I'd just like to retract my comment I made about Windows 11 not being terrible. It's absolute fucking garbage. I just wasted most of today trying to get a dev environment up on a fresh machine and literally spent the day stepping in cow shit. During the same period I ported the software I was supposed to be working on to .Net Core and it's now compiling and working on my Mac fine . And on that note, I shall mention no more other than if a contract specifies windows from now on it can piss off even if the money is good.
I was considering spending the evening getting the Heathkit counter up but my soul is too crushed so I'm going to sit on my fat arse and F5 ebay all night
Just 48H hours ago you told me that you never had problems with Windows, that it always did what you wanted it to do.. and now all of a sudden it's so shiy you won't even take money to work on it, what a change !!!!
So see, I might not be an IT guru like you but I got to the same conclusion 20 years ago none the less !
I saw a YT video some guy who ranted about Win11. Basically he explained how with it, MS owned your computer H/W, not you any more. Forgot the details... but it seemed in lien with what every industry is doing more and more in the recent years, so not really surprised...
One more reason to stick to my *Nix machine. I DO own my computer .. been running for 15 years with zero Euro in S/W or licensing or anti-malware anti-virus shit, and it would still run for 10 more years if only I could behave and get myself to have FIrefox running only 30 tabs at all times, instead of 60. This way the 8GB of RAM on the machine would suffice and I would not have to replace the motherboard and all that goes on it...
Geez I sound like a salesman.. but I have nothing to sell, Penguin is free....
To be clear I don't use Windows. This isn't my computer. It's one I have been provided to do some work on. My computer is a (real) Unix machine which is what I was referring to in the initial post
As for the penguin, on the server, yeah fine, just about. On the desktop, it's an unholy abomination. Colour management, high DPI, power management is a joke as is any software maturity. It was going well on gnome 2 and then they decided to rewrite everything again...
Win10 1903 is looking a lot less toxic now, inn't it...?
mnem
It's okay... we all know he'll flip-flop next week, then flip on his flip-flop again in 'nuther week; that's just bd139's way.
I think mnem found his dumped on the road side so it's not always expensive
The grey G3 there ... I never used the old macOS 9 and earlier machines really. They were mostly horrible. Apple only became attractive to me when the early blue G3 turned up and they released macOS X on it.
I think mnem found his dumped on the road side so it's not always expensive
The grey G3 there ... I never used the old macOS 9 and earlier machines really. They were mostly horrible. Apple only became attractive to me when the early blue G3 turned up and they released macOS X on it.
Funny ! Still at uni, the last year I was there they started installing these "all in one " funky looking transparent G3, and that's precisely what put me off Apple instantly ! Still to this day.
Well of course I know sqaut about the OS side of things under the bonnet, as a user I didn't care.... a computer is a computer. You click on an icon it loads the S/W...
But yes from what I understood years later retrospectively, The Unix based OS was introduced with OSX and these funky looking colourful G3, and before that it was AppleOS xys which I gather was a pile of shit inside, but of course only people like you would know or care about that back then !
As a user I just loved the old Os on the beige Macs. Well except it took an hour to boot and the mouse had only one button... but well back then we didn't do as much with computers so the loss of "productivity" hardly bothered me....
I don't know if could survive with a single button mouse today, or without a scroll wheel either....
But, I still want at least one old beige Mac for my future retro computer museum/room/corner...and possibly another one that I would just use the tower case of, and restuff with a modern motherboard.
My computer is due to be renewed ina year or so finances allowing, so it might happen sooner rather than later.
2N3055 experiment follow-up.
Checking the datasheet to see what the B-E junction breakdown voltage is.
Says the ABSOLUTE MAXIMUM is 7 Volts. Mine gave up at 15 Volts.
Datasheets are a load of rubbish.
It's all I had to say.
Good night.
I think mnem found his dumped on the road side so it's not always expensive
The grey G3 there ... I never used the old macOS 9 and earlier machines really. They were mostly horrible. Apple only became attractive to me when the early blue G3 turned up and they released macOS X on it.
Funny ! Still at uni, the last year I was there they started installing these "all in one " funky looking transparent G3, and that's precisely what put me off Apple instantly ! Still to this day.
Well of course I know sqaut about the OS side of things under the bonnet, as a user I didn't care.... a computer is a computer. You click on an icon it loads the S/W...
But yes from what I understood years later retrospectively, The Unix based OS was introduced with OSX and these funky looking colourful G3, and before that it was AppleOS xys which I gather was a pile of shit inside, but of course only people like you would know or care about that back then !
As a user I just loved the old Os on the beige Macs. Well except it took an hour to boot and the mouse had only one button... but well back then we didn't do as much with computers so the loss of "productivity" hardly bothered me....
I don't know if could survive with a single button mouse today, or without a scroll wheel either....
But, I still want at least one old beige Mac for my future retro computer museum/room/corner...and possibly another one that I would just use the tower case of, and restuff with a modern motherboard.
My computer is due to be renewed ina year or so finances allowing, so it might happen sooner rather than later.
If you want a retro mac, best thing you can do is get an old iMac, scoop the insides out and do this (or make a fish tank)
To note I'm no collector of retro computers. I've been there. It's another rabbit hole of misery I look back through rose tinted glasses. They are far more obtuse than old bits of test gear, far more common and far more in demand which keeps the prices and the problems at levels of insane I can't justify. Plus after years in the IT trade, I find anything which costs money on that side of things rather than pays it abhorrent
2N3055 experiment follow-up.
Checking the datasheet to see what the B-E junction breakdown voltage is.
Says the ABSOLUTE MAXIMUM is 7 Volts. Mine gave up at 15 Volts.
Datasheets are a load of rubbish.
It's all I had to say.
Good night.
2N3055 experiment follow-up.
Checking the datasheet to see what the B-E junction breakdown voltage is.
Says the ABSOLUTE MAXIMUM is 7 Volts. Mine gave up at 15 Volts.
Datasheets are a load of rubbish.
It's all I had to say.
Good night.
Motorola 2N3055 with date code 7923 - 13 Euro per piece.
https://www.ebay.de/itm/384721119094
NAWTS
I think mnem found his dumped on the road side so it's not always expensive!
The grey G3 there ... I never used the old macOS 9 and earlier machines really. They were mostly horrible. Apple only became attractive to me when the early blue G3 turned up and they released macOS X on it. One of our Unix admins bought one immediately and she was very impressed with it because it was a hell of a lot cheaper than buying a Sun machine for home.
Edit: the first mac I used as a dedicated machine only was actually a G4 mac mini. I bought one of them and a 1st gen iPod shuffle. How times have changed.
Went G4 mini -> Intel Core 2 MacBook -> Intel Core 2 MacBook (plastic) -> Intel Core 2 iMac -> Several Intel macbook pros -> M1 macbook air -> M1 Macbook pro.
Some forks and diversions in there and running thinkpads and PC desktops in parallel as workload required them.
As I said; I went to the old neighborhood today... while I was driving through, one gentleman was wheeling these to the curb. Needless to say, I stopped immediately and asked if that was really what was in those boxes; the answer was yes, but the hard drives had been removed. I said that was fine, I had a G5 back in the day and this would be a great chance to revisit... but could I please take the sleds off the old drives if he still had them...?
The fellow hemmed & hawed for a minute, then produced a box with 4 750GB Barracuda drives and asked "Are you a computer guy?" I said yes. "Would you please wipe the drives?" "Yeah, no problem!"
I took the box and thanked him, and we were on our way...
https://everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_pro/specs/mac-pro-eight-core-3.0-2008-specs.html
https://everymac.com/monitors/apple/studio_cinema/specs/apple_cinema_display_30.html
Whuf... this one was loaded for storage & graphics; those HDDs were all part of the original build. As were dual Xeon E5472s, 24GB DDR2-800 RAM, a GeForce 8800GT GPU, and dual GB Ethernet. Huh.
Allright... I've peeked inside the boxes to make sure they didn't contain angry badgers or bobcats; tomorrow after I've had a chance to rest I'll actually unpack and look inside the CPU... mnem
Those were the days. PPC... Then again, I had the fastest 68k Mac that Apple never built. 68060 at 50 megs.
I am glad you liked it, 2 of my 3 2N3055 died for it, have only one left now !
More prosaically, the 2N3055 has been around so long that it has been 'reimagined' in what must now be 10 generations of semiconductor manufacturing processes. Hell, there probably isn't a fab in existence that's capable of making a genuine original spec 2N3055 in the process it was originally made in. The upshot of this is that if you want to know the actual parameters of a part labelled "2N3055" you need the specific data sheet for the specific variant of the generic 2N3055.
It should come as no surprise then to find a generic 2N3055 emitter base reverse breakdown of 7V and an actual one for the part on hand of more than twice as much. That's way too much of a difference to attribute to "engineer's safety margin fudge factor" but isn't too much for "The actual process for this part is way better than the 2N3055 spec calls for, but we'll just specify the official 2N3055 figures so people don't point to the higher specified figure and think it implies that the part is in some way incompatible.".
Wow looks beautiful.. must have cost a fortune to assemble/manufacture !
If you like to watch pictures of semiconductor dies, then you should check out Richis Lab.
Here is an example from a Motorola 2N3055 transistor. What I really like about those pictures about power transistors is that one can see the barrier layer, because Richi is driving them in reverse mode and then the B-E diode becomes a Zener.
B-E diode working as a Zener at 300mA:
OK just sacrificed a 2N3055 and tried the same experiment. Doesn't work, die doesn't light up. VERY disappointed !
Maybe it can't be seen with the naked eye, or it needs a long exposure time to gather sufficient light, or it requires a special version of the 2N3055, I don't know.
All I can say it that it didn't work on my particular transistor, and I now have one less 2N3055, he died for nothing. I am sad now.
I have to correct myself regarding the B-E diode is becoming a Zener. This is only partially true. The main effect is, that the B-E diode is working in avalanche mode. Depending on the materials being used, the produced light can be anything from IR to blue (SiC for example). Richi states, that the light can be visible to the naked eye, but it is mostly very dim. So, if you want to see this effect, it is perhaps a good idea to sit in a dark room for about 10 minutes so your eyes can adapt to the darkness and then try again.
Here is a discussion about the glowing effect of B-E diodes working in avalanche mode:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/transistors-die-pictures/msg3068740/#msg3068740
Wow, a thread dedicated to the subject, with beautiful pictures at that ! So my little shitty experiment is pointless then !
.. but I did it ANYWAY, because nothing beats doing it YOURSELF, and seeing it with your own eyes !!
So I sacrificed yet another 2N3055 transistor... this time I took my time to hack saw it, exercising as much care as I could in a hope I would not destroy / damage the pins/bonding wires inside
So instead of trying to cut the very top of the cap, instead I cut it at the very bottom, because there is much more clearance with the pins, so less chances that the blade might catch them.
Also I removed the blade from the saw frame, and cut on pull, so I could control the blade better. It was a success, for the first time, 4th attempt, I now have a TO3 that survived its convertible top conversion !
That means I don't need to stick my SMD probes directly onto the die any more, which was hardly reliable and convenient, I experienced...
Now I can just use grabbers to connect to the outside pins, wire that to the power supply, and I have both hands free to play with the controls on the power supply, and hold the camera steady with both hands. It's getting luxurious can't you see ? !
Thanks to this much better controlled testing environment, I was able to achieve success, look at that !!!
The B-E junction in reverse starts breaking down / conducting at about 15.2 Volts. To get this picture I put 1.2 Amp into it, Voltage rose to 18V or so. I closed the window shutters to make the lab dark. Then opened the shutters half way and noticed the camera could still pick-up the glow, using the highest ISO setting, 6400.
As you can see the glow does not spread across the entirety of the "path" / squiggly line, for some reason I am way too stupid to explain.
Upping the current has zero effect on this " issue " whatsoever. Past one ampere, upping the current does not increase the glow, it stays where it is. Past 2 amps, suddenly the glow disappeared and was reduced to one single tiny dot in a corner of the die. I thought OK I blew it, too much current, had to happen... but then I lowered the current limit on the power supply and the glow came back ! It's still alive and going, this transistor is a warrior !!! Everyone should have a 2N3055 in his life !
Wow that was a cool and fun experiment ! Everyone should do that !
Think I will archive the pics and my test results/notes on it, it was that cool.
EDIT : The experiment cost me more than a few TO3 pacakges... cost me also one of my Hirschmann long grabbers ! Package got so hot during the experiment that it badly melted the tip of the insulation of the black grabber !!
Wow, only 800 Euros ?!
That's freaking cheap ! Last one I saw here in Frog land was 2 years ago and guy wanted 2,500 Euros for it, "as is", not powered up, super crusty and no test fixture.
Still, 800 Euros is way more than I can afford... and I prefer my 575 anyway !!
If Brexitland was still European I would have seriously considered a road trip for that, and the incurred wrath of SWMBO for purchasing a boat anchor.