-=> ROY J. TELLASON wrote to WAYNE CHIRNSIDE <=-

 WC> Not turning the machine off at all tends to shorten the lifetime
 WC> of those soldered in NiCad cells in my experience.

 RJT> It was leaky when I pulled the board out of the pile and built the
 RJT> machine in the first place.  That was back in oh,  October or
 RJT> thereabouts,  and I've been meaning to get back into it ever since.

Thought of that spooks me, all that electrolyte around
a multilayer circuit board.
I snipped mine off the M.B. on my other machine first sign
of trouble and wire wrapped to the terminals an external battery.

 WC> Stupid 72 pin SIMM socket and RAM in this 486 don't seem to seat
 WC> perfectly so every now and than an unpredictable amount of RAM
 WC> doesn't register or disappears in operation crashing Netscape or
 WC> another application.

 RJT> Plastic or metal clips?  Those might be the problem,  perhaps?

Well it's tin on tin with the the frame of the socket plastic,
plastic alignment tabs but with metal clips that snap shut when
the SIMM's seated.

 WC> I've cleaned the socket and RAM, reseated the RAM, tightened the
 WC> locking clips which held for a while but now it appears if I leave
 WC> the machine on for any length of time bye goes the RAM.

 RJT> Not a good sign.

 Well from experience with another since deceased M.B. 
 I know the memory chips are rock solid as
 it never dropped out in that machine.
 
 I really think it's a thermal flexing problem where the SIMM is 
 losing addressing lines.
 I've tried to think how I could shore up support for the center of the
 SIMM but nothing has sprung to mind as yet.

 WC> Imagine my surprise when the repair took without so much as
 WC> a cold solder joint. Got lucky on timing and the solder cooled
 WC> before my fingers moved.

 RJT> This reminds me of that old cliche about "It's like riding a
bike..."
 RJT> :-)

I remember how but doing so would be out of the question.
I snagged a mountain bike left by a previous tenant and it's
in prety good shape.
Should mount a seat and sell the thing.

 RJT> Last time I was up in NYC I got to demonstrate that one,  finding a way
 RJT> to get to where I wanted to go in fairly short order,  in the chaos
 RJT> that's lower manhattan streets.  Tomorrow I go back for the first time
 RJT> since that visit and we'll see if I can still remember how to drive in
 RJT> that town.  

Never got into the city in N.Y. but I can sure see a bicycle or 
the subway as having the advantage over a car in Boston.

 WC> Nice surprise and the repair only took me about four minutes.

 WC> Now does _anyone_ have a clue as to what the remote code for a
 WC> Montgomery Ward branded T.V. might possibly be?

 RJT> Not me!  Maybe there's a web site devoted to that stuff?  I haven't
 RJT> looked, but probably should at some point.

 yes indeed there's an FCC web site I've located before
 looking up the Packard Bell's monitor scan rate to 
 setup the GUI in slackware.
 Plug in the FCC number and up springs a file with the FCC
 specifications of the device in question, very useful.
 Knoppix Linux dispenses with that and autodetects the monitor.
 I may even have the codes in a file on this box
 as I remember looking them up once.


 WC> I've yet to get the FCC number off the set and try looking it up
 WC> via google.

 RJT> Think the FCC number will do it?  I've never tried punching one of
 RJT> those in there.  Right now I'm looking for info on this printer that I
 RJT> can't get working right.  

 I think there's a good chance the FCC number will do it.
 I've used it to snag scan rates for monitors, specifications
 for a large monitor and a CD drive that had changed manufacturers
 twice. In the last case I got the information from the FCC site
 which plugged into google got me to the DOS drivers for the CD
 drive.
 
 RJT> It's an IBM 4019 laser with postscript card
 RJT> and at the moment doesn't seem to understand postscript,  though it did
 RJT> before.  It's also stopped kicking out this status page every time you
 RJT> turn it on,  though I'm not sure how I did that either.  The damn linux
 RJT> printing-howto says that the best thing you can do is get a postscript
 RJT> printer,  only now I've got one and can't get the damn thing to work
 RJT> right...

I'd look to searching the net, I've had great success on everything
how to balance a ceiling fan to to all sorts of electronics
and assorted stuff.

sad to say using the proper keywords I was even able to pull up a
paper on how to weaponize anthrax :-(
Right off a government computer at a U.S. weapons lab 
too with no security at all.
Deleted _that_ file pretty quickly, defragged the drive
and ultimately tossed it when it failed.

Taking a hit at the grocery store here in Florida
in the last few months :-(
Milk's gone up 60 cents in the last few weeks, cheese is up
two bucks a LB, and beef up 25 percent.
Then too there's the price of gas.

Either domestically or foreign policy I'm not a
happy camper with the current administration.
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