Posts by Stoneshop

Re: On drum printers and punch card equipment...

The capacitor bank for this behemoth as about 1/2 Farad at 35 volts or so

About 200J.

I still have the capacitor bank for one of the motors from a scrapped open reel tape drive: two capacitors the size of a 1l beer tin, 68mF 50V each, with two copper bars bolted on top. 150J if you drive those caps up to their working voltage, which today may well result in a mahoosive bang if they even care to store anywhere near their rated capacity in the first place.

Re: Etymology help?

I vaguely recall one particular line printer model that used a loop of paper tape (probably mylar, more robust) that went with the character set on the drum. No further details; printers tended to be serviced by specialists, although just swapping a board was usually done by anyone available and I've even done the occasional hammer flight time adjustments.

Re: Etymology help?

Back then, "fixed in software" was much less common than "fixed in hardware". When I started at DEC, plopping in a new set of EPROMS was already the way the majority of fixes were done, but I still had to do my share of soldering and changing wire-wraps.

At one point in Uni I got hold of a HP drum printer that had character rings on its drum only every third position. To get all character positions on a line printed the paper was shuffled left and right using a hefty rocker arrangement on the paper feed mechanism. Oh, and the data buffer was built around seven bucket memory ICs[0], the rest of the electronics were simple TTL or DTL logic and discrete components. And probably a PROM for the character map, can't remember.

[0] you clock in one bit, and umpteen clock ticks later that bit appears on the output. No addressing, all you can do is count clock ticks and wait for the bit you want to turn up. Somewhat more elegant than mercury delay lines, but not that much.

Re: Etymology help?

As the desired character for a column passes correct position a hammer strikes the paper against the ink ribbon and the typeface from behind to imprint the letter.

And when you know the character arrangement on each of the positions you can send lines to be printed that make all hammers fire at once. Few printers manage to withstand that for more than a couple of minutes, although usually it's just a fuse that goes. Impressive banging while it lasts.

Same with band and chain printers, although their racket tends to be just loud, not extremely loud. Chain printers run the risk of the chain breaking under such a test; the relative advantage of a band printer is that while the band has much less mass it's a thin strip of stainless steel going at quite high speeds: and the sharp ends of a break are quite nasty to printer innards and printer technician's fingers.

Re: Are JD tractors notably cheaper outlay than the alternatives?

For example, for a phone, I get to choose between Google and Apple.

or Ubuntu Touch on a Fairphone* if you went to the extreme other end.

* Several less non-asshatish options available

Re: Yes but

Or is it?"

he would not have needed to call out anybody,expensive or otherwise

Or, worst case, ring the local mechanic who'd either tell him where and how hard to thump, or, being local, be there in fifteen minutes when it requires two thumps and a poke in between them.

occasionally being sampled when there's nothing left in the house.

AASLEAGH (n.)

A liqueur made only for drinking at the end of a revoltingly long bottle party when all the drinkable drink has been drunk.

Re: Look on the bright side Mr Dabbs...

(The ones I got of my foot came in a fetching commemorative folder with a lovely colour image of a local tourist view on the front.)

Which reminds me that I still have to get hold of the piccies of my brain taken some eight years ago.

Re: It would make Musk even more of a liar

I read that as "something where a bug will kill me (beta)".

Or, as per the article, kill someone else.

Re: Autopilot

It's just human nature.

I *warned* you, but did you listen to me? Oh, no, you *knew*, didn't you? Oh, it's just a harmless little *bunny*, isn't it?

Re: Wall Street?

I don’t see any reason why it has to be a blockchain rather than a regular database.

Regular databases tend to be controlled by a single entity, who then has to be trusted by all participants. Sure, there are methods that can build that chain of trust (where participants only have to trust their immediate 'neighbors'), but then you're already part way into a blockchain-like system. Plus, a single controlling entity can make entries disappear if they want to.

But indeed, what method you use to track a load of coffee beans or a side of beef is irrelevant if you can't verify whether that database entry or that blockchain is the one for the physical item you're looking at.

In that respect, with NFTs and cryptocurrencies the blockchain entry itself is the item of value, and thus can't be separated from it.

Re: Concealed planning applications

Kudos for whoever took care of that.

The fall of the previous cabinet (on an entirely different matter, and before this became public), the ensuing elections and uncommonly lengthy negotiations on forming a new coalition.

So, more or less democratic process as usual.