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off-grid - battery & winter 12V-generator?

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  off-grid - battery & winter 12V-generator? Richard Smith <null@void.com> - 2026-07-30 13:11 +0100
    Re: off-grid - battery & winter 12V-generator? Carl <carl.ijamesXX@YYverizon.net> - 2026-07-30 10:25 -0400
      Re: off-grid - battery & winter 12V-generator? "Jim Wilkins" <muratlanne@gmail.com> - 2026-07-30 14:37 -0400
        Re: off-grid - battery & winter 12V-generator? Carl <carl.ijamesXX@YYverizon.net> - 2026-07-30 16:17 -0400
          Re: off-grid - battery & winter 12V-generator? Richard Smith <null@void.com> - 2026-07-30 21:33 +0100
            Re: off-grid - battery & winter 12V-generator? "Jim Wilkins" <muratlanne@gmail.com> - 2026-07-30 19:12 -0400
      Re: off-grid - battery & winter 12V-generator? "Jim Wilkins" <muratlanne@gmail.com> - 2026-07-30 15:22 -0400
    Re: off-grid - battery & winter 12V-generator? bp@www.zefox.net - 2026-07-30 15:45 +0000
    Re: off-grid - battery & winter 12V-generator? "Jim Wilkins" <muratlanne@gmail.com> - 2026-07-30 13:56 -0400
      Re: off-grid - battery & winter 12V-generator? Richard Smith <null@void.com> - 2026-07-30 21:49 +0100
        Re: off-grid - battery & winter 12V-generator? "Jim Wilkins" <muratlanne@gmail.com> - 2026-07-31 08:23 -0400
      Re: off-grid - battery & winter 12V-generator? "Jim Wilkins" <muratlanne@gmail.com> - 2026-07-30 22:47 -0400
    Re: off-grid - battery & winter 12V-generator? Bob La Londe <none@none.com99> - 2026-07-31 11:27 -0700
      Re: off-grid - battery & winter 12V-generator? "Jim Wilkins" <muratlanne@gmail.com> - 2026-07-31 16:00 -0400
        Re: off-grid - battery & winter 12V-generator? Bob La Londe <none@none.com99> - 2026-07-31 16:30 -0700
          Re: off-grid - battery & winter 12V-generator? Clare Snyder <clare@snyder.on.ca> - 2026-07-31 22:23 -0400
          Re: off-grid - battery & winter 12V-generator? "Jim Wilkins" <muratlanne@gmail.com> - 2026-07-31 22:46 -0400
            Re: off-grid - battery & winter 12V-generator? "Jim Wilkins" <muratlanne@gmail.com> - 2026-08-01 09:14 -0400
            Re: off-grid - battery & winter 12V-generator? Bob La Londe <none@none.com99> - 2026-08-01 11:18 -0700
              Re: off-grid - battery & winter 12V-generator? "Jim Wilkins" <muratlanne@gmail.com> - 2026-08-01 16:07 -0400
              Re: off-grid - battery & winter 12V-generator? "Jim Wilkins" <muratlanne@gmail.com> - 2026-08-02 21:45 -0400
              Re: off-grid - battery & winter 12V-generator? Richard Smith <null@void.com> - 2026-08-03 21:13 +0100
                Re: off-grid - battery & winter 12V-generator? Bob La Londe <none@none.com99> - 2026-08-03 14:03 -0700
                  Re: off-grid - battery & winter 12V-generator? Richard Smith <null@void.com> - 2026-08-04 13:10 +0100
                    Re: off-grid - battery & winter 12V-generator? "Jim Wilkins" <muratlanne@gmail.com> - 2026-08-04 10:04 -0400
                    Re: off-grid - battery & winter 12V-generator? Bob La Londe <none@none.com99> - 2026-08-04 13:08 -0700
                      Re: off-grid - battery & winter 12V-generator? "Jim Wilkins" <muratlanne@gmail.com> - 2026-08-04 18:24 -0400
                        Re: off-grid - battery & winter 12V-generator? Bob La Londe <none@none.com99> - 2026-08-04 15:47 -0700
                      Re: off-grid - battery & winter 12V-generator? Bob La Londe <none@none.com99> - 2026-08-04 16:16 -0700
                        Re: off-grid - battery & winter 12V-generator? Bob La Londe <none@none.com99> - 2026-08-04 16:30 -0700
                        Re: off-grid - battery & winter 12V-generator? David Billington <djb@invalid.com> - 2026-08-05 00:35 +0100
                          Re: off-grid - battery & winter 12V-generator? "Jim Wilkins" <muratlanne@gmail.com> - 2026-08-04 23:02 -0400
                            Re: off-grid - battery & winter 12V-generator? Richard Smith <null@void.com> - 2026-08-05 09:13 +0100
                              Re: off-grid - battery & winter 12V-generator? "Jim Wilkins" <muratlanne@gmail.com> - 2026-08-05 09:32 -0400
                              Re: off-grid - battery & winter 12V-generator? "Jim Wilkins" <muratlanne@gmail.com> - 2026-08-05 10:06 -0400
                              Re: off-grid - battery & winter 12V-generator? "Jim Wilkins" <muratlanne@gmail.com> - 2026-08-05 21:33 -0400
                                Re: off-grid - battery & winter 12V-generator? Richard Smith <null@void.com> - 2026-08-06 05:34 +0100
                                  Re: off-grid - battery & winter 12V-generator? "Jim Wilkins" <muratlanne@gmail.com> - 2026-08-06 09:39 -0400
                Re: off-grid - battery & winter 12V-generator? "Jim Wilkins" <muratlanne@gmail.com> - 2026-08-03 18:23 -0400
      Re: off-grid - battery & winter 12V-generator? Richard Smith <null@void.com> - 2026-08-03 19:47 +0100
        Re: off-grid - battery & winter 12V-generator? "Jim Wilkins" <muratlanne@gmail.com> - 2026-08-03 16:10 -0400

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#543595

"Bob La Londe"  wrote in message news:114ld8t$3kfuv$1@dont-email.me...

The very last actual computer program I ever wrote was a Quick Basic
(4.5) executable running under PCDOS 7.0.  Due to a partial Y2K bug and
dead cmos battery I called it in my autoexec to bring up a menu to set
time and date upon boot up.  I used that computer until the end of 2016
for remote programming some older lines of alarm panels.  In 2017 I gave
it to the company that purchased my alarm accounts.
Bob La Londe
CNC Molds N Stuff
--------------------------------
I used QB for a program that communicates with my APC1400 UPS, on a 
non-standard serial port cable. Since it talks by COM instead of LPT the 
.exe can run under Windows, monitoring load power and remaining battery 
capacity. One port pin has battery 24VDC on it which may be intended as an 
input for production line testing without installing batteries.

Another QB program reads the data port of PC-connected multimeters. Some 
transmit ASCII, others the LCD bar patterns of the numbers which is simple 
to decode with a Select Case structure. There are programs available to read 
them and record the data but none I've found can send an output command 
triggered by a reading, a control loop.

The trickiest one I which wrote when I was on dial-up parsed the modem log 
for the amount of data transmitted on a connection it hadn't seen before and 
kept track of the monthly total. It was an exercise in the analysis and 
handling of complex, variable conditions more than programming.

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#543598

Bob La Londe <none@none.com99> writes:

>>... 
>
> The very last actual computer program I ever wrote was a Quick Basic
> (4.5) executable running under PCDOS 7.0.  Due to a partial Y2K bug
> and dead cmos battery I called it in my autoexec to bring up a menu to
> set time and date upon boot up.  I used that computer until the end of
> 2016 for remote programming some older lines of alarm panels.  In 2017
> I gave it to the company that purchased my alarm accounts.

Digression, but - I used Quick Basic for my first attempts at
programming back in 1996 - so 30 years ago.
I could have used the "built-in" BASIC within "MSWindows" then for what
I was doing, but well - whatever.
I got a first result showing my algorithm did work as a computational
solution.
I realised things got really serious if you were to make the solution
3-Dimensional - one "serious" being that a 3-Dimensional takes the cube
of the amount of memory for my first 1-Dimensional solution (there were
almost no 3-Dimensional solutions around then 30 years ago (?)).

I was pitched into supercomputing at that juncture.
My world became "unix" ("Linux"), programmed in "C".
Within a very few months the academics in the Department of Mathematics
and Computer Science where talking with some amazement at each other as
they absorbed what I had discovered or deduced myself - which they
considered what only an expert could comprehend.
Another "conversation" was a young lady who was a post-doctoral
researcher, who paused for a long time after looking through my code -
then picked-up on the "pointers" I had used - per possibilities I had
read-of in the couple of books I had on programming in "C" (including
Kernighan and Ritchie's "the" book).  Where it turns out I had done about
the same as a trainee pilot who had learned about the necessity of
flying low, and the necessity of flying fast, and had just returned from
a first solo training flight in less than half the time it was supposed to take,
with a thin haze of smoke coming off the aircraft and leaves and twigs
jammed in bits of the aeroplane, where they were deducing that the pupil
on an early solo flight had just flown at Mach 2 at treetop height (which
would if so leave them handling "PR" issues like windows broken by the
supersonic boom at just over head height, cows needing psychotherapy,
etc.).
Happy days... :-)

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#543599

On 8/3/2026 1:13 PM, Richard Smith wrote:
> Bob La Londe <none@none.com99> writes:
> 
>>> ...
>>
>> The very last actual computer program I ever wrote was a Quick Basic
>> (4.5) executable running under PCDOS 7.0.  Due to a partial Y2K bug
>> and dead cmos battery I called it in my autoexec to bring up a menu to
>> set time and date upon boot up.  I used that computer until the end of
>> 2016 for remote programming some older lines of alarm panels.  In 2017
>> I gave it to the company that purchased my alarm accounts.
> 
> Digression, but - I used Quick Basic for my first attempts at
> programming back in 1996 - so 30 years ago.
> I could have used the "built-in" BASIC within "MSWindows" then for what
> I was doing, but well - whatever.
> I got a first result showing my algorithm did work as a computational
> solution.
> I realised things got really serious if you were to make the solution
> 3-Dimensional - one "serious" being that a 3-Dimensional takes the cube
> of the amount of memory for my first 1-Dimensional solution (there were
> almost no 3-Dimensional solutions around then 30 years ago (?)).
> 
> I was pitched into supercomputing at that juncture.
> My world became "unix" ("Linux"), programmed in "C".
> Within a very few months the academics in the Department of Mathematics
> and Computer Science where talking with some amazement at each other as
> they absorbed what I had discovered or deduced myself - which they
> considered what only an expert could comprehend.
> Another "conversation" was a young lady who was a post-doctoral
> researcher, who paused for a long time after looking through my code -
> then picked-up on the "pointers" I had used - per possibilities I had
> read-of in the couple of books I had on programming in "C" (including
> Kernighan and Ritchie's "the" book).  Where it turns out I had done about
> the same as a trainee pilot who had learned about the necessity of
> flying low, and the necessity of flying fast, and had just returned from
> a first solo training flight in less than half the time it was supposed to take,
> with a thin haze of smoke coming off the aircraft and leaves and twigs
> jammed in bits of the aeroplane, where they were deducing that the pupil
> on an early solo flight had just flown at Mach 2 at treetop height (which
> would if so leave them handling "PR" issues like windows broken by the
> supersonic boom at just over head height, cows needing psychotherapy,
> etc.).
> Happy days... :-)

I used Quick basic a little earlier than that.  I was struggling with 
Algebra with irrational solutions in college, so I wrote some program to 
calculate graphs and data points to help me get close.  It was so fast I 
had to add a time delay for visual affect before I showed it to my 
Algebra professor.  Brilliant guy.  From that he learned QB and started 
using it for generating fern graphics.  (a fractal set)  I showed him 
how much faster C+ was and he rewrote it in C+ and started writing his 
own graphic libraries to go with it, because he didn't get all the 
libraries with his copy of C+.  I never really figured out how to write 
the answer as a complete expression, but I learned how to calculate it 
close enough to a gazillion decimal places.

A little after (or maybe it was before, well around that time) my 
Geology professor was showing off his basic interpretor executing a 
groundwater saturation study he was working on and proud of how much 
faster the new 386 he had for his department was executing the program 
than the older XTs or even the 286.  He was really proud of the fact 
that it only took a few days to run.  I showed him how to use an editor 
to semi automatically convert it into Quick basic compatible code and 
compile.  The next model ran in a couple hours.

One of my part time jobs back then was working as a lab tech in the 
computer lab.  Mostly just supervising, but I did spend a fair amount of 
time teaching other people how to code or how to be power users.



-- 
Bob La Londe
CNC Molds N Stuff

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#543602

Bob La Londe <none@none.com99> writes:

> On 8/3/2026 1:13 PM, Richard Smith wrote:
>> Bob La Londe <none@none.com99> writes:
>> 
>>>> ...
>>>
>>> The very last actual computer program I ever wrote was a Quick Basic
>>> (4.5) executable running under PCDOS 7.0.  Due to a partial Y2K bug
>>> and dead cmos battery I called it in my autoexec to bring up a menu to
>>> set time and date upon boot up.  I used that computer until the end of
>>> 2016 for remote programming some older lines of alarm panels.  In 2017
>>> I gave it to the company that purchased my alarm accounts.
>> Digression, but - I used Quick Basic for my first attempts at
>> programming back in 1996 - so 30 years ago.
>> I could have used the "built-in" BASIC within "MSWindows" then for what
>> I was doing, but well - whatever.
>> I got a first result showing my algorithm did work as a computational
>> solution.
>> I realised things got really serious if you were to make the solution
>> 3-Dimensional - one "serious" being that a 3-Dimensional takes the cube
>> of the amount of memory for my first 1-Dimensional solution (there were
>> almost no 3-Dimensional solutions around then 30 years ago (?)).
>> I was pitched into supercomputing at that juncture.
>> My world became "unix" ("Linux"), programmed in "C".
>> Within a very few months the academics in the Department of Mathematics
>> and Computer Science where talking with some amazement at each other as
>> they absorbed what I had discovered or deduced myself - which they
>> considered what only an expert could comprehend.
>> Another "conversation" was a young lady who was a post-doctoral
>> researcher, who paused for a long time after looking through my code -
>> then picked-up on the "pointers" I had used - per possibilities I had
>> read-of in the couple of books I had on programming in "C" (including
>> Kernighan and Ritchie's "the" book).  Where it turns out I had done about
>> the same as a trainee pilot who had learned about the necessity of
>> flying low, and the necessity of flying fast, and had just returned from
>> a first solo training flight in less than half the time it was supposed to take,
>> with a thin haze of smoke coming off the aircraft and leaves and twigs
>> jammed in bits of the aeroplane, where they were deducing that the pupil
>> on an early solo flight had just flown at Mach 2 at treetop height (which
>> would if so leave them handling "PR" issues like windows broken by the
>> supersonic boom at just over head height, cows needing psychotherapy,
>> etc.).
>> Happy days... :-)
>
> I used Quick basic a little earlier than that.  I was struggling with
> Algebra with irrational solutions in college, so I wrote some program
> to calculate graphs and data points to help me get close.  It was so
> fast I had to add a time delay for visual affect before I showed it to
> my Algebra professor.  Brilliant guy.  From that he learned QB and
> started using it for generating fern graphics.  (a fractal set)  I
> showed him how much faster C+ was and he rewrote it in C+ and started
> writing his own graphic libraries to go with it, because he didn't get
> all the libraries with his copy of C+.  I never really figured out how
> to write the answer as a complete expression, but I learned how to
> calculate it close enough to a gazillion decimal places.
>
> A little after (or maybe it was before, well around that time) my
> Geology professor was showing off his basic interpretor executing a
> groundwater saturation study he was working on and proud of how much
> faster the new 386 he had for his department was executing the program
> than the older XTs or even the 286.  He was really proud of the fact
> that it only took a few days to run.  I showed him how to use an
> editor to semi automatically convert it into Quick basic compatible
> code and compile.  The next model ran in a couple hours.
>
> One of my part time jobs back then was working as a lab tech in the
> computer lab.  Mostly just supervising, but I did spend a fair amount
> of time teaching other people how to code or how to be power users.

Speed of computation - he went from interpreted BASIC to compiled
binaries from "QuickBASIC"?

They warn these days that an interpreter running the sparse "script" can
often far better use the computer's hardware that a "clunky" compiled
program in eg. "C".

There is thought that programs like "C" now only belong down in the
operating system or when writing the core of interpreters?
Linus Torvalds of the Linux project says that to this day he delights in
"polishing" code to get optimised fastest run-times for core components
of the operating system.

This nearly three decades ago I realised anything done once like the
"set-up" where the program "comes-alive" - "just" make the program
obvious to follow and forget about run-speed because you do it once.
But when you get into the "working tips" of the program where pieces of
resultant code will be used million(s) of times a second - do optimise
the code for run-speed.  In those parts of the code I made code with no
branching decisions, etc., and made separate "nuggets" of code which
were mostly identical but hard-encoded different circumstances.
[in my code it was different geometric positions / situations]
The compiler's "optimiser" broke at far below the final size of the
program, so I was very glad I wrote it to be "fast as written" - as I
had to set the compiler's optimiser option to zero - don't try to
optimise at all - write binary code exactly as expressed in the program.
That was one of the "amazement" things - that I had come to this level
of perception.

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#543604

"Richard Smith"  wrote in message news:m1jyq6gk7u.fsf@void.com...

> Speed of computation - he went from interpreted BASIC to compiled
> binaries from "QuickBASIC"?

When I was writing an I2C driver in QB I needed to time the data and clock 
bit durations and had an attached oscilloscope to measure them. A compiled 
integer FOR NEXT loop used two clock cycles per pass, 500MHz (2nS) on a 1GHz 
CPU. The To count was a variable I could change. One I/O write to LPT was 
hardware limited to around 1 microsecond, varying between computers. The few 
other instructions I looked at ran impressively fast.

The servo loop to set the count started long and reported how many RTC clock 
ticks had passed, then made a slightly low correction and repeated up or 
down until the I2C bit rate was acceptably close to 100Kbps, or at least I 
could detect a failed connection.  My timing scheme needed patching as CPU 
speeds rapidly rose and fell apart when SpeedStep was introduced.

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#543611

On 8/4/2026 5:10 AM, Richard Smith wrote:
> Bob La Londe <none@none.com99> writes:
> 
>> On 8/3/2026 1:13 PM, Richard Smith wrote:
>>> Bob La Londe <none@none.com99> writes:
>>>
>>>>> ...
>>>>
>>>> The very last actual computer program I ever wrote was a Quick Basic
>>>> (4.5) executable running under PCDOS 7.0.  Due to a partial Y2K bug
>>>> and dead cmos battery I called it in my autoexec to bring up a menu to
>>>> set time and date upon boot up.  I used that computer until the end of
>>>> 2016 for remote programming some older lines of alarm panels.  In 2017
>>>> I gave it to the company that purchased my alarm accounts.
>>> Digression, but - I used Quick Basic for my first attempts at
>>> programming back in 1996 - so 30 years ago.
>>> I could have used the "built-in" BASIC within "MSWindows" then for what
>>> I was doing, but well - whatever.
>>> I got a first result showing my algorithm did work as a computational
>>> solution.
>>> I realised things got really serious if you were to make the solution
>>> 3-Dimensional - one "serious" being that a 3-Dimensional takes the cube
>>> of the amount of memory for my first 1-Dimensional solution (there were
>>> almost no 3-Dimensional solutions around then 30 years ago (?)).
>>> I was pitched into supercomputing at that juncture.
>>> My world became "unix" ("Linux"), programmed in "C".
>>> Within a very few months the academics in the Department of Mathematics
>>> and Computer Science where talking with some amazement at each other as
>>> they absorbed what I had discovered or deduced myself - which they
>>> considered what only an expert could comprehend.
>>> Another "conversation" was a young lady who was a post-doctoral
>>> researcher, who paused for a long time after looking through my code -
>>> then picked-up on the "pointers" I had used - per possibilities I had
>>> read-of in the couple of books I had on programming in "C" (including
>>> Kernighan and Ritchie's "the" book).  Where it turns out I had done about
>>> the same as a trainee pilot who had learned about the necessity of
>>> flying low, and the necessity of flying fast, and had just returned from
>>> a first solo training flight in less than half the time it was supposed to take,
>>> with a thin haze of smoke coming off the aircraft and leaves and twigs
>>> jammed in bits of the aeroplane, where they were deducing that the pupil
>>> on an early solo flight had just flown at Mach 2 at treetop height (which
>>> would if so leave them handling "PR" issues like windows broken by the
>>> supersonic boom at just over head height, cows needing psychotherapy,
>>> etc.).
>>> Happy days... :-)
>>
>> I used Quick basic a little earlier than that.  I was struggling with
>> Algebra with irrational solutions in college, so I wrote some program
>> to calculate graphs and data points to help me get close.  It was so
>> fast I had to add a time delay for visual affect before I showed it to
>> my Algebra professor.  Brilliant guy.  From that he learned QB and
>> started using it for generating fern graphics.  (a fractal set)  I
>> showed him how much faster C+ was and he rewrote it in C+ and started
>> writing his own graphic libraries to go with it, because he didn't get
>> all the libraries with his copy of C+.  I never really figured out how
>> to write the answer as a complete expression, but I learned how to
>> calculate it close enough to a gazillion decimal places.
>>
>> A little after (or maybe it was before, well around that time) my
>> Geology professor was showing off his basic interpretor executing a
>> groundwater saturation study he was working on and proud of how much
>> faster the new 386 he had for his department was executing the program
>> than the older XTs or even the 286.  He was really proud of the fact
>> that it only took a few days to run.  I showed him how to use an
>> editor to semi automatically convert it into Quick basic compatible
>> code and compile.  The next model ran in a couple hours.
>>
>> One of my part time jobs back then was working as a lab tech in the
>> computer lab.  Mostly just supervising, but I did spend a fair amount
>> of time teaching other people how to code or how to be power users.
> 
> Speed of computation - he went from interpreted BASIC to compiled
> binaries from "QuickBASIC"?
> 
> They warn these days that an interpreter running the sparse "script" can
> often far better use the computer's hardware that a "clunky" compiled
> program in eg. "C".
> 

They make those arguments when using a mid level programming language to 
write code for an operating system written in a mid level programming 
language.  You are functionally running through two levels of the same 
libraries of included functions.  I don't know if its still true, but 
Windows used to mostly be written in C, so using C meant there were 
included libraries at multiple levels if you write to run compatibly 
under windows.  I don't know if its truly even valid, but I can see it 
as a case for making the argument.  I haven't written any real code in 
over 20 years, so I would have to test it.  It also of course depends on 
how the code was written.

Computers are so fast now by comparison it probably doesn't matter which 
is faster.

I can literally render multiple machine operations and complex CAD image 
simultaneously on my desktop PC, and its not even the fastest computer I 
own.

As somebody who wrote, basic, C+, QuickBasic, Cobol, and assembler. 
Compiled code was always faster then interpreted code back then.  Of all 
of those assembler created the fastest executable and CHASM (cheap 
assembler) wrote the fastest executable of assemblers I used.  When I 
was learning to write assembler I found machine function calls were much 
faster than OS (DOS) function calls, but not all BIOS were created 
equal.  Sometimes you would make a bios function call and it would trash 
all the registers.  For class work on a deadline I would then switch to 
using the DOS calls because generally they used a different method to 
preserve working parameters.  For fast personal code I would PUSH the 
register values on the stack, and then POP them back after the function. 
  It was still faster than using the DOS function calls, but error 
checking everything took longer to code.

I don't recall which BIOS' or revisions anymore, but I documented more 
than a couple issues like that with different supposedly cross 
compatible BIOS.

So the true answer I suspect is, "it depends."  In this age when an 
operating system source code is a hundred million lines and documenting 
it all across dozens of ever changing programmers it may just be 
"easiest" to trust the OS to handle everything, unless your program 
wrests total control of the machine.


-- 
Bob La Londe
CNC Molds N Stuff

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#543613

"Bob La Londe"  wrote in message news:114tgr5$3rno7$1@dont-email.me...

As somebody who wrote, basic, C+, QuickBasic, Cobol, and assembler.
Compiled code was always faster then interpreted code back then.  Of all
of those assembler created the fastest executable and CHASM (cheap
assembler) wrote the fastest executable of assemblers I used.

--------------------------------------------

I began at the bottom and clawed my way up.

After completing an 8080 training module the company awarded me a CPU, which 
I used to design and wire-wrap a computer with engineering sample memory 
chips and data and address entry switches. They entered a bootstrap loader 
that could read a boot program on Teletype tape, top down so the last write 
jumped to executing it. I found and added an octal keyboard which sped up 
programming hand-assembled code considerably. The 8080 instruction makes 
sense in octal, each digit specifies an accumulator register. At the time 
Radio Shack carried Intel and Motorola processors and peripheral chips.

I coded a simple operating system that could write to and read from first 
the Teletype, then a modem I designed and a cassette recorder. The first 
serious app was a text editor, then an assembler/disassembler function 
within it that documented the code I had hand-written to a printed text 
file.

By then the 8080's lack of relative jumps was becoming a hindrance, 
applications all had to run the the space they were written for. I had 
acquired enough hardware and software experience to set it aside for night 
school that helped me take up testing, engineering and Pascal programming on 
an LSI-11 project.

Rest clipped, I need to stop blabbing and hammer sheet metal for the car.

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#543614

On 8/4/2026 3:24 PM, Jim Wilkins wrote:
> 
> Rest clipped, I need to stop blabbing and hammer sheet metal for the car.


I resemble that remark.

-- 
Bob La Londe
CNC Molds N Stuff

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#543615

On 8/4/2026 1:08 PM, Bob La Londe wrote:

> I don't recall which BIOS' or revisions anymore, but I documented more 
> than a couple issues like that with different supposedly cross 
> compatible BIOS.

I should add when I was taking most of my programming classes at home I 
had a Tandy1400HD (V20 processor) laptop, a generic XT with an 8088 
processor, and an early AT with a 286 processor.   I would typically 
write on the AT, and test my code on all three machines.  I did not have 
a color monitor at the time, but I did have a Hercules color card in the 
XT, and a very simple VGA card in the AT (maybe that was later I 
forget).  In order to keep track of things on screen I would pick random 
color codes for particular types of information or menu items, so the 
brightness would be different on the CRT.

The Tandy had some quirk of its architecture so it would address a 
little more ram than just 640 like a regular XT.

One of my instructors started testing student programs on a 386, that 
had an actual honest to goodness color monitor and he was impressed with 
how I made order of everything on screen by color.  I had completely 
forgotten about using the color codes by then.  Fortunately I picked 
colors at random that didn't look to terrible.

My first programs were written on a Commodore Pet 2001 with a tape 
drive.  Then I started writing basic on a HeathKit H89A with a Z80 
processor if I recall.  My dad built it from a kit.  The most complex 
program I remember writing back then was a strictly text based version 
of Mastermind using numbers instead of colors.  I was in the process of 
writing a similar style blackjack game program when we took a massive 
voltage surge, the surge suppressor behind the air hockey table we were 
using as a computer blew up and flames shot 3-4 feet up the wall.  Sadly 
the Heathkit didn't survive.  I guess when you hit a surge suppressor so 
hard it explodes it doesn't stop the voltage spike.  It was a power 
company mistake in the field.  They paid for a lot of refrigerator 
motors from what I heard, although ours didn't die from it.

In high school I wrote several simple video games starting with a simple 
version of pong using the paddle controllers that came with the Apple 
II(s) we had in the math department. I wrote some basic space invaders 
style games, and I was working on a D&D like texted based game with 
tracked random threats and rewards in each room.  The contents of the 
room or dungeon were random, but then stored for the duration of the 
game stored in a massive array.  I was doing some testing when it a loop 
condition I missed closed and it started doing continuous drive access. 
I was just about to pull the plug out of the wall when smoke poured out 
of the drive.  Yeah I smoked hardware with software.  I'm still not sure 
how I did that because drive access was supposed to be minimal.

An instructor once asked me to write a program to generate a test for 
his algebra class with random computer generated problems on each test 
so they couldn't cheat.  It worked great until he walked over to me with 
a big stack of completed tests and asked for the answer keys.  You know 
he kicked me out of his class 13 different times in one semester.  I 
still got the 'A' I earned though.  LOL.

I did some playing with an HP 9825A the year before, but with a tape 
drive and a one line LED display its was kinda slow and tedious to do 
anything.  Mostly I just played around with it when I was bored with 
playing poker in study hall.

-- 
Bob La Londe
CNC Molds N Stuff

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#543616

On 8/4/2026 4:16 PM, Bob La Londe wrote:
> On 8/4/2026 1:08 PM, Bob La Londe wrote:
> 
>> I don't recall which BIOS' or revisions anymore, but I documented more 
>> than a couple issues like that with different supposedly cross 
>> compatible BIOS.
> 
> I should add when I was taking most of my programming classes at home I 
> had a Tandy1400HD (V20 processor) laptop, a generic XT with an 8088 
> processor, and an early AT with a 286 processor.   I would typically 
> write on the AT, and test my code on all three machines.  I did not have 
> a color monitor at the time, but I did have a Hercules color card in the 
> XT, and a very simple VGA card in the AT (maybe that was later I 
> forget).  In order to keep track of things on screen I would pick random 
> color codes for particular types of information or menu items, so the 
> brightness would be different on the CRT.
> 
> The Tandy had some quirk of its architecture so it would address a 
> little more ram than just 640 like a regular XT.
> 
> One of my instructors started testing student programs on a 386, that 
> had an actual honest to goodness color monitor and he was impressed with 
> how I made order of everything on screen by color.  I had completely 
> forgotten about using the color codes by then.  Fortunately I picked 
> colors at random that didn't look to terrible.
> 
> My first programs were written on a Commodore Pet 2001 with a tape 
> drive.  Then I started writing basic on a HeathKit H89A with a Z80 
> processor if I recall.  My dad built it from a kit.  The most complex 
> program I remember writing back then was a strictly text based version 
> of Mastermind using numbers instead of colors.  I was in the process of 
> writing a similar style blackjack game program when we took a massive 
> voltage surge, the surge suppressor behind the air hockey table we were 
> using as a computer blew up and flames shot 3-4 feet up the wall.  Sadly 
> the Heathkit didn't survive.  I guess when you hit a surge suppressor so 
> hard it explodes it doesn't stop the voltage spike.  It was a power 
> company mistake in the field.  They paid for a lot of refrigerator 
> motors from what I heard, although ours didn't die from it.
> 
> In high school I wrote several simple video games starting with a simple 
> version of pong using the paddle controllers that came with the Apple 
> II(s) we had in the math department. I wrote some basic space invaders 
> style games, and I was working on a D&D like texted based game with 
> tracked random threats and rewards in each room.  The contents of the 
> room or dungeon were random, but then stored for the duration of the 
> game stored in a massive array.  I was doing some testing when it a loop 
> condition I missed closed and it started doing continuous drive access. 
> I was just about to pull the plug out of the wall when smoke poured out 
> of the drive.  Yeah I smoked hardware with software.  I'm still not sure 
> how I did that because drive access was supposed to be minimal.
> 
> An instructor once asked me to write a program to generate a test for 
> his algebra class with random computer generated problems on each test 
> so they couldn't cheat.  It worked great until he walked over to me with 
> a big stack of completed tests and asked for the answer keys.  You know 
> he kicked me out of his class 13 different times in one semester.  I 
> still got the 'A' I earned though.  LOL.
> 
> I did some playing with an HP 9825A the year before, but with a tape 
> drive and a one line LED display its was kinda slow and tedious to do 
> anything.  Mostly I just played around with it when I was bored with 
> playing poker in study hall.
> 

I once ran some outdoor speakers from my stereo on the place I was 
renting so I could listen to music when working on my truck.  I also had 
my computer sound tied to my stereo for gaming.  One night I was playing 
a tank combat game and forgot I had the outdoor speakers turned on.  My 
neighbors called the landlord who sent somebody over to tell me to stop 
bombing the neighborhood.




-- 
Bob La Londe
CNC Molds N Stuff

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#543617

On 05/08/2026 00:16, Bob La Londe wrote:
> On 8/4/2026 1:08 PM, Bob La Londe wrote:
>
>> I don't recall which BIOS' or revisions anymore, but I documented 
>> more than a couple issues like that with different supposedly cross 
>> compatible BIOS.
>
> I should add when I was taking most of my programming classes at home 
> I had a Tandy1400HD (V20 processor) laptop, a generic XT with an 8088 
> processor, and an early AT with a 286 processor.   I would typically 
> write on the AT, and test my code on all three machines.  I did not 
> have a color monitor at the time, but I did have a Hercules color card 
> in the XT, and a very simple VGA card in the AT (maybe that was later 
> I forget).  In order to keep track of things on screen I would pick 
> random color codes for particular types of information or menu items, 
> so the brightness would be different on the CRT.
>
> The Tandy had some quirk of its architecture so it would address a 
> little more ram than just 640 like a regular XT.
>
> One of my instructors started testing student programs on a 386, that 
> had an actual honest to goodness color monitor and he was impressed 
> with how I made order of everything on screen by color. I had 
> completely forgotten about using the color codes by then. Fortunately 
> I picked colors at random that didn't look to terrible.
>
> My first programs were written on a Commodore Pet 2001 with a tape 
> drive.  Then I started writing basic on a HeathKit H89A with a Z80 
> processor if I recall.  My dad built it from a kit.  The most complex 
> program I remember writing back then was a strictly text based version 
> of Mastermind using numbers instead of colors.  I was in the process 
> of writing a similar style blackjack game program when we took a 
> massive voltage surge, the surge suppressor behind the air hockey 
> table we were using as a computer blew up and flames shot 3-4 feet up 
> the wall.  Sadly the Heathkit didn't survive.  I guess when you hit a 
> surge suppressor so hard it explodes it doesn't stop the voltage 
> spike.  It was a power company mistake in the field.  They paid for a 
> lot of refrigerator motors from what I heard, although ours didn't die 
> from it.
>
> In high school I wrote several simple video games starting with a 
> simple version of pong using the paddle controllers that came with the 
> Apple II(s) we had in the math department. I wrote some basic space 
> invaders style games, and I was working on a D&D like texted based 
> game with tracked random threats and rewards in each room.  The 
> contents of the room or dungeon were random, but then stored for the 
> duration of the game stored in a massive array.  I was doing some 
> testing when it a loop condition I missed closed and it started doing 
> continuous drive access. I was just about to pull the plug out of the 
> wall when smoke poured out of the drive. Yeah I smoked hardware with 
> software.  I'm still not sure how I did that because drive access was 
> supposed to be minimal.
>
HCF instruction?


> An instructor once asked me to write a program to generate a test for 
> his algebra class with random computer generated problems on each test 
> so they couldn't cheat.  It worked great until he walked over to me 
> with a big stack of completed tests and asked for the answer keys.  
> You know he kicked me out of his class 13 different times in one 
> semester.  I still got the 'A' I earned though.  LOL.
>
> I did some playing with an HP 9825A the year before, but with a tape 
> drive and a one line LED display its was kinda slow and tedious to do 
> anything.  Mostly I just played around with it when I was bored with 
> playing poker in study hall.
>

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#543618

"David Billington"  wrote in message news:114tt0m$2ia69$1@dont-email.me... 

> HCF instruction?

Halt & Catch Fire? 

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#543619

Reading the "programming experiences" - haven't we developed our own
expertises and acquired what we had to acquire to do our "bench" and
"application" tasks?  I am sorry I've pontificated on about my own very
narrow things.  Perspective is restored - aren't we folk who will learn
anything which makes a path to a goal defined in the physical world?

We had to be very close to the computer hardware more than two decades
ago, because our big ideas and dreams proved bigger than computer memory
availability, etc., when we improvised our way in.

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#543620

"Richard Smith"  wrote in message news:m1mrv13rzj.fsf@void.com...

Reading the "programming experiences" - haven't we developed our own
expertises and acquired what we had to acquire to do our "bench" and
"application" tasks?  I am sorry I've pontificated on about my own very
narrow things.  Perspective is restored - aren't we folk who will learn
anything which makes a path to a goal defined in the physical world?

We had to be very close to the computer hardware more than two decades
ago, because our big ideas and dreams proved bigger than computer memory
availability, etc., when we improvised our way in.

-----------------------------------

For me understanding computer and other new electronic hardware was a way to 
advance after my career as a chemist was cut short, first by the draft 
blocking grad school and then the EPA chasing the industry off-shore. 
Returning to college full-time again was out and seeking an EE degree at 
night while supporting myself proved impractical though I did try. That 
ended when I fell asleep driving home late and woke up with wheels in the 
gravel.

The rapidly evolving computer landscape gave me an opening to be valuable 
and advance by keeping current with new developments. I'd always been a very 
hands-on builder with good near vision and fine motor skills, and noticed 
that technicians did hobby-like bench work generally without annoyances 
while degreed engineers sat and argued in meetings. There was very little 
competent competition for both designing and constructing small projects or 
parts of larger ones sized for one person, especially for handling 
electronic hardware plus software plus mechanical packaging. The job of 
technician is open-ended, Arnold Wilkins contributed as much or more to 
early British radar as Watson-Watt.

When I saw James Bond I knew immediately that I wanted instead to work for 
or become Q, and in Army Basic I actually got to make that choice.

I made a spray can that sprayed when tested and could also contain secret 
passwords etc, a light bulb that stored a hidden key, and folded and 
soldered tin can steel and copper pipe scrap into a candy bar sized box that 
unfolded into a crossbow which shot darts with X-Cube flashbulbs heads that 
flashed on impact.

I could usually solve a problem in a way too simple to patent as a 
commercial product so I kept quiet and was paid to built the solutions 
others had proposed, twice after reducing its complexity and cost by half or 
more. Example are the very simple solar tracker circuit I mentioned, my 
sealing and insulating inserts that double the efficiency of standard 
windows and a sink spray replacing a shower head, which began as a cold 
weather dog washer.

I clean my wood stove chimney weekly from ground level by pulling one cord 
to flip open the rain cap and another to hoist up, swing over and drop in a 
weighted shop-made brush of nylon string trimmer cord, curve up to slide 
down easily when very cold and then dig in upward. The metal chimney rests 
on a shelf with clearance underneath for a tub to contain the soot. My roof 
gutters are on shop-made hangers that leave the top clear for a cleaning 
scoop on a swimming pool extension pole.

AFAIK no one has copied my folding heavy hoisting tripod which is too easily 
made to protect with a patent. I may ask the trade school engineering 
teacher who taught 3D CAD to see if he can analyze the multiple angular 
stresses in the joint. I go by what has deformed and been upgraded. I'd like 
to know if the leg loading vector is close enough to centered axially to 
justify k=1 in a column strength formula, which gives a high capacity with 
common light weight material.

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#543621

"Richard Smith"  wrote in message news:m1mrv13rzj.fsf@void.com...

We had to be very close to the computer hardware more than two decades
ago, because our big ideas and dreams proved bigger than computer memory
availability, etc., when we improvised our way in.
------------------------

This and Son Of are treasure chests of clever ways to usefully misapply 
electronics.
https://archive.org/details/Cheap_Video_Cookbook_Don_Lancaster

Engineers learn the theoretically ideal properties of components and then 
are bitten by all the real world deviations. An early antilock brake project 
failed for that reason. I made a point of learning them, such as capacitor 
self resonance frequency and dielectric absorption, op amp bias and offset 
current, switch and circuit breaker contact rating, etc.

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#543622

"Richard Smith"  wrote in message news:m1mrv13rzj.fsf@void.com...

We had to be very close to the computer hardware more than two decades
ago, because our big ideas and dreams proved bigger than computer memory
availability, etc., when we improvised our way in.

-----------------------------------
The company where I worked in the 80's built production line testers for the 
memory and other IC manufacturers. They had the problem of creating a test 
pattern that was to be written and read back as fast as possible in memory 
smaller and perhaps slower than the newest product it was testing.

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#543623

I believe I recognise the core of these things you try to portray.

I gather there was some of ingenuity in the British defence industry as
it was being benevolently managed by the Government through the 1960's
and 1970's ish.  Someone with a Trade background running a facility
described maintaining a small "free-standing" workshop offline to the
production, where if one of the "boffins" turned-up with an idea, that
"boffin" could try to make it, mentored by technicians, getting all the
wisdom, and "see where it went".

Best wishes

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#543624

"Richard Smith"  wrote in message news:m1ik5nq33k.fsf@void.com...

I believe I recognise the core of these things you try to portray.

I gather there was some of ingenuity in the British defence industry as
it was being benevolently managed by the Government through the 1960's
and 1970's ish.  Someone with a Trade background running a facility
described maintaining a small "free-standing" workshop offline to the
production, where if one of the "boffins" turned-up with an idea, that
"boffin" could try to make it, mentored by technicians, getting all the
wisdom, and "see where it went".

Best wishes
---------------------------
In the US that would be a toolroom or model shop. In my experience the 
primary machine tool was a Bridgeport or clone, doubling as the drill press, 
a lathe was optional. For newer machinery the rotating wear parts a lathe 
can make usually could be bought. For making my own designs from scratch at 
home that's reversed.

The instructor for the ham radio course at Mitre was a retired British radar 
boffin / wizard who was still actively experimenting and building exotic 
hardware. Some of it looked like musical instruments because microwave band 
wavelengths are similar to those of sound, and brass is sufficiently 
conductive and convenient to work with.

Usually the Ph.D gave me a sketch and the data sheets of the critical parts 
he had ordered, then left me alone to implement it. I suspect they didn't 
want to embarrass themselves by revealing they didn't know the practical 
details or methods, I also resoldered stuff their kids had broken. By being 
able to do the mechanical fabrication as well, sheet metal enclosures and 
milled microwave or optical housings, I avoided the inevitable disagreements 
and delays of depending on another tech or shop.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/manufacturing-vs-design-which-really-harder-i0b7e
"Plans rarely survive first contact with the production floor."
"Design often sees manufacturing only when something explodes"

The auto exec Ph.D from India whose antilock brake controller failed to pass 
specifications didn't know that available resistors have tolerances, he 
expected 8 digit precision of the 2nd order wheel deceleration curve and its 
detection.

The mechanical engineers at Segway were much more hands-on, I often had to 
use their manual or my own machine tools because the CNC machines were busy.

The old car I'm fixing suffers from shortcuts that let water enter and 
collect where it shouldn't. For instance a moderate buildup of tree debris 
in the cowl will let water flood over the low cabin air intake lip and pool 
on the passenger floor. The cowl end drains allowed water and debris to 
enter the areas that rusted. Cleaning the cowl channel meant breaking some 
of the snap-in plastic retainers the dealer charges several $ apiece for. 
They are now all stainless screws and U clips. The push clips are tolerable 
to install and remove if stainless screws replace the plastic expansion 
pins.

I attend classic car shows to learn how others made repairs. Too often I 
learn they were skilled at writing big checks.

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#543600

"Richard Smith"  wrote in message news:m1bjbjdktt.fsf@void.com...

Where it turns out I had done about
the same as a trainee pilot who had learned about the necessity of
flying low, and the necessity of flying fast, and had just returned from
a first solo training flight in less than half the time it was supposed to 
take,
with a thin haze of smoke coming off the aircraft and leaves and twigs
jammed in bits of the aeroplane, where they were deducing that the pupil
on an early solo flight had just flown at Mach 2 at treetop height (which
would if so leave them handling "PR" issues like windows broken by the
supersonic boom at just over head height, cows needing psychotherapy,
etc.).
Happy days... :-)

---------------------------------
The reward may be like mine, doing engineer work for technician pay.

Yeager wrote about flying low enough to leave propeller tip marks in a dirt 
road as a cadet. Pacific ace Richard Bong got in trouble for flying through 
San Francisco at second (your first) floor level.
A mast height B-25 bomber skipping bombs across the waves into the side of a 
ship near New Guinea returned with part of the ship's log book stuck in the 
radial engine. A B-17 flying low enough for the belly turret gunner to shoot 
into a beach bunker sanded the paint off the tail on pullout. A B-24 on sea 
patrol near Indonesia relieved the boredom by flying between rows of 
Japanese barracks with waist guns blazing.
The Fifth Air Force in New Guinea perfected attacking with medium bombers, 
locally stuffed with up to a dozen extra .50 machine guns, flying at coconut 
tree top height to approach and surprise radar-less Japanese air bases. Once 
the bullet spray had chased the defenders into trenches they dropped 
parachute-retarded frag bombs that shredded planes and supplies which 
couldn't be buried in the wet ground of the only level areas.
http://pwencycl.kgbudge.com/P/a/Parafrag_Bombs.htm
I have what may be one of their small parachutes. My father and uncle were 
CO and top sergeant of an ordnance company there.

https://theaviationgeekclub.com/story-behind-famed-sr-71-blackbird-super-low-knife-edge-pass/

Because of air density the speed record at low level isn't too much over 
Mach 1, around 1000 MPH. John Paul Stapp nearly equaled it on his rocket 
sled.

I got all of that stupid cadet stuff out of my system in a simulator. I 
don't have the reflexes to fly low down the Grand Canyon or through New York 
or Chicago.

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#543596

Bob La Londe <none@none.com99> writes:

> On 7/30/2026 5:11 AM, Richard Smith wrote:
>> Somethign you folk from North America will be familiar with.
>> There is a 12V light, fridge and occasional inverter to
>> mains-voltage
>> system with 12V "leisure" lead-acid battery and photovoltaic (PV)
>> charger and charge-regulator.
>> For winter when our days are short and sun not bright - would it be
>> an
>> efficient solution to have a small gasoline engine running a 12V
>> generator eg. from a car?
>> Would be efficient to have a small engine which runs full-power for a
>> shortish time - something like an hour? - then stops.
>> Smallest Honda "GX" engine is 100cc.
>> Small engine+12V-generator & battery is much more fuel-efficient than
>> running a generator supplying power on-demand?
>> Tempting thought is - that would happen when it is dark and *cold* -
>> therefore if you coudl recover the waste heat of the generator engine it
>> would be welcomed.
>> I have no knowledge of this - anyone want to get this going?
>> Regards,
>> Rich Smith
>
> Just bear in mind solar tends to be less efficient than you might
> think.   I ran that gamut some years back setting up burglar alarm
> systems models here there was no power, and in un-powered warehouses.
> I found that if I didn't plan for 4 times the estimated max demand I
> was getting constant low battery communication from the cellular
> communicators. This is in SW Arizona where arguably it is among the
> best locations in the world for solar power.

Thanks for that "word to the wise"...

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