From: krw on
On Fri, 19 Feb 2010 17:22:47 -0800, Joerg <invalid(a)invalid.invalid>
wrote:

>krw wrote:
>> On Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:49:38 -0800, Joerg <invalid(a)invalid.invalid>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Joel Koltner wrote:
>>>> "krw" <krw(a)att.bizzzzzzzzzzz> wrote in message
>>>> news:hforn5todgh8shm5elno5spnc0j3edk3n1(a)4ax.com...
>>>>> Amazing. Where did you go to school?
>>>> University of Wisconsin-Madison.
>>>>
>>>> In the early '90s there was still more variety of computers as well --
>>>> PCs were clearly the most popular with Macs second, but there were also
>>>> a sizeable number of people with Atari STs, Apple IIGSes, Amigas and
>>>> even some NeXTstations for the real hard-core computer guys; there were
>>>> user groups for most that met somewhere reasonably close to campus.
>>>> (The Amiga group that I occasionally visited met in the "union south,"
>>>> which was immediately adjacent to all the engineering buildings.)
>>>>
>>>>> We had a few rooms of 029s (perhaps sixty). They were clean and very
>>>>> bright, if littered with cards and chad. I only took one CS course
>>>>> (well, I started a PDP-8 assembly course but got sick so dropped it).
>>>> Wow... :-)
>>>>
>>>> When I returned for my master's at Oregon State here, I was a bit sad to
>>>> see that within engineering HP calculators had gone from >90% to <33%!
>>>>
>>> And solder irons had probably gone to even less that 33% :-(
>>
>> I doubt 10% of my class owned a soldering iron. I doubt 10% know
>> which end to pick up today.
>>
>
>Not sure when you graduated but in my days (early 80's) nearly everyone
>would solder until you had clouds in the room.

'74. I don't remember anyone doing labs at home and only a few labs
had soldering irons (mostly the RF labs). Everythign else was done on
proto-boards or other fixtures.

>Most of them were
>assembling Apple II clones and such. One of my side jobs at the
>university was to come up with low cost tools they can build. Poor man's
>spectrum analyzer, function generators and so on. The plans were free
>and if there were unavoidable difficult-to-buy parts we'd organize pool
>orders and stuff.

PCs were long-off. I worked in the EE department electronics "shop".
In addition to maintaining the lab equipment we built fixtures and lab
setups. No one had any equipment of their own. The labs were
extremely well equipped, though. Almost all the equipment was Tek and
HP, with WaveTek being the popular generator.
From: krw on
On Fri, 19 Feb 2010 17:28:20 -0800, Joerg <invalid(a)invalid.invalid>
wrote:

>krw wrote:
>> On Fri, 19 Feb 2010 14:38:08 -0800, Joerg <invalid(a)invalid.invalid>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Joel Koltner wrote:
>>>> "Vladimir Vassilevsky" <nospam(a)nowhere.com> wrote in message
>>>> news:x_GdnbNeQpvYmuLWnZ2dnUVZ_v6dnZ2d(a)giganews.com...
>>>>> So-called "double soup": dissolve two packs of dry noodle soup in the
>>>>> amount of water intended for one pack (that's why it was called
>>>>> "double"), add some potatoes and whatever else you may have, then boil
>>>>> it until it will be a uniform kasha.
>>>> Wow; that is meager. I'm glad you made it with your health intact! How
>>>> long ago was that?
>>>>
>>>>> Did you make tea with a pair of razor blades?
>>>> No, I surely didn't. Please elaborate on how it's done?
>>>>
>>>> When I lived in the dorms at university's (1990-1994), you were required
>>>> to buy a meal plan from the university's cafeterias -- they had various
>>>> plans available, from "borderline-anorexic jockey" to "linebacker."
>>>> These days many schools have switched some or all of their own
>>>> cafeterias over to the nationwide fast food franchises -- Subwauy, Pizza
>>>> Hut, etc. Kinda sad; to some degree it reflects the fact that tuition
>>>> and books are so incredibly expensive these days in the first place,
>>>> food is now comparatively quite cheap. (I also suspect that there's no
>>>> remaining major college today that doesn't have a Starbucks within ready
>>>> walking distance of campus. :-) )
>>>>
>>> But they can't make you live and eat on campus, can they? I rarely
>>> frequented the cantinas of our university. They were cheap but not much
>>> cheaper than cooking your own meals and the food there was not exactly
>>> gourmet quality.
>>
>> Certainly can. A few weeks ago, one of the news reports here was that
>> Auburn was going to force every student to buy a meal plan, whether
>> they wanted it or not. Even those living off-campus.
>>
>>> IMHO it is an important aspect of off-campus living that one gets
>>> exposed to a larger spread of people and not just academic types.
>>
>> Apparently they're going to make that impossible, too. UVM required
>> Freshmen to live on-campus, even if they couldn't afford dorms and
>> could live at home. Alabama universities (Both 'bama and Auburn) are
>> also going that way, except not just for Freshmen.
>>
>> Thirty-five years ago UIUC required Freshmen to live on campus, unless
>> they could live at home.
>
>
>Very sad. And nobody does anything against that? I find it almost
>discriminatory. I am not a fan of legal action but if those universities
>receive even one dime in public funding I hope someone manages to get a
>class together and challenge them.

Auburn and UofAlabama *are* the Alabama state universities (as are UVM
in Vermont and UIUC in Illinois). How is it discriminatory if
everyone is treated the same? Indeed that may be one of the reasons
(excuses) behind the stupidity. It's only "fair" if everyone suffers
together.
From: krw on
On Fri, 19 Feb 2010 17:30:17 -0700, Jim Thompson
<To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-Icon(a)My-Web-Site.com> wrote:

>On Fri, 19 Feb 2010 16:12:20 -0800, "Joel Koltner"
><zapwireDASHgroups(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>"Vladimir Vassilevsky" <nospam(a)nowhere.com> wrote in message
>>news:4B7F21F6.2000301(a)nowhere.com...
>>> Things like that used to be commonplace. Don't know how well it would work
>>> at 120V. At 220V, water immediately starts boiling between the blades, so
>>> the bubbles of vapor naturally limit the current.
>>
>>Fascinating... cheaper than any store-bought unit, I suppose!
>
>I had one for hot dogs... probably be illegal now ;-)

Was doing a web search to see if they're still made and ran across
these:

http://www.roastmyweenie.com/Roast_Your_Weenie/Home.html
and
http://www.roastmyweenie.com/Roast_Your_Weenie/Marsha.html
From: Joerg on
krw wrote:
> On Fri, 19 Feb 2010 17:22:47 -0800, Joerg <invalid(a)invalid.invalid>
> wrote:
>
>> krw wrote:
>>> On Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:49:38 -0800, Joerg <invalid(a)invalid.invalid>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Joel Koltner wrote:
>>>>> "krw" <krw(a)att.bizzzzzzzzzzz> wrote in message
>>>>> news:hforn5todgh8shm5elno5spnc0j3edk3n1(a)4ax.com...
>>>>>> Amazing. Where did you go to school?
>>>>> University of Wisconsin-Madison.
>>>>>
>>>>> In the early '90s there was still more variety of computers as well --
>>>>> PCs were clearly the most popular with Macs second, but there were also
>>>>> a sizeable number of people with Atari STs, Apple IIGSes, Amigas and
>>>>> even some NeXTstations for the real hard-core computer guys; there were
>>>>> user groups for most that met somewhere reasonably close to campus.
>>>>> (The Amiga group that I occasionally visited met in the "union south,"
>>>>> which was immediately adjacent to all the engineering buildings.)
>>>>>
>>>>>> We had a few rooms of 029s (perhaps sixty). They were clean and very
>>>>>> bright, if littered with cards and chad. I only took one CS course
>>>>>> (well, I started a PDP-8 assembly course but got sick so dropped it).
>>>>> Wow... :-)
>>>>>
>>>>> When I returned for my master's at Oregon State here, I was a bit sad to
>>>>> see that within engineering HP calculators had gone from >90% to <33%!
>>>>>
>>>> And solder irons had probably gone to even less that 33% :-(
>>> I doubt 10% of my class owned a soldering iron. I doubt 10% know
>>> which end to pick up today.
>>>
>> Not sure when you graduated but in my days (early 80's) nearly everyone
>> would solder until you had clouds in the room.
>
> '74. I don't remember anyone doing labs at home and only a few labs
> had soldering irons (mostly the RF labs). Everythign else was done on
> proto-boards or other fixtures.
>

Ok, I grew up with ham radio friends. If we didn't have some piece of
equipment we made it (and shared). If someone became stuck on a project
and needed assistance from a more senior ham a cold bottle of beer would
always do the trick :-)


>> Most of them were
>> assembling Apple II clones and such. One of my side jobs at the
>> university was to come up with low cost tools they can build. Poor man's
>> spectrum analyzer, function generators and so on. The plans were free
>> and if there were unavoidable difficult-to-buy parts we'd organize pool
>> orders and stuff.
>
> PCs were long-off. I worked in the EE department electronics "shop".
> In addition to maintaining the lab equipment we built fixtures and lab
> setups. No one had any equipment of their own. The labs were
> extremely well equipped, though. Almost all the equipment was Tek and
> HP, with WaveTek being the popular generator.


In the 70's when I was a teenager I had equipment of my own. Some was
really old stuff that I restored. Other things were home-made, still got
some of it and it still works. Mostly ham-related because that's what I
needed and couldn't afford to buy:

http://www.analogconsultants.com/ng/images/oak2.jpg
http://www.analogconsultants.com/ng/images/accukeyer.jpg
http://www.analogconsultants.com/ng/images/PL509amp2.jpg
http://www.analogconsultants.com/ng/images/QB5amp2.jpg

The most difficult part was always the enclosure because all I had was
hand tools and my dad let me borrow his hammer drill.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.
From: Joerg on
krw wrote:
> On Fri, 19 Feb 2010 17:28:20 -0800, Joerg <invalid(a)invalid.invalid>
> wrote:
>
>> krw wrote:
>>> On Fri, 19 Feb 2010 14:38:08 -0800, Joerg <invalid(a)invalid.invalid>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Joel Koltner wrote:
>>>>> "Vladimir Vassilevsky" <nospam(a)nowhere.com> wrote in message
>>>>> news:x_GdnbNeQpvYmuLWnZ2dnUVZ_v6dnZ2d(a)giganews.com...
>>>>>> So-called "double soup": dissolve two packs of dry noodle soup in the
>>>>>> amount of water intended for one pack (that's why it was called
>>>>>> "double"), add some potatoes and whatever else you may have, then boil
>>>>>> it until it will be a uniform kasha.
>>>>> Wow; that is meager. I'm glad you made it with your health intact! How
>>>>> long ago was that?
>>>>>
>>>>>> Did you make tea with a pair of razor blades?
>>>>> No, I surely didn't. Please elaborate on how it's done?
>>>>>
>>>>> When I lived in the dorms at university's (1990-1994), you were required
>>>>> to buy a meal plan from the university's cafeterias -- they had various
>>>>> plans available, from "borderline-anorexic jockey" to "linebacker."
>>>>> These days many schools have switched some or all of their own
>>>>> cafeterias over to the nationwide fast food franchises -- Subwauy, Pizza
>>>>> Hut, etc. Kinda sad; to some degree it reflects the fact that tuition
>>>>> and books are so incredibly expensive these days in the first place,
>>>>> food is now comparatively quite cheap. (I also suspect that there's no
>>>>> remaining major college today that doesn't have a Starbucks within ready
>>>>> walking distance of campus. :-) )
>>>>>
>>>> But they can't make you live and eat on campus, can they? I rarely
>>>> frequented the cantinas of our university. They were cheap but not much
>>>> cheaper than cooking your own meals and the food there was not exactly
>>>> gourmet quality.
>>> Certainly can. A few weeks ago, one of the news reports here was that
>>> Auburn was going to force every student to buy a meal plan, whether
>>> they wanted it or not. Even those living off-campus.
>>>
>>>> IMHO it is an important aspect of off-campus living that one gets
>>>> exposed to a larger spread of people and not just academic types.
>>> Apparently they're going to make that impossible, too. UVM required
>>> Freshmen to live on-campus, even if they couldn't afford dorms and
>>> could live at home. Alabama universities (Both 'bama and Auburn) are
>>> also going that way, except not just for Freshmen.
>>>
>>> Thirty-five years ago UIUC required Freshmen to live on campus, unless
>>> they could live at home.
>>
>> Very sad. And nobody does anything against that? I find it almost
>> discriminatory. I am not a fan of legal action but if those universities
>> receive even one dime in public funding I hope someone manages to get a
>> class together and challenge them.
>
> Auburn and UofAlabama *are* the Alabama state universities (as are UVM
> in Vermont and UIUC in Illinois). How is it discriminatory if
> everyone is treated the same? Indeed that may be one of the reasons
> (excuses) behind the stupidity. It's only "fair" if everyone suffers
> together.


If students who can't afford on-campus dorms are forced to rent a room
there they may have no choice but not to enroll at all. That is
discriminatory.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.