Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[mnementh]

The point is it's not the 1980s anymore; floppy is no longer "the convenient choice".

There are literally a dozen better ways to do it than floppy, and many of them are still compatible with these old machines. While none of the choices available on these machines are great, floppy is still the worst one possible. And in here, everybody knows about those better ways.

mnem
*puts on best Rain Man voice* "Floppy drives suck... yes, definitely... definitely suck..."

Yes, I am not stupid, I get that. That was you and Mansaxel's point. But that was not MY original point (it all started from my first remark, remember...), and you were both replying to me as if it was the point to begin with, which it never was. Hence it was completely irrelevant, hence I failed to see the insistence on hammering that point 

It is exactly as if I had said for example "I find Nixie displays cool ! ", and then people vehemently  writing essais on how Nixies are crap and colour graphical LCD touch screens are so much better.
Eh ?! What's the point of replying that ? 

Or say, you saying how cool a Dragon avatar and people saying no it's stupid grow up, Dragons don't exist, read up !    If you find Dragons cool there is no need to justify, what's the point of even discussing the reality of Dragons ?! 

I could go on and on...

Maybe you both misunderstood what I mean when I said I found FDD equiped TE "cool"... I thought it was obvious I meant it in an irrational / vintage interest kind of "cool", like we find our old glowing Tek scopes "cool"... 

That said, in Dragon's style, I would like to stir it a little and have a bit of fun, and say that... sorry, but for me, right now....  a scope with a floppy is what makes most sense to me ! 

I am tired of taking 20 pictures of scope screens hoping one them would be half usable, then go back to my computer desk and download the pics, adjust compression ratio etc.
I don't want to have cables running across the floor on my living room either to go from the bench/scope, to my computer/desk., be it serial or GPIB or Ethernet or anything cable. Don't have these cables anyway. No all I want, sorry, just like in the '90s when these scopes were current is.... shove a freaking floppy inside the scope, put my screen capture on it, grab the floppy and take it to where ever in the house my desk/computer might be, then read that freaking screen capture, and call it a day ! A portable medium, any medium, don't care, but a portable one. USB would more practical, but not by much. file sizes are small so even on a floppy it doesn't take too long too write, I don't care one bit.  OK my computer, even though it's 15 years old, doesn't have a floppy drive ? I can add one, must have one somewhere. Worse case I just get a cheap old used external floppy drive that you plug into a USB port, and that's all, big deal !! 

See ? I can stir it too when I want ! Hey I might morph into a Dragon one day who knows !

You asked why all the hate. It's because time gets precious when there's less of it to waste, and floppies are expensive and waste your time. Over and over again. Time is a person's most valuable commodity; the time wasted using floppies when there are other means just as "period-correct" is more valuable than any nostalgia.

Floppy is still horrible and slow and blows up half the time. As the medium gets older, this happens more and more often because the media is decades old. As much of a PITA as RS-232 might be to implement the first time, once you have it working it doesn't wear out, and those bits get to your PC just as fresh-minted now as they did back when these interfaces were invented.

Fresh bits plopped on old floppies don't always make it where you want them to go.

TL/DR version: I love a good    as much as the next guy, but I have a wife to do that now (and she does it most exquisitely when she wants to  ), and I don't need her getting jealous because she finds my nutsack all swollen when she didn't do it. 

mnem
Friends don't let friends use floppies.

[bd139]

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.

[Vince]

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.

Floppies are absolutely marvelous, I much prefer them to punch cards, sorry 

[Vince]

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*

Wow that's one hell of a love letter for a vacuum cleaner !

I assumed you preferred women...I stand corrected.

Somehow that thing reminds me of R2D2 ?! 

[mnementh]

    Free. Just pay for shipping.

So... is this a BUSTED scenario, or YAGI gone wrong? Or are you trying to mitigate JENGA reaching critical mass by applying a little BAIT THEORY to the TEA thread...? 

mnem

I... I don't even undertand half of what you just said but it's pretty simply. I don't have the gear to test these, they don't seem to be worth all that much, I can't be arsed to put them on eBay so I figured one of you lot might want to have them for free 

Oh dear, dear, Iced-TEA... as long as you've been among us, you still haven't availed yourself of the TEA GLOSSARY on page 1...?

For shame!!! 

BUSTED: Bought Unnecessary Shitload of Test Equipment Devices

YAGI: Yet Another Gain for Inventory - A term used to rationalise the typical consequences of GAS - especially when there is no immediate or prospective need for an item.

JENGA: (a constellation of related disorders)

(1) Junk Engulfing Nearby Garage Areas - wherein all garage space is subject to a constantly moving and contested scrimmage line;
(2) Junk Encroaching Nonpermissible General Areas - usually defined by other household members and their "need" to use nonessential spaces like living rooms, kitchens and bathrooms;
(3) Junk Engulfing Nonvertical Geometric Areas - the inevitable spontaneous accumulation of all manner of tools and junk on any available table-like horizontal surface;
(4) Junk Emigrating Non-Garage Areas - the inexplicable migration of entire stacks to other rooms, often discovered by other household members with a hand truck still underneath;
(5) Junk Engulfing Nonhorizontal Growth Areas - the accumulation of box-shaped objects stacked from floor to ceiling, and the inevitable need to remove one object from the middle of the stack without all of it falling down on your head.

Bait Theory: The bait theory of equipment acquisition states that if you want something but can't find it, start collecting all of the parts, documents, etc., that you will need to repair and/or operate it. Somewhere out there, there is a broken device that "knows" that you have the parts to fix it and it will find its way to you.

Thanks for frequenting this space, and of course I'm sure someone will liberate those bits from you.

mnem
*toddles off to straighten out some garage*

[mansaxel]

In fact I didn’t even use floppy disks back in the 90s. Had moved to Zip disks and CDRs.

Floppies are absolutely marvelous, I much prefer them to punch cards, sorry 

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]

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*

Wow that's one hell of a love letter for a vacuum cleaner ! I assumed you preferred women...I stand corrected. Somehow that thing reminds me of R2D2 ?! 

Not women... I prefer one woman. Who puts this thing to shame; she can suck a golf-ball through 10 feet of garden hose.

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]

In fact I didn’t even use floppy disks back in the 90s. Had moved to Zip disks and CDRs.

Floppies are absolutely marvelous, I much prefer them to punch cards, sorry 

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.

I watched an ancient PCB drilling machine shred a whole card stack once. I wouldn't count on it 

[Vince]

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.

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]

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.

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.

[Vince]

In fact I didn’t even use floppy disks back in the 90s. Had moved to Zip disks and CDRs.

Floppies are absolutely marvelous, I much prefer them to punch cards, sorry 

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.

One could make a better more reliable floppy drive, potentially. Not the floppies' fault...

No, I still maintain floppies are much better.


How large and heavy would be a 1.4MB worth of punch cards ?
I bet it doesn't fit in your shirt pocket like a floppy would 

And, once you have typed this metric ton of punch cards that amount to 1.4MB... run it through the computer and then it tells you sorry you made a mistake / typo, do it all over again... you are happy.

Floppy you can just correct your mistake in seconds.

How long does it take to punch holes for this 1.4MB worth of punch cards, versus a floppy drive ?

Yes, much longer... so long it's unpractical.

Sorry, floppy wins by several orders of magnitude. 

[tggzzz]

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.

And the available alternatives were 10MB hard disks the size of washing machines, or paper (tape or cards), or audio cassettes (remember CUTS at 300/1200 baud?).

Floppies were a significant advance, for those that could afford them.

[Saskia]

stilllying flat, as is hubby. They denied me monoklonale antibodies as I am not in the patient group the give those to.
hubby is also still down. I don't think I'll be on my feet next week

[bd139]

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.

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.

Yep. That’s pretty much how ADSL works now. Channelised. Amazing how we can cram 80Mbits up some mouldy copper crud.

[bd139]

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.

And the available alternatives were 10MB hard disks the size of washing machines, or paper (tape or cards), or audio cassettes (remember CUTS at 300/1200 baud?).

Floppies were a significant advance, for those that could afford them.

Yes I remember loading tapes in via my BBC micro cassette interface. When I finally got a single 5 1/4” drive things were good. But that realistically lasted 4 years because i got a 20Mb hard disk. Every floppy interaction after that was a chore.

[mansaxel]

No, I still maintain floppies are much better.

That is because you are not comparing them to the state of the art. What people should do is to have their files on a networked drive.  Compared to a networked file system the floppy drive and its media are slow, unreliable, insecure, and have puny capacity.

(of course, if you don't mind Someone Else reading that file (and I'm not talking about GENERAL ERROR  ) you can outsource that part. Flipping the RO tab on a 3,5" diskette will take longer time than copying a 1,4MiB file over most networks built the last 20 years, so speed is not an issue. )

And yes, I'm jumping around with first comparing to punch cards, then networked file systems. Point is, that floppy drives and media are an all-time low in medium reliability, only underbid by the practice of storing files to compact cassettes as was popular on several home computers.

[mnementh]

stilllying flat, as is hubby. They denied me monoklonale antibodies as I am not in the patient group the give those to.
hubby is also still down. I don't think I'll be on my feet next week

Oh dear... I'm still horking up chunks and dry, rattly cough, but I actually got my arse out in the garage and did some real manual labor today. I do hope you're both better soon. Don't you be looking for the Bifrost yet... far too many unworthy here in this world still need your attention.

mnem

[mnementh]

TinkerDwagon SQUEEEEE!!!! 



I hopped on fleaBay to see if my 54621D had shipped yet... and my dashboard thwapped me upside the head with this alert!!!

w00t!

mnem
*toddles off to stalk the wily UPS driver*

[tautech]

That’s pretty much how ADSL works now. Channelised. Amazing how we can cram 80Mbits up some mouldy copper crud.

VDSL is what they call that here and only offer it if you're within 500m of your local ISP box.
On a previous connection we had ADSL1 theoretically capable of a blistering 2MB/s and it would run just fine with one busted/open leg ! 
That the phone wouldn't was hardly surprising. 

[tautech]

TinkerDwagon SQUEEEEE!!!! 



I hopped on fleaBay to see if my 54621D had shipped yet... and my dashboard thwapped me upside the head with this alert!!!

w00t!

mnem
*toddles off to stalk the wily UPS driver*

You weakened mnem and gone to the other side ? 

[mnementh]

I find taking .BMP screenshots on my TDS784D scope super simple with the floppy. Stick the disk in, press a button, wait a moment and then stick the floppy into my USB floppy drive and copy the file to my desktop to be poked in Photoshop. And sometimes it even does it without errors!
Easier than setting up cables as the scope doesn't live on the bench, as it's too big for my current setup, and sometimes I use it sitting vertically on the floor in which case I physically can't plug stuff in the back.

For my AWG510, I needed the floppy drive to run Pocket Linux to enable me to upgrade the SSD and HDD to CF cards, but it has Ethernet for comms and sits in my rack, so that will be easier once I get it set up.

Plus, I'm a masochist for old, user unfriendly, unreliably flakey and obsolete tech, so pffttppfffppt.   

Yes, well... you've already warned us that your wife likes your meat red, not pounded into a fine paste... so I'm not surprised you go looking for your    somewhere else...   

mnem
 

[factory]

    Free. Just pay for shipping.

So... is this a BUSTED scenario, or YAGI gone wrong? Or are you trying to mitigate JENGA reaching critical mass by applying a little BAIT THEORY to the TEA thread...? 

mnem

I... I don't even undertand half of what you just said but it's pretty simply. I don't have the gear to test these, they don't seem to be worth all that much, I can't be arsed to put them on eBay so I figured one of you lot might want to have them for free 

I thought you won one of the 180 series SA mainframes, in the last PP auction, it should work in the SA mainframe, just some of the later ones haven't got the scope cal outputs, as they were made long after the scope modules became obsolete.
I'm I the only one on here with some 180 scopes in my collection?

David

[Cerebus]

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/dodgy-technology/the-non-linear-plasma-reactor/msg4265899/#msg4265899

Is this hairy-brained guy by any chance related to the notorious Ivor Catt? His persistence strikes me as very similar!

I remember reading a hilarous series of comments on something Ivor Catt contributed to "Wireless World" by "Ouida Dogg", "Weiver-Mowse" & one other, which has been lost in the mists of time, or my failing memory, or whatever.

I always suspected Ivor Catt was a variant of the old Ivor Biggun or Buster Bloodvessel joke and was quite surprised that he appeared to be a real person. Then again, I'm not entirely convinced that is the case and perhaps the rest of the world is more gullible than me.

[Vince]

No, I still maintain floppies are much better.

That is because you are not comparing them to the state of the art.

Yes of course, you can only judge a new tech compared to the tech it currently replaces.... and as Tggzzz pointed out,  floppies were a tremendous improvement over what was available before. Otherwise the industry would not have used and people would have complained to get their old tech back. Nobody did, and the floppy was a great success.

What people should do is to have their files on a networked drive.
Compared to a networked file system the floppy drive and its media are slow, unreliable, insecure, and have puny capacity.

That's not exactly as portable and cheap as a floppy is it... can't compare a portable medai with a fixed mass storage solution, no more than you can compare  a 20 story building with a VW camping van...

OK I get it, you hate floppies, you have that right. I like them, and will keep around my old computers and use floppies and ZIP drives and CDs with them, because I too am allowed to hate or like what I want !

I am tired and soon going to bed, so I will leave it at that. I did notice some support from several people though, so I don't feel that isolated. Thank you, people.


I wonder what will be tomorrow's discussion / war subject....  2" vs 3" shop vac hoses.... how can you DARE use 2", I can't believe it, 3" is the only way to go ! 

Or : " paper books suck, I read all my 500 page datasheets and the Art of Electronics on my tablet / smartphone... "



Be inventive, I am going to bed and want a cool subject when I wake up tomorrow ! I count on you ! 

[mnementh]

TinkerDwagon SQUEEEEE!!!!     

I hopped on fleaBay to see if my 54621D had shipped yet... and my dashboard thwapped me upside the head with this alert!!!

w00t!

mnem
*toddles off to stalk the wily UPS driver*

You weakened mnem and gone to the other side ? 

I bought both. The LeSiglent T3DSO2102 is my big Father's Day present from wife and dad... I posted in here that I'd bought the last one, but since Kosmic was having so much assache with his order, I kept mum afterwards so as not to jinx it.

I suppose I might be jinxing him now tho... 

The 54621D was actually to keep me off the street and out of trouble, as the listing warned that "If the item is sold as factory new, we will need 2 weeks to build the item before we can ship it." and the ETD reflected that, I wasn't expecting to see it for another week.

Of course now, I'm hobbling my sorry fat arse out to the street every 10 minutes or so looking for the UPS truck. 

mnem
I guess I need to get back out to the garage anyways...