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| Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread |
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| mansaxel:
--- Quote from: Vince on June 29, 2022, 08:39:02 pm --- --- Quote ---In fact I didn’t even use floppy disks back in the 90s. Had moved to Zip disks and CDRs. --- End quote --- Floppies are absolutely marvelous, I much prefer them to punch cards, sorry :-// --- End quote --- I think you can make a pretty good argument for punchcards having an edge to the floppy in reliability. Mostly, I suspect, because no-one ever built punches, readers or reader/punches to a price; they were built to spec. Floppies, not so much. |
| mnementh:
--- Quote from: Vince on June 29, 2022, 08:42:11 pm --- --- Quote from: mnementh on June 29, 2022, 07:59:14 pm ---WALLY WURLD TOOL ALERT: Hart SS DirtSucker for 30 Bux https://www.walmart.com/ip/HART-8-Gallon-6-Peak-HP-Stainless-Steel-Wet-Dry-Vacuum-VOC812SW-3701/106550327 I've been missing my Shop-Vacs (I used to keep one for general use and one just for wet use) ever since Tejas; they were old and reeked and I just wasn't going to deal with them, so they went down the road for a tenner each just to liquidate the space they took up. Well, they recently issued a price rollback on their most expensive Hart Shop-Vac; so when this came through my inbox yesterday, I jumped on it. They didn't have any in the store to buy in person (I drive right over and checked), but the website said my local store had 4 that could be purchased online for pickup next day, and the checkout promised they would substitute another unit of equal value if they didn't have it. So I bought and sure enough, got the email while I was out doing other errands that it was ready for pickup. In case you don't know, Hart is WalMart's current "Value Line" of Chinesium housewares and tools; their answer to B&D repeatedly getting by Horror Fraught. I'm not sure if they're disco-ing the whole HART product line, or if just their dirtsuckers. I've actually shopped similar-looking units (as in, I'm sure it's exactly the same thing with their colors and name on it) sporting the Stanley and Craftsman brands for $120-140. This one has of course the primary attraction of a stainless-steel tank, but other things made me look twice too: Tank Drain (so many of the budget Shop-Vacs omit this now) to dump water with some measure of control Great big 140mm wheels on back so it actually rolls in the shop & on the driveway Nice big tilt handle like real industrial equipment 2-inch hose: I consider this a reasonable compromise between 3-inch "real Shop-Vac" hose and the 1 1/8-inch hose usually provided with the budget models Reasonable power for size: 6A Peak/LRA is pretty average; but rated 11.5A at 120V is pretty much exactly same as my "real" Shop-Vacs. Almost 2HP :-+ Tall format means okay for shop use, but should still be very handle-able for cleaning stairs. Things I found once I got it home and fondled it: Ooodles of suction, but moderate noise thanks to huge 7-inch dia x 6-inch pleated filter Oversized rocker power switch with very light, smooth action Good assortment of useful attachments, including a floor squeegee for the gulper nozzle that looks like it'll actually work Assembly was very simple and straightforward even without RTFM; and all the bits for the wheels actually have screws to hold them in. Bottom line of course is still the bottom line: How long will it last? For $30, I think it'll be hard not to get my money's worth. mnem *suckage FTW* --- End quote --- Wow that's one hell of a love letter for a vacuum cleaner ! :scared: I assumed you preferred women...I stand corrected. Somehow that thing reminds me of R2D2 ?! :-// --- End quote --- Not women... I prefer one woman. Who puts this thing to shame; she can suck a golf-ball through 10 feet of garden hose. >:D mnem But this was mostly just me being a tool-dwagon; letting my friends over here in the States know so they can try and get one themselves before they're all gone. |
| bd139:
--- Quote from: mansaxel on June 29, 2022, 08:50:47 pm --- --- Quote from: Vince on June 29, 2022, 08:39:02 pm --- --- Quote ---In fact I didn’t even use floppy disks back in the 90s. Had moved to Zip disks and CDRs. --- End quote --- Floppies are absolutely marvelous, I much prefer them to punch cards, sorry :-// --- End quote --- I think you can make a pretty good argument for punchcards having an edge to the floppy in reliability. Mostly, I suspect, because no-one ever built punches, readers or reader/punches to a price; they were built to spec. Floppies, not so much. --- End quote --- I watched an ancient PCB drilling machine shred a whole card stack once. I wouldn't count on it :-DD |
| Vince:
--- Quote from: bd139 on June 29, 2022, 08:30:05 pm ---Yeah quite frankly fuck floppy disks. They were shit when they came out. Corruption, speed problems, reliability problems, tiny storage. Add 30 years to the problem and now you have mechanical and magnetic degradation to contend with. Note I’m so high tech I had to go round someone’s house the other day and borrow their PC to put a CD-ROM contents on a USB stick. I don’t even have a CD drive now. In fact I didn’t even use floppy disks back in the 90s. Had moved to Zip disks and CDRs. --- End quote --- Still have CD driver in my computer, always will, need it to read all my old CDs and DVD, and every time I want to burn an ISO file to install a newer version of Linux. USB sticks suck. My ex company gave me one when I signed up, containing some documents for me to read. Brand new key, there was a virus on it already. Tried to format it, didn't work. Tried to delete the partition, start from scratch, make a new partition, format that etc... a clean sheet. Didn't work, the partitioning utility failed to erase the existing partition, no explanation. Eventually I threw the stick in the garbage bin and that solved the problem. Low tech, but worked very well. Never had that much problems with floppies back in the day, no more than I do with SD cards or USB sticks. Loved my IOMEGA ZIP drive, though a bit slow on the // port... I still regret a lot selling it 15 years ago. I was stupid. Just like I was stupid to get rid of my old Bull Micral 30, now I miss it and I can't even find another one these days, regardless of money, they just aren't any left. |
| tggzzz:
--- Quote from: bd139 on June 29, 2022, 07:25:48 pm ---Bought some junk. Why? Well I went through the service manual and it is absolutely packed to the brim with rather expensive analogue and TTL bits and a metric ton of standard HP parts. Absolutely no use whatsoever in this day and age as it's all for testing Bell/CCITT 4KHz channel telecoms crap which is completely obsolete so it'll be used as an organ supply for other projects. --- End quote --- Sounds like I might need to take care to distinguish you from Vince. In the late 70s, the GPO (pre BT) had to work how they could guarantee sending 2Mb/s between exchanges along cables specified at audio frequencies. They could have asked the cable manufacturers, but that would have given them the excuse to drastically increase the price of the same product. It was of course the wrong question, since the answer didn't include the newfangled optical fibres. |
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