using new technology on old machines. Was: PDP-12 Restoration at the RICM

[Dave G4UGM]

A friend of mine refused to buy modern SD Cards because there was no way he
was going to fill them. Trouble is that although smaller SD cards were
available they were way more expensive (being discontinued and therefore
rare and valuable).. He struggled with buying a larger card only to waste
most of it, or buy a smaller one and waste his money....

Dave Wade
G4UGM

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Mark J.
> Blair
> Sent: 15 June 2015 21:56
> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
> Subject: Re: using new technology on old machines. Was: PDP-12 Restoration
> at the RICM
> 
> 
> > On Jun 15, 2015, at 13:46 , Pontus Pihlgren <pontus at Update.UU.SE>
> wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, Jun 15, 2015 at 04:55:57PM +0000, tony duell wrote:
> >>
> >> Unfortunately I believe you. Use at least a thousand times more
> >> components than you need to.
> >
> > Actually it's just two, a Teensy and a usb cable. (Sorry, I couldn't
> > resist).
> 
> LOL! I must admit that I used to scorn those durned kids using Arduinos to
do
> the job of a 555. But then I pulled my head out of my ass and realized
that
> times change, nowadays a microcontroller is as cheap and common
> component as a 555 was when I was a snotty kid, and the new-fangled
> "maker" movement with its Arduinos and serial-controlled addressable LEDs
> and conductive thread is keeping younger people designing things and
> making them instead of just being dumb consumers. It's all good stuff! And
> once I got a better idea of how much it costs to keep an engineer
breathing
> for an hour, I also realized that it often makes more sense to overkill
the heck
> out of a task with a $20 micro board than it would to spend even a half
hour
> longer doing it the "right" way.
> 
> --
> Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
> http://www.nf6x.net/