General Computer Thread

[Santaman]

Well.. if Woz has e-mail...

Messed with some recalcitrant archaic tech.. a Crown SZ-31 walkman, it still works, the belts are still in good shape but play speed was the same as the rewind speed so WAY too fast, amusing though.
couldn't find any damage to the motor or circuit board so I just unscrewed some screws halfway and then screwed everything down again and that did the trick, plays music at the correct speed again.

https://www.petervis.com/walkmans/crown-sz-31/crown-sz-31.html
That's the walkman.

 

[publiusr]

Speaking of that...I remember the old movie EARTHQUAKE with a youg lad who wore a head-phone headset with the radio built into it and two antennas coming out from either headphone.

I don't think that was a prop for the movie. The closest I've seen to that was at a hardware store.

I wonder if any were large enough for something like a walkman--all one piece--no earbobs.

The precision handling device from the moovie FANTASTIC VOYAGE probably was built for the movie--but I wouldn't be surprised if something like it were real--used to assemble small nuclear warheads.

There might be some interesting worm-gears or something an Adam Savage could harvest.

Nice ep of Savage Builds last night too.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Speaking of that...I remember the old movie EARTHQUAKE with a youg lad who wore a head-phone headset with the radio built into it and two antennas coming out from either headphone.

I don't think that was a prop for the movie. The closest I've seen to that was at a hardware store.

I wonder if any were large enough for something like a walkman--all one piece--no earbobs.

The precision handling device from the moovie FANTASTIC VOYAGE probably was built for the movie--but I wouldn't be surprised if something like it were real--used to assemble small nuclear warheads.

There might be some interesting worm-gears or something an Adam Savage could harvest.

Nice ep of Savage Builds last night too.

Those headphone radios used to be sold in Radio Shack, over here called Tandy Electronics a long time ago. It was an AM/FM radio built into the headset with antennas for reception.

Oh yeah that forklift device for Fantastic Voyage. It was a cool prop, but I too wondered if it was an actual thing borrowed for the movie.

 

[Santaman]

Bought upgrade parts for my game machine, after 6 years of gaming I will retire the old FX 8350 and replace it with a Ryzen 2600X, quite a bit faster, quite a lot less hot, uses quite a bit less power as well.

 

[Owain Taggart]

I don't think that was a prop for the movie. The closest I've seen to that was at a hardware store.

Yeah, probably hearing protectors with built-in receivers. I bought my Dad one several years ago for Christmas. Nowadays they make models with that you can pair with bluetooth.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Found it.
https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/radioshack_realistic_headphone_radio_12_186.html

 

[publiusr]

The one from the movie had antenna stalks from each earpiece.
Very Martian-like

I think the kid was Josh Albee.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

The one from the movie had antenna stalks from each earpiece.
Very Martian-like

I think the kid was Josh Albee.

Yeah that prop was also used in The Towering Inferno.. A kid there had one too. They were commercially available at the time in many brands.

Here's some trivia from Fantastic Voyage

https://www.moviemistakes.com/film456

 

[Santaman]

Received the final parts of my new gaming rig.
Asus mainboard TUF thingy, B450 chipset
Ryzen 2600X which was DIRT cheap since the new ones are out the older generation is becomming cheap very fast.
16Gb RAM Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4
Arctic cooling Freezer 34 cooler with it an Akasa PWM splitter because the cooler has two fans.

Old parts:
Antec P-183 casing 5 fans, 2 intake +2 exhaust in the upper chamber +1 fan in the PSU/HDD chamber
BeQuit! Powerzone 750 PSU, pretty useful that it has fan headers, it can operate three fans which will speed up when the PSU is really asked to work/heats up.
GTX 1060 3GB Asus thingy with fan stop and overclock.
1x 12 GB SSD (OS) 1x 256 GB SSD (game drive.)

Despite not officially supported I will run Windows 8.1 on it with Zeffy's patch https://github.com/zeffy/wufuc/releases/tag/v1.0.1.201
If this doesn't work then I'll either have to use M$ Spyware 10 or go Linux all the way..

I of course didn't throw away the FX 8350, it will go into storage, it has a magnificent mainboard an Asus Sabertooth FX 990 V2.0

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

I had an old Antec Sonata 3 and that thing was heavy.

 

[Amaris]

Bought upgrade parts for my game machine, after 6 years of gaming I will retire the old FX 8350 and replace it with a Ryzen 2600X, quite a bit faster, quite a lot less hot, uses quite a bit less power as well.

Yep. I have my FX-6300 and all of the parts ready to be put together but my niece and nephew want to help, and I'm secretly hoping I get either one or both of them into computers beyond just using them. I want them to have an understanding, and an appreciation for technology. Then I'm going to let them decide where we should donate it, because I want them to appreciate the act of giving, too. They're great kids. ♥

 

[Santaman]

Learning kids how to use/build computers is a great idea.

Messing with the new machine, in any case Zeffy's patch does seem to work.

Oh and Mint 19.2 "Tina" is out.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

I am still rocking an FX 6300 and Radeon R9 380 with 4gig so far it runs most things well. Why change?

 

[Santaman]

The FX 8350 is about 6-7 years old, hardware doesn't last forever, it has been a game machine so it has been running hard a lot, I usually use a machine as main/game machine for about 5-7 years, after that I replace it.

 

[publiusr]

Some good news in terms of controls--not everything is going touch screen.
www.nextbigfuture.com/2019/08/old-star-trek-was-right-as-us-navy-returns-to-manual-switches.html

 

[Santaman]

flicking a switch is better than tapping around on a sometimes non responsive touch screen...

 

[publiusr]

That's another thing. Touch screens seem to think I don't exist.

At this giveaway at a car lot--there was a touch screen. No matter how I tapped--however heavy or light, fast or slow--the thing wouldn't react.

When someone else tapped it--it worked.

Not just there. Breaker boxes seem to respond to others better.

Same with lockers.

I had the damn combination--and it still wouldn't open.

But a stranger down the hall? First try.

I must have been a Waffen SS man in another life for this crap to keep happening to me.

 

[Santaman]

At times my neanderthal tablet just doesn't like to react to anything, have to tap it a dozen time before it does something, reboots don't work etc etc, a day later it works peachy again..

 

[Santaman]

Been running the Ryzen 5 on Windows 8.1 with the patch, it works, it is really fast but it is also glitchy, stupid bunch of [insert many insults] @ $pycro$oft, wished they wouldn't have been such a bunch of [insert more insults] and allowed Ryzen machines to run on 7 and 8/8.1 as well.

Seems I will have to install 10.. so that means finding a way to sabotage as much "telemetry" as possible and find a functioning desktop UI.. meh..

 

[Amaris]

Been running the Ryzen 5 on Windows 8.1 with the patch, it works, it is really fast but it is also glitchy, stupid bunch of [insert many insults] @ $pycro$oft, wished they wouldn't have been such a bunch of [insert more insults] and allowed Ryzen machines to run on 7 and 8/8.1 as well.

Seems I will have to install 10.. so that means finding a way to sabotage as much "telemetry" as possible and find a functioning desktop UI.. meh..

It’s frustrating. I get angry with Microsoft, but since it works with everything I have, I need to stick with it. At the same time, it’s a spy that reports everything to the home office. I have disabled most of the telemetry, but still have to pay close attention because after every update something has been switched back on.