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From: Rowland McDonnell on 19 Feb 2010 00:03 Richard Tobin <richard(a)cogsci.ed.ac.uk> wrote: > Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote: > > >That's what Sinclair did. One reason Sinclair and the other British > >micro makers died is that they did spend the money on half-decent > >customer service > > What??? Did you live in some alternate 70s and 80s? Nope. > This is the Sinclair who never made a product that didn't fall to bits > within a month of purchase, I've still got the ZX81 my dad soldered together in 1981. And that has nothing to do with Sinclair's customer service at all, does it? > assuming that the bits could be forced > together in the first place Easy enough. And that has nothing to do with Sinclair's customer service at all, does it? >- it's not for nothing that many of them > were sold as kits. Correct: it was cheaper. There was nothing wrong with them (aside from the `digital stereo' that was never going to work, should have got it working before advertising it, Clive). And that has nothing to do with Sinclair's customer service at all, does it? > Who advertised products that were never available, > or were months late. Famous for it - but that has nothing to do with Sinclair's customer service at all, does it? > The only reason Sinclair didn't collapse sooner > and more often is that it was bailed out with taxpayers' money while > Sinclair himself ranted about the evils of socialism. Huh? Phooey. Sinclair would have done very well if the UK government hadn't run a tax regime designed to give foreign manufacturers of electronic equipment a commercial advantage over domestic manufacturers - or don't you remember the 1970s? > Sinclair was British industry at its very worst. Erm, nope. That was BL. And Sinclair's customer service was excellent despite all you say. Rowland. -- Remove the animal for email address: rowland.mcdonnell(a)dog.physics.org Sorry - the spam got to me http://www.mag-uk.org http://www.bmf.co.uk UK biker? Join MAG and the BMF and stop the Eurocrats banning biking
From: Rowland McDonnell on 19 Feb 2010 00:03 Woody <usenet(a)alienrat.co.uk> wrote: > Richard Tobin <richard(a)cogsci.ed.ac.uk> wrote: > > > Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote: > > > > >That's what Sinclair did. One reason Sinclair and the other British > > >micro makers died is that they did spend the money on half-decent > > >customer service > > > > What??? Did you live in some alternate 70s and 80s? > > > > This is the Sinclair who never made a product that didn't fall to bits > > within a month of purchase, assuming that the bits could be forced > > together in the first place - it's not for nothing that many of them > > were sold as kits. > > I found it fascinating as a kid, My uncle worked for cambridge research > and then sinclair in the 70s when they made the calculators and the > black watches. He had a drawer full of the black watches that he would > go and check occasionally to see if they were still working or told > anything like the right time. They always said something different. Those watches were reliable if you'd made them carefully enough. What I recall reading, the dodgy ones were dodgy due to dodgy construction, not dodgy design. > And he had the calculators, the white ones with the purple displays. > They were great if you didn't really care so much about the answer! <puzzled> I used one of them, well, had access to one for a while and fiddled with it when I could. Worked very well. Always gave the same answer (to within spec accuracy) as my dad's HP. Yes, that is the sort of thing I checked carefully and repeatedly. I was young in the 1970s. Rowland. -- Remove the animal for email address: rowland.mcdonnell(a)dog.physics.org Sorry - the spam got to me http://www.mag-uk.org http://www.bmf.co.uk UK biker? Join MAG and the BMF and stop the Eurocrats banning biking
From: Rowland McDonnell on 19 Feb 2010 00:03 Bruce Horrocks <07.013(a)scorecrow.com> wrote: > Peter Ceresole wrote: > > Chris Ridd<chrisridd(a)mac.com> wrote: > > > >> Even modern digital clocks drift quite a lot, so it isn't surprising > >> that all of his reported different times. > > > > <http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090416144525.htm> > > > > One second in 300,000,000 years. I guess it'd do me. You'd need a big > > fob pocket for it, though. > > I had a very enjoyable little tour round NIST last year. The actual > clock they use for the broadcast time signal is an off-the-shelf atomic > clock, which they are able to calibrate extremely accurately. My word, who'd've thought it! A national standards lab being able to do accurate calibration... Sorry, sorry... > It's kept > in an environment controlled chamber aka a commercial chicken egg > incubator. :-) They need cheap temperature stability, at a guess. The gadget itself is temperature stablized and compensated to hell and back (I assume - it would be if I designed it), so they don't need super-duper temperature stability, I wouldn't have thought, just a wee oven to keep it more or less right there. There's a lot of stuff like that - odd bits of `kit from unexpected sources' that turns up in hairy labs. Always good for a giggle, I find - and always a lesson in appropriate technology that the wise pay careful attention to. Rowland. -- Remove the animal for email address: rowland.mcdonnell(a)dog.physics.org Sorry - the spam got to me http://www.mag-uk.org http://www.bmf.co.uk UK biker? Join MAG and the BMF and stop the Eurocrats banning biking
From: Peter Ceresole on 19 Feb 2010 02:28 Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote: > Harrison's `H4' marine chronometer was the first accurate watch. Late > /18th/ century. Harrison believed that real accuracy at sea would be achieved using his larger time pieces, using counter rotating balance wheels or dumb bells- they have examples, one of them running, at Greenwich. They look terrific, but they are very large and would have had to be kept safely below. According to the curator of the collection at Greenwich, H4 was originally designed as a repeater, which would be kept below decks and adjusted to the time given by the large pieces, then taken above deck to do the actual sighting on the sun. Harrison then found that it kept better time, on its own, than the larger clocks. > It did not have a base unit as you describe No; those were not chronometers and the smaller components were fob watches, and extremely inaccurate; H4 is extremely large and only just portable, not wearable. I've never seen a working base unit/fob watch, just pictures; as I said, Greenwich do have parts of a Breguet combined unit. I can't remember if it's kept in the public exhibition or is in the reserve- I rather think it's the reserve. -- Peter
From: Rowland McDonnell on 19 Feb 2010 02:42
Peter Ceresole <peter(a)cara.demon.co.uk> wrote: > Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote: > > > Harrison's `H4' marine chronometer was the first accurate watch. Late > > /18th/ century. > > Harrison believed that real accuracy at sea would be achieved using his > larger time pieces, using counter rotating balance wheels or dumb bells- > they have examples, one of them running, at Greenwich. What evidence do you have for that allegation? The evidence of reality is that his H1-H4 timepieces were each a progression to a better marine chronometer. H4 beat H3 in accuracy - despite H4 being `merely' a large pocket watch. >They look > terrific, but they are very large and would have had to be kept safely > below. Naturally. It's not a bad idea to keep your chronometer below decks in any case - lubricated fine mechanical works (for the H4 contains such) don't like salt spray in my experience, no matter what you do. > According to the curator of the collection at Greenwich, H4 was > originally designed as a repeater, which would be kept below decks and > adjusted to the time given by the large pieces, then taken above deck to > do the actual sighting on the sun. Harrison then found that it kept > better time, on its own, than the larger clocks. Indeed - which makes me think that *IF* Harrison held the opinion you claim, *IF* your allegation were the case, I think he would have been of the opinion that his H4 wasn't going to be good enough to do the job needed, but found that despite his pessimistic opinion of his own ability, he was better than he thought and the elegant solution (just take the pocket watch) was a goer. I've read up on the subject and not come across the thing you're claiming here. (My dad once built a Congreve clock and I don't mean from a kit of parts, I mean from lumps of metal. Yeah, okay, so he bought the wire rope for the fusee and bought the mainspring. Machined everything else himself. Last thing I heard, he was planning on connecting it to a wee battery powered gadget to synchronize it with the radio time signal (to be hidden under the plinth). `That's cheating', I said. `Yep' he responded - but how else can you arrange for a Congreve clock to be accurate?) > > It did not have a base unit as you describe > > No; those were not chronometers and the smaller components were fob > watches, and extremely inaccurate; They weren't as inaccurate as all that, or they'd've been utterly useless for navigation purposes even if corrected once a day. > H4 is extremely large and only just > portable, not wearable. It's a long way from `only just portable'. It's /easily/ hand-carryable. > I've never seen a working base unit/fob watch, just pictures; as I said, > Greenwich do have parts of a Breguet combined unit. I can't remember if > it's kept in the public exhibition or is in the reserve- I rather think > it's the reserve. Ah - shame. Rowland. -- Remove the animal for email address: rowland.mcdonnell(a)dog.physics.org Sorry - the spam got to me http://www.mag-uk.org http://www.bmf.co.uk UK biker? Join MAG and the BMF and stop the Eurocrats banning biking |