The end of an era?

Long, long ago, when dinosaurs roamed the land, before even the internet and google, in fact in 1993, I commissioned a genius called MDG (who wrote software for me at the time) with the job of buying my business a new computer. The result was my much cherished DIAMOND brand 486-DX2-66MHz. CPU's did not need fans in those days. This machine was top of the range with VESA accelerated disk and graphics cards, and it has served me faithfully until - argghhh - this morning it went belly-up. Thankfully the hard drive is still intact and I have been able to plant it in a DRDOS friendly pentium machine that happened to be handy.

I tried Googling components of this machine in the hope of help, and was met with emotionally loaded words like "antique" and "museum". The idea that anyone might still use such a behemoth is apparently beyond their ken. Our local Apple expert, Joe, sniggers when he comes in the office and I happen to be DOSsing.

Tsien BoardMaker 2 and BoardCapture is why I use this DOS machine. This software is for creating electronic schematics and designing printed circuit boards (PCB). Regrettably Tsien no longer support BM2, wanting instead to rent you their more expensive Windows BM3.  But there are still many engineers who still use BM2 because it is so fast (screen redraw on a 486-DX2-66MHz is faster than screen redraw in many Windows graphics programs running on current machines). And because its user-interface is so intuitive. And because, even though it must operate within the DOS 640kbyte memory limit, I have yet to design a board that exceeds its memory limited capacity. And because it does all I want and I know I would have to invest a huge amount of time to learn a new CAD program.

Which only goes to show how HORRIBLY inefficient modern software is. If only programmers now-a-days wrote to the same standards as that in BM2, think how powerful their software would be.

What are little boys made of?

Sugar and spice and all things nice?

You can purchase an ink-jet printer for less than 40 euro, including inks. This one was being thrown out by someone because the print-head was gummed up - maybe it cost a bit more than 40 euros because it prints (or used to print) CD's. So, true to character, I un-threw it away and took it apart. My first picture shows most of the constituent bits. Now, as an electronics design engineer, I start totting up what I would charge for all those bits and it exceeds 40 euro. By quite a bit.

It is well known that printer manufactures sell their offerings for less than it costs to make them, knowing that they will reap bounty from sale of ink. But surely not that much less? To enhance their profit even further today's ink cartridges have substantially less ink than those that fit the previous generation of printers. And the old cartridges do not fit the newer models. We know this to our chagrin - our own printer has just given up the ghost, and it timed it carefully to be just after buying a bunch of replacement cartridges.

Not all this ink makes it to your paper, mind you, especially if you only print occasionally. My next picture zooms in on the base of the printer case.

Base plate with 1/2" thick ink-pads

That larger absorbent pad is about 7" x 8" and at least 1/2" thick. Each time the printer is turned on it does a complex dance routine which, amongst other things, cleans the print head by discharging ink onto a pad (not one of the above). This printer had a peristaltic pump (also not shown) to deliver excess ink from there onto the above pads. Bang goes more of your pennies, up notches the manufacture's profits.

But I didn't spend time to dissect this machine to photograph a bunch of ink. I was after useful bits. My final picture shows the gold I mined.

Trophies

1 off switch mode power supply 42V at 0.6A.
2 off d.c. motors, one with a gear chain
1 off stepper motor
1 off precision guide bar
1 off linear sensor strip (black and white striped)
1 off photo-electric sensor for above

These will go in a box (and join other similar trophies) and be dished out when the next person asks "have you got a spare d.c. motor?" or for my next grandson's engine to be.

The God of Small Things

I have just finished reading this book. Apart from my usual difficulty in following any plot, especially when the time-line is convoluted, I thoroughly enjoyed this book - both its writing style and what the author has to say - and it made me cry. I will not even attempt to summarise it as I cannot match what others have said e.g. here and here. So you'll have to read it yourself.

I love the way she portrays what goes on inside the children. They kind of remind me of two kids I know. I don't want to miss the "small things" - because I too have experience of such things being swept under the carpet.

1000 things for boys to do

I have found the book I referred to in a post some while ago - "1000 things for boys to do" or at least something like it. Although I can't find the article I remember on making a steam engine.

OK, times have changed, instead of construction hobbies bright youngsters now-a-days play or write computer games or learn to hack government agencies. But I am still of the opinion that messing with hardware is at least equally important.

Imagine you had four hands

When I have taught piano I have encouraged the pupil to caress the keyboard, to enjoy the feel of and explore the keys, to be able to find middle 'C' by touch alone. A blind person "sees" with his hands. Imagine doubling this pleasure and feeling with your feet as well.

Imagine a culture where it was not "done" to expose one's hands, and having to always wear heavy leather gloves with rigid, solid soles, lined with thick woollen sleeves.

Now take your shoes and socks off and be free. Not just in the privacy of your home: go shopping barefoot, running barefoot, climbing trees barefoot.

Jane

Here's a new idea that resonates with Jane. If it works we could end up with robots that develop amazing skills overnight. Both amazing and scary...