Dumbed down consumer electronics: Adding DTV channels
in [Design]
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From: JosephKK on 11 Aug 2010 00:36 On Sun, 08 Aug 2010 07:25:19 -0700, Joerg <invalid(a)invalid.invalid> wrote: >JosephKK wrote: >> On Wed, 04 Aug 2010 18:36:25 -0700, Joerg <invalid(a)invalid.invalid> >> wrote: >> <snip> >> Oldsters remember when bandwidth was expensive, like i "dimed up" and >> downloaded the the packet drivers for early Ethernet cards from >> Clarkson Uni to the Lost Angles area ar 2400 baud over a few nights, > ^^^^^^^^ > >Pun intended? :-) Of Bourse. > > >> cost me about $100 long distance for a little less than a MB. Now >> that would be a few seconds and included (and would dissapear) in my >> monthly. Today, a sloppy webpage will eat up a MB or more, and an >> overnight DL would be about 5 GB; over 5 thousand times the data >> volume. Just about 20 years difference. > > >In those cases I'd rather send them a SASE envelope, a blank diskette >and $20 for the effoert to copy and the walk by the mail room. Then use >the remaining $80 for a nice dinner with the wife. Probably would have if it was available that way at that time.
From: Joerg on 11 Aug 2010 10:13 JosephKK wrote: > On Sun, 08 Aug 2010 07:25:19 -0700, Joerg <invalid(a)invalid.invalid> > wrote: > >> JosephKK wrote: [...] >>> cost me about $100 long distance for a little less than a MB. Now >>> that would be a few seconds and included (and would dissapear) in my >>> monthly. Today, a sloppy webpage will eat up a MB or more, and an >>> overnight DL would be about 5 GB; over 5 thousand times the data >>> volume. Just about 20 years difference. >> >> In those cases I'd rather send them a SASE envelope, a blank diskette >> and $20 for the effoert to copy and the walk by the mail room. Then use >> the remaining $80 for a nice dinner with the wife. > > Probably would have if it was available that way at that time. What wasn't available? Stamps? Envelopes? Dinner? Wife? Ok then, maybe a girlfriend? Ok, diskettes could be hard to come by but we sometimes used audio cassettes for data storage. Those were cheap. I believe Commodore called them datasettes. -- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ "gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam. Use another domain or send PM.
From: Michael A. Terrell on 12 Aug 2010 03:05 Jim Thompson wrote: > > On Tue, 10 Aug 2010 05:30:26 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell" > <mike.terrell(a)earthlink.net> wrote: > > > > >Paul Keinanen wrote: > >> > >> On Sun, 08 Aug 2010 09:28:58 -0700, Jim Thompson > >> ?To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-Icon(a)On-My-Web-Site.com? wrote: > >> > >> ?On Sun, 08 Aug 2010 17:48:42 +0300, Paul Keinanen ?keinanen(a)sci.fi? > >> ?wrote: > >> > >> ??Are you really saying that some radio broadcasting companies in the US > >> ??are still using medium wave AM as their main distribution channel ?? > >> ? > >> ?Some? There are probably 10's of thousands of AM stations in the USA. > >> ?Your country is smaller than many/most of our states, so you don't > >> ?appreciate the need for "medium wave" to cover large areas. > >> > >> Alaska, Texas and California have a larger land area than Finland, as > >> expected. However, I did not expect Montana to be also slightly > >> larger. > >> > >> FM started here in the early 1950's and only a few people relied on AM > >> in the 1960's. In the 1990's medium wave AM was used to send news to > >> Finnish speaking emigrants in Sweden and to the Finnish speaking > >> minority in NE Russia. > >> > >> Since those days, only hobby based low power (0.1 kW) AM transmitters > >> have been used during some selected weekends, mainly to support > >> DX-listeners. > >> > >> To me, it is a surprise that medium wave AM is still actually used for > >> commercial broadcasting. > > > > > > Up to 50 KW AM transmitters are quite common. At one time WLW in > >Cincinnati, Ohio ran 500 KW on 700 KHz. > > I vaguely recall multiple WLW's.... > > WLW-C, Cincinnati > > WLW-T, Toledo > > Weren't there others as well? Yes, both radio & TV stations, although the call letters have changed over the years. WLW-D (Dayton) was WDTN before I left the area. It's been almost 25 years since I left that area. OTOH, the inside of that 500 kW transmitter was impressive to a 17 year old technician. :)
From: Michael A. Terrell on 12 Aug 2010 03:08 Joerg wrote: > > JosephKK wrote: > > On Sun, 08 Aug 2010 07:25:19 -0700, Joerg <invalid(a)invalid.invalid> > > wrote: > > > >> JosephKK wrote: > > [...] > > >>> cost me about $100 long distance for a little less than a MB. Now > >>> that would be a few seconds and included (and would dissapear) in my > >>> monthly. Today, a sloppy webpage will eat up a MB or more, and an > >>> overnight DL would be about 5 GB; over 5 thousand times the data > >>> volume. Just about 20 years difference. > >> > >> In those cases I'd rather send them a SASE envelope, a blank diskette > >> and $20 for the effoert to copy and the walk by the mail room. Then use > >> the remaining $80 for a nice dinner with the wife. > > > > Probably would have if it was available that way at that time. > > What wasn't available? Stamps? Envelopes? Dinner? Wife? Ok then, maybe a > girlfriend? > > Ok, diskettes could be hard to come by but we sometimes used audio > cassettes for data storage. Those were cheap. I believe Commodore called > them datasettes. The 'Datasette' was a modified cassette deck that plugged onto the PC board with a six pin edge connector, not the storage media.
From: Michael A. Terrell on 12 Aug 2010 03:09
Jim Thompson wrote: > > On Tue, 10 Aug 2010 05:41:50 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell" > <mike.terrell(a)earthlink.net> wrote: > > > > >Jim Thompson wrote: > >> > >> That's pretty poor... Firefox claims _92_ "Radio Broadcast Companies" > >> in Mesa alone... which I doubt... maybe 30 active AM and FM that I can > >> think of. > >> > >> I have Sirius in the Q45, but I do web radio in my office...Roku > >> Soundbridge. > > > > > > Here are pictures of some of your local radio stations: > > > >http://www.fybush.com/site-010509.html > >http://www.fybush.com/sites/2005/site-051125.html > >http://www.fybush.com/sites/2009/site-090918.html > > Our house is one additional ridge south of the South Mountain towers, > so I don't have to constantly see the !@#$% blinking lights ;-) Yeah, but you can't see inside the studios from your house. :) |