabar tooth tiger ment life
or death for early man, and that is what our ears are ment for.
3) Digital CD Audio has too low a sampling rate
Incorrect. Unless you have magic ears that can pick out a 22KHz tone
from a 21Khz tone, don't say the sampling rate is too low. That's one
of the biggest lies. Yes, there are people who say that the
inaudible frequencies carry vibration that affects the listening
experience, but that's another load of crap I don't want to get into
(and the only way you're going to prove to me that your speakers can
even reproduce that is to send me a video of an 'scope showing me
22Khz output).
3:46 p.m.
New subject: yikes. drifting OT.
It more of the case that music is not just sine
waves.
Well, yes it is, actually. Go back and hit them textbooks...
A square wave --
snap of a twig by a sabar tooth tiger ment life
or death for early man, and that is what our ears are ment for.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
I am deperately trying to think of a new thread topic or two to get BACK
ONTO COMPUTERS. Gimme some help, guys...
William Donzelli
aw288 at osfn.org
4 p.m.
New subject: yikes. drifting OT.
William Donzelli wrote:
Well, yes it is, actually. Go back and hit them
textbooks...
So how many tuba players need FFT programs to tune their TUBA?
I am deperately trying to think of a new thread topic
or two to get BACK
ONTO COMPUTERS. Gimme some help, guys...
We can start aflame war over cp/m vs dos since that fits in the 10 year
rule.
My Z80 vs your 8086.
William Donzelli
aw288 at osfn.org
Now back on topic -- PDP 11's ... I am glad to see the Witch getting a whole
bunch of 11's this last year. So what does most people do with their
computers
once they have them optional? The PDP-8, the PDP-11 and the PDP 10 are
the only computers online over the internet giving a feel of vintage
programming.
Ben alias woodelf
4:08 p.m.
New subject: yikes. trying to go on-topic
On 1/2/2006 at 6:46 PM William Donzelli wrote:
I am deperately trying to think of a new thread topic
or two to get BACK
ONTO COMPUTERS. Gimme some help, guys...
Hokay.
I'm looking for a single board CPU prototyping kit. Most of what I see are
for controllers like the AVR with limited RAM. What I'm looking for is
something with linear 20-32 bit addressing space and onboard DMA and > 1MB
of RAM. USB or TCP/IP interfaces would be nice, but not essential.
32-128K program ROM would be fine.
Anyone have any favorites?
Cheers,
Chuck
4:32 p.m.
New subject: yikes. trying to go on-topic
How about something like this? <URL:
http://www.embeddedarm.com/epc/prod_SBC.htm >
--jc
Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 1/2/2006 at 6:46 PM William Donzelli wrote:
I am deperately trying to think of a new thread
topic or two to get BACK
ONTO COMPUTERS. Gimme some help, guys...
Hokay.
I'm looking for a single board CPU prototyping kit. Most of what I see are
for controllers like the AVR with limited RAM. What I'm looking for is
something with linear 20-32 bit addressing space and onboard DMA and > 1MB
of RAM. USB or TCP/IP interfaces would be nice, but not essential.
32-128K program ROM would be fine.
Anyone have any favorites?
Cheers,
Chuck
5:45 p.m.
New subject: yikes. drifting OT.
At 2:39 PM -0700 1/2/06, woodelf wrote:
Jim Leonard wrote:
I'm going to have to take issue with Item's 2 & 3 myself. Before
people claim that Tube's don't sound as good (or any better), they
need to do some research and some listening tests for themselves.
As for #3, I'm a firm believer in LP's, again, people should do some
listening tests themselves before saying CD's are better than LP's.
I've got several albums on both CD and LP, the differences can be
amazing. This includes on albums that came out on both at the same
time, and where CD's had been out for a few years. What I want to do
is see if I can hear much of a difference between DVD-Audio/SA-CD
disks, and LP's (I don't really expect to be able to tell much, if
any of a difference). I'd also like to listen to some modern albums
that are released on both vinyl and CD.
I also agree with the less mainstream music comments. A lot of my
favorite music isn't available on CD.
Dirt is a problem, the secret is to keep your records clean, in fact
I'm hoping to be able to invest in a good cleaning machine sometime
in the next year. Also invest in a good turntable, and something to
keep the static level on the LP's down.
I must confess, these days I'm biased, my spare change is far more
likely to go towards the increasing record collection than it is to
go towards Classic Computers, and for the past several months I've
been trying to figure out if I should buy a Tube-based Amp, or build
one. Oh, and I'm listening to an LP as I type this :^)
Zane
--
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
entious as the snobbish world of wine tasting,
circuit diagrams or not.
May I suggest "The Ten Biggest Lies In Audio" as a somewhat related
counter-point? Article here:
http://www.theaudiocritic.com/downloads/article_1.pdf
Well I differ in a few points 5) The feedback lie -- Few amps have
just the right amount of feedback.
Low distortion design then feedback, but who knows what a amp has
today with a schematic.
2) I have a 6 watt SE -ultralinear tube amp, and nothing to compare
it with solid state or otherwise.
3) Digital CD Audio has too low a sampling rate and often too few
bits of DAC. I still like LP's
but dirt is the bane of them. Once you get real sampling rates and
good DAC's output then Digital
is better, but can one get the less mainstream music nowdays on CD.
"Those where the days", by
Mary Hopkin is a good example. No comments from people in the UK, as
I am in Canada.
9:09 p.m.
New subject: yikes. drifting OT.
Zane H. Healy wrote:
This includes on albums that came out on both at the
same time, and
The last time that happened was the 1980s before the technology and engineer
education matured.
Ultimately, LP/analog vs. CD/digital is a religious argument: It cannot be
proved nor disproved. Much like how modern speed is better/worse than oldie
thought processes. (See? Back OT :-) Just heed this advice: Don't agree
to participate in actual A/B double-blind listening tests -- you will become
frustrated and upset.
CDs have the better frequency range; LPs have the better dynamic range.
DVD-Audio blows the doors off of everything, yet will take a very long time
to take off, as CDs and DVDs are firmly entrenched in popular culture and
spending budgets. SACD is a mixed bag; it's lossy, but not much, and the
current SACD standard is 5.1 audio, 48KHz, 24-bit.
SACD is a hack, if you ask me ;-)
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
9:38 p.m.
New subject: yikes. drifting OT.
Zane H. Healy wrote:
I must confess, these days I'm biased, my spare change is far more
likely to go towards the increasing record collection than it is to go
towards Classic Computers, and for the past several months I've been
trying to figure out if I should buy a Tube-based Amp, or build one.
Oh, and I'm listening to an LP as I type this :^)
Well I find if you have any electronics skill, build your own as you can
save a bundle or get what you want.
The amp I built 50% of is on Transformers, 50% for tubes and the other
50% is on the small parts, and 50%
for shipping and handeling world wide. If I paid non DIY prices my
amp is a $1500 US and Matching Speakers
$1500 ... for DIY I guess it was about $300 for the speakers and $800
for the amp. Note since you have LP's
you may need a pre-amp and that is about $600 Us ... $200 for DIY.
Expect other than tube changes well built
tube amps have lasted like old computers. The one thing I recomend is a
regulated power supply, every thing
else is your budget and your bronze, silver or golden ears.
Zane
11:13 p.m.
New subject: yikes. drifting OT.
At 10:38 PM -0700 1/2/06, woodelf wrote:
Well I find if you have any electronics skill, build
your own as you can save
After this many years, my skills are very questionable, I used to be
an electrician in the Navy before I switched to computers, but I've
basically forgotten everything I knew.
a bundle or get what you want.
The amp I built 50% of is on Transformers, 50% for tubes and the
other 50% is on the small parts, and 50%
for shipping and handeling world wide. If I paid non DIY prices
my amp is a $1500 US and Matching Speakers
$1500 ... for DIY I guess it was about $300 for the speakers and
$800 for the amp. Note since you have LP's
you may need a pre-amp and that is about $600 Us ... $200 for DIY.
Expect other than tube changes well built
tube amps have lasted like old computers. The one thing I recomend
is a regulated power supply, every thing
else is your budget and your bronze, silver or golden ears.
I'm leaning more and more towards DIY, and have been threatening to
buy a book or two on the subject (I've been thinking about the books
by Morgan Jones, "Valve Amplifiers, 3rd Ed." and "Building Valve
Amplifiers"). Part of it is the potential cost savings, and the
other part is simply the challenge of building my own setup. I
should have pretty much all the equipment I need, I just need parts.
Zane
--
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
11:57 p.m.
New subject: yikes. drifting OT.
Zane H. Healy wrote:
I'm leaning more and more towards DIY, and have been threatening to
buy a book or two on the subject (I've been thinking about the books
by Morgan Jones, "Valve Amplifiers, 3rd Ed." and "Building Valve
Amplifiers"). Part of it is the potential cost savings, and the other
part is simply the challenge of building my own setup. I should have
pretty much all the equipment I need, I just need parts.
The web can be your best freind here. The circuit I am using I pulled
off the web 2 years ago. My amp works
fine but the web page is no-more. http://www.percyaudio.com/ Percy
Audio has a wide selection of parts
other than tubes. Expect audio quality to be expensive but shop
around for the best value and least amount
of snake oil. Also take your time a good amp is a work of art, it take
time and remember high voltage does
not go well with Cats, Kids or Bath-tubs.
Zane
PS. Remember some metal work is involved with most tube amps so
keep that in mind.
3 Jan
3 Jan
6:39 a.m.
New subject: NeXT Mono Video
I have a largish collection of NeXT machines, and it's something of a
nuisance to have to keep a keyboard, mouse and video around just for
them. I think I can handle building a mouse/keyboard adapter, but I
wonder about video... and especially the mono machines (I have RGB
cables for the colour machines). I know a company *used* to sell
something to convert from mono to RGB... does anyone have any idea
how this could work (or better, to SVGA)? Any ideas for circuits?
9:52 a.m.
New subject: yikes. drifting OT.
On Tuesday 03 January 2006 02:13 am, Zane H. Healy wrote:
At 10:38 PM -0700 1/2/06, woodelf wrote:
I started with that stuff, and still have those skills, if somebody wants
something put together...
--
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
Well I find if you have any electronics skill,
build your own as you can
save
After this many years, my skills are very questionable, I used to be
an electrician in the Navy before I switched to computers, but I've
basically forgotten everything I knew.
2:23 p.m.
New subject: yikes. drifting OT.
As for #3, I'm a firm believer in LP's, again,
people should do some
listening tests themselves before saying CD's are better than LP's.
Well, actually, for me, CDs are better than LPs for reasons that have
nothing to do with sound quality. Put that together with sound quality
that's "good enough" (= my sound-system-plus-ears isn't good enough to
hear the differences), and it's a no-brainer.
/~\ 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
2:36 p.m.
New subject: yikes. drifting OT.
> As for #3, I'm a firm believer in LP's,
again, people should do some
> listening tests themselves before saying CD's are better than LP's.
I did plenty of listening tests back in the day when CDs were
introduced. Nowadays CDs sound *even better* because originally CDs
were pressed with the master tapes that were mixed for the sound
reproducing abilities of vinyl. Now they have remastered older
content for CDs and it sounds even better than before.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ:
<http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/>
Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty
<http://pilgrimage.scene.org>
1 Jan
1 Jan
10:17 p.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
Could someone point me to harmonic distortion data,
transient analysis or
some good old scope traces to prove that a couple of 6B4's in class A
push-pull deliver better sound than a pair of MOSFETs can?
To change the subject -- buy better speakers.
I'm not trying
to start an argument, but am not convinced that vacuum tubes are better
(having owned my share of tube amplifiers) than semiconductors.
Did I ever tell you to buy better speakers.
That is the real difference in Amps from what I have read on the net
about audio quality
is the speakers. Live music is still best but since we can't get that
getting the best value for my
$ is what I am going for. Most amps are tested with a nice 8 or 4 ohm
dummy load so they all
look the same on the scope. You barely get any specs listed nowadays but
THD so you don't
know what the amp is doing in real life. THD figures can lie as said here.
Here is stuff about harmonic distortion that I have found but it is for
tubes
mostly. See 'The Hidden Harmonics behind THD'
http://www.nutshellhifi.com/library/index.html Inter modulation is
never talked about at all.
Cheers,
Chuck
P.S. I use #16 zip cord for my speakers.
I used what was handy, but I used quality drivers and good speaker plans.
None of this Bookshelf stuff ... big heavy box that was designed for average
Hi-Fi use using full range speakers. One speaker does it all, best for
vocal stuff.
I got the lower priced Japanese stuff - $168 per pair
for the drivers. 40 to 22,000 hz @ 96 db
http://www.fostexspeakers.com/fostex.html The high end starts at $550
per pair 30 to 22,000 hz @ 103 db. http://www.fostexspeakers.com/fostex.html
For more conventional speakers see,
http://www.nutshellhifi.com/Ariel.html .
I would like to comparisons done because I want the best sound for my $$$
so I can spend my money on music rather just have a impressive box with
tubes in it.
The links above and here http://www.decware.com/ at least give some hard
data
in freq response and distortion and time spent tweeking the system so it
sounds
right. I have built my own mid-fi amp, with what I figure is the best
value for my money
from parts from around the world -- speakers and
resistors from Japan,
Lundahl Transformers from Sweden,
a crappy power transformer from Canada,Tubes and other stuff from USA
old stock and
surplus places like the power mosfet and zener diodes and big heat sink
and Capacitors from Japan
and France. I like data sheets and other information that is so rare in
most consumer products today.
The impressive box with blinking lights is where to spend your money,
and getting a nice
PDP-11 is something I don't expect to find handy because of shipping costs.
Ben alias woodelf
10:43 p.m.
New subject: OT: audio reproduction
On 1/1/2006 at 11:17 PM woodelf wrote:
I used what was handy, but I used quality drivers and
good speaker plans.
None of this Bookshelf stuff ... big heavy box that was designed for
average Hi-Fi use using full range speakers. One speaker does it all,
best for
vocal stuff.
I've still got my 60's era University 3-ways (12" woofer, 4" midrange
and
dome tweeters). They seem to do okay, though I've wondered if upgrading
them might improve things.
One of the issues is that I have my speakers in the same room that I use
for ensemble rehearsals. It's fairly live with a 13' ceiling and not many
soft surfaces. (no parallel surfaces though). It makes live music sound
great, but probably works against reproduced music. I note that most "home
theatre" setups are almost anechoic, with lots of carpeting, plush
furniture, etc. and I suspect most speaker systems are designed for that
type of room. Live, unamplified instrumental music would sound dead in
such a space.
Cheers,
Chuck
11:19 p.m.
New subject: OT: audio reproduction
Chuck Guzis wrote:
I've still got my 60's era University 3-ways
(12" woofer, 4" midrange and
dome tweeters). They seem to do okay, though I've wondered if upgrading
them might improve things.
But you generaly have to upgrade the whole system. So far the arial
speakers seem to me a good
value for the honest information on the web site.
http://www.nutshellhifi.com/index.html#index
One of the issues is that I have my speakers in the
same room that I use
for ensemble rehearsals. It's fairly live with a 13' ceiling and not many
soft surfaces. (no parallel surfaces though). It makes live music sound
great, but probably works against reproduced music. I note that most "home
theatre" setups are almost anechoic, with lots of carpeting, plush
furniture, etc. and I suspect most speaker systems are designed for that
type of room. Live, unamplified instrumental music would sound dead in
such a space.
Here is a link for home brew audio traps ,
http://www.teresaudio.com/haven/home.html
just in case you have some reflection problems with really loud music or
base.
Cheers,
Chuck
2 Jan
2 Jan
4:27 a.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 1/1/2006 at 9:52 PM woodelf wrote:
Depends what you mean by "good". I like my 3xECC83 and 2xEL34 valve
guitar amp, but I *know* that's very distorted. Lots of things sound
good through it, but I wouldn't want to play my stereo through it (ok,
it's mono anyway). I do, however, occasionally bounce tracks recorded
digitally through it.
Gordon.
Well unless you want Pantented - our chip only
Stereo Am a good, radio
is still not that hard to build
or still find parts for. Then, like now Quality is always money. I
suspect it is distortion using transistors and
standard diodes or questionable IC's now days. <foot in mouth> With AM
radio all loud 80' rock and roll
people never noticed the distortion because it made that crap sound
louder and more impressive.</mouth in foot>
I think the real term is **listener fatigue**.
Could someone point me to harmonic distortion data, transient analysis or
some good old scope traces to prove that a couple of 6B4's in class A
push-pull deliver better sound than a pair of MOSFETs can? I'm not trying
to start an argument, but am not convinced that vacuum tubes are better
(having owned my share of tube amplifiers) than semiconductors.
1:56 p.m.
On Monday 02 January 2006 12:19 am, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 1/1/2006 at 9:52 PM woodelf wrote:
Aside from the active devices themselves, tubes are limited by the
characteristics of the output transformer, which (as far as I know) isn't
there in FET amps. And other things, like the "softness" of the power
supply voltage under transient loads and such.
Well unless you want Pantented - our chip only
Stereo Am a good, radio
is still not that hard to build
or still find parts for. Then, like now Quality is always money. I
suspect it is distortion using transistors and
standard diodes or questionable IC's now days. <foot in mouth> With AM
radio all loud 80' rock and roll
people never noticed the distortion because it made that crap sound
louder and more impressive.</mouth in foot>
I think the real term is **listener fatigue**.
Could someone point me to harmonic distortion data, transient analysis or
some good old scope traces to prove that a couple of 6B4's in class A
push-pull deliver better sound than a pair of MOSFETs can? I'm not trying
to start an argument, but am not convinced that vacuum tubes are better
(having owned my share of tube amplifiers) than semiconductors. P.S. I use #16 zip cord for my speakers.
Nothing wrong with that.
--
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
2:18 p.m.
Roy J. Tellason wrote:
Aside from the active devices themselves, tubes are
limited by the
characteristics of the output transformer, which (as far as I know) isn't
there in FET amps. And other things, like the "softness" of the power
supply voltage under transient loads and such.
I use a simple Zener diode & a 'big old fet' from BG-Micro for my power
supply in my amp
so I really don't have that problem.
>P.S. I use #16 zip cord for my speakers.
>
>
2:37 p.m.
New subject: OT Audio
On 1/2/2006 at 4:56 PM Roy J. Tellason wrote:
Aside from the active devices themselves, tubes are
limited by the
characteristics of the output transformer, which (as far as I know) isn't
there in FET amps. And other things, like the
"softness" of the power
supply voltage under transient loads and such.
To the best of my recollection, transformers *added* their own particular
brand of distortion and limited frequency response. By "softness" of power
supply voltage, do you mean "bad load regulation"?
Not only do I think that a big part of reproduction is in the speakers, but
a bigger part is in the room. It's like the case of my rehearsal room--a
string quartet or woodwind quintet or brass quintet sounds marvellous--no
echoes, but just enough room reverb to make things sound good. The
reaction of most folks when they come over to play is "wow, this is great".
Yet any audio system that I've tried sounds perfectly awful in the same
room. I use earphones quite a bit.
Cheers,
Chuck
2:48 p.m.
New subject: OT Audio
On Monday 02 January 2006 05:37 pm, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 1/2/2006 at 4:56 PM Roy J. Tellason wrote:
Just so. Which is why that would also have some effect in a tube amp, and
not be present in a FET amp...
Aside from the active devices themselves, tubes
are limited by the
characteristics of the output transformer, which (as far as I know) isn't
there in FET amps. And other things, like the "softness" of the power
supply voltage under transient loads and such.
To the best of my recollection, transformers *added* their own particular
brand of distortion and limited frequency response. By "softness" of power supply voltage, do
you mean "bad load regulation"?
Yes. Add to that the variations in design, resistors vs. filter chokes and
some earlier stuff that used the field coil of the speaker in that circuit,
and things get awfully complicated to try and figure, real quick. :-)
--
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
1 Jan
1 Jan
4:22 p.m.
Tony Duell wrote:
I find it a great pity that now that transistors have
become so cheap
(particularly when in ICs), most people don't care how many are used, and
most modern designs use far too many of them. It's amazing what could be
done with 2 or 3 of the things, but those clever designs have been mostly
forgotten.
I remember seeing a vast encyclopedia of clever designs when
I was at an electronics class at the technical college in
Colchester. It was a big book of circuits, all just a few
transistors or maybe an IC in the more advanced ones. I wish
I knew the name of that book, so that I could look it up on
the net -- does anyone remember that sort of thing? Any idea
what it was called?
--
John Honniball
coredump at gifford.co.uk
2 Jan
2 Jan
4:20 a.m.
I remember seeing a vast encyclopedia of clever
designs when
I was at an electronics class at the technical college in
Colchester. It was a big book of circuits, all just a few
transistors or maybe an IC in the more advanced ones. I wish
I knew the name of that book, so that I could look it up on
the net -- does anyone remember that sort of thing? Any idea
what it was called?
I havea couple of such books. The circuits seem to have been taken partly
from IC application notes, partly from magazines (i.e.
the sort of
'readers circuits' that used to be a popular feature). Some of
them sure
are clever....
-tony
5:47 p.m.
On Mon, 2 Jan 2006 12:20:38 +0000 (GMT)
ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote:
I think he might be referring to that big encyclopedic book of
circuits by John Markus. I don't have the original book, but
McGraw-Hill split it out into sections that were published as
large format paperbacks. I think the title of the work is:
_Modern Electronics Circuit Reference Manual, by John Markus,
McGraw-Hill, 1980_. There were earlier editions than 1980. It's
a big book about the size of the typical unabridged dictionary.
I remember
seeing a vast encyclopedia of clever designs when
I was at an electronics class at the technical college in
Colchester. It was a big book of circuits, all just a few
transistors or maybe an IC in the more advanced ones. I wish
I knew the name of that book, so that I could look it up on
the net -- does anyone remember that sort of thing? Any idea
what it was called?
I havea couple of such books. The circuits seem to have been taken partly
from IC application notes, partly from magazines (i.e. the sort of
'readers circuits' that used to be a popular feature). Some of them sure
are clever....
-tony
3 Jan
3 Jan
11:07 a.m.
29 Dec
29 Dec
8:51 p.m.
I have two ADM 33A's and both work nicely. I think they are circa 1976-1977.
Richard wrote:
Does anyone have one?
They apparently were crappy designs and tended to die fairly readily,
making them hard to find. They were manufactured in Salt Lake, but I
haven't seen one since I used them in Delaware around 1980!
8:50 p.m.
In article <43B4BCD4.1020106 at theriver.com>,
tom ponsford <tponsford at theriver.com> writes:
I have two ADM 33A's and both work nicely. I think
they are circa 1976-1977.
Yes, and plenty of DEC terminals have survived from that time period.
However, Beehive was not a small, incidental manufacturer of terminals
yet I haven't seen a functioning Beehive terminal since 1980.
I've been living in SLC since January 5th, 1988 and I haven't seen a
*single* one in all that time! You'd think since they were
manufactured here that there would be more likelihood of them showing
up in the area, but not a single one have I spotted.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ:
<http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/>
Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty
<http://pilgrimage.scene.org>
9:42 p.m.
I have a scanned photograph of a Beehive terminal, taken from
a manual, at http://www.decodesystems.com/beehive-terminal.gif
Cheers,
Dan
At 11:50 PM 12/29/05, you wrote:
In article <43B4BCD4.1020106 at theriver.com>,
tom ponsford <tponsford at theriver.com> writes:
I have two ADM 33A's and both work nicely. I
think they are circa
1976-1977.
Yes, and plenty of DEC terminals have survived from that time period.
However, Beehive was not a small, incidental manufacturer of terminals
yet I haven't seen a functioning Beehive terminal since 1980.
I've been living in SLC since January 5th, 1988 and I haven't seen a
*single* one in all that time! You'd think since they were
manufactured here that there would be more likelihood of them showing
up in the area, but not a single one have I spotted.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ:
<http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/>
Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty
<http://pilgrimage.scene.org>
30 Dec
30 Dec
12:20 a.m.
On 12/30/2005 at 12:42 AM Dan Veeneman wrote:
I have a scanned photograph of a Beehive terminal,
taken from
a manual, at http://www.decodesystems.com/beehive-terminal.gif
This is the one I'm thinking of -- the SuperBee. This one's missing it's
plexiglass faceplate:
http://www.science.uva.nl/faculteit/museum/superbee.gif
Cheers,
Chuck
12:37 a.m.
In article <200512300020080127.17D61A62 at 10.0.0.252>,
"Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> writes:
On 12/30/2005 at 12:42 AM Dan Veeneman wrote:
Yes!! That's the one. Those function keys were *really* weird. We
used them to talk to a PDP-11/70 running RSTS/E and since they weren't
VT-100/VT-52 compatible the visual mode for TECO or EDT was worthless.
I do remember that we made a bunch of text-based animations for them,
though. We're trying to get the data off an old set of backups, but
the guy who has custody of the tapes has been dragging his heels for
10 years....
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ:
<http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/>
Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty
<http://pilgrimage.scene.org>
I have a scanned photograph of a Beehive terminal,
taken from
a manual, at http://www.decodesystems.com/beehive-terminal.gif
This is the one I'm thinking of -- the SuperBee. This one's missing it's
plexiglass faceplate:
http://www.science.uva.nl/faculteit/museum/superbee.gif
12:25 a.m.
In article <6.1.2.0.2.20051230004132.08631550 at mail.marcal.com>,
Dan Veeneman <dan at ekoan.com> writes:
I have a scanned photograph of a Beehive terminal,
taken from
a manual, at http://www.decodesystems.com/beehive-terminal.gif
Yep, I think I saved that one off to my harddrive a while ago :-).
We didn't have that model, but Chuck described to me in a private
reply the exact kind of model that we used most. There was another
model that we used which was an all-in-one unit like the one in your
photograph, but the case and keyboard layout was different. It was
shaped more like a bubble as I recall, but the memory is fuzzy.
I think it was called the SuperBee or MiniBee?
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ:
<http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/>
Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty
<http://pilgrimage.scene.org>
3:15 a.m.
On 12/30/05, Richard <legalize at xmission.com> wrote:
Does anyone have one?
They apparently were crappy designs and tended to die fairly readily,
making them hard to find. They were manufactured in Salt Lake, but I
haven't seen one since I used them in Delaware around 1980!
I used to have one that I got from OCLC (Online Computer Library
Center?) in Dublin, OH. Unfortunately, it succumbed to a flood when I
was in college (over 15 years ago).
I remember having difficulties working with it when I was using my
PDP-8 and PDP-11 every day. I ended up picking up a cheap VT-52
($50?) as an alternative.
Everytime a Beehive thread comes around, I miss the chance to dig into
it. I have plenty of DEC terminals (VT52, VT10[0123], VT105, VT220,
VT241, VT320) but few non-DEC terminals (besides a pile of CITOH
VT102-clones).
-ethan
10:23 a.m.
Does anyone have one?
I think i do (the name sounds familiar). If it's the unit I'm thinking
of, it's a pale grey-ish case with a column of status LEDs on the front
to the right of the CRT. And a seperate keyboard. IIRC it's controlled by
an 8008.
Mine has the unusual feature of a Hebrew character set (as well as the
normal one), and I think it can be convinced to work right-to-left, but
maybe only in the local editing/form filling mode.
-tony
3:54 p.m.
In article <m1EsOuA-000Iy4C at p850ug1>,
ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) writes:
Is it this one?
<http://www.science.uva.nl/faculteit/museum/superbee.gif>
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ:
<http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/>
Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty
<http://pilgrimage.scene.org>
Does anyone have one?
I think i do (the name sounds familiar). If it's the unit I'm thinking
of, it's a pale grey-ish case with a column of status LEDs on the front
to the right of the CRT. And a seperate keyboard. IIRC it's controlled by
an 8008.
Mine has the unusual feature of a Hebrew character set (as well as the
normal one), and I think it can be convinced to work right-to-left, but
maybe only in the local editing/form filling mode.
1:53 p.m.
On Thursday 29 December 2005 09:28 pm, Richard wrote:
Does anyone have one?
They apparently were crappy designs and tended to die fairly readily,
making them hard to find. They were manufactured in Salt Lake, but I
haven't seen one since I used them in Delaware around 1980!
I vaguely remember something about the Cromemco-badged one that came with my
System Three being made by them. Only problem I remember with it is that the
fan is getting kinda noisy...
--
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
6928
days inactive
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days old
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