Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Zucca]

Ultimately, I may if I can get along with Linux, install it on my main PC which is a good few years newer than the Asrock and also of course far more powerful and faster.

Yes you are right, I'd prefer to drink wine rather that use it in Linux.

[Zucca]

Enabler!

https://www.princessauto.com/en/43-in-colour-lcd-inspection-camera/product/PA0008942997

I only have one task I need it for ... so far!

Re-enabler! now I have to buy mine ASAP.

[AVGresponding]

What can a modern OS do with 1.44MB ? Blink an LED maybe ? If even that...

OpenBSD still boots off of a 1,44MiB floppy. You can run in rescue mode from that, but it, admittingly, is mostly aimed at getting the OS running, a network configured (including a RealTek 2.5 Gbit network card driver  ) and download the install packages.

Pfft, my Amiga A500 boots the Workbench OS from a 720KB disk into 512KB of RAM (well, 1MB for mine, I have a RAM expansion...).

Is your 500 running Workbench 1.2/1.3 or 2.04/2.11, or do you have a ROM switcher to be able to toggle between both?

I still have my Amiga 1000 and 2000HD but I'm at a loss on where my 500 ended up.

AmigaDOS is the OS, not Workbench, my bad. In my defence, I have a horrible cold, and just got back from work and was making food in a hurry, running to the loo in a hurry, etc etc.

Mine runs 1.3, haven't ever tinkered with its internals, I just liked it for the games like DUNE II and Gunship 2000, Risk etc.

[AVGresponding]

Can't believe this chimeric piece of tosh made £200. Rather amusingly, the seller has now listed another one... I wonder how many he has?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/185186137358

[Cerebus]

Next some one will start reminiscing about RT-11.     

Multics



Ring zero to rule them all,
   ring one to find them,
Ring  three to bring them all
   and in the darkness bind them.

Also, it ran on a proper computer:



That's just the control panel, a full-on configuration looked like this:

[AVGresponding]

Next some one will start reminiscing about RT-11.     

Multics



Ring zero to rule them all,
   ring one to find them,
Ring  three to bring them all
   and in the darkness bind them.

Also, it ran on a proper computer:



That's just the control panel, a full-on configuration looked like this:

Very nice, but not really practical as a home computer.

[ch_scr]

That's just the control panel, a full-on configuration looked like this:

Very nice, but not really practical as a home computer.

Not practical you say? It doubles as a space heater and you'll be envied by your neighbours for the "art installation" in your basement   

[Neper]

Can't believe this chimeric piece of tosh made £200.

The price is indeed a joke.

But I wouldn't want to qualify it as tosh. I have the first version since the early 90s and while it certainly isn't in the same league as Fluke, HP or Tek, it does a decent job and occupies little space. The generator is the typical XR2206 design of those days with the usual little peak in its sine wave. The power supply is OK, as is the counter. The DMM is nothing to shout about but works OK. All in all solidly built with a hefty mains transformer and it does what it was designed for quite well for the around 400 deutschmarks I paid for it over 30 years ago.

The counter and the generator were also sold as separate units under various names, e.g. Voltcraft (Conrad house brand).

[med6753]

Can't believe this chimeric piece of tosh made £200. Rather amusingly, the seller has now listed another one... I wonder how many he has?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/185186137358

Is that the "all in one" POS?

[Vince]

I just watched this  and he spoke about installing "Wine" to be able to run some Windows based software on Linux, although he does recommend learning to use just Linux based software. My question is, has anyone installed it, does it work and what are your thoughts about doing so. Ultimately, I may if I can get along with Linux, install it on my main PC which is a good few years newer than the Asrock and also of course far more powerful and faster.

Don't....

Wine is only an emulator. So all the windows programs pollute and "corrupt" you main Linux install. It's just messy to me. Any problem at run-time with your windows  programs could jeopardize you system, potentially corrupt your file system god knows what. And when you want to uninstall Wine it will always leave stuff behind, but you won't even know what and where. I just find emulators messy and unsafe. Also it requires all sorts of trickery, time consuming, trial and errors.. to get each and every of your Windows program t run properly, or as best as Wine can manage should we say. It's a lottery and a time consuming one.

That's why I much prefer using a virtual machine. First you get to install ACTUAL windows in it, so right there the compatibility with your windows programs is ... well, much less random.. you are actually using windows, not some emulator trying to mimic windows as beest it can...

Also, being a virtual machine, there is a clear and effective isiolation from the main system. You get one file for your virtual machine, the virtual hard drive of your VM... that's it. If anything happens to your windows programs, crashes, file corruption, anything... it is safley confined within the vuirutal machine. Your main system / Host Linux is not at risk.

I would say, in order :

1) See what Linux S/W is available first, if you can find something that makes you happy.

2) If really you don't get along with any of the Linux alternative S/W or if really need to run some piece of Windows S/W for whatever reason, then run it inside a Windows VM (I use VirtualBox, most popular).

3) If you are really unlucky and the VM has trouble running your S/W properly, then yeah I guess you can try Wine or other emulator to see if that works better... but IMHO, only as a last resort.

Luckily you are only experimenting on a spare computer so there is zero stress, you are starting out with Linux so you can afford to mess with it as much as you fancy, to cut your teeth, just like I did 20 years ago... was fun for sure, so much to play with and discover... Then once you have tried lots of stuff you will figure out what's best to do, what you like best, what no to do...and stick with it.

Have fun ! 

[med6753]

Next some one will start reminiscing about RT-11.     

Multics



Ring zero to rule them all,
   ring one to find them,
Ring  three to bring them all
   and in the darkness bind them.

Also, it ran on a proper computer:



That's just the control panel, a full-on configuration looked like this:

Pffffttt....that's no console. This, my son, is a fucking console.    (Or if you will, "Control Panel")

[Specmaster]

@Vince
Thanks for the feedback, it makes sense does that, but I think I may have a better solution if I find that I do actually like Linux and no what happens I still want to retain the capability of running Windows for games etc and other reasons. What I'm now seriously considering is to install a removable caddy on the other machine and get 2 trays for it, fit a SSD in each, 1 with Windows, the other with Linux installed and swap O/S drives over depending on what I want to do, sound better than a dual boot system  to me.

[Red Squirrel]

I figured it was time to finally get a proper bench power supply.  A XANTREX 6030D  0-30v 2a Bench PSU.    I oddly have the urge to get another just because.  I think I got the addiction bug now. 

https://imgur.com/a/GFTfB4K

Going to be nice when I want to play with things like LEDs and I can actually ramp up the voltage instead of playing the "It works on 5 volts but it's kind of dim, will it take 12 volts?" game.   

[AVGresponding]

That's just the control panel, a full-on configuration looked like this:

Very nice, but not really practical as a home computer.

Not practical you say? It doubles as a space heater and you'll be envied by your neighbours for the "art installation" in your basement   

I don't have a basement, and given current electricity prices, I doubt I could afford to use it thusly.

[AVGresponding]

Can't believe this chimeric piece of tosh made £200.

The price is indeed a joke.

But I wouldn't want to qualify it as tosh. I have the first version since the early 90s and while it certainly isn't in the same league as Fluke, HP or Tek, it does a decent job and occupies little space. The generator is the typical XR2206 design of those days with the usual little peak in its sine wave. The power supply is OK, as is the counter. The DMM is nothing to shout about but works OK. All in all solidly built with a hefty mains transformer and it does what it was designed for quite well for the around 400 deutschmarks I paid for it over 30 years ago.

The counter and the generator were also sold as separate units under various names, e.g. Voltcraft (Conrad house brand).

Perhaps I was being slightly unkind. I guess if you absolutely have to have all those instruments and have only that space for them, it fills a need, but I'd argue a very niche one.
Surely they were created as a kind of all-in-one bench instrument for beginner electronics courses? I'd imagine this seller has a batch from some educational institution or other.

[25 CPS]

AmigaDOS is the OS, not Workbench, my bad. In my defence, I have a horrible cold, and just got back from work and was making food in a hurry, running to the loo in a hurry, etc etc.

Mine runs 1.3, haven't ever tinkered with its internals, I just liked it for the games like DUNE II and Gunship 2000, Risk etc.

I always got lost in the weeds with the exact dividing lines in the system between AmigaDOS and Workbench and the CLI.  One of the neat things about the Amiga was the way you could get yourself stuck by exiting Workbench and the CLI which left no operating system shell open.  Then if you quit all of the running applications, you had nothing but a blank screen left and all you could do was reboot the machine to make it usable, from an operator perspective, again because even though the system itself was still running in that state, there was no way to interact with it.

[Saskia]

oh, I remember vividly hacking into an RS6k running AIX 4.3.3 which was hung due to 2 processes deadlocking on the CPUs, then creating an NMI, then hacking into the thread table and the processor thread, patching the part in the memory and generating another NMI to get the machine back into running state.

Back in those days, when universities were not flooded by snowflakes, no safe spaces where they could keep all challenges away ...

[Cerebus]

Next some one will start reminiscing about RT-11.     

Multics



Ring zero to rule them all,
   ring one to find them,
Ring  three to bring them all
   and in the darkness bind them.

Also, it ran on a proper computer:



That's just the control panel, a full-on configuration looked like this:

Pffffttt....that's no console. This, my son, is a fucking console.    (Or if you will, "Control Panel")

No, that's how you give a technician a full time job changing indicator bulbs! 

[Vince]

A new Sinclair video for Specmaster on Computerphile channel....

[tggzzz]

Is that little one a dry slug tant? Probably worth leaving it in if so, those things are usually pretty solid.

I've had a couple in a Tek 1502 spew acid. Fortunately the PCB was simple and easy to repair.

[mnementh]

Welp, we finally managed to Escape From New York...  It wasn't a for sure thing for a while there, as Gmaps kept trying to take me the wrong way down the FDR...   



Anyhoo... Stopped at a diner in a little dorp about half a hour across the CT border; very traditional glass and brushed stainless, and of course we took the curved-everything corner booth. 

Now having dinner and a pit stop before heading on to our hotel about 1 1/2 hours away.

Cheers,

mnem
"There's a bird on the wing;
flying from a place... to a place.
Changing skies; changing skies..."

[tautech]

CT had me stumped until a look at a map.  CT = Connecticut

[mansaxel]

That's just the control panel, a full-on configuration looked like this:

Very nice, but not really practical as a home computer.

Not practical you say? It doubles as a space heater and you'll be envied by your neighbours for the "art installation" in your basement   

Or, one cheats:  https://multicians.org/simulator.html

[mansaxel]

oh, I remember vividly hacking into an RS6k running AIX 4.3.3 which was hung due to 2 processes deadlocking on the CPUs, then creating an NMI, then hacking into the thread table and the processor thread, patching the part in the memory and generating another NMI to get the machine back into running state.

Back in those days, when universities were not flooded by snowflakes, no safe spaces where they could keep all challenges away ...

You can still do that. You might have to explain why, and how, but you can still do that. In my experience.

Edit: I can still do that, because I've got a maxed-out 43p with 4.3.3 on. Also a pair of rack machines with lots of oomph.

[cyclin_al]

What can a modern OS do with 1.44MB ? Blink an LED maybe ? If even that...

OpenBSD still boots off of a 1,44MiB floppy. You can run in rescue mode from that, but it, admittingly, is mostly aimed at getting the OS running, a network configured (including a RealTek 2.5 Gbit network card driver  ) and download the install packages.

Pfft, my Amiga A500 boots the Workbench OS from a 720KB disk into 512KB of RAM (well, 1MB for mine, I have a RAM expansion...).

Is your 500 running Workbench 1.2/1.3 or 2.04/2.11, or do you have a ROM switcher to be able to toggle between both?

I still have my Amiga 1000 and 2000HD but I'm at a loss on where my 500 ended up.

QNX anyone ??

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QNX

In 1999/2000 I remember trying a demo disk from them. On a single 3.5" 1.44MB floppy, that you would boot from, they managed to cram a complete desktop OS. You would get your graphical desktop, task bar, "start" menu, a text editor, web browser and modem drivers, was well impressed !

What can a modern OS do with 1.44MB ? Blink an LED maybe ? If even that...

According to Wikipedia, was mostly targeted to embedded devices like smartphones. BlackBerry used QNX and eventually bought QNX... still in use today in phones and cars and whatnot, apparently...

QNX started out down the road at University of Waterloo and my first experience with it was on those awful Burroughs ICON computers the government of Ontario foisted on schools here.

ICONs were awful?  For the students or the teacher    Someone in my high school class wrote an alternative operating system and left it running after class.  The teacher used that machine next.  It was able to scrape all the superuser data ... said person went on to work at a chip design company.

That same set of ICONs were later foisted onto a nearby primary school, where my Dad happened to be a teacher.  For some strange reason, I was the one Sysadmining the whole thing...
As far as I know, they chucked those machines as soon as I left town for University.  Moving down the road from 25_CPS was too far away it seems...

From what I've heard, ICONs could be good if a school had a teacher who designed a good class around them but more often than not, this wasn't the case.  They were already getting pretty long in the tooth by the time I got to use them and, worse, someone in a total Toronto Board of Education stroke of genius (more likely, just a stroke, period) assigned the gym teacher to teach the math and computer classes.  It was awful.  And the ICONs really had very little merit to stand on by themselves without a decent teacher involved.

I was lucky enough to have a math teacher who could teach BASIC programming.  Yes, he did quite a good curriculum so we learned all the programming fundamentals, structures, data type, etc.
I remember he kept the exercises short and concise, so we actually had to program everything we were taught.  Towards the end of the course, we had a project to do; mine was a text-based RPG.
However, we had to print out our programs in order to submit our assignments.  Three of us took printing time overnight  Myself, the guy that went to the chip design company, and the third guy who did one year of university in engineering, then switched to fashion design and eventually became a big-time tatoo product distributor  (but, he did very well for himself, better than an engineers salary.)