1237c9439233
tech



Hello Wayne - 

CA>> I have all of the training necessary to build a robot of
CA>> any size I require. The problem now is how to 'sense'
CA>> humans and animals and not crush them. For a robot to be
CA>> of any use it would have to have enough power to do
CA>> serious damage to squishy live things and that is not
CA>> acceptable. Even the government with all of it's money and
CA>> resources has a serious "friend or foe" recognition
CA>> problem. :-\ 

WC> From what I've seen thge government likes to damage squishy
WC> things and collateral damage is acceptable :-( 

Well yes the government does enjoy damaging squishy things but
not the French. If you can get them to tag along they become
very hostile if you squish them before they can surrender. ;-) 

WC> Did you hear about the experimental amusement park ride
WC> based upon a robot with a chair mounted on it eun by
WC> Windows? Industrial robot capable of tons of force and 6
WC> G's of accelleration? Twists and turns on three axis. One
WC> of a kind as it was quite expensive. Do I hear takers for a
WC> ride on that thing? 

I have read that all amusement park rides are one-of-a-kind
custom designs even though ferris wheels and other look much
alike they are different. Carney folk are actually quite well
off now. One family (for instance) will pool their money to
build the larger more elaborate rides. They have their own
towns they 'winter' in and design and build their machinery. 

WC>> BTW, putting my remaining parts together I've managed a
WC>> full featured 486 machine to utilize the existing Win 3.1
WC>> install on the Seagate drive, even has 1650 H.S. UARTS. 

CA>> You dropped a "5" there and left off the "A". 16550A 

WC> Mot a happy camper just now, red tide standing off the gulf
WC> coast. My throats scratchy, eyes watering, ect, 

I don't know what a "red tide" is. 

WC>> Doesn't support ATAPI or over 540 Meg drives but I've the
WC>> original working proprietary ISA Creative sound card -
WC>> CD-ROM combo. It's an older Phoenix BIOS and I know there
WC>> were two subsequent BIOS revisions, whether they can be
WC>> found on the net remains to be seen. 

CA>> I've never been comfortable with "flashing" a bios chip
CA>> and would leave well enough alone if it were me. ;-) 

WC> I doubt it will be an issue as Packard Bell likely no
WC> longer has it on it's support site. But if they did have
WC> the flash I'd have at it. IIRC you just copy an image to
WC> floppy disk, remove a flash ROM jumper and have at it but
WC> I'd read the docs first. 

I've read up on several flash updates for various hardware and
found warnings about using the wrong versions that were buried
in the howtos or even on another webpage from the howtos. It
would be quite easy to totally disable the hardware permanently. 

WC> Be nice to have the BIOS ATAPI complient for the second
WC> primary channel and overcome the 540 Meg. limit. This could
WC> be my Linux test bed as well as a 3.1 machine. 

Rather elaborate Linux installs can fit in tight spaces such as
Peanut or Dragon Linux. 

--8<--cut 

WC>> Oh yeah, the stupid CMOS coin cell battery is in a holder
WC>> but it's soldered to the motherboard and holder is SPOT
WC>> WELDED to the battery, is that stupid or what? 

CA>> Similar to the Compaq DeskPro eh? I'm guessing there were
CA>> too many calls to tech support for batteries that had been
CA>> jostled loose and they decided to 'fix' that problem once
CA>> and for all time? 

WC> I've seen corrosion on the contact point of some poorly
WC> desighed coin cell holders. The cell holder in the H.P. is
WC> pretty well designed. Easy to replace the cell and two
WC> sharp contacts spring into place, they're next to one
WC> another so you fon't need three hands, to hold the cell and
WC> make electrical contact. A small screw driver can push the
WC> positive contacts aside and the cell drops out, press a new
WC> one in place and it just snaps into place. 

All that should be required is to use stainless steel or monel
metal for the battery holder AFAIK. 

>
>        ,                          ,
>      o/      Charles.Angelich      \o       ,
>       __o/
>     / >          USA, MI           < \   __\__
 

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