7.09.2016
5.31.2016
New Sony Shortwave Radio, and a Small Announcement
Hi everyone!
I just got a shortwave radio, since I heard that this particular model had recently gone out of production, and have pulled in stations from China, New York, Cuba, and Ohio in the past couple of nights. (I'm in the Chicagoland area.)
The radio I bought is the Sony ICF-SW7600GR, and it's been hailed as one of the best modern portables. It's got SSB capability, which allows me to tune in to communication transmissions, as well as synchronous detection/lock (which I honestly don't completely understand beyond the basic concept that it makes weaker signals easier to decipher).
It also pulls in a jazz station in the area that my smaller radio(s) can't (90.9 FM), which I am actually listening to as I type this.
Oh, one more thing - I graduated from UIUC on May 15th! Now I'm officially a mechanical engineer.
I just got a shortwave radio, since I heard that this particular model had recently gone out of production, and have pulled in stations from China, New York, Cuba, and Ohio in the past couple of nights. (I'm in the Chicagoland area.)
The radio I bought is the Sony ICF-SW7600GR, and it's been hailed as one of the best modern portables. It's got SSB capability, which allows me to tune in to communication transmissions, as well as synchronous detection/lock (which I honestly don't completely understand beyond the basic concept that it makes weaker signals easier to decipher).
It also pulls in a jazz station in the area that my smaller radio(s) can't (90.9 FM), which I am actually listening to as I type this.
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| Here's a front view of the radio. |
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| Right side panel of the radio |
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| Left side panel of the radio - it even has a line-out jack so I can plug in an external recorder easily and still listen through the headphone port. |
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Front view of the box
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| Handsome carrying case |
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| Rear panel of the radio - MADE IN JAPAN |
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| The external "whip" antenna that came with it hooks onto the existing antenna like this. |
Oh, one more thing - I graduated from UIUC on May 15th! Now I'm officially a mechanical engineer.
3.24.2016
My COMPAQ PORTABLE III 286 PC!
I'm typing this in WordPerfect 5.1, from 1989, on my Compaq Portable III PC, which
I got a few days ago from the place I worked over the summer. My old
boss sent me an email asking if I wanted this machine - they had found it in
the back room in maintenance and were going to get rid of it.
As soon as I got
back from spring break, I headed over and grabbed it, complete with carrying
case and a PLC, which I really have no idea how to use. (The hardware and
software are all here, but I've gotta read the documentation to really figure
out how it works.) Meanwhile, though, let me tell you about what I've gotten
done so far with this machine.
Upon
receiving that email, all I got was the front of the machine, and I didn't know
if it had a 3.5" or 5.25" disk drive. This was critical, since I
don't have any machines that have the latter kind of drive. After a bit of
reading, I found that the 3.5" drive was optional, as Compaq saw it as a
necessary evil while the 5.25" ruled the roost as far as they were
concerned.
I got a
bit of hope since I saw that they had installed a controller program I was
familiar with, copyrighted 1993. By this point the 3.5" floppy had
essentially taken over, and to run that software this machine must have a
3.5" drive.
Luckily,
this machine has a 3.5", 1.44MB drive, but getting it working was a bit of
a puzzle.
When I
received the computer, it was a bit dirty, given that it sat in a
manufacturing plant for the better part of 28 years. The bag was absolutely covered in dirt, so I left that in
the basement for the time being.After
cleaning it off with dampened paper towels, the first thing I noticed was that
the keyboard cable was literally disintegrating before my eyes. After a couple
Google searches it became clear that dry rot of the keyboard cable was a common
problem with these machines. Handling it gingerly, I booted the computer and
the familiar C:\> prompt appeared before me in glorious orange monochrome on
this sick gas-plasma display.
Real
quick spec rundown before I get ahead of myself:
Popped the disk into the Compaq, and dir
yielded a list of all the files. Great, I thought. But upon running the program
OREGON.EXE I received a disk access error complaining that the sector could not
be read.
I tried
a different disk and the same thing happened. Given that I was using brand-new
disks out of the box, I figured there was a problem with the drive type in
BIOS, since the drive itself clearly worked fine (otherwise I wouldn't even
have been able to dir myself up a list of files).
Hmm...time
to enter the BIOS and select the drive type.However,
this computer does not have BIOS built in, so one needs to run a setup program
off a disk. I found a program online that allows you to create a setup disk,
but that program itself requires DOS, which is running on NONE of my current
computers. Luckily someone (Theo, here)has copied the files off of one of
said setup disks into a zip file and uploaded it, so I downloaded that zip and
thought I would be ready to go.
Step 2,
though, was to create a disk that would be read by the Compaq, since it had
trouble with my 1.44MB Oregon Trail disk. I figured the only other type of disk
that it would accept would be a 720K single sided one, so I looked up how to
make one. Simple - put tape over the right-side hole on a 1.44MB floppy.
To
format this 720K disk in Windows with my USB floppy disk drive, I ran the
following command under cmd:
FORMAT A: /T:80 /N:9
Luckily, it worked - according to the site, it won't
work with some newer USB drives since they only support 1.44MB disks.
Once I
had the disk formatted, I was able to copy the files from the zip file onto it
in Windows just fine. Popped that disk into the Compaq, ran SETUP.EXE, and up
popped the COMPAQ logo!
All I
needed to do was change the drive type to 3.5", 1.44MB, and I was good to
go! Another stroke of luck is that the CMOS battery is not dead, which is nice
since otherwise I'd need to run SETUP.EXE every time I booted the computer; not
fun at all.
So Step 3 was to finally run OREGON TRAIL, and I stuck the disk in, ran OREGON.EXE, and was greeted by the familiar splash screen.
I did
all that a couple nights ago. Today, I wanted to get a couple more programs,
and figure out a temporary and permanent solution for that crummy keyboard
cable.
In the
short term, I'm using a spare old keyboard we had laying around. I only found
out that the keyboard is removable, though, today - turns out that the plastic
cover is just that. To remove, according to the repair manual I found here all you need to do is "gently" pull on the
connector. Right - I braced myself against the computer and literally YANKED,
and finally it came out. Plugged in the alternate keyboard and it worked
perfectly, no worrying about any sort of layout issues or incompatibility.
I also
got a port of Battlezone, the classic 1980 Atari vector graphics tank shooter.
It looks awesome on this display, and while I am not very good at it, it's
pretty fun to play.
One odd thing is that since this was a PC booter game, there is really no exit. You need to reboot or (Ctrl+Alt+Del) to get back into DOS! (Booter games were so named because you popped in the disk and the computer automatically booted into the game, not into your OS. This meant that to get back to DOS, you needed to literally reboot the computer with the DOS disk in the drive.) Another thing I knew I'd want is a word-processor. I looked into WordStar 4 and MS Word 5.1, both of which are easily found online, but I checked on the hard drive and saw that WordPerfect 5.1 was already installed! Why bother with other ones if I've already got one? Sweet! Similarly, I will use Lotus 1-2-3 for all my spreadsheeting needs - I've even got a reference manual for it which I picked up from the Vintage Computer Festival Midwest 10 (link goes to my photo album). The big project last night was getting that bag cleaned up. I used leather lotion to get the thing looking nice again, and apart from accidentally turning the inside logo a bit yellow, the bag cleaned up quite nicely compared to what it was. Overall, given that the thing works fine, nothing's smoking at all, and the floppy drive works well too, I'm an EXTREMELY happy camper. This computer is so much FUN to use!! Between the so-bad-it's-good PC speaker to the behemoth hum of the startup sequence, and of course this clear and bright ORANGE screen, the Compaq Portable III is a real sight to behold. Considering it cost the equivalent of $12,000 today (2016, original price $5,799 in 1987), you certainly got what you paid for. 29 years later, the Portable III is going strong! Upcoming is a cable replacement for the keyboard; I've got a 6-ft coiled DIN extension cable in the mail. Stay tuned!
Stay COOL!
Vikram
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| The original picture I received of the computer |
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| The computer as I received it - note the pieces of rubber fallen off of the keyboard cord |
- Compaq Portable III
- running MS-DOS 6.0
- 12 MHz Intel 80286 processor with 287 math coprocessor
- 640KB RAM
- 40MB Hard Drive
- monochrome gas-plasma display (orange)
- [full specs here - from setup's INSPECT utility]
So Step 3 was to finally run OREGON TRAIL, and I stuck the disk in, ran OREGON.EXE, and was greeted by the familiar splash screen.
 |
| The computer sitting on my computer desk, with alternate keyboard attached |
One odd thing is that since this was a PC booter game, there is really no exit. You need to reboot or (Ctrl+Alt+Del) to get back into DOS! (Booter games were so named because you popped in the disk and the computer automatically booted into the game, not into your OS. This meant that to get back to DOS, you needed to literally reboot the computer with the DOS disk in the drive.) Another thing I knew I'd want is a word-processor. I looked into WordStar 4 and MS Word 5.1, both of which are easily found online, but I checked on the hard drive and saw that WordPerfect 5.1 was already installed! Why bother with other ones if I've already got one? Sweet! Similarly, I will use Lotus 1-2-3 for all my spreadsheeting needs - I've even got a reference manual for it which I picked up from the Vintage Computer Festival Midwest 10 (link goes to my photo album). The big project last night was getting that bag cleaned up. I used leather lotion to get the thing looking nice again, and apart from accidentally turning the inside logo a bit yellow, the bag cleaned up quite nicely compared to what it was. Overall, given that the thing works fine, nothing's smoking at all, and the floppy drive works well too, I'm an EXTREMELY happy camper. This computer is so much FUN to use!! Between the so-bad-it's-good PC speaker to the behemoth hum of the startup sequence, and of course this clear and bright ORANGE screen, the Compaq Portable III is a real sight to behold. Considering it cost the equivalent of $12,000 today (2016, original price $5,799 in 1987), you certainly got what you paid for. 29 years later, the Portable III is going strong! Upcoming is a cable replacement for the keyboard; I've got a 6-ft coiled DIN extension cable in the mail. Stay tuned!
Stay COOL!
Vikram
3.16.2016
Some Real Cool Stuff: HP Electronic Equipment
Hi everyone!
Today a friend and I explored the Ceramics Building basement here at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and found a room containing a bunch of test equipment and assorted other things (film projectors, a 1970s thermal camera,...). Among those things were some HP devices, which I took pictures of.
Before they were a huge manufacturer of printers and computers, they made the world's best scientific programmable calculators - but before that, in the 1940s, HP made their name making electronics test equipment, such as the devices here.
Though these pictures were taken on my potato-quality phone camera, hopefully you enjoy them!
Today a friend and I explored the Ceramics Building basement here at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and found a room containing a bunch of test equipment and assorted other things (film projectors, a 1970s thermal camera,...). Among those things were some HP devices, which I took pictures of.
Before they were a huge manufacturer of printers and computers, they made the world's best scientific programmable calculators - but before that, in the 1940s, HP made their name making electronics test equipment, such as the devices here.
Though these pictures were taken on my potato-quality phone camera, hopefully you enjoy them!
2.15.2016
Useful Websites/Online Tools
Hello everyone!
Thinking of taking this blog in a slightly different direction; spent a while talking about typewriters, and feel like I may have run out of material to talk about, barring when I get a new one.
So I'd like to begin writing about stuff that I really use all the time, useful things that I've picked up along the way through school and internships (and eventually my job).
Anyway...
Here I'd like to talk about a few online tools that I use often.
Best one here - http://incompetech.com/graphpaper
I have been using this site for a long time, at least since junior high (~2007). There are generators for nearly every kind of graph paper you could ever want/need, and customization options galore. Every parameter, from the number of squares per inch to the margins, is adjustable, and you have options ranging from traditional graph paper to guitar tab paper and Cornell system note taking paper, among MANY others. Check it out!
PDF operations - https://www.konwerter.net/
This is a great website for converting to and from PDFs, and doing all sorts of operations (merge, divide into images, etc). The only thing that it doesn't do is allow you to rearrange pages - I use https://www.sejda.com/visually-combine-reorder-pdf for that.
For the MATLAB users out there: http://octave-online.net/
This is an online environment that allows you to run MATLAB commands in a browser! I haven't really used it for heavy programming or anything, but for quick x = A\b stuff it's excellent. (GNU Octave is an open-source alternative to MATLAB, available for Windows, Linux, BSD, and Mac) and its goal is to be 100% compatible, but for the most part I haven't had luck with running anything but quick and simple scripts, as many libraries (e.g. syms) have not been implemented yet and as such severely limit Octave's utility.)
That's all for now!
Thinking of taking this blog in a slightly different direction; spent a while talking about typewriters, and feel like I may have run out of material to talk about, barring when I get a new one.
So I'd like to begin writing about stuff that I really use all the time, useful things that I've picked up along the way through school and internships (and eventually my job).
Anyway...
Here I'd like to talk about a few online tools that I use often.
Best one here - http://incompetech.com/graphpaper
I have been using this site for a long time, at least since junior high (~2007). There are generators for nearly every kind of graph paper you could ever want/need, and customization options galore. Every parameter, from the number of squares per inch to the margins, is adjustable, and you have options ranging from traditional graph paper to guitar tab paper and Cornell system note taking paper, among MANY others. Check it out!
PDF operations - https://www.konwerter.net/
This is a great website for converting to and from PDFs, and doing all sorts of operations (merge, divide into images, etc). The only thing that it doesn't do is allow you to rearrange pages - I use https://www.sejda.com/visually-combine-reorder-pdf for that.
For the MATLAB users out there: http://octave-online.net/
This is an online environment that allows you to run MATLAB commands in a browser! I haven't really used it for heavy programming or anything, but for quick x = A\b stuff it's excellent. (GNU Octave is an open-source alternative to MATLAB, available for Windows, Linux, BSD, and Mac) and its goal is to be 100% compatible, but for the most part I haven't had luck with running anything but quick and simple scripts, as many libraries (e.g. syms) have not been implemented yet and as such severely limit Octave's utility.)
That's all for now!
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