1/3/94 6:24:29 PM (PST) Opening "Chat Log 1/3/94" for recording. AFL Don : Hello, Walt! AFA Fixit : Hi Don! AFL Don : Hi Kate! TallTassle : Hiya Don :) AFL Don : :) AFL Don : hi Marty! LTNS! IIProMarty : Hi! Happy New Year AFA Fixit : Hey Marty! AFL Don : So far, it's a Happy New Year! IIProMarty : Gonna be a snowy new year here in CT AFL Don : Heard from Tom Carlton's wife... she's doing ok, says hi to Tom's friends. IIProMarty : Glad to hear she's doing well. AFA Fixit : Ditto AFL Don : Will tell her... My wife and I are going to see if she wants to meet for lunch this week... ...been busy getting my startup handouts ready for next semester... Will be teaching two classes this Spring.. I stumbled on a neat trick with aliases that's going to make my life easier... : Works great with GS/OS 6.0.1... AFA Fixit : What's that Don? AFL Don : Cleaning up a hard drive, move important but seldom-used files to a floppy. Then make an alias, pull the alias back into a folder on the Hard Drive.... When the floppy's put away, you can open the Tracer folder, click on the alias, and it'll tell you what floppy contains the file you've put away on the floppy. AFA Fixit : It also works for network volumes. :) AFL Don : Sure, folders, volumes, whatever... Works great, gives you a handle on finding files that's better'n anything else I've tried.... I've got stacks and stacks of floppies with low-density importance, but significant files scattered throughout. This might get me out of the quagmire... Not really a hardware trick, but it won't work without hardware... AFL Don : Hello, Bill! Welcome to the Apple Hardware Forum Chat! EFC Bill : Hi AFL Don : We'll get under way here when more people show up soon... First time with us? EFC Bill : Yes AFL Don : What computer do you use? EFC Bill : I have a IIgs, a Mac SI, and a 386. AFL Don : Great! 2GS, my favorite computer! AFA Fixit : Covering the bases Bill? AFL Don : Belt, suspenders, and safety pin! EFC Bill : Sorry - doorbell AFL Don : :) EFC Bill : I was looking for AFA Rich and his chat - not here I guess? AFL Don : Well, you're very welcome here! AFA Fixit : I don't think so. AFA Fixit : Wrong order on that. ;) AFL Don : Any problems with your 2GS that we can help you solve? EFC Bill : I usually have a chat at this time each week myself but we took the BIG holiday break. AFL Don : Looks like a lotta people did, by the room count tonight! EFC Bill : Not really any problems with any hardware. AFL Don : What's your area, Bill? EFC Bill : I host the Adult Literacy chat. AFL Don : Great! Been thinking about dropping in on that sometime. College prof here... EFC Bill : Rittner? AFL Don : No, that's AFL DonR, I think... EFC Bill : OK AFL Don : I get his mail all the time... EFC Bill : I better look for my friend Rich. He is a member of our club. I'm prez of our local Apple/Mac club. AFL Don : Glad to meet ya, Bill... Hope you come back sometime! EFC Bill : See you later - have a good New Year. AFL Don : :) AFA Fixit : Looking to be a slow night in AHW. AFL Don : Just checked the room counts, lotta business tonight, just not here.... AFL Don : BTW, there was a winner in the contest... GS Dave... AFL Don : I posted the questions/answers in the New Files section... Mr CRT : Hello AFL Don : Hello, CRT! Welcome to the Apple Hardware Forum Chat! Mr CRT : What's the topic tonight? AFL Don : Your screen-name is interesting... Mr CRT : Yes, I know. ;) AFL Don : The official topic is.... AFL Don : Powerline spikes, etc. Mr CRT : Oh I need to hear about this. AFL Don : What computer platform do you favor? Mr CRT : I have problems keeping my modem online with AOL AFL Don : Have you tried another node? Mr CRT : because I hear little "blips" on it that I think are Mr CRT : power problems. Mr CRT : Yes, I've tried two different ones. AFL Don : That's unlikely, I think... The really high-energy spikes that do damage do not last very long, do not have a recognizable waveform as a rule... Can you describe the blips? And do you have problems with local BBSs? Mr CRT : HHmmm, now that I think about it, I don't have that particular problem on BBSs. Mr CRT : And there is almost a pattern to the "blips" I get. AFL Don : It may be that you're running into problems that will be solved as AOL improves their hardware soon AFC Marvin : Good evening! AFL Don : Hello, Marvin! AFL Don : Do they sound a little like a musical hum? Mr CRT : BTW, the "Blips" are the sound the modem makes as it hangs up. AFC Marvin : Hello Don, Walt and CRT Mr CRT : Hello, Marvin. AFL Don : The reason I ask, some modems have a ground-loop problem that puts hum on the phone line, and this tends to make the modem circuits chancy... AFA Fixit : Hi Marvin AFL Don : Are you sure you have your modem configured properly for AOL? Mr CRT : Currently I'm using an Express modem on my Mac, but my IIgs has a LineLink 144e and it had the same... Mr CRT : problem. Mr CRT : Yes, 2400 bps and all that. AFL Don : Hmmm. I wonder if your phone line could have crosstalk with someone else in your neighborhood. Since both modems/computers have the problem, it seems unlikely that it's a hardware problem on your end... AFL Don : The Express modems seem to have some problems... I'm not familiar with the LineLink 144e... Mr CRT : I think that it may be something like that, but how do I convince the phone company? AFL Don : If it's crosstalk, you should hear it on voice calls. Have you tried selecting different modems from the AOL menu? Mr CRT : The LineLink 144e is a V.32bis/V.42bis inexpensive modem. No, I haven't tried different modems. Mr CRT : I think maybe I should try a different primary node phone number, the one I'm using in Cincinnati.... AFL Don : How about trying a different carrier... Tymnet/SprintNet/TeleNet sometimes behave differently... Mr CRT : ...could be really busy. AFC Marvin : I missed out on the beginning of this problem but for a while I had problem with my modem and quickly found it to be a noise problem on the phone line. I decided to use the phone line for voice calls for a while so I could find out what was going on. Before too long I started hearing intermittent noise Mr CRT : Sorry, if I slow down, I'm feeding my baby & typing 1 handed AFC Marvin : on the line which was the cause of my problem. Phone company had to switch my line to a different cable pair. AFL Don : CRT, do you live close to an AM broadcast station transmitter? Mr CRT : Yes, 1 block AFC Marvin : That could sure be a problem. AFL Don : Aha! I have weird problems from KNBR here, that go away when I use a Z100A filter AFA Fixit : That could do it. AFL Don : Betcha that's it... Mr CRT : A what filter? AFL Don : There is a better filter available from K-Comm, but AT&T sells a radio-interference filter with the designation Z100B... It's about $20, will plug right into your modem, and the phone line into the filter... AFC Marvin : CRT, do you ever hear any of the audio from the nearby AM station on your phone line? AFL Don : ...Could be that your voice phones are RFI proof, but your modems aren't. It'd be a gamble to buy one, but it might solve your problem... Only reservation is that you don't have the problem with local BBS's. AFC Marvin : Oh! that does tend to indicate that the local am station is maybe not the problem. Mr CRT : No, but I do hear some 2-way radios on my stereo. : Mr CRT : I have different problems w/BBSs. AFL Don : The stereo interference is probably a separate problem, which we can help you solve, also. Mr CRT : I think the node is a good thing to try changing 1st, no extra $ that way AFL Don : Try the cheap things first... Just for a check, you can call a node anyplace in the country... AFC Marvin : I had a humorous call today. The call was from an employer that is located very close to our 50,000- Watt AM radio tower. He said his employees wanted to know if they were in any danger of electromagnetic radiation from our tower. I replied that measurements at the base of the tower showed the hazard did not extend out beyond 30 feet from the tower. So as long as his employees did not enter the 30 foot radius circle they would be ok. He said that if they were within the 30-foot circle he would not be paying them anyway so no problem. Mr CRT : LOL! : I'm in tech support for a co. & we get calls like that all the time AFL Don : That's a good one, Marvin! Living 24 hours/day next to the tower at KPOL didn't hurt any of those black-widow spiders.... AFC Marvin : Same with the KFI tower. The tuning house is a great home to black-widow spiders. So this RF hazard must not be all it is cracked up to be. AFL Don : ...of course even a large spider isn't a resonant size! AFC Marvin : The spiders reproduce quite well in the tuning house but I never see them put their webs on the tuning coils. AFL Don : I remember we had to crouch when measuring the base current on one tower to avoid rf burns! Mr CRT : I used to work w/902 MHz and accidentally touched the antenna several times. AFC Marvin : How much power was involved at 902 MHz? Mr CRT : We were on the low low setting at the time, and I can't remember what it was but I remember that ... Mr CRT : everyone cautioned me to be careful not to touch the antenna, if we had been on the higher power... Mr CRT : we would have had to be careful of our proximity, not just touch. AFL Don : Worst rf burn I've had, dermatologist was burning off a wart, she leaned over, touched my knee... AFC Marvin : CRT, what was the application of that 902 MHz system? AFL Don : I arced over to something on her, she jumped a foot! Mr CRT : Utility SUB station control and monitoring. AFC Marvin : Ouch! Mr CRT : Ouch is right! AFL Don : That's what she said! Mr CRT I was wondering if there are any power supply/filter devices that any of you recommend AFL Don : The Isobar is best unit I've checked out, but it's expensive... AFC Marvin : Does the Isobar do anything for RF? I think of that more as a spike eliminator but not so sure of how well it would deal with RF. AFL Don : It's got impressive-looking inductors, capacitors in a brute-force filter configuration... AFC Marvin : I see those utility monitoring systems around Southern California too. Not long ago I was up on Mt. Harvard where KUSC is located and there was a little RF unit located their for remote power meter readings. AFC Marvin : The antennas on the units I have seen look like they are about right for 902 MHz. Mr CRT : 902 MHz was reallocated in 1992, if a utility wasn't using it at that time it lost it's right to use it at all. AFC Marvin : Maybe that is why I am seeing them now. The utility does not want to lose the frequency. AFL Don : Are you, by any chance, a ham, CRT? Mr CRT : No, maybe someday though. AFL Don : <--K6VH AFC Marvin : <--W6OQI AFL Don : Great hobby... Mr CRT : LOL! I could not have guessed! :) AFC Marvin : You might want to pick up the book "Now You're Talking." This is a great book for getting the new AFC Marvin : No Code Ham Radio license. AFL Don : Good advice! It's a great book... AFC Marvin : Hello Frank. BCS Frank : Hi, y'all! :) AFL Don : Hello, Frank! Mr CRT : Our users group sponsor a ham SIG for Apple II and Mac users BCS Frank : What's cooking? BCS Frank : Ham? AFL Don : Great! AFL Don : We've been trying to solve Mr CRT's problems with his modem... Strange blips keep knocking him off of Mr CRT : be right back AFL Don : AOL.. BCS Frank : Are they running packet modems? Mr CRT : I gotta go put the baby down AFC Marvin : Ham Radio Frank! BCS Frank : Right, Marvin.... packet radio modem transmission between computers falls under BCS Frank : Ham... at least I think it does. Mr CRT : OK I'm back. BCS Frank : The BCS has a packet radio group, but I'm not up on what they're doing. AFC Marvin : You are right Frank. I have experimented with some packet transmission. It works pretty good. BCS Frank : Course on some nights (like tonight) I have plenty of adventure just signing onto AOL. :) Mr CRT : We were trying packet radio transmission with those 902 MHz radios I was talking about earlier, but... AFA Fixit : What kind of data rate? Mr CRT : The problems we had was our proprietary PPP was not optimized for packets, but for "chatty streams" of Mr CRT : data. Mr CRT : 2400 BPS to 9600 BPS (This was in 1991-1992) Mr CRT : So when we went to "packetizing" the data our effective through put was about an eighth of what it Mr CRT : was over a serial link. Mr CRT : S L O W ! AFL Don : We had a demo of packet at our UG, 2 meters, but it seemed very slow... AFC Marvin : Slow was my experience with packet too. TallTassle : *Thump Thud Crash Bang* AFL Don : Rehi, Kate! AFA Fixit : {{{{***Kate***}}}} Mr CRT : Wow, 6 people here! BCS Frank : Well, we can get spoiled with SprintNet. TallTassle : ReHi Don :) TallTassle : {{{{***Walt***}}}} AFC Marvin : Hello Kate. I guess I gotta get that sound file so I can hear when you come in. All I get now is the print on the screen but no sound. AFL Don : That's for sure... sure wish I had a 9600-baud modem.. That must be great.. BCS Frank : Akkk... CRT got denoded? BCS Frank : Kate! :) AFL Don : Must've been one of those blips he typed about... TallTassle : Frank :) AFA Fixit : Anyone remember what the resolution of Mac Plus is? BCS Frank : Mac Plus... all I remember is monochrome. AFL Don : The book I bought yesterday said 75 X 75 dpi... AFA Fixit : 512 x ? pixels? AFL Don : ...but they sure look sharper than that... that's what my PB 170 does... AFC Marvin : I have been impressed with a Quadra 840AV we have here at work. I am considering getting one for myself. Any thoughts about the 840AV? BCS Frank : Well... they are tiny pixels. BCS Frank : Roger Wagner has been saying nice things about the 840AV.... BCS Frank : .... and I certainly respect histies! :) AFA Fixit : Nice piece of hardware, but I'm holding out for the PowerPC Macs. AFC Marvin : The 840AV is upgradable to the PowerPC I am told. BCS Frank : You might also think about the Indy..... $5000 including AFL Don : The hype on the PowerPC's sounds impressive... BCS Frank : video camera, runs Intel and Mac systems, and more. AFC Marvin : Frank, what is the Indy? Never heard of the Indy. AFA Fixit : Mac and Intel compatibility are less than impressive on the Indy. BCS Frank : It's kind of the son of the Indigo... a desk top[ computer from AFA Fixit : The Indy is the latest "low end" Silicon Graphics Unix workstation. BCS Frank : Silicon Graphics.... AFL Don : OIC BCS Frank : They've been putting out high end graphic stations for doing the Fx BCS Frank : on Terminator II, Lawnmover man, etc. BCS Frank : What's new about the Indy is the very low price, relative to BCS Frank : its siblings. AFL Don : That's very cheap for a workstation, I hear... BCS Frank : And running MS-DOS, Windows, Mac OS, Unix and the linke BCS Frank : makes it a rather eclectic box. AFA Fixit : Yes, quite. AFC Marvin : I will have to look into that box. BCS Frank : I'd sure like to field test one for a few years. :) AFL Don : Multi platform capabilities, I'll bet, is in the future for all successful personal computers... AFL Don : if you look far enough down the road... BCS Frank : Right, Don... it's coming.... AFA Fixit : Unless SGI has licensed Mac ROMs they must be running the software Mac emulator I've read about. BCS Frank : ... the main block now is commercial... and that BCS Frank : won't last. AFA Fixit : Not too terribly impressive from what I read. AFC Marvin : I read the other day that Apple has come out with its first MS-Dos computer. BCS Frank : Right, they actually have two..... AFL Don : ...like Sony making their first VHS machine... BCS Frank : one's a box with a coprocessor '486 card.... AFA Fixit : Sorta. I 486sx PDS card in a Quadra 605. BCS Frank : and the other offering is the coprocessor card by itself BCS Frank : to retrofit into a bunch of the higher end AFC Marvin : Yes, that is what I read about. BCS Frank : Macs. AFL Don : That must feel weird, to run MS-Dos and Macstuff on the same box... BCS Frank : Sure sounds like it beats a Transporter card. BCS Frank : They say that you can run both OS side by side... even AFC Marvin : At least you can get beyond the CGA limitation of the Transporter card. BCS Frank : run two monitors Windows on one, Sys 7 on the other... BCS Frank : ... and cut & paste between them. AFL Don : Wow... BCS Frank : Still is to giggle, Windows on a Mac. :) AFL Don : Not sure I could handle that. Yesterday I ran my daughter's 5-speed Honda into the garage, then got in my Suburban, tried to work the brake as a clutch... BCS Frank : Ohhh... supports SVGA, will use the Mac memory, but will leave BCS Frank : the Mac memory alone if you install memory on the co-processor card. AFL Don : Takes me a while to switch OS's... BCS Frank : Yeah... Must get confusing double clutching the mouse. AFC Marvin : I had better say goodnight and head for home if I want to have any dinner tonight. I am still at work AFC Marvin : so will say goodnight to all. BCS Frank : Good to see you Marvin... night! :) AFL Don : GN, Marvin! Drive carefully! AFC Marvin : See you next week. Goodnight. BCS Frank : Well... zap.... there goes another day..... BCS Frank : I'll be off to rile up the message bases..... BCS Frank : Night Don, Walt :) AFL Don : Yeah, getting late... things to do here... Nite all... BCS Frank : oh, Happy New Year, too! :) AFA Fixit : Night Frank AFL Don : Likewise, Frank! AFA Fixit : Well, I call it a night. AFL Don : Me too... CU... AFL Don : Bye... 1/3/94 7:58:32 (PST) PM Closing Log file.