Re: [fpc-pascal] I found FPC v0.2 source code :-)
waldo kitty wrote: On 1/29/2012 17:41, Lars wrote: Anything that has Capacitors in it which use wet electrolytic, can dry out with age. Old stereos that crackle when you turn up the volume are an example. In motherboards though it seems it's more a problem that capacitors blow up and bulge out which is probably from usage rather than idle age. speaking as a hardware man, these components are easily replaced... in many cases, if the board's traces are damaged, they, too, can be repaired... i am still replacing capacitors on boards from that old problem where capacitors were purchased from manufacturers that fell to the capacitor espionage situation of some, what?, 15 years ago? I have replaced capacitors too, on car electronics and stereos, with great success. Even you can get better capacitors that don't dry out. ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Re: [fpc-pascal] I found FPC v0.2 source code :-)
waldo kitty wrote: On 1/29/2012 17:41, Lars wrote: Anything that has Capacitors in it which use wet electrolytic, can dry out with age. Old stereos that crackle when you turn up the volume are an example. In motherboards though it seems it's more a problem that capacitors blow up and bulge out which is probably from usage rather than idle age. speaking as a hardware man, these components are easily replaced... in many cases, if the board's traces are damaged, they, too, can be repaired... i am still replacing capacitors on boards from that old problem where capacitors were purchased from manufacturers that fell to the capacitor espionage situation of some, what?, 15 years ago? People who repair things are a dying breed. I'm waiting for spare cash, at which point my SGI PSU will be going off to somebody who claims to be able to repair it (blown semiconductor, no obvious major damage). -- Mark Morgan Lloyd markMLl .AT. telemetry.co .DOT. uk [Opinions above are the author's, not those of his employers or colleagues] ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Re: [fpc-pascal] I found FPC v0.2 source code :-)
On 30 January 2012 10:54, Mark Morgan Lloyd wrote: People who repair things are a dying breed. I fully agree. Totally off-topic, but anybody here know of a course or books one could buy on basic electronic repairs. Thinking in lines of PSU etc to start with. I've been long wanting to enter this as a hobby project of mine, but I have no idea where to start. I am so stick of buying new PSU or other power adapters, when there is probably a good chance it could have be repaired in a few minutes (only if I knew how). I remember 8 years ago, my laptop charger had a worn wire. You had to wiggle the wire before the laptop would charge. I search high and low in the UK for somebody that could simply replace the cable. Nobody wanted to touch it! Eventually I bought a soldering iron, cut out the broken part of the wire and fixed it myself. It's ridiculous that nobody wants to repair things any more. -- Regards, - Graeme - ___ fpGUI - a cross-platform Free Pascal GUI toolkit http://fpgui.sourceforge.net ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Re: [fpc-pascal] I found FPC v0.2 source code :-)
Graeme Geldenhuys wrote: On 30 January 2012 10:54, Mark Morgan Lloyd wrote: People who repair things are a dying breed. I fully agree. Totally off-topic, but anybody here know of a course or books one could buy on basic electronic repairs. Thinking in lines of PSU etc to start with. I've been long wanting to enter this as a hobby project of mine, but I have no idea where to start. I am so stick of buying new PSU or other power adapters, when there is probably a good chance it could have be repaired in a few minutes (only if I knew how). Some power supplies that I have found faulty before have a blown glass fuse in them. Sometimes it is not worth repairing things because there is risk of electrocuting yourself.. other times it is worth repairing. Depends. I don't know of any books but people used to start off with 555 timers and read books on them. I found it too boring building clocks and other trivial devices and I was happy to learn programming which is easier to do complex things than soldering (which was extremely difficult). To keep it on topic, there is programmable hardware available where you can change the hardware using a hardware programming language. Niklaus Wirth is interested in such technology. Instead of soldering in capacitors and resistors, you program in something that emulates a resistor or capacitor. This makes prototyping circuits much easier because instead of soldering, you program in the devices you would have otherwise soldered. The devices are called Field-programmable gate array's I think, and from what I remember Niklaus Wirth was programming a remote control helicopter with it, or maybe oberon, it's been so long that I cannot remember the details. Just trying to keep it a bit on topic. I remember 8 years ago, my laptop charger had a worn wire. You had to wiggle the wire before the laptop would charge. I search high and low in the UK for somebody that could simply replace the cable. Nobody wanted to touch it! Eventually I bought a soldering iron, cut out the broken part of the wire and fixed it myself. It's ridiculous that nobody wants to repair things any more. I've had these experiences too, sometimes the power supply is 50 bucks. If the power supply is only 12 dollars then it's better just to replace it since time equals money. But not always, it depends. ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Re: [fpc-pascal] I found FPC v0.2 source code :-)
Graeme Geldenhuys wrote: On 30 January 2012 10:54, Mark Morgan Lloyd wrote: People who repair things are a dying breed. I fully agree. Totally off-topic, but anybody here know of a course or books one could buy on basic electronic repairs. Thinking in lines of PSU etc to start with. I've been long wanting to enter this as a hobby project of mine, but I have no idea where to start. I am so stick of buying new PSU or other power adapters, when there is probably a good chance it could have be repaired in a few minutes (only if I knew how). I remember 8 years ago, my laptop charger had a worn wire. You had to wiggle the wire before the laptop would charge. I search high and low in the UK for somebody that could simply replace the cable. Nobody wanted to touch it! Eventually I bought a soldering iron, cut out the broken part of the wire and fixed it myself. It's ridiculous that nobody wants to repair things any more. My degrees are electronics, and in theory I'm trained to fix some /big/ mainframe switchmode PSUs, so with apologies to the list owner I'm probably in a position where I have to comment on this for safety reasons. My advice: don't. The big things that I worked on had banks of transistors that were packed with toxic powder (beryllium IIRC), when one failed the whole row would unzip messily. A colleague took a new CRT out of its packing and got a massive shock because it still contained charge from manufacture. I've got any number of stories about people who've done something that they thought was safe which has gone on to cause damage or injury. Things like the output wire on low voltage PSUs are fair game for repair. You can get spare concentric connectors from RS or Maplin in the UK (Graeme- I thought you were abroad?), you can slit and superglue boots, fabricate insulators from metal-loaded epoxy (black stuff- it's actually iron oxide) and RTV or potting compound, repair some (but not all) plastic that degrades with age and so on. But if you want to start getting into the electronics side of it, and in particular if you want to work on sealed PSUs (I don't know the current situation, but the law used to be that anything containing 50V had to be unopenable by hand i.e. you /had/ to use screwdrivers etc.) then I'd suggest looking around for something like a CG-accredited electronic technician course- which full-time would take years. The chap I was talking to about my PSU repair is at http://www.olympus-electronics.co.uk/ He quoted a nominal £45 but that obviously doesn't include carriage etc. -- Mark Morgan Lloyd markMLl .AT. telemetry.co .DOT. uk [Opinions above are the author's, not those of his employers or colleagues] ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Re: [fpc-pascal] I found FPC v0.2 source code :-)
On 30/01/12 09:05, Graeme Geldenhuys wrote: On 30 January 2012 10:54, Mark Morgan Lloyd wrote: People who repair things are a dying breed. I fully agree. Totally off-topic, but anybody here know of a course or books one could buy on basic electronic repairs. Thinking in lines of PSU etc to start with. I've been long wanting to enter this as a hobby project of mine, but I have no idea where to start. I am so stick of buying new PSU or other power adapters, when there is I'd advise against fiddling with switch mode PSUs. The way it is now is that simple ones are too cheap for anybody to bother repairing. But then they turn out to be pretty crap (due to the cheapness). Repair cables and connectors, perhaps even replace bulging capacitors, but apart from that, this is not hobby material! Henry ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Re: [fpc-pascal] I found FPC v0.2 source code :-)
Hi, Please move the hardware hacking discussions to the fpc-other mailing list. Thanks, Jonas FPC mailing lists admin ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Re: [fpc-pascal] I found FPC v0.2 source code :-)
Lars wrote: To keep it on topic, there is programmable hardware available where you can change the hardware using a hardware programming language. Niklaus Wirth is interested in such technology. Instead of soldering in capacitors and resistors, you program in something that emulates a resistor or capacitor. This makes prototyping circuits much easier because instead of soldering, you program in the devices you would have otherwise soldered. The devices are called Field-programmable gate array's I think, and from what I remember Niklaus Wirth was programming a remote control helicopter with it, or maybe oberon, it's been so long that I cannot remember the details. Just trying to keep it a bit on topic. I've commented to this in fpc-other. -- Mark Morgan Lloyd markMLl .AT. telemetry.co .DOT. uk [Opinions above are the author's, not those of his employers or colleagues] ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Re: [fpc-pascal] I found FPC v0.2 source code :-)
Am 27.01.2012 10:14, schrieb Graeme Geldenhuys: Hi, I stumbled upon the following. No idea where this FTP server lives, but the link came from the Free Pascal documentation downloads page. Anyway, while browsing there, I came across FPK (what is now known as FPC) v0.2 source code release. 17 units in total and all console output is German text. This release was way before I (and probably most of you) even knew Free Pascal existed. :-) There is also a v0.9.0 and v0.9.1 release source code. ftp://193.224.143.39/pub/fpc/attic/ Just thought I'd share what I found. Florian might appreciate seeing just how far FPK / FPC has come. I've still backups back to 0.1 on 5 1/4 floppies somewhere :) Though I've no idea if they still work :) ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Re: [fpc-pascal] I found FPC v0.2 source code :-)
On 1/29/12, Florian Klämpfl flor...@freepascal.org wrote: I've still backups back to 0.1 on 5 1/4 floppies somewhere :) Though I've no idea if they still work :) ___ But do you have a machine to read them? Bart ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Re: [fpc-pascal] I found FPC v0.2 source code :-)
Am 29.01.2012 11:55, schrieb Bart: On 1/29/12, Florian Klämpfl flor...@freepascal.org wrote: I've still backups back to 0.1 on 5 1/4 floppies somewhere :) Though I've no idea if they still work :) ___ But do you have a machine to read them? I've still a 5 1/4 floppy lying around, afaik it should still work with current MBs. ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Re: [fpc-pascal] I found FPC v0.2 source code :-)
On Sun, Jan 29, 2012 at 13:15, Florian Klämpfl flor...@freepascal.orgwrote: Am 29.01.2012 11:55, schrieb Bart: On 1/29/12, Florian Klämpfl flor...@freepascal.org wrote: I've still backups back to 0.1 on 5 1/4 floppies somewhere :) Though I've no idea if they still work :) ___ But do you have a machine to read them? I've still a 5 1/4 floppy lying around, afaik it should still work with current MBs. You should upload to ftp's and places such as sourceforge. It's a museum display :) ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Re: [fpc-pascal] I found FPC v0.2 source code :-)
On Sun, Jan 29, 2012 at 12:19 PM, ik ido...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Jan 29, 2012 at 13:15, Florian Klämpfl flor...@freepascal.org wrote: Am 29.01.2012 11:55, schrieb Bart: On 1/29/12, Florian Klämpfl flor...@freepascal.org wrote: I've still backups back to 0.1 on 5 1/4 floppies somewhere :) Though I've no idea if they still work :) ___ But do you have a machine to read them? I've still a 5 1/4 floppy lying around, afaik it should still work with current MBs. You should upload to ftp's and places such as sourceforge. It's a museum display :) Yeah, it MUST NOT get lost! -- regards, Kornel Kisielewicz ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Re: [fpc-pascal] I found FPC v0.2 source code :-)
Florian Klämpfl wrote: Am 29.01.2012 11:55, schrieb Bart: On 1/29/12, Florian Klämpfl flor...@freepascal.org wrote: I've still backups back to 0.1 on 5 1/4 floppies somewhere :) Though I've no idea if they still work :) ___ But do you have a machine to read them? I've still a 5 1/4 floppy lying around, afaik it should still work with current MBs. My experience is that both media and drives suffer with age, even if not being used. -- Mark Morgan Lloyd markMLl .AT. telemetry.co .DOT. uk [Opinions above are the author's, not those of his employers or colleagues] ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Re: [fpc-pascal] I found FPC v0.2 source code :-)
On 29.01.2012 15:21, Mark Morgan Lloyd wrote: Florian Klämpfl wrote: Am 29.01.2012 11:55, schrieb Bart: On 1/29/12, Florian Klämpfl flor...@freepascal.org wrote: I've still backups back to 0.1 on 5 1/4 floppies somewhere :) Though I've no idea if they still work :) ___ But do you have a machine to read them? I've still a 5 1/4 floppy lying around, afaik it should still work with current MBs. My experience is that both media and drives suffer with age, even if not being used. In that case: Florian, save that code as fast as possible, before the disks have suffered! :P ( = not intended as real order, of course ^^ ) Regards, Sven ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Re: [fpc-pascal] I found FPC v0.2 source code :-)
On 29 January 2012 16:21, Mark Morgan Lloyd markmll.fpc-pas...@telemetry.co.uk wrote: My experience is that both media and drives suffer with age, even if not being used. I can imagine that might be for the disk, but not the drive itself. I recently cleaned up my garage and found a crate full of old hardware (boxes and boxes of 5.25 and 3.5 floppies, 2 5.25 floppy drives, 286 motherboard, 1x 84MB HDD, very old software and games etc...). The floppy drives and diskettes still worked. :-) No idea what I must do with all this old stuff though Does anybody collect such stuff? @Florian Definitely try to preserve such old software releases. If you can, you should upload it to SourceForge. -- Regards, - Graeme - ___ fpGUI - a cross-platform Free Pascal GUI toolkit http://fpgui.sourceforge.net ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Re: [fpc-pascal] I found FPC v0.2 source code :-)
Anything that has Capacitors in it which use wet electrolytic, can dry out with age. Old stereos that crackle when you turn up the volume are an example. In motherboards though it seems it's more a problem that capacitors blow up and bulge out which is probably from usage rather than idle age. Graeme Geldenhuys wrote: On 29 January 2012 16:21, Mark Morgan Lloyd markmll.fpc-pas...@telemetry.co.uk wrote: My experience is that both media and drives suffer with age, even if not being used. I can imagine that might be for the disk, but not the drive itself. I recently cleaned up my garage and found a crate full of old hardware (boxes and boxes of 5.25 and 3.5 floppies, 2 5.25 floppy drives, 286 motherboard, 1x 84MB HDD, very old software and games etc...). The floppy drives and diskettes still worked. :-) No idea what I must do with all this old stuff though Does anybody collect such stuff? @Florian Definitely try to preserve such old software releases. If you can, you should upload it to SourceForge. ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Re: [fpc-pascal] I found FPC v0.2 source code :-)
On 1/29/2012 05:55, Bart wrote: On 1/29/12, Florian Klämpflflor...@freepascal.org wrote: I've still backups back to 0.1 on 5 1/4 floppies somewhere :) Though I've no idea if they still work :) ___ But do you have a machine to read them? if florian doesn't, i do ;) i specifically keep older machines around and in working order specifically to try to support those older machines and installations for the software that i work with... yes, even those old dBIII and dBIV installations which are still active ;) ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Re: [fpc-pascal] I found FPC v0.2 source code :-)
On 1/29/2012 06:19, ik wrote: On Sun, Jan 29, 2012 at 13:15, Florian Klämpfl flor...@freepascal.org mailto:flor...@freepascal.org wrote: Am 29.01.2012 11:55, schrieb Bart: On 1/29/12, Florian Klämpfl flor...@freepascal.org mailto:flor...@freepascal.org wrote: I've still backups back to 0.1 on 5 1/4 floppies somewhere :) Though I've no idea if they still work :) ___ But do you have a machine to read them? I've still a 5 1/4 floppy lying around, afaik it should still work with current MBs. You should upload to ftp's and places such as sourceforge. It's a museum display :) while i tend to agree... i'm still servicing some of these that are processing upwards of .5mil+ USD a year... to some they are simply museum pieces while to others, they are life blood ;) ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Re: [fpc-pascal] I found FPC v0.2 source code :-)
On 1/29/2012 09:21, Mark Morgan Lloyd wrote: Florian Klämpfl wrote: Am 29.01.2012 11:55, schrieb Bart: On 1/29/12, Florian Klämpfl flor...@freepascal.org wrote: I've still backups back to 0.1 on 5 1/4 floppies somewhere :) Though I've no idea if they still work :) ___ But do you have a machine to read them? I've still a 5 1/4 floppy lying around, afaik it should still work with current MBs. My experience is that both media and drives suffer with age, even if not being used. while this is true, i /still/ have some full height 5.25 inch drives that take manual adjustment for being able to read the floppies placed in them... and yes, i still have the cat's eye disks used to calibrate them with an o'scope... i can't say this about those half-height 5.25inch devices that i still retain... many of those were not adjustable :? ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Re: [fpc-pascal] I found FPC v0.2 source code :-)
On 1/29/2012 16:57, Graeme Geldenhuys wrote: On 29 January 2012 16:21, Mark Morgan Lloyd markmll.fpc-pas...@telemetry.co.uk wrote: My experience is that both media and drives suffer with age, even if not being used. I can imagine that might be for the disk, but not the drive itself. I recently cleaned up my garage and found a crate full of old hardware (boxes and boxes of 5.25 and 3.5 floppies, 2 5.25 floppy drives, 286 motherboard, 1x 84MB HDD, very old software and games etc...). The floppy drives and diskettes still worked. :-) No idea what I must do with all this old stuff though Does anybody collect such stuff? yes... some do... but many of those who do also look to see how obscure such are... i konw of at least two folk who have garages full of old hardware going back as far as the PDP-9 or PDP-11 devices... i even have an old System36 sitting here (holding up the other end of my main work bench that came with an 8inch drive which still works and appears to be properly calibrated... sadly, though [!], i don't have the 220V connection capability to fire it up and place a brownout on the neighborhood for the 5 minutes it takes it to come up to speed :P @Florian Definitely try to preserve such old software releases. If you can, you should upload it to SourceForge. +1+ ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Re: [fpc-pascal] I found FPC v0.2 source code :-)
On 1/29/2012 17:41, Lars wrote: Anything that has Capacitors in it which use wet electrolytic, can dry out with age. Old stereos that crackle when you turn up the volume are an example. In motherboards though it seems it's more a problem that capacitors blow up and bulge out which is probably from usage rather than idle age. speaking as a hardware man, these components are easily replaced... in many cases, if the board's traces are damaged, they, too, can be repaired... i am still replacing capacitors on boards from that old problem where capacitors were purchased from manufacturers that fell to the capacitor espionage situation of some, what?, 15 years ago? ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Re: [fpc-pascal] I found FPC v0.2 source code :-)
In our previous episode, Graeme Geldenhuys said: Anyway, while browsing there, I came across FPK (what is now known as FPC) v0.2 source code release. 17 units in total and all console output is German text. This release was way before I (and probably most of you) even knew Free Pascal existed. :-) There is also a v0.9.0 and v0.9.1 release source code. ftp://193.224.143.39/pub/fpc/attic/ It is ftp.freepascal.org, just a different VM used during FTP VM migration. ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
