Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[med6753]

And there are days where I shouldn't get out of bed....

Upgrading Mint 17.3 to 18 via terminal commands....a real treat.

Wait...  What?!  You don't always do all your upgrades via a ssh or serial/local console or something?   

So strange.....

I'm a FreeBSD guru rather than Linux user but I rarely even think about the fact that are probably ways to do "upgrades" other than just typing a couple commands.   

For me on FreeBSD it's generally basically just a "make buildworld ; make installworld" but even that tends to be rare.  I usually seem to run 1000+ day uptimes on most of my machines, shutting down only for hardware maintenance/replacement or when some giant UPS fails even though the mains is actually still on.   

Cut me some slack.  Linux is my "2nd language" and I'm still a newb. Been in the Windows environment way too long. 

[Saskia]

Regarding AIX  I tend to disagree.
I was contracting with IBM and helping them out in HACMP and PSSP support back in those days of AIX 4.3 - 5.1.
Even though we managed to blow a computing center fuse once by powering on 80 fully loaded power 3 nodes with 16 cores each simultaneously, booting, recovering, ..., etc was not a big issue. Neither was reinstalling the OS. One of my colleagues and myself wrote a script to do that on those 80 nodes including setting up partitions, rvsds and GPFS plus system tuning in less than 4 hours. That's reinstalling on 80 nodes including cluster setup. Try to do that with Windows ...

Also the kernel was easy to read, we had this nice serial entry point via console and NMI, and could clear a hang via direct manipulation of the cpu registers (including bumping hung threads off the core it ran on). The only situation where we were completely out of luck was when part of the kernel was paged out and interrupts were disabled.

I once remembered a session in one of the internal training classes (where I usually would not have been allowed to participate, being an external), when the presenter showed us the various interrupt handling calls and I asked him where lock was freed as I was only seeing the interrupt handling code. He looked at me for a few seconds, then started rummaging through his code until he finally found the call to the assembler locking instructions. The guy sitting next to me (one of those AIX champions) said: how come you know this stuff ? you don't have access to the source ? and I told him: why would I need that, I have a disassembler ... *dead silence*

Those were good times, in which real men were still real men and real women real women. *sigh*.

TE involved: kernel debugger ...

BTW I still have that 4.4 BSD source license ...

[Specmaster]

(Attachment Link)

This one is for the dwagon as he rebuilds the bench.¹

eBay auction: # 254201050842

Apparently math is, well, different in Canada.



¹now why mnen is rebuilding his bench rather than digging into the two or three trailer trucks worth of stuff he hauled north, well no one really knows. 

Yay, and it has an = key as well now that is a proper calculator but a bit limited by today's standards.

[worsthorse]

Just another day of first world problems...

three packages in the Fedex system, two late, one MIA
two packages in the USPS system, one late
two packages in the UPS system, one MIA
one package in the British Post, not traceable from the beginning

and that's just what they will admit.  The MIA fedex package has been bouncing between two facilities on the east coast for four or five days now. My latest hypothesis: two guys cut the box in half, each took one of the pieces with a barcode, and they take turns running it through the arrival and departure scans at their respective depots.   

[bd139]

Regarding AIX  I tend to disagree.
I was contracting with IBM and helping them out in HACMP and PSSP support back in those days of AIX 4.3 - 5.1.
Even though we managed to blow a computing center fuse once by powering on 80 fully loaded power 3 nodes with 16 cores each simultaneously, booting, recovering, ..., etc was not a big issue. Neither was reinstalling the OS. One of my colleagues and myself wrote a script to do that on those 80 nodes including setting up partitions, rvsds and GPFS plus system tuning in less than 4 hours. That's reinstalling on 80 nodes including cluster setup. Try to do that with Windows ...

Also the kernel was easy to read, we had this nice serial entry point via console and NMI, and could clear a hang via direct manipulation of the cpu registers (including bumping hung threads off the core it ran on). The only situation where we were completely out of luck was when part of the kernel was paged out and interrupts were disabled.

I once remembered a session in one of the internal training classes (where I usually would not have been allowed to participate, being an external), when the presenter showed us the various interrupt handling calls and I asked him where lock was freed as I was only seeing the interrupt handling code. He looked at me for a few seconds, then started rummaging through his code until he finally found the call to the assembler locking instructions. The guy sitting next to me (one of those AIX champions) said: how come you know this stuff ? you don't have access to the source ? and I told him: why would I need that, I have a disassembler ... *dead silence*

Those were good times, in which real men were still real men and real women real women. *sigh*.

TE involved: kernel debugger ...

BTW I still have that 4.4 BSD source license ...

Diametric opposite of my experience circa 2000. H70 had persistent memory errors. Literally bus errors every few minutes. First IBM blamed the vendor for the application because that was dumping core. The vendor bought an H70 that worked. Then IBM blamed our sysadmin for futzing with vmo. Eventually they swapped CPUs out. Yep duff CPU. But they charged us £5k for apparently breaking it 

Regarding the old days I’m glad they’re gone. No 10base2, no netbooting 500 workstations, no trays full of drives playing swapsies all day, no carting trolleys of DLT tapes around, no lost Sun SSP crypto keys, no dialup shite and RAS stuff, no arguing with minor compiler and library variations across platforms, no broken 13W3 connectors, no nasty SCSI daisy chains from hell, no NIS/YP, no CDE, no arguing with licensing technicalities, no purchase orders !

[Specmaster]

Marconi 2019. Still up there if anyone else wants it.

Theres a TF2016 up there as well but the price is a bit high.

Thanks, I agree it is expensive, off has been dispatched, now it's my turn to wait. 

The TF2019 is just too much a boat anchor for my humble bench, as it is if accepted, I shall have cull some of my bench meters  to accommodate it.

[Saskia]

hmm, that was around the same time I was working in the 2nd level support lab for EMEA. Seems to me that your issues were never forwarded to us.

[bd139]

Our local rep was an asshat. Wouldn’t surprise me if it didn’t get past that. We probably paid for it because it was a sale then and not a repair so he’d get his commission and look like the shined turd he was. We fired them shortly after that, turfed all the commercial Unix stuff in a skip and went windows 2000 across the site. No regrets  . Still the best choice for Corp networks.

[bd139]

Marconi 2019. Still up there if anyone else wants it.

Theres a TF2016 up there as well but the price is a bit high.

Thanks, I agree it is expensive, off has been dispatched, now it's my turn to wait. 

The TF2019 is just too much a boat anchor for my humble bench, as it is if accepted, I shall have cull some of my bench meters  to accommodate it.

The 2019 is a pretty complicated beast as well. If anything goes wrong fixes are not trivial. Still regret selling the one I paid £5 for 

[mnementh]

Random thing. Found this rather amusing. ST TnG camera stablised     

Piss poor acting though, they are all going in different directions 

No, they were DIRECTED to ham it up like that. Sweriously. 

This one is for the dwagon as he rebuilds the bench.¹eBay auction: # 254201050842

Apparently math is, well, different in Canada.

¹now why mnen is rebuilding his bench rather than digging into the two or three trailer trucks worth of stuff he hauled north, well no one really knows. 

Well, yeah... they have to count all the lost teeth from the national pastime, ya hoser!

¹ Legal issues. 'nuff sed. 

mnem
Just a few more TE... then I'll be a REAL BOY... *judder-judder*

[Wolfgang]

5W range 

I’ve got an AD8307 board and AVR based power meter display I designed floating around. 

Edit found picture of prototype. Can’t find picture of final build 

Another A+ in uglyness, thats for sure. RF Klingon building style, never meant to pamper the weak or cowardly.
To hell with the pedantic laws of RF physics.
This thing can probably measure the RF stray of its own little computer used, almost no other power meters are capable of doing this 
Some PITA pedantic advice might be a separation of analog from digital part, some brass box shielding, ...
then it could asymptotically converge to a usable instrument.

Yes that was only a prototype that. Mainly to establish the software. The current version is well shielded. The analogue part is in a Hammond box. That just gets whopped into a DMM at the moment.

I have two. This was the first one which had better shielding

Chapeau ! I see huge progress. Next design is a Rohde and Schwarz lookalike. 

[beanflying]

8 hours and no posts  Lucky I have been working on Zombie apocalypse defense today 

Tested out the files  Practiced draw filing on the edge (I am more rusty than the Hatchet was before I started)  Linseed Oiled the handle and will tidy up the edge tomorrow on the stones as now it is well past Beer O'Clock.....

[beanflying]

Just the perfect anchor for the owner of a 12RU box with space to spare Ideal for @brumby you want a Christmas present eBay auction: #223782538722

Shame it doesn't have the 1.3GhZ module installed in spite of it bieng stickered as having it.



Or if you would like to take SHMBO for a short drive to the Mountains there is this one.  Perfect place for SHMBO to bury you in the bush during the trip  eBay auction: #163978890034



Call me a Princess again I dare you ...... 

[McBryce]

Still waiting for the episode where the woman gives TEA as her defence.

McBryce.

[bd139]

Just the perfect anchor for the owner of a 12RU box with space to spare Ideal for @brumby you want a Christmas present eBay auction: #223782538722

Shame it doesn't have the 1.3GhZ module installed in spite of it bieng stickered as having it.



Or if you would like to take SHMBO for a short drive to the Mountains there is this one.  Perfect place for SHMBO to bury you in the bush during the trip  eBay auction: #163978890034



Call me a Princess again I dare you ...... 

5334B is piece of piss to add the 1.3GHz to. I did it with mine

Also 1740A here under the bed 

[tggzzz]

8 hours and no posts  Lucky I have been working on Zombie apocalypse defense today 

Tested out the files  Practiced draw filing on the edge (I am more rusty than the Hatchet was before I started)  Linseed Oiled the handle and will tidy up the edge tomorrow on the stones as now it is well past Beer O'Clock.....

How would you recommend sharpening the concave cutting edge on this billhook?

[bd139]

I suggest using the bones of ex wives.

[med6753]

Still waiting for the episode where the woman gives TEA as her defence.

McBryce.

That's not an issue here. And rarely do I even disagree with myself. 99% of the time my left brain and right brain are in sync: "I want that and I'm going to get it". 

[beanflying]

Or you would maybe to a neater job with a stone for sharpening scythes. 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=scythe+sharpening+stone&_sacat=0

[med6753]

I suggest using the bones of ex wives.

I got a whole closet full I'll sell you cheap......free. 

[VK5RC]

8 hours and no posts  Lucky I have been working on Zombie apocalypse defense today 

Tested out the files  Practiced draw filing on the edge (I am more rusty than the Hatchet was before I started)  Linseed Oiled the handle and will tidy up the edge tomorrow on the stones as now it is well past Beer O'Clock.....

These guys do nice leather work if you need a cover for the axe. Also great gear bags.
https://doubledleather.com.au/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=92&search=Axe+cover

[beanflying]

I am trying to be good and not buy the Counter and I have had the talk with myself and eight is most likely plenty 

[tggzzz]

Or you would maybe to a neater job with a stone for sharpening scythes. 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=scythe+sharpening+stone&_sacat=0

Those would work; some even mention billhooks specifically - but none of the pictures have quite such a pronounced hook.

[tggzzz]

I suggest using the bones of ex wives.

While our daughter might not object too much, her sisters might.

[beanflying]

Or you would maybe to a neater job with a stone for sharpening scythes. 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=scythe+sharpening+stone&_sacat=0

Those would work; some even mention billhooks specifically - but none of the pictures have quite such a pronounced hook.

I have used similar hooks on long handles way back when for Thistles. I even used a Scythe ONCE for fun then got out the Brushcutter out for the Bracken as Scythes are to much like hard work for scrub.