[X] My Assistant

I think the only way I'll be able to get a Unix working on a system with 32MB of RAM and get a functional OPL chip is going to be to run an old version of OpenBSD or NetBSD. Or an ancient Linux.
Modern linux kernels are bloaty enough I doubt they'd even fit on a floppy.

Current NetBSD has a bug in the IDE controller driver that renders my computer useless, and current OpenBSD works, except it removed its OPL3 driver in 2018 or so - as well as the driver for accelerated 2D on my graphics chip, so X is very slow (even for a 165MHz Pentium).

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Nov 29 2021, 10:20

I tried to convert one of my nations flag on the game Nationstates to svg, seeing how they are implementing support, but it didn't go well at all.
Between broken algorithm and algorithm breaking my image too much, I'm not sure how much the immaturity of the conversion process and the complexity of my initial image amount for.
But I'm not installing anything on my computer for such a thing, will just have to see if online stuff got better if I ever try again.

work

Thanks US, now that the US has approved using AI to analyze all the third party and social media data to find middle class tax evasion, I bet my country will adopt that soon.

I pay all my tax, but the level of privacy invasion is Marxist levels of absurd.

The US is great for letting the cat out of the bag.

Thought:
The Japanese audio on all the Dragon Ball releases sucks. Toei apparently doesn't have the master tapes for the show anymore; to me it sounds like they're using optical audio from a film strip (muffled, clipped, etc.).

I hope some day someone shares off-the-air recordings of the entire show or something. The picture quality on the Dragon Box (JP) DVD release is pretty fantastic - at least for the early show, which is all I care about. The sound just sucks, and it can be hard to get a copy of it with subtitles injected.
Blacks might be a teeny bit lifted, and the whites a teeny bit crushed. But that's better than losing details.

I think I'd enjoy restoring/preserving media, if I could live two lives.
(IMG:[i.imgur.com] https://i.imgur.com/mog02op.png)
(IMG:[i.imgur.com] https://i.imgur.com/RBs7LfA.png)
(IMG:[i.imgur.com] https://i.imgur.com/F0zke71.png)
(IMG:[i.imgur.com] https://i.imgur.com/XoFHPrL.png)
(IMG:[i.imgur.com] https://i.imgur.com/0d3qH2g.png)
(IMG:[i.imgur.com] https://i.imgur.com/dK4DRxR.png)

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Nov 30 2021, 03:59

The US is great for letting the cat out of the bag.

Thought:
The Japanese audio on all the Dragon Ball releases sucks. Toei apparently doesn't have the master tapes for the show anymore; to me it sounds like they're using optical audio from a film strip (muffled, clipped, etc.).

I hope some day someone shares off-the-air recordings of the entire show or something. The picture quality on the Dragon Box (JP) DVD release is pretty fantastic - at least for the early show, which is all I care about. The sound just sucks, and it can be hard to get a copy of it with subtitles injected.
Blacks might be a teeny bit lifted, and the whites a teeny bit crushed. But that's better than losing details.

I think I'd enjoy restoring/preserving media, if I could live two lives.

Kinda of annoys me how the western releases were inferior quality to the Japanese versions. They were pretty paranoid about otaku's buying the foreign VHS/ DVDs/ Blurays.

The release that annoyed me the most was Neon Genesis Evangelion, where the DVDs were just the VHS version with better audio and the Blu rays used to just be the upscale in my country.

Odd thing I noticed when converting Dolby/DTS audio format to Opus: bit depth is retained from the original Dolby TrueHD & DTS-HD MA. But when converting DTS-HR (High Resolution) tracks to Opus, the output's bit depth always turned to 32-bit instead of the original 24-bit. I have yet to try converting DTS tracks to Opus.

Kinda of annoys me how the western releases were inferior quality to the Japanese versions. They were pretty paranoid about otaku's buying the foreign VHS/ DVDs/ Blurays.

I'm talking about the domestic Japanese release of Dragon Ball having bad audio, too. I think they scrapped the master tapes and so lost the high quality soundtrack. We'd actually get better sound if wwe had off-the-air recordings from the 80's.

The release that annoyed me the most was Neon Genesis Evangelion, where the DVDs were just the VHS version with better audio and the Blu rays used to just be the upscale in my country.

I basically don't buy physical domestic releases anymore; I've been burned too often.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Nov 30 2021, 05:56

Because I am dumb, picked up another old-ish radio and tuner, circa 2000 this time. Interestingly, it's antenna tuner uses motor-driven variable capaciors- so it operates much more similarly to a manual tuner than most auto tuners do. I may need to replaced the couplings though, they're the same failure prone design as in another radio of mine.

Pic isn't mine and is a bit potato.

I should have a few of these left from the other one, as I had to buy a 6 pack.
(IMG:[m.media-amazon.com] https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51w1hqYvMVL._AC_SY580_.jpg)

This post has been edited by Wayward_Vagabond: Nov 30 2021, 19:07

Because I am dumb, picked up another old-ish radio and tuner, circa 2000 this time. Interestingly, it's antenna tuner uses motor-driven variable capaciors- so it operates much more similarly to a manual tuner than most auto tuners do. I may need to replaced the couplings though, they're the same failure prone design as in another radio of mine.
Pic isn't mine and is a bit potato.

I should have a few of these left from the other one, as I had to buy a 6 pack.

Oooh, old school variable capacitors. I love those things.
A bit strange that they were using them in 2000, still. My only thing with one that I use much is a heathkit signal generator.
Not sure what those blue things are. They kind of remind me of those ferrite tuning slugs I have in some of my CRT monitors to adjust raster width.
This kind of thing.
[en.wikipedia.org] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ferrite_...th_pot_core.JPG
(IMG:[upload.wikimedia.org] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/08/Ferrite_slug_tuned_inductor_with_pot_core.JPG/344px-Ferrite_slug_tuned_inductor_with_pot_core.JPG)

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Nov 30 2021, 23:11

Those are air dielectric ones, and are still used in brand new RF gear. They have a non-trivial amount of RF current flowing through them. Big stuff uses vacuum variable capacitors, and inductors with a motor or crank to slide a tap along them.
The blue things in the top photo are relays for switching inductors in and out.
The bottom ones are just aluminum set screw couplings.
The natural nylon colored couplings between the motor and capacitor are quite weak, and usually spilt at the set screw. Sometimes the accordion bit in the center just snap. If you look real close, the couplings have two end sections, two thin discs, then 3 little pairs of plastic webs connecting them. The strange part is, these same couplings have been used sinced the early 80s at least- so circa 2000 it should have been known they're a weak point.

Huh, yandex translate between english and spanish is actually pretty servicable. I suspect some subelties are still getting lost, but spanish to english and rhe other way when back translated aren't garbled.

This post has been edited by Wayward_Vagabond: Dec 1 2021, 00:14

No matter how many times I put a computer together I still keep making rookie mistakes or rookie gaffs. Moved my rig to a bigger case, couldn't figure out how to mount the damned hard drive racks. Modern cases are great in lots of ways yet very silly in others and really bait me into some mind fucks.

Modern cases suck for hard disks because they are increasingly becoming passé.

I have seven in mine.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Dec 1 2021, 07:16

I built an ITX case this time, moderately big. Can theoretically fit more SSDs but I struggled to get two to fit with the other hardware.

Comps seem to be banking on NVME on MOBO drives... though even with heatsinks and fans they seem to always be running too hot.

Inb4 twitter goes full woke and cancels porn.

It occurs all my desktops so far have had drilled holes, soldering, or weird custom brackets done in them.

Recently, I started searching for "seedbox", imagining it could* mean a literal box that you connect to Internet, and it has torrent/p2p and high storage capacity.
*I wasn't expecting 100% of the case of course, but still

Of course I didn't find anything under that name, it's a different concept, but under other names, there were some...variations from what I was looking for, so it ended up going nowhere.

Not that I really need it, I just got curious somehow.

work

Recently, I started searching for "seedbox", imagining it could* mean a literal box that you connect to Internet, and it has torrent/p2p and high storage capacity.

That's just called a server.

Inb4 twitter goes full woke and cancels porn.

It occurs all my desktops so far have had drilled holes, soldering, or weird custom brackets done in them.

Me too. power switch is two stripped wires poking out the back of the case since the front panel one doesn't work. Also a ziptied fan on the back of the psu.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Dec 1 2021, 19:55

Deal on the radio fell through, but already ordered the matching tuner...

I just now realized something that should have been really obvious, but every single attempt to consolize a general purpose computer has crashed and burned thus far.

Maybe that new valve tablet will do something, but so far the track record's been bad.

• Atari XEGS
• Amstrad GX4000
• Apple/Bandai Pippin
• Commodore MAX
• Commodore 64GS
• Commodore CDTV
• Commodore Amiga CD32
• Fujitsu FM Towns Marty
• Ouya (consolized smart phone)
• Tandy Video Information System (VIS)

What am I missing from that list?

I'm not counting Zemmix Neo because it basically died before it was born. Also not counting the original xbox because it's not PC compatible, the same way the Atari 5200 isn't Atari 800 compatible but is close.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Dec 1 2021, 23:26