Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Vince]

Woohoo housing nightmare sorted. Moving 26th Aug now. Place slightly smaller than last one but plenty of storage for TE and secure underground car park so the TE doesn't get wet unloading it from the car

So is it the flat you showed us the floor map of a few weeks back, in London city, or some other place you found since then ?

[mnementh]

Things like phosphor pattern and shadow mask come to mind...

Quite so. I was beginning to wonder when someone would eventually come up with it.

I believe that is still not applicable in this application. It's just a very precise monochrome X-Y monitor, with no phosphor pattern, and not composite video that needs to be aligned against the mask. The mainboard uses the PAL chip to generate the scan pattern and nothing more, if I understand theory of operation correctly.

mnem
 

[Cerebus]

Monochrome TV sets have a higher resolution than the colour ones.

Here in Germany we are having a bandwidth for the black-and-white TV sets of 5MHz.
For the colour ones (PAL) it is 4.43MHz. The difference goes into the vector encoding for the colours.

More than that in most analogue colour TV encoding schemes the chroma information is at half or less of the bandwidth of the luminance information. e.g. in PAL the colour burst has just enough bandwidth to set the colour for two adjacent pixels on the line (if you define pixel by the horizontal resolution of the luminance signal). This has carried over into some of the digital TV encoding schemes, which is why high quality black and white movies seem crisper than colour ones, because they are.

[mnementh]

Woohoo housing nightmare sorted. Moving 26th Aug now. Place slightly smaller than last one but plenty of storage for TE and secure underground car park so the TE doesn't get wet unloading it from the car

Since you will actually have a shoebox for your roller-skate car... does that mean you might keep it, and stay a real boy...? 

mnem
 

[Brumby]

I believe that is still not applicable in this application. It's just a very precise monochrome X-Y monitor, with no phosphor pattern, and not composite video that needs to be aligned against the mask. The mainboard uses the PAL chip to generate the scan pattern and nothing more, if I understand theory of operation correctly.

mnem
 

That may well be - but my response was in regard to the statement as quoted, which gave no qualification on such a context.

[bd139]

..... but plenty of storage for TE and secure underground car park so the TE doesn't get wet unloading it from the car

Who else can see where this is going to end up!!   

eBay 

Just sold one of those HP displays for £25. That covers the 3776A purchase already!

[Brumby]

Just hang on for a minute - I need to organise some fresh popcorn....

[mnementh]

Here ya go, brother:   

mnem

[med6753]

Let's see....iPhones, climate change, natural gas, and now the Great Pumpkin is in play.

I think I'll go back on vacation. 

[tggzzz]

Monochrome TV sets have a higher resolution than the colour ones.

Here in Germany we are having a bandwidth for the black-and-white TV sets of 5MHz.
For the colour ones (PAL) it is 4.43MHz. The difference goes into the vector encoding for the colours.

More than that in most analogue colour TV encoding schemes the chroma information is at half or less of the bandwidth of the luminance information. e.g. in PAL the colour burst has just enough bandwidth to set the colour for two adjacent pixels on the line (if you define pixel by the horizontal resolution of the luminance signal). This has carried over into some of the digital TV encoding schemes, which is why high quality black and white movies seem crisper than colour ones, because they are.

Providing they haven't "improved" them by colourising them

[bd139]

Let's see....iPhones, climate change, natural gas, and now the Great Pumpkin is in play.

I think I'll go back on vacation. 

This is what happens when you're not around to keep us in line 

[tggzzz]

Yep BD it's old, as I said the phone is from 2012 so 10 year old now  !

Yes they sent me an e-mail with a link / "invite "to join the meeting. I clicked on that, it then asked me to install the app. I click to do that, it opens up the " Android Store " , which then immediately says, in red letters : " Sorry your phone is not compatible with this version of the app ".

Well too bad !!! 

Yeah you are a "0.5% user". No one cares about you any more. Literally. Have to keep the plates spinning. 3 years old or newer oldest these days. I cycle mine out every 2 years.

It gets worse... as far as I can see the Barclays banking app only works on iPones, not on Androit.

And my phone is a phone, not a minaturised Merlin Tonto / ComputerPhone / One-per-desk nor an HP OmniGo 700LX

And worse...

Barclays sent me the introductory pack, telling me to sign the paper and return it in the prepaid envelope. But didn't provide that envelope.

Can't get in touch, since their chat facility out of order (and indications are it will never be in order).

Tried unsocial media. Response indicated they hadn't comprehended that I can't use their app! And didn't state what I should do with the signature!

Told to write a complaint - but can only do that on their app!

I suspect I'll be opening an account at another bank soon.

[bd139]

Try Santander. They have actually had the most clue I've experienced so far.

[mnementh]

Got curious and found some info on iPhone 6s support. Might be ending when iOS 16 is out. Don't know any more than what I'm finding at the moment.

https://www.macworld.com/article/561009/ios-16-support-iphone-6s-iphone-se.html

They say that somebody else says that someone else says that. At least they have the honesty to suggest themselves that you take it with a pinch of salt. 

That leads to a philosophic question. What classification goes with each of the levels of "someone said"? One layer "reliable intelligence", two layers "gossip", three "rumour", ..., six "wild unfounded speculation"?

Anyway, continued support until Sept 2022 is guaranteed, anything after that is a bonus and I would speculate that, based on past performance, Apple are likely to stretch the support beyond the guaranteed 4 years. It's going to need a headline feature that requires hardware that only exists in the iPhone 7 and later  before they have a real reason to drop support "on time".

6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon...?




mnem
Huh... there's a un-app for dat too: https://oracleofbacon.org/movielinks.php

[bd139]

Got curious and found some info on iPhone 6s support. Might be ending when iOS 16 is out. Don't know any more than what I'm finding at the moment.

https://www.macworld.com/article/561009/ios-16-support-iphone-6s-iphone-se.html

They say that somebody else says that someone else says that. At least they have the honesty to suggest themselves that you take it with a pinch of salt. 

That leads to a philosophic question. What classification goes with each of the levels of "someone said"? One layer "reliable intelligence", two layers "gossip", three "rumour", ..., six "wild unfounded speculation"?

Anyway, continued support until Sept 2022 is guaranteed, anything after that is a bonus and I would speculate that, based on past performance, Apple are likely to stretch the support beyond the guaranteed 4 years. It's going to need a headline feature that requires hardware that only exists in the iPhone 7 and later  before they have a real reason to drop support "on time".

For proper purchase security you want something that has an A11 or later so that's an iPhone 8. Reason being that ships with neural engine ML coprocessor which is required for some of the more recent mainstream features on the iPhone like translation and image recognition.

[mnementh]

Let's see....iPhones, climate change, natural gas, and now the Great Pumpkin is in play.

I think I'll go back on vacation. 

This is what happens when you're not around to keep us in line pee on our tails. 

FTFY. 

mnem
*impairing productivity since nineteen-mumblety-mumble*

[Robert763]

Things like phosphor pattern and shadow mask come to mind...

Quite so. I was beginning to wonder when someone would eventually come up with it.

I did say that NTSC and PAL were colour encoding standards........

[mansaxel]

I doubt I could find that at a local store, or if I do it won't be 10 Euros for the lot, and if it is, the camera probably won't work on my Linux machine. Buying new H/W for Linux is a gamble and must be carefully studied and planned. You can't just go and buy anything off the shelve... sadly.

With Linux you can, these days. With the BSDen, well, they're where Linux was, circa 2008. But on supported hardware, they are vastly superior to Lennartd.

Today, I realised that we'd forgotten the single most important device for a modern family on vacation, the outlet strip. It currently resides in northern Germany, I'm afraid.  So, we went to E.Leclerc in Sedan, and found a 5-hole one for next to nothing, and as a bonus, it's got a CEE 7/7 plug so it'll be useful in Germany and Denmark too. The outlets of course are to NF C 61-314, but that's compatible with all we've got that needs plugging in.

[tggzzz]

Try Santander. They have actually had the most clue I've experienced so far.

On a quick skim, Santander's login security is solely pin/password, without the possibility of a "what you have" number generator.

While I regard that as sufficient in the past (e.g. my account that I've had since 1975), and it might be OK for the intended use, for the future I'd like something better.

[tggzzz]

For proper purchase security you want something that has an A11 or later so that's an iPhone 8. Reason being that ships with neural engine ML coprocessor which is required for some of the more recent mainstream features on the iPhone like translation and image recognition.

Features, yes.

Benefits are more questionable, especially when it starts to be used for biometric login, e.g. facial recognition. Certificate revocation anyone?

Irrelevant anecdote. Before going to uni my daughter worked in Wetherspoons when they started replacing Dallas keys with fingerprints. I told her not to have anything to do with biometrics and why. She told their HR why not, they interviewed her to find out why. They started by thinking she was a little girl afraid of change. They finished by realising that biometrics are a problem 

[bd139]

Try Santander. They have actually had the most clue I've experienced so far.

On a quick skim, Santander's login security is solely pin/password, without the possibility of a "what you have" number generator.

While I regard that as sufficient in the past (e.g. my account that I've had since 1975), and it might be OK for the intended use, for the future I'd like something better.

It’s not here. Check your account configuration. It requires another factor ie mobile banking app authorisation (which uses FaceID here)  or a one time code via SMS.

[AVGresponding]

Yep BD it's old, as I said the phone is from 2012 so 10 year old now  !

Yes they sent me an e-mail with a link / "invite "to join the meeting. I clicked on that, it then asked me to install the app. I click to do that, it opens up the " Android Store " , which then immediately says, in red letters : " Sorry your phone is not compatible with this version of the app ".

Well too bad !!! 

Yeah you are a "0.5% user". No one cares about you any more. Literally. Have to keep the plates spinning. 3 years old or newer oldest these days. I cycle mine out every 2 years.

It gets worse... as far as I can see the Barclays banking app only works on iPones, not on Androit.

And my phone is a phone, not a minaturised Merlin Tonto / ComputerPhone / One-per-desk nor an HP OmniGo 700LX

And worse...

Barclays sent me the introductory pack, telling me to sign the paper and return it in the prepaid envelope. But didn't provide that envelope.

Can't get in touch, since their chat facility out of order (and indications are it will never be in order).

Tried unsocial media. Response indicated they hadn't comprehended that I can't use their app! And didn't state what I should do with the signature!

Told to write a complaint - but can only do that on their app!

I suspect I'll be opening an account at another bank soon.

Lloyds have been very good for me for the last twenty-odd years, with good customer service in UK call centres. Though personally I would try to pick a bank with a branch as local to you as possible (such things do still exist, though sometimes I think they are only accessible from platform 12 3/4).



EDIT: Also their data centre is just down the road from me, so if they screw up I can knock on the door with a frowny face on...

[bd139]

For proper purchase security you want something that has an A11 or later so that's an iPhone 8. Reason being that ships with neural engine ML coprocessor which is required for some of the more recent mainstream features on the iPhone like translation and image recognition.

Features, yes.

Benefits are more questionable, especially when it starts to be used for biometric login, e.g. facial recognition. Certificate revocation anyone?

It is only used as a convenient way of verifying your presence ie a surrogate for your on device pin and that is done on device hence the ML processor. The biometric data never leaves the Secure Enclave on the phone.

As for other uses, it’s used for such innocuous tasks as making it possible for me to search my photos for cows.

[tggzzz]

Try Santander. They have actually had the most clue I've experienced so far.

On a quick skim, Santander's login security is solely pin/password, without the possibility of a "what you have" number generator.

While I regard that as sufficient in the past (e.g. my account that I've had since 1975), and it might be OK for the intended use, for the future I'd like something better.

It’s not here. Check your account configuration. It requires another factor ie mobile banking app authorisation (which uses FaceID here)  or a one time code via SMS.

Get replacement face

Actually you are right, it does appear to have the one-time SMS message for at least some operations. Hopefully that message goes to your phone, not one that some miscreant has told the phone company has the same IMSI as yours. Apparently that is becoming a significant problem.

[tggzzz]

Yep BD it's old, as I said the phone is from 2012 so 10 year old now  !

Yes they sent me an e-mail with a link / "invite "to join the meeting. I clicked on that, it then asked me to install the app. I click to do that, it opens up the " Android Store " , which then immediately says, in red letters : " Sorry your phone is not compatible with this version of the app ".

Well too bad !!! 

Yeah you are a "0.5% user". No one cares about you any more. Literally. Have to keep the plates spinning. 3 years old or newer oldest these days. I cycle mine out every 2 years.

It gets worse... as far as I can see the Barclays banking app only works on iPones, not on Androit.

And my phone is a phone, not a minaturised Merlin Tonto / ComputerPhone / One-per-desk nor an HP OmniGo 700LX

And worse...

Barclays sent me the introductory pack, telling me to sign the paper and return it in the prepaid envelope. But didn't provide that envelope.

Can't get in touch, since their chat facility out of order (and indications are it will never be in order).

Tried unsocial media. Response indicated they hadn't comprehended that I can't use their app! And didn't state what I should do with the signature!

Told to write a complaint - but can only do that on their app!

I suspect I'll be opening an account at another bank soon.

Lloyds have been very good for me for the last twenty-odd years, with good customer service in UK call centres. Though personally I would try to pick a bank with a branch as local to you as possible (such things do still exist, though sometimes I think they are only accessible from platform 12 3/4).

EDIT: Also their data centre is just down the road from me, so if they screw up I can knock on the door with a frowny face on...

My 1975 account is with Lloyds, and at the branch near where I lived then. Never seen a benefit to moving it to a more local branch!

One local bank branch used to be 100yds away. Now the nearest is 4miles away (and some have disappeared from that town). There are one or two in towns outside the city centre, but >10miles away. Internet banking is supposed to obviate the need for visiting a branch, but people are finding it isn't as simple as that!

Too many of the local branches are in the city centre, and it will soon cost £9 to enter there (30% of people will be caught by a congestion charge) plus car park charges. I have an almost unreasonable hatred of paying to park a car, let alone a congestion charge.