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05July2008:I have updated the remember section of my pictures. WEBLOGS: Rewiring several printer, Palm PDA, and Newton PDA serial cables.(rev:feb07) |
JUL2018:I am getting my collectables ready to sell in the fall for Merrymas. Things so far:Gold Foil Star Wars Cards, Stargate trading cards-box, Batman Trading cards-box, Snow white and seven dwarfs-doll/figures, Hallmark Ornaments. Possibly Postage Stamps. |
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| PLAYSTATION 4 |
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01AUG18:Got it setup with Netflix. Works just like my PC. I think it streams better than the old br player. HOWEVER, VR has a flaw playing any movie...over about 10 minutes the picture drifts to the right or left, from 12 o'clock to about 10/2 o'clock. Annoying to keep resetting it. I bought the Persistence game when it came out. It was on sale! You start out in space floating in the midst of the large space station. Once you start the game, you are in the hub room with a computer AI helping you. Each time you restart, the layout of the station and path you take changes. I am liking this game more each time I play. I changed my flat display on my computer with a larger one I had laying around. Works great, but the HDMI doesn't work, at least with the PS4. The smaller monitor is going onto my A8 setup as I work on that. |
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2018/2019:PS4 Well, I finally bought a new console gaming system, fall 2017. A gold PS4, 1T. I wanted it to replace my older bluray player, hopefully more intelligent, and to be able to watch 3D Movies. I LOVE watching 3D Movies. The first was The Martian. I started my collection with Avatar some years ago. I got tired of moving my system into the den where my brother has his 3D TV, so I started looking for one of my own to replace my CRT TV. I then found that most manufacturers had stopped making them in 2017! Only a few projection systems were around. Of course. I always get into something when its gone!!! 4K won't interest me for quite a few years more! DOOM VR I then started thinking about The PS4s VR system. I didn't want to shell out $400 for the Skyrim bundle, even when on sale, so I waited until the Doom bundle went on sale for $249. This had to be my only purchase for a while. 3D VR games are amazing. Yes, lower rez than a Bluray TV, but the amount of stuff in the virtual world is astounding. Everywhere there is something new to see. You can grab things and rotate them all about. You can place your controller into a virtual one and have it be any type of device or weapon. I applaud the artists that create these worlds. So much stuff we can't get to just to enrich the world we are in. FARPOINT Then a couple of months later, I spent the money for the Aim controller with Farpoint. This is one of my favorite games. A vast world to explore(following the storyline). Only one main Boss to battle. That took me about 400 deaths to get thru the first time. Now I know the best way, so only die a few times. I expected another boss later, but that didn't happen. There are four or so difficult areas to get thru. Each has their safest way. Once I made it thru the game, my only thought was I want mission 2!!! NOW!! I have to console myself with replaying the chapters with various weapons. I like the machine gun and the plasma rifle the best. Have run thru the game with the Precision and plasma rifles. The precision rifle does have its moments, so I use it a lot. Make shooting some things very easy. But not the Boss! I want to try playing it with someone online someday. I now have the new campaigne areas, but I don't like the timed runs-they are hard! See Aim controller problems below. MORE VR There are a lot of other games I like a lot in VR...MOSS(awaiting chapter 2), Battlezone. I also play Bound, and downloaded the Passengers demo(from the movie, which I like alot.) I want a full game or another installment.) However, the Unreal engine it uses is very quirky. It places you too close to almost everything. The ONLY way to move is thru teleportation, so you have to go forward and backward to jockey around. Not fun. Only one bit where you using a plasma jet has a much more normal feel, albeit a lot slower. The multi-tool you use is constantly in the wrong place or disappearing. On several occasions, I have ended up outside the level(I have pics). Quite neat actually, but annoying..the only way to get back in is to press the PS button, then X to go back. Or restart the level/game. This happened to Moss a couple of times.
AND... For the most part, Unearthing Mars also uses teleporting, too close to things. And it now has a chapter 2. Also, the Core is another Unreal engine game, a really nice Steampunk Sci-fi adventure. I have ended up outside a couple of times. Trying to get the key out of a lock is frustrating, and I don't know if the ending will lead to another installment. What, you say? How can I play these games the require the motion wands? Yes, I had to break down and buy them. I would have been better off with the Skyrim Bundle! Sigh. I do have Driveclub VR, but I have to move the camera to the bottom of the TV or I am looking at the bottom of the steering wheel! It is amazing how accurate the aim and motion controllers are(and the regular dualshock when I use one). Everything centers on the ball(lightbar) and the sight on the virtual weapon. The main problem is the rest of the weapon or device keeps shifting to one side. When it gets annoying, I have to swap weapons or re-align the controller. This pointed out the flaw in the AimController..it lacks the light at the back end for the camera to track the alignment of the length of the controller. Oh, I also play 2D Games...Horizon Zero Dawn, Limbo(Inside later), Ratchet & Clank, and others I haven't started yet. And I am watching my 3D movies whenever I get the chance. One cool thing about playing 2D games in VR is that it feels a lot like they are VR games, on a large screen. More later... |
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| Things to Note |
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01July08:I listened to "NitPickers Guide to Classic Trekkers". It was great. I love listening to George Takei, Nichelle Nichols, and Walter Koenig talking about STC from the nitpickers book. Even criticising their own characters! They were interested, intelligent, and very funny! The flaw comes from the tapes themselves. Vol 2 only goes thru Assignment Earth then launches into the 1st 2 movies. Vol 3 is Eloan of Troyius thru Turnabout Intruder, a duplicate on the second tape, then picks up with more movies. Many episodes are missing. The date is 1995. Hopefully they fixed later sets. Then I listened to "The Nitpickers Guide for Next Generation Trekkers". Not so good. The actors sounded bland and not interested in the material. Worse, in many instances words were pronounced wrong(such as "compannel" for "Com Panel"), People and Planet names pronounced wrong, and some sentences were repeated. I couldn't finish listening to this set. Then I listened to Simon & Shusters:Alien Voices: Spock vs Q and Spock vs Q, the Sequel. These are fantastic. Both actors gave stellar performances. I WANT THE VIDEOS!! Did I say that loud enough? If there aren't videos, then MAKE THEM, PLEASE! Its frustrating to not see what the audience sees!(2018..a little late now, I guess. :( ) |
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I am looking for: (Revised)ULTIMATELY, it really doesn't matter. For some reason I really liked the 1st volume. But, as I listen to the rest,(I am because of the time converting to mp3!), I found the acting bland. Very little emotion to anything. So I don't think I really care about the other volumes, unless they fall my way. Maybe I'll look for the ebooks instead. John DeChancie: Dr. Dimension. (Print Book) I have 1 and 2, but the people were left stranded in space. This was around 2000! We need volume three to get them home! Taming of the Shrew/Kiss Me Kate...there were several versions from the 1980s. I remember New York Central Park and Marc Singer. Possibly PBS, Hallmark, Kraft. Six Rooms River View:A play on TV done by Alan Alda and Carol Burnett, from the 1980s, both looking at the same apartment. Series Wanted: Blue Skies(Corey Parker) (1990s), Miss Match(200x), Street(200x), First Years(200x). Series I Have: Beggars & Choosers. This was recorded at 6 or 8 hour speed onto VHS. I am transferring to dvd. Fun Series. Wish this had been released when it was ready. July2018:As an aside..I have been very upset with Networks this last year or so. Again. Sigh! Recently, they have cancelled Stitchers, The Class, The Librarians, Night Shift. I guess the stuff they have on is geared towards the 20-30 somethings. Maybe thats why I find it boring. How many shows on terrorism do you need? I tried to record what I like just in case, but really don't have the time. At least I have the shows from the last 5 to 20 years I do like and can get. Really don't need Networks any more. They just disappoint. Next time I move, I'll just get internet(again). |
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TIVO: Jul30,2014:I have had one for 10 years now. Its a Series 1. It records everything I want, that it can get. I put a tivonet ethernet card into it some years ago so I could do more things with it. And for the last couple of years, I have wanted to get it to make its daily call through the net instead of dial up since AT&T has raised their prices by quite a lot. After a recent lightning storm took out the modem, I had no choice, the change must be made. I was down to 6 hours of guide data left. Since mine has a OS ver 3, all I "needed" to do was change the dialing code to ,#401. But of course, this did not work. I had to dig down, find info, and make two more changes...the first was to use nic_config_tivo to change dialup to network(reboot). Tivo did make more progress in the daily call, but couldn't get through. I make the second change, DHCP to 192.168.1.1 (reboot) and hooray!, it made the daily call in about 1 minute, vs the 25 minutes by phone. Now to get tivoweb going... Nov20,2014:Well, my brother insisted on dumping TimeWarner and getting AT&T Uverse, saving about half the money for a while and getting more features. I'd get the dvr since I record more. I wasn't so sure. And on the day Uverse was installed, my Tivo could no longer get data. Tried what I could. But really had no time. I was really busy at work. I found no answer on Tivo Forums. A Ping test says Tivo was there. I finally looked a this very entry on my web page, and the light bulb went off. The uverse router had a different ip address than the TW one! If the Tivo had just given me an error message-"no isp gateway found" or some such thing, I think this would have been obvious. The test call went great. Downloading guide data took only a couple of minutes. hooray! Of course, its the wrong data, but thats next. I don't know if I will keep tivo with TW data, and programming Uverse to record it, or move Tivo to over the air stuff. Mar2018::I had been using my Tivo to record over the air TV, mostly PBS Create. But eventually, I stopped that. Tivo stopped supporting the Series 1 with guide data. So my Series 1 is retired. I really miss the interface, but would have like it update with some of the Replay features. The ATT search is very limited. Program data is limited. Sigh. |
| Rewiring device cables using the serial port to a simpler cable... |
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July2018 As of right now, most of the devices below have been retired. I still have the 1" and 2" label printers thru a switchbox but they go to my Win98 box that is rarely on, and they do not like XP. I bought an Adesso 2" Thermal printer that does labels as well, and really fast! It works great with Win10 but not with WinXP-even though its says it should(no word from the mfr!). I may at some time use the SC label printers with my A8. I would like to use the Adesso on my A8 at some point, but would have to create a USB to serial passthru device. by Rick D I have a few things attached to a switch box then to my PC serial port, usually. I have 2 Smith Corona SCLP thermal label printers...a 1" and a 2". I also have the Palm PDA and my Newton 2000. The SCLPs use a 6 wire phone cable I connected to the switch box using a 6 wire to DB9 adapter. The Palm and Newton use a DB9 attached directly. I also have a Monarch Rascal battery thermal printer, originally cost around $1000!, that I made a cable for which uses 8 wires. I also am rebuilding a small receipt dm printer, 6 wire. So I have rebuilt all of the cables to use 8 wire ethernet type cable. So I had to get a new switch box. 22Feb2007:I have enough devices that I got a second switch box. One switches between Printers, Palm, and Newton. The second feeds from Printers, to control the 2 sclp, the receipt dm, and the monarch rascal. So here are the wiring lists for these devices: | ||||
Standard Serial Port Wiring 1: CD 2: RxD 3: TxD 4: DTR 5: GND 6: DSR 7: RTS 8: CTS 9: RI(not used) |
8 wire>SCLP Cable Colors from their book 1: 2: ORANGE >Blue TxD 3: BLACK >Yellow RxD 4: 5: GREEN >Red GND 6: YELLOW >White DTR 7: BROWN >Black CTS 8: WHITE >Green RTS |
8 wire>Palm Cable Colors 1: 2: ORANGE >Red 3: BLACK >Yellow 4: 5: GREEN >Black 6: YELLOW >Green 7: BROWN >Brown 8: WHITE >Orange |
8 wire>Newton Cable (not tested) 1: BLUE >1 CD 2: ORANGE >3 TxD 3: BLACK >5 RxD 4: RED >2,7 DSR 5: GREEN >4,8 Gnd 6: 7: BROWN >6 CTS 8: |
8 wire>Monarch Rascal Printer jack # 1: 2: ORANGE >3 TxD 3: BLACK >5 RxD 4: RED >7 DSR 5: GREEN >4 Gnd 6: YELLOW >6 DTR 7: BROWN >1 CTS 8: WHITE >2 RTS |
Note 1:I did not know there was a spec for this...EIA/TIA - 561. They just had to introduce another wiring method to make things more complicated. I just used the DB-9 info which makes it easier. Note 2:Here is a link to more serial stuff... ZYTRAX So here are the wiring lists for these devices using the EIA/TIA-561 cabling: I have NOT tested this cabling. | ||||
EIA/TIA-561 Port Wiring 1: DSR 2: CD 3: DTR 4: GND 5: RxD 6: TxD 7: CTS 8: RTS |
8 wire>SCLP Cable Colors from their book 1: BLUE >White DTR 2: 3: 4: RED >Red Gnd 5: GREEN >Blue TxD 6: YELLOW >Yellow RxD 7: BROWN >Green RTS 8: WHITE >Black CTS |
8 wire>Palm Cable Colors 1: BLUE >Green 2: 3: 4: RED >Black 5: GREEN >Red 6: YELLOW >Yellow 7: BROWN >Orange 8: WHITE >Brown |
8 wire>Newton Cable 1: 2: ORANGE >1 CD 3: BLACK >2,7 DSR 4: RED >4,8 Gnd 5: GREEN >3 TxD 6: YELLOW >5 RxD 7: 8: WHITE >6 CTS |
8 wire>Monarch Rascal Printer jack # 1: BLUE >6 DTR 2: 3: BLACK >7 DSR 4: RED >4 Gnd 5: GREEN >3 TxD 6: YELLOW >5 RxD 7: BROWN >2 RTS 8: WHITE >1 CTS |
Note 3:The devices I use do not need ring indicate so that is not included. Making an adapter for the device end, and possibly the computer end, you can use straight thru ethernet cable to wire them. Max lengths vary by device. ====== 22Feb2007 |
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