Monday Links from the Gap Between Teams Meetings vol. DCCIX

[vetran]

Watch out for the combustible capacitors in the BBC B mains power supply if you're thinking of powering it up.

The subsequent stench is quite unpleasant.

The first computer I "used" had a whole 4k of ram (probably core).

Luxury my ZX81 had 1K!

Then I upgraded at college.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro-Professor_MPF-I

[DoctorStrangelove]

The capacitors are widespread, I had one do the nasty in a UV exposure timer thingie the other day.

The stench was awful.

[NickFitz]

Watch out for the combustible capacitors in the BBC B mains power supply if you're thinking of powering it up.

The subsequent stench is quite unpleasant.

The first computer I "used" had a whole 4k of ram (probably core).

The infamous exploding capacitors are fairly easy to replace though, if you're OK with a bit of soldering; e.g. Recapping a BBC Model B Power Supply

[NickFitz]

Watch out for the combustible capacitors in the BBC B mains power supply if you're thinking of powering it up.

The subsequent stench is quite unpleasant.

The first computer I "used" had a whole 4k of ram (probably core).

IIRC the school's PDP-8/e had 8K of core. The school allocated funds to buy an additional 8K, but the canny computer science teachers (who were actually physics teachers doing computers on the side, computer science not being a subject deemed worthy of full-time staff in the 1970s) hung fire on making the purchase for a year, when they were able to use the same money to buy (in kit form) two SWTPC-6800 systems, each with 64K of RAM, and one of them equipped with twin 5¼″ floppies

[DoctorStrangelove]

Sorting out my late Dad's stuff, it seems in addition to the BBC micro which was my 12th birthday present in 1981, we seem to have acquired 2 more (possibly for spares) in the following years. In the week I am installing additional RAM to take my new laptop to 32GB, it's humbling to think my first foray into the modern world contained 32k of RAM.

Watch out for the combustible capacitors in the BBC B mains power supply if you're thinking of powering it up.

The subsequent stench is quite unpleasant.

The first computer I "used" had a whole 4k of ram (probably core).

[Mordac]

Sorting out my late Dad's stuff, it seems in addition to the BBC micro which was my 12th birthday present in 1981, we seem to have acquired 2 more (possibly for spares) in the following years. In the week I am installing additional RAM to take my new laptop to 32GB, it's humbling to think my first foray into the modern world contained 32k of RAM.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Got a mention in the Rotblat thing. .

[NickFitz]

Been a busy morning here, but I've managed to snatch enough time to save you from having to do anything productive this afternoon

• The Return of Superfly - ”Frank Lucas, once the city’s biggest, baddest heroin kingpin, now seems like just a very likable guy. But don’t be fooled.” This profile of the Harlem heroin importer and dealer, famous for allegedly smuggling heroin into the US in the coffins of fallen servicemen in the Vietnam war, was the basis of the film American Gangster
• Why Do Dogs Tilt Their Head to the Side? - Scientists are finally moving on from that quantum nonsense to answer the important questions: ”The attentive and endearing doggy head tilt might indicate your pup is trying to process what you’re saying.”
• What happened when a Tesla came to Ekalaka - In small town America, a fancy car can become the talk of the town: ”Markham said she warned him he shouldn’t leave his car charging off a random outlet without getting permission, lest the locals assume he was ‘just some jerk from California, doing what jerks from California do.’… Then a guy driving a Subaru rolled by and told him he should take a look at the front page of the local newspaper, the Ekalaka Eagle.”
• The Manhattan Project Scientist Who Quit - ”Joseph Rotblat was a physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project, believing it was necessary in view of German atom bomb development. When he learned the German project was unsuccessful, he resigned and became a life-long campaigner for disarmament.” I bet Barbie doesn’t have people quitting Barbie World like this
• Hoodmaps - Just maps of neighbourhoods annotated with what people have said about them. My new neighbourhood is simply marked “Uni”, while my old place is roughly on the boundary between “Mugging central” and “Do not enter after dark”. (The link is to the London map, though, because aren’t they always.)
• Environmental Discs of Tron Roadside Pickup! - ”Environmental Discs of Tron (or EDOT for short) is arguably the most complex arcade cabinet of the Golden Age of videogaming. Working examples are hard to come by, and when they do, you can expect to pay handsomely for one!… Can you imagine stumbling across one dumped in the street? Well, that’s exactly what happened to my friend Tim Lapetino recently.” It even works!
• The alternative Balkan postal system - When the UK splits into its component countries and public services like the post become unworkable, we’ll end up like this: ”I’m bringing a carton of Sarajevo’s Drina-brand cigarettes for a friend and the night before I was given an envelope with documents — what they are or who they’re for I don’t know, but it’s important that they arrive in Belgrade as soon as possible — as well as a pouch full of some strange powder with big chunks and a coarse texture… Now I’m wondering if it’s legal. I hope it is. He looked like a fine guy.”
• How a Chinese American Gangster Transformed Money Laundering for Drug Cartels and The Globetrotting Con Man and Suspected Spy Who Met With President Trump - A two-parter investigating dodgy dealings: ”Tao Liu’s criminal odyssey took him from money laundering in Mexico to a massive scam in China to Trump’s exclusive New Jersey golf club. Investigators believed he may have infiltrated U.S. politics as part of a Chinese intelligence operation.”
• Reverse engineering a forgotten 1970s Intel dual core beast: 8271, a new ISA - ”Around 1977, Intel released a floppy disc controller (FDC) chip called the 8271. This controller isn't particularly well known. It was mainly used in business computers and storage solutions, but its one breakthrough into the consumer space was with the BBC Micro, a UK-centric computer released in 1981… My interest in the chip was piqued when I accidentally triggered a wild test mode that managed to corrupt one of my floppy discs even though the write protect tab was present!” HT to DoctorStrangelove for this look inside the ill-fated floppy disk controller used (briefly, because they rapidly became unobtainable) in the BBC Micro. Ken Shirriff is, perhaps inevitably, mentioned in the credits
• Feeding polar bears from a tank, 1950 - A collection of photos of the Russian Army feeding bears: ”Photo was taken during a routine military expedition in Chukchi Peninsula, Soviet Union. It isn’t sure if the Chukchi Peninsula has more people or white bears… The soldiers, who served in the Army District of Chukchi Peninsula, didn’t turn their backs on the poor and starving animals and started to feed them every now and then.”
  
  

Happy invoicing!