Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Robert763]

One of the welding shops I worked at was equipped with a huge ESAB MIG welder bought at auction from a factory closure; they powered it with a war-production motor-generator phase converter that was as big as the welder itself. There are ways... but jeez, the losses... 

mnem
 

Mmm, ElektroSvets-AB. Almost as good as Kemppi, who are the masters of both rectifier and inverter welders.

If you want hardcore, look no further than ASEA-Hägglunds; they made motor-generator sets where the motor is three-phase off the mains, and the generator makes the welding current directly. A dream to weld with, I'm told. The inertia in the rotating mass makes for very nice start currents.

They used to use big rotary converters to generate 400Hz 3 phase in test labs for aircraft equipment. This was good because it closely replicates the generator (typically 40-150kVA each) on the aircraft. This is particuarly true of impedance, transient response and surge current capability. Now they use solid state converters in the lab. This can cause issues with equipment bein fine in the lab but troublesome on the aircraft. The converter will limit the peak current e.g. at equipmet turn on. They are also less likely to suffer voltage droop or overshoot after a load change than a mechanical generator. While the equipment tests do include transient power variations these are applied with the equipment in steady state condition not response to equipment load variation So in practice to find such issues you might have to use a converter ten time larger that needed to just power the equipment and deliberately degrade it's control loop response.... Or put a big diesel powered AC ground power unit outside the lab....

The latest fancy digital TE is not always best.....

[Vince]

Have opened a case with the seller of the original part now. Their service and communications are terrible so I’m just claiming it back via eBay now. They’re disinterested in dealing with it or sending another part out and are pushing back asking to give it another couple of days after it has been missing for two weeks now on a RM 24h delivery I paid for. So screw them. User test-equip forget it. Shame because they have a lot of tek and HP parts.

Replying to self - eBay decided in favour of me almost instantly. Refund on the way. Good job as always 

Discovered recently that due to the chip shortage, the availability of shit Arduino clones is pretty bad and the prices have gone through the roof. Considering buying the last decent "on device programmable microcontroller and electric swiss army knife" at the moment, the BBC Micro  . That and the user and printer ports give you a 6522 VIA worth of IO to play with, BASIC, assembly support and decent documentation...

Wow, a custom vintage Tek PROM programmer, the most interesting thing on TEA since I came here 18 months ago.

I hope you do do it, and share all the details  ! Maybe create a dedicated page on the forum ?

Reminds me of a series of old videos I watched on YT. An old TV program in the UK where they did all sorts of cool stuff with the BBC MIcro.

[m k]

HP 54600 series.

Since picture data goes through 74LS194 with four lines,
I'd check how those values really are.
(page 21/125 of xDevs schematics)

The 54615B seems to differ here, can't find any 74LS194 on my mainboard (unless there are parts hidden on the other side), nor the UPD42102G-3 shown for the 54654N (next to the COMBO custom IC).

David

Do you have a third set of drawings?
What I got from archive.org was for model 45N.

There A3 System Board side B starts from page 41 and U97 is there.
First component page is Page 05 and there bigger module number 54645-69503 is replaced to smaller 54645-66503.

Schematics Sheet01.1 has a revision history, same with other sheets.
There D-54645-66503-3 has over a year of revisions starting from '96 when component list is indicating that something happened '97.
Maybe it's nothing.

54600A 74LS194 is U37 so equal naming between these modules should put it to side A.
It is outputting half and full brightness from Pixel_data 1 and 3.

COMBO_PAL is also outputting half and full brightness but there are four linebuffer lines.
Pixel_data lines 0 and 1 are right there but 2 and 3 are hiding above LvRAS.
So all four are still there, why leftovers are not dropped, are they leftovers.

BTW,
I "repaired" a front loader clothes washer, UPO something, old local brand, now local somewhere else.
First the drum didn't rotate at all so I took it out of its hole.
After some poking around I tested it again and it started rotating with sort of non-regular chirping sound.
Then suddenly chirping disappeared and now the machine is washing like a new, but without spinning.
Earlier spinning tests had few sort of inrush moments where speed tried to max from zero right away.
Chirping was also coming from somewhere under the drum and clearly away from the center.

First I thought the problem was a control panel chip with a missing piece.
Had to get more light and googles and so the chip was actually intact but partially covered with black dust, like old TV HV parts and one of its eight legs were missing since the beginning.
The chip was LNK304GN, a regulator part for non-isolated situations and circuit close to manufacturers example.
Output was 16.6V so more regulators later but pretty easily down from 300V.

Generally quite a bugger was this machine.
Control panel was easily available but no back plate, solid plate over 3 sides, clearly a dropped in drum and stuff.
If this is a norm today no wonder EU did its repair law.
On the other hand, if retail price is <300€, smallest ones <200€, and imported, here over the sea and 1/5 VAT, it must be a quick assembly with minimal raw materials.

[bd139]

Have opened a case with the seller of the original part now. Their service and communications are terrible so I’m just claiming it back via eBay now. They’re disinterested in dealing with it or sending another part out and are pushing back asking to give it another couple of days after it has been missing for two weeks now on a RM 24h delivery I paid for. So screw them. User test-equip forget it. Shame because they have a lot of tek and HP parts.

Replying to self - eBay decided in favour of me almost instantly. Refund on the way. Good job as always 

Discovered recently that due to the chip shortage, the availability of shit Arduino clones is pretty bad and the prices have gone through the roof. Considering buying the last decent "on device programmable microcontroller and electric swiss army knife" at the moment, the BBC Micro  . That and the user and printer ports give you a 6522 VIA worth of IO to play with, BASIC, assembly support and decent documentation...

Wow, a custom vintage Tek PROM programmer, the most interesting thing on TEA since I came here 18 months ago.

I hope you do do it, and share all the details  ! Maybe create a dedicated page on the forum ?

Reminds me of a series of old videos I watched on YT. An old TV program in the UK where they did all sorts of cool stuff with the BBC MIcro.

I will create a thread for it if I get anywhere. I'm putting it off for a little bit until I've moved as all the kit is packed away for it at the moment so not much point in getting it all out as I'm going to have to put it all away after 

BBC micro is fairly easy route for that sort of task. I used mine for all sorts of nasty hacks back in the day.

This is a very fine example of what you can do...

[Neomys Sapiens]

Trip report:

To escape the the heat, visit fortifications.

To manage wine buying habits, install reinforced springs on your car.

Accidental TE:

From Fort d'Uxegney just west of Epinal. Meter is from the original 1914 installation of "Groupes Electrogènes" in the fort.

Today, having visited the immaculate condition fort above, we're going to teach the realities of war, with a visit to forts Douaumont and Vaux, along with the actual boneyard,  outside Verdun.

After having been to Munster, you should consider going to Saumur:

https://www.museedesblindes.fr/

[factory]

....
Apologies for the really crap picture of my HP 5055A Digital Recorder, seems to have escaped detailed photography and is currently in storage.



Probably not worth the wait. 

David

[Ice-Tea]

....

[Vince]

....

I strongly disagree, how DARE you suggest such a thing, I am shocked !! 

[factory]

....

I strongly disagree, how DARE you suggest such a thing, I am shocked !! 

I know it's terrible to leave these .... temporarily in place, should have put the picture on my phone last night.  But at least it is a picture of my TE and not some generic picture from the web.

David

[bd139]

Hey it's HP. Doesn't matter which side, I'm sure we appreciate it. Apart from med 

Edit: so the whole blowing a PROM thing lead to a rabbit hole where I found the schematics for my old Z80 SBC I built when I was 12 which I never really liked. Mulling ideas around a 6502 variant with FORTH as a bench utility computer. Can probably put one together for less than the price of a BBC at the moment which have reached extortion value. And of course incur hours of glorious fettling.

[factory]

Well spotted. I was clearly asleep when I wrote that. It’s a 74S287.

Trying to locate something which is both available and has programming data sheets and isn’t extortionately priced. The Tesla MH74S287 actually looks the best bet at the moment.

Have opened a case with the seller of the original part now. Their service and communications are terrible so I’m just claiming it back via eBay now. They’re disinterested in dealing with it or sending another part out and are pushing back asking to give it another couple of days after it has been missing for two weeks now on a RM 24h delivery I paid for. So screw them. User test-equip forget it. Shame because they have a lot of tek and HP parts.

Edit: if anyone has that ROM (U1605 on vertical amp board) on a scrap 465B and are willing to part with it I am interested so I don’t have to futz programming a ROM for it

I think Med said he might have one on a parts board, but it probably got missed amongst the general OT noise.
If you go for programming a 74S287, you should get a couple, as I had several duds amongst the clone 74188 I used to repair one of the 5340A counters here, even sent me two used ones (in the batch of 20) with code already on them.

David

[bd139]

I think Med said he might have one on a parts board, but it probably got missed amongst the general OT noise.
If you go for programming a 74S287, you should get a couple, as I had several duds amongst the clone 74188 I used to repair one of the 5340A counters here, even sent me two used ones (in the batch of 20) with code already on them.

I shall wait to see if he comments

Good call on getting a few. I was expecting to get used ones if I ordered some from China. There are 10x NOS MH74S287's which look reasonable substitutes for the money. They also have programming documentation which is useful.

[Vince]

Hey it's HP. Doesn't matter which side, I'm sure we appreciate it. Apart from med 

Edit: so the whole blowing a PROM thing lead to a rabbit hole where I found the schematics for my old Z80 SBC I built when I was 12 which I never really liked. Mulling ideas around a 6502 variant with FORTH as a bench utility computer. Can probably put one together for less than the price of a BBC at the moment which have reached extortion value. And of course incur hours of glorious fettling.

Oh I misunderstood... thought you had your childhood BBC computer still with you, albeit inaccessible packed somewhere.... if you have to buy one of course it's not very interesting financially...

I guess any 8 bit micro would be plenty enough to make a programmer here... aren't they any available in the UK at all ?! 
You said you have a programmer for PIC chips is that it ? Can't one buy a PIC MCU currently ?! Has it gotten that bad ?!
I mean could be, I don't know... haven't tried to buy an MCU recently....

Honestly if getting something done with a micro of any sort, is that much trouble.... for only 256 memory locations to program, I would just do it by hand !

Just put an 8 bit counter to drive the address pins, that you can increment with a push button (or just put a couple coding wheels). Maybe add LED 7 segment displays to it so you can make sure the address bus is indeed at the intended location, then put a coding wheel or dip-switches on the 4 bit data bus and just flick through the 256 memory locations, shouldn't take all that long to program even by hand 
Maybe add displays to the data bus as well, so you can then read the PROM to make sure it's been programmed properly.

It's a one-off thing, it only needs to let you program THAT particular chip, and do it once, maybe twice if unlucky the first time, but that's about it...

It's not like you were trying to make something fancy that's universal and super convenient and quick to mass program these because you want to flog them on Ebay by the hundreds... you only need to get that one job done, no more,  that's all...

[AVGresponding]

Hey it's HP. Doesn't matter which side, I'm sure we appreciate it. Apart from med 

Edit: so the whole blowing a PROM thing lead to a rabbit hole where I found the schematics for my old Z80 SBC I built when I was 12 which I never really liked. Mulling ideas around a 6502 variant with FORTH as a bench utility computer. Can probably put one together for less than the price of a BBC at the moment which have reached extortion value. And of course incur hours of glorious fettling.

Motorola 65xx series fanboy eh..? Maybe buy an Amiga or Atari ST instead of a BBC, probably cheaper and certainly far more capable.



Here's a yt pick for a change:

[mnementh]

Have opened a case with the seller of the original part now. Their service and communications are terrible so I’m just claiming it back via eBay now. They’re disinterested in dealing with it or sending another part out and are pushing back asking to give it another couple of days after it has been missing for two weeks now on a RM 24h delivery I paid for. So screw them. User test-equip forget it. Shame because they have a lot of tek and HP parts.

Replying to self - eBay decided in favour of me almost instantly. Refund on the way. Good job as always 

Discovered recently that due to the chip shortage, the availability of shit Arduino clones is pretty bad and the prices have gone through the roof. Considering buying the last decent "on device programmable microcontroller and electric swiss army knife" at the moment, the BBC Micro  . That and the user and printer ports give you a 6522 VIA worth of IO to play with, BASIC, assembly support and decent documentation...

What are SAMD21 boards running on your side of the pond? QT-Py is still 8 bux over here. 

mnem
 

[Brumby]

There is 3 phase in the street but not in the house. If I could get an extension lead from two neigbours I'd be set though 
EV's and non-gas heating is driving  three phase supplies for some new build housing though.

You might need quite long extensions, from what I can make out (from observing single phase power failures) the phases down my street change about every six houses.

From observing the telephone poles, in my road they change every house, and every house could easily tap all three phases.

Typically, except for some of the newer areas of Sydney (where things are underground and I've never investigated what is buried), you will find four wires strung from pole to pole down the street, making access to 3 phase physically straightforward to anyone who wants it.  From any given pole, several homes are fed and you will usually see a similar number of connections to each phase - so phase balancing by household.  It is really easy to identify the neutral.

In fact, I recently had my meter box upgraded to allow for future plans and decided to move from a single phase supply to a 3 phase one.  This just required running new cabling from the street pole.  I now have an aerial bundled cable instead of the previous 2 wire feed.

The whole upgrade was around the $5k mark, which was felt - but now its done, options for moving forward have increased nicely.  As a bonus, the garage circuit which had gone dead recently, came back to life after the work.  That was nice. 

Getting solar now has my attention .... if I can get myself motivated to dive in.  Two storey freestanding house with roof orientation and pitch within 2º of ideal for a fixed installation, plus it's a gable roof, so a nice rectangular area available, with only a solar hot water panel to work around.  Afternoon shading from a spectacular Jacaranda in my front yard is a nuisance, but the wife loves that tree.  I can't get too gung-ho about trimming that as there is an absolutely massive gum tree across the road that I can't touch that will also shade things.  Microinverters feel like the appropriate direction, but that's just one of a couple of significant decisions that will require some homework.

The next step is to get some idea of decent equipment and decent installers ... and I am not keen on having to deal with the bull and crap I feel is destined to flow.


Now I just have to get motivated - but I'm not in the mood.........

[dl6lr]

Well spotted. I was clearly asleep when I wrote that. It’s a 74S287.

74S287 (National) = 7611 (Harris) = 82S129 (Signetics) = 6301 (MMI) = 7114 (Fujitu) = 24S10/34S10 (TI) = 93427 (Fairchild) = Am27S21 (AMD)
See https://www.mikesarcade.com/cgi-bin/spies.cgi?action=url&type=info&page=PromRef.txt

I have a programmer that can read and burn them:
Kontron MPP-80 with personality module MOD 6 or MOD 11 and adapter SA 4-2, according to the documentation. Available here... but haven't testet it yet with those buggers.
At least reads missing devices as 0xF and screams about non programmable bits when trying to program a zero. If I can be of any help...

[mnementh]

Pat, that looks great!  I'm surprised you got such good results with the "Goof Off". I've used it and was never happy with the results. I found "Goo Gone" to work much better. I have yet to try those Mr Clean Magic Erasers. I may pick up one next shopping trip.

Edit....Papa Smurf's Shade Tree Painting Service has been mothballed. 

My experience with both products shows Goo Gone to be much better for goopy stuff like sticker residue and tar, while Goof Off is better at removing stains like ink and Sharpie.

The key difference between Goo Gone and Goof Off is that Goo Gone is a mild citrus-based solution, and Goof Off is a potent acetone-based formula. Goo Gone is ideal for removing residue from stickers and tape, while Goof Off is better suited for heavy-duty messes like tar, dried paint, and glue.

 

I'm just glad for Pat that the Goof-Off didn't try to float the front escutcheon plate off the thing. I've made that mistake before, even had it de-laminate a multi-layer badge. 

mnem
 

[bd139]

Hey it's HP. Doesn't matter which side, I'm sure we appreciate it. Apart from med 

Edit: so the whole blowing a PROM thing lead to a rabbit hole where I found the schematics for my old Z80 SBC I built when I was 12 which I never really liked. Mulling ideas around a 6502 variant with FORTH as a bench utility computer. Can probably put one together for less than the price of a BBC at the moment which have reached extortion value. And of course incur hours of glorious fettling.

Oh I misunderstood... thought you had your childhood BBC computer still with you, albeit inaccessible packed somewhere.... if you have to buy one of course it's not very interesting financially...

I guess any 8 bit micro would be plenty enough to make a programmer here... aren't they any available in the UK at all ?! 
You said you have a programmer for PIC chips is that it ? Can't one buy a PIC MCU currently ?! Has it gotten that bad ?!
I mean could be, I don't know... haven't tried to buy an MCU recently....

Honestly if getting something done with a micro of any sort, is that much trouble.... for only 256 memory locations to program, I would just do it by hand !

Just put an 8 bit counter to drive the address pins, that you can increment with a push button (or just put a couple coding wheels). Maybe add LED 7 segment displays to it so you can make sure the address bus is indeed at the intended location, then put a coding wheel or dip-switches on the 4 bit data bus and just flick through the 256 memory locations, shouldn't take all that long to program even by hand 
Maybe add displays to the data bus as well, so you can then read the PROM to make sure it's been programmed properly.

It's a one-off thing, it only needs to let you program THAT particular chip, and do it once, maybe twice if unlucky the first time, but that's about it...

It's not like you were trying to make something fancy that's universal and super convenient and quick to mass program these because you want to flog them on Ebay by the hundreds... you only need to get that one job done, no more,  that's all...

Here's how it goes in my head:

1. Buy a wonky Tek 465B because green wiggles FTW.
2. Ok the PROM is bust.
3. Can I buy a PROM? Yes. Order it.
3. Find the PROM supplier is shit when RM lose the package thus not being able to
4. Do some reverse engineering and find the PROM is one of N different types.
5. Discover they are really expensive to buy and the programming is difficult.
6. Knock up an Arduino programmer in my head based on the datasheet.
7. Discover thanks to the chip shortage that the only arduinos that aren't rip offs are based on the new Logic Green clones. argh.
8. Think back to the last time that you had a general purpose computer that could wiggle bits. Oh BBC.
9. Spend way too much time looking at BBCs on ebay.
10. Accidentally stumble across a 6502 SBC PCB and go down a rabbit hole of the old 6502 SBCs and FORTH via TCJ (tggzzz will know that reference).
11. Wonder why the hell I am doing this.
12. Go for a walk.
13. Come back, unpack the SDS1202X-E and stare at it for a bit and think ahhhhhhhhhh that's why I bought you.
14. Stick the 465B back in the cupboard in the repair queue and wait for a mule to appear.


Also, LOL at the price: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/225075970394

[mnementh]

Not good enough. "it's all right there" means nothing. Be specific.

From what I can guess, you are trying to make my statement that "The only thing adding displacement is good for is going fast in a straight line" to mean "drag racing is stupid and wasteful". Well, I did not say or imply that, at least not by any reasonable metric, and it is not nor has ever been my view. You added two and two and got the national debt of Uruguay.

In the context of the rest of my post it should be clear to anyone that this is a statement of engineering fact, no more and no less. Which it is, unquestionably.

To be absolutely clear, I will not sit idly and quietly by while I am falsely accused of something. You have failed to even attempt to show any actual evidence, so I can only surmise that you know you are in the wrong but don't want to admit it.
If it were a simple matter of opinion or an error in fact, I would be happy to let the matter lie, and move on. However I will NOT be traduced unfairly and without response. How dare you falsely accuse me of being childish, and throwing insults, when all the while doing that very thing.

Since it apparently your position to refuse responsibility for your mistakes and to continue to malign my character and intent, you may consider my promise to ignore your existence to be in effect from this moment onwards.

Apologies to other users of this thread for the unedited quotes, but I wanted to make sure the context of what has been said by all parties to be plain and unbiased.

No. I'm done with this.

mnem

I wanted to just walk away from this... but I can't. Y'all can hate me, but I really get tired of being shouted down by people blowing up over an honest misunderstanding.

First off: I was the one who said it was wasteful. That was the entire point of my original post:

Yep. Rocking the 0.99L 3 cyl here     Sounds like a V8 if you stick kangaroo juice in it.

I think you've been drinking too much of the kangaroo juice. Nothing sound like a V-8 except a V-8.

I have no problem with folks keeping the heavy metal of yesteryear alive... I'll always be a motorhead, and there still is no replacement for displacement. But this is a different world; these toys of yesteryear have to be treated as toys, not as a way of life if we are to survive as a species. We cannot afford for those lovely beasts to be anybody's "daily driver" any longer.

mnem

Second: This kind of crap is actually offensive to folks who have actually fielded a race car, and know from first-hand experience the trade-offs one makes when putting a race car on the track or strip:

Aaaaand this has always been utter nonsense. This is why Colin Chapman's designs blew all the primitive displacement based ones into the weeds.

The only thing adding displacement is good for is going fast in a straight line. For anything else, weight reduction is the real answer. Hence how Mini Coopers could beat 7-litre+ yank tanks in the early days of touring cars.

This kind of broad, overweaning statement is deliberately inflammatory, and honestly deserved the very mild rebuke of "Don't be a dick". Everything else that followed is entirely over-reaction over a misunderstanding. If you cannot admit you contributed to that misunderstanding, then you have only yourself to blame for your own butthurt.

As someone who has actually done it, when you're planning a race car, there are a lot of trade-offs, but bottom line is that for any build, there is going to be a certain minimum displacement that will get the job done. PERIOD. Even your example Mini-Coopers won't get out of their own way with bd139's 1-liter 3-lunger, no matter how much you huff it. And I have no doubt that every one of Chapman's Coopers were stroked & bored to get every cc that block was capable of. That is just how racing is done.

I wouldn't expect you to know what a bell blanket is without Googling it, or the fact that tire pressure is part of the math when deciding which set of gears to drop in your quick-change rearend. But being able to quote examples of people who've done racing differently, or may have even done it better than me, does not mean you know better than me. There are a lot of things you don't know until you've done it; comparing rally racing to drag racing is a self-serving straw-man argument, and you know it. I for sure know it; I've done both.

If you really want to have an adult conversation about this, we can do it. But bloviation like "Aaaaand this has always been utter nonsense...." is not adult conversation. You might be right about some things too; but you might find yourself in a "Teaching your grandmother to suck eggs" situation.

Cheers,

mnem
*sad sigh*

*edited to reduce unintended aggro tone*

[tggzzz]

No. I'm done with this.

I wanted to just walk away from this... but I can't. Y'all can hate me, but I really get tired of being shouted down by people blowing up over an honest misunderstanding.

Shame you didn't. It despoils this thread.

Hate you? No. Wish this forum had the equivalent of a usenet reader's "ignore this subthread" button. Yes. (In extreme cases of trolling/abuse, even "ignore this person and subthread")

Just accept that there is more than one person on the net that is wrong.

[Cubdriver]

Pat, that looks great!  I'm surprised you got such good results with the "Goof Off". I've used it and was never happy with the results. I found "Goo Gone" to work much better. I have yet to try those Mr Clean Magic Erasers. I may pick up one next shopping trip.

Edit....Papa Smurf's Shade Tree Painting Service has been mothballed. 

My experience with both products shows Goo Gone to be much better for goopy stuff like sticker residue and tar, while Goof Off is better at removing stains like ink and Sharpie.

The key difference between Goo Gone and Goof Off is that Goo Gone is a mild citrus-based solution, and Goof Off is a potent acetone-based formula. Goo Gone is ideal for removing residue from stickers and tape, while Goof Off is better suited for heavy-duty messes like tar, dried paint, and glue.

 

I'm just glad for Pat that the Goof-Off didn't try to float the front escutcheon plate off the thing. I've made that mistake before, even had it de-laminate a multi-layer badge. 

mnem
 

Note that in this instance the Goof Off I used was their 'Gunk and Adhesive Remover Gel', which is an orange colored, viscous, citrus based liquid in a spray bottle, very similar I think to Goo Gone and called out as an adhesive residue remover on the label.  I suspect the Goof Off you’re thinking of is the liquid in the little rectangular can with the tiny flip up yellow nozzle (which is what I normally think of as Goof Off, too), but couldn’t put my hands on it as I’d given my can to a friend a while back when I was helping him with some painting.  I’d have tried that in preference to the gel, but it was MIA.

And regardless of the random interweb search result, to me 'classic' Goof Off has always smelled more like it’s got xylene rather than acetone in it (might have both, but it seems xylene is the more prevalent odor - to play on wine or whiskey talk, I’ve never gotten “notes of acetone” from the smell).  Need to grab another can next time I go to the Home Deposit.

Concern over the front panel overlay was the main reason I was very sparing with any solvent in that area.  I *assume* that HP used an all plastic overlay and not something with paper-like layer laminated into the stack, but didn’t want to risk anything either soaking into the overlay itself or dissolving the adhesive behind it, especially as it seems much closer to 'self-adhesive laser printer silver label stock on backing paper' than 'laminated custom front panel overlay for $$$ piece of test gear' level quality-wise.  This of course is completely understandable given that it was a low cost instrument that listed for $225 in 1978, so it’s built to a price point.

-Pat

[mnementh]

No. I'm done with this.

I wanted to just walk away from this... but I can't. Y'all can hate me, but I really get tired of being shouted down by people blowing up over an honest misunderstanding.

Shame you didn't. It despoils this thread.

Hate you? No. Wish this forum had the equivalent of a usenet reader's "ignore this subthread" button. Yes. (In extreme cases of trolling/abuse, even "ignore this person and subthread")

Just accept that there is more than one person on the net that is wrong.

I do accept this. But I also feel that I contribute enough to the signal side of the SNR in here that I deserved a little latitude in getting this off my chest, and I hope it's obvious that I chose my words very carefully to not be offensive.

In over 3 decades of life as a netizen, I've almost never used the Iggy stick. Even when I have, I make a point to occasionally review what someone I've ignored has posted recently and revisit the decision to plonk them. Almost every time, the decision turns out to be that they are contributing, and I take them off ignore.

I just don't have the energy for holding a grudge. It's wasteful of time for both parties, and never resolves anything. I also don't play the "I win, you lose" zero-sum game when interacting with other folks. Very rarely is anyone involved in a disagreement 100% right or wrong; realizing that makes forgiveness and moving forward a lot easier to swallow.

I can't count the number of times I've posted this over the years; in here and elsewhere:



But as long as discussion doesn't devolve into this:



I generally tend to consider it a net win. 


Thanks for your patience,

mnem
*currently  against a  *

[Neper]

Enough already!

[TERRA Operative]

Anyone got a parts mule Tek 7A26 7000-series plug-in they can sell me some knobs and stuff from?