Reply to: The end of an era

[ctdctd]

I've got an Atmel CPLD programmer buried somewhere that I've never even unwrapped.

STOP - don't unwrap it - you know it's only valuable to collectors in its original packing.

[doodab]

Me too.

Mercury delay lines are toxic.

A few years ago i decided it would be cool to build a computer out of transistors. I built all of the basic gates and some flip flops, then decided it was too hard (I can deal with the logic but the assembly is a nightmare to debug unless you're very disciplined with coloured wire and stuff) so moved onto 74xx chips. I built a few basic bits like adders and stuff then decided that was too hard and decided to move onto FPGA. I've not bought the dev kit or properly learned an RTL yet. I'd like to get it done before I die.

[Sysman]

Grandad's Memories

That's certainly one for the archives.

Glad I didn't start computing so early.

[Sysman]

You are Wallace and I claim my 5 free plasticine dogs.

Indeed I do come from the same neck of the woods as Last of the Summer Wine.

A schoolmate's father was a dead ringer for Peter Sallis, and had the same dry sense of humour too.

[ctdctd]

But at least I got cracking good telly and radio reception.

You are Wallace and I claim my 5 free plasticine dogs.

[Sysman]

Relocating the aerial might help; my aerial is the other side of the house from the road, so attenuates interferrence from passing traffic a bit.

What did upset it, until I moved the aerial a bit, was the ignition from the combi boilers.

It was a bungalow with aerial on top of roof, so not much scope there. One guy went mad and spent a hundred quid on his aerial. We lesser mortals couldn't afford that on top of the usual unexpected costs of buying a new build home.

A later spot I lived in was the first house off a main road and passing trucks and buses affected the picture. There was also a pothole out there, so along with a distorted picture I'd get kerthump, kerthump, kerthump (that was an artic with 3 axles).

No wonder I picked a house on a rural road on the top of a hill for the next move. I heard precisely one car passing in my first 4 hours in that house.

Of course that road ended up being a convenient shortcut once they opened up a new road...

Complete with pothole just outside the house.

And regular accidents 'cos it was the narrowest bit of the road.

But at least I got cracking good telly and radio reception.

[shaunbhoy]

It's always a surprise if you don't have any bits left over.

ftfy

[Sysman]

And memories of the vhf tuner which required a long long insulated screwdriver, otherwise known as a modified knitting needle, for adjusting the channel tuning.



It had "biscuits" in it.

The posh ones had all 13 biscuits, the cheapo ones just had the BBC and ITV local channels.

I think I've still got some somewhere in the shed.

Yikes. Those bits look strangely familiar. I must have done more poking inside things than I remembered.

[Sysman]

Don't knock the notion. On many early valve-ridden transmitters there has been many a dry joint jolted into life with the aid of a swift thwack.
The skill is in knowing where to hit it though.

I earned myself quite a few free beers in student days by "repairing" various bits of electrical kit. All I did most times was take the thing apart and put it together again.

[shaunbhoy]

That brings back memories of TV engineers who would bang the side of the TV to get it working.

Don't knock the notion. On many early valve-ridden transmitters there has been many a dry joint jolted into life with the aid of a swift thwack.
The skill is in knowing where to hit it though.

[amcdonald]

Er...... how does that work then?

P.S. I have Plasma - just as hot as an old school TV

It's got for CPU fan that sits the length of a tower case. It just spews out cold air through the external case fans, enough that it keeps our lounge cool

It's just a lot more cooling than it needs, I overestimated the heat from run multiple graphics cards

The computer monitor still runs hot though, so no change there (:

[Sysman]

Tried a "powered" aerial by attaching a booster box? Worked wonders for me.

I tried various boosters in my first house but they were all useless.

We were supposed to get a new transmitter the next year, but five years later it still hadn't arrived.

[Sysman]

It's been digital here for some time, 98% signal strength but still get freezes and other glitches. Analogue didn't have these problems so are we faced with a generation or two thinking glitchty TV is the norm, kinda like most people thinking computers crash (thanks to Microsoft)?

That brings back memories of TV engineers who would bang the side of the TV to get it working.

A cartoon in the 70s depicted two TV engineers looking under the bonnet of their van, one suggesting to the other that they try a hammer. Everyone immediately saw the joke.

[nomadd]

Ah yes, the cunning plan to reduce power consumption, save the whales, stop gloabal warming by increasing the power consumption of a tv from about 75W to 300 to 400W.

Some of those plasma tvs resemble an electric fire.

That's just not true these days. The latest generation of plasmas have become very power efficient (and LED TVs even more so.) And their power efficiency gets better and better with each new generation.

For example:

- 2012 Panasonic Plasma TX-P 42" (a very large screen size compared most old CRT screens) has a power consumption of 148W.

- 2001 Sony Trinitron CRT 36" consumed 160W.

A latest generation Samsung 55" LED consumes just over 100W.

So, all in all, modern TVs have become hugely power efficient for the vast screen sizes they offer.

[Cliphead]

Correct. That's why you can't get your TV Aeriel to work properly.