On 4/23/20 10:29 AM, micky wrote:
Another problem with getting a heat pump is that the wirign to the
thermostat is inadequate. no easy way to run a new wire to the same
location**.

I don't have a heat pump, but 2 stage AC and heat. This requires 7 wires
(including power return) to the thermostat. I now have 10 wires
installed (3 for later use).

1) I know they make wireless thermostats and wifi thermostats, but I
wonder if they made ones that are wired but can get by on only 4 wires,
maybe by modulating the signal or something, and demodulating it at the
furnace end.

I have seen one of those. It has a unit next to the furnace, and the
connection to the wall unit works like USB USB (2 wires for power, and 2
for data). I don't remember brand/model.

2) Also, a much harder question: For years I've been looking for this,
a setback thermostat that had a Next button. So if you come home early,
leave early, go to bed or get up early, instead of having to use the up
or down button and count how mnay degrees you set the temp up or down,
you push one button once, to go to the next time period/temparature.

My thermostat doesn't have that, just the manual override (temporary
(changes to schedule at next scheduled time) or permanent).

[snip]
--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"If I get hit or run over by a truck It's not His fault, it's just my
own bad luck" [_PRAY TV_]

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 12:02:39 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 4/23/20 10:29 AM, micky wrote:
Another problem with getting a heat pump is that the wirign to the
thermostat is inadequate. no easy way to run a new wire to the same
location**.

I don't have a heat pump, but 2 stage AC and heat. This requires 7 wires
(including power return) to the thermostat. I now have 10 wires
installed (3 for later use).

I have a 2 stage furnace plus AC running on 4 wires - using a single
stage thermostat.

1) I know they make wireless thermostats and wifi thermostats, but I
wonder if they made ones that are wired but can get by on only 4 wires,
maybe by modulating the signal or something, and demodulating it at the
furnace end.

I have seen one of those. It has a unit next to the furnace, and the
connection to the wall unit works like USB USB (2 wires for power, and 2
for data). I don't remember brand/model.

2) Also, a much harder question: For years I've been looking for this,
a setback thermostat that had a Next button. So if you come home early,
leave early, go to bed or get up early, instead of having to use the up
or down button and count how mnay degrees you set the temp up or down,
you push one button once, to go to the next time period/temparature.

My thermostat doesn't have that, just the manual override (temporary
(changes to schedule at next scheduled time) or permanent).

[snip]

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 16:25:39 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 12:02:39 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 4/23/20 10:29 AM, micky wrote:
Another problem with getting a heat pump is that the wirign to the
thermostat is inadequate. no easy way to run a new wire to the same
location**.

I don't have a heat pump, but 2 stage AC and heat. This requires 7 wires
(including power return) to the thermostat. I now have 10 wires
installed (3 for later use).

I have a 2 stage furnace plus AC running on 4 wires - using a single
stage thermostat.

1) I know they make wireless thermostats and wifi thermostats, but I
wonder if they made ones that are wired but can get by on only 4 wires,
maybe by modulating the signal or something, and demodulating it at the
furnace end.

I have seen one of those. It has a unit next to the furnace, and the
connection to the wall unit works like USB USB (2 wires for power, and 2
for data). I don't remember brand/model.

2) Also, a much harder question: For years I've been looking for this,
a setback thermostat that had a Next button. So if you come home early,
leave early, go to bed or get up early, instead of having to use the up
or down button and count how mnay degrees you set the temp up or down,
you push one button once, to go to the next time period/temparature.

My thermostat doesn't have that, just the manual override (temporary
(changes to schedule at next scheduled time) or permanent).

[snip]

The problem is, with a heat pump you need W1 and W2, that makes 5. One
will start the heat pump compressor and if it can't make the stat - 10
degrees or something W2 kicks the heat strips on. You really need 2
wires for that (plus the hot, cool and fan).
If you just want your furnace to be a single stage, that's OK but in
Bal'mer he will need that toaster wire if he is not burning oil.

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 23:37:48 -0400, wrote:

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 16:25:39 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 12:02:39 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 4/23/20 10:29 AM, micky wrote:
Another problem with getting a heat pump is that the wirign to the
thermostat is inadequate. no easy way to run a new wire to the same
location**.

I don't have a heat pump, but 2 stage AC and heat. This requires 7 wires
(including power return) to the thermostat. I now have 10 wires
installed (3 for later use).

I have a 2 stage furnace plus AC running on 4 wires - using a single
stage thermostat.

1) I know they make wireless thermostats and wifi thermostats, but I
wonder if they made ones that are wired but can get by on only 4 wires,
maybe by modulating the signal or something, and demodulating it at the
furnace end.

I have seen one of those. It has a unit next to the furnace, and the
connection to the wall unit works like USB USB (2 wires for power, and 2
for data). I don't remember brand/model.

2) Also, a much harder question: For years I've been looking for this,
a setback thermostat that had a Next button. So if you come home early,
leave early, go to bed or get up early, instead of having to use the up
or down button and count how mnay degrees you set the temp up or down,
you push one button once, to go to the next time period/temparature.

My thermostat doesn't have that, just the manual override (temporary
(changes to schedule at next scheduled time) or permanent).

[snip]

The problem is, with a heat pump you need W1 and W2, that makes 5. One
will start the heat pump compressor and if it can't make the stat - 10
degrees or something W2 kicks the heat strips on. You really need 2
wires for that (plus the hot, cool and fan).
If you just want your furnace to be a single stage, that's OK but in
Bal'mer he will need that toaster wire if he is not burning oil.

My 2 stage furnace has "smarts" built in that allow it to function as
a 2 stage furnace with a single stage thermostat. If it has ti run
longer than a certain time it kicks onto high. It id a Tempstar.

No reason a heat pump can't do the same. If when the heat pump starts
it cannot produce a temperature rise of X degrees in a given time it
turns on the aux heat. It's a pretty simple control algorythm

On Fri, 24 Apr 2020 02:10:41 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 23:37:48 -0400, wrote:

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 16:25:39 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 12:02:39 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 4/23/20 10:29 AM, micky wrote:
Another problem with getting a heat pump is that the wirign to the
thermostat is inadequate. no easy way to run a new wire to the same
location**.

I don't have a heat pump, but 2 stage AC and heat. This requires 7 wires
(including power return) to the thermostat. I now have 10 wires
installed (3 for later use).

I have a 2 stage furnace plus AC running on 4 wires - using a single
stage thermostat.

1) I know they make wireless thermostats and wifi thermostats, but I
wonder if they made ones that are wired but can get by on only 4 wires,
maybe by modulating the signal or something, and demodulating it at the
furnace end.

I have seen one of those. It has a unit next to the furnace, and the
connection to the wall unit works like USB USB (2 wires for power, and 2
for data). I don't remember brand/model.

2) Also, a much harder question: For years I've been looking for this,
a setback thermostat that had a Next button. So if you come home early,
leave early, go to bed or get up early, instead of having to use the up
or down button and count how mnay degrees you set the temp up or down,
you push one button once, to go to the next time period/temparature.

My thermostat doesn't have that, just the manual override (temporary
(changes to schedule at next scheduled time) or permanent).

[snip]

The problem is, with a heat pump you need W1 and W2, that makes 5. One
will start the heat pump compressor and if it can't make the stat - 10
degrees or something W2 kicks the heat strips on. You really need 2
wires for that (plus the hot, cool and fan).
If you just want your furnace to be a single stage, that's OK but in
Bal'mer he will need that toaster wire if he is not burning oil.

My 2 stage furnace has "smarts" built in that allow it to function as
a 2 stage furnace with a single stage thermostat. If it has ti run
longer than a certain time it kicks onto high. It id a Tempstar.

No reason a heat pump can't do the same. If when the heat pump starts
it cannot produce a temperature rise of X degrees in a given time it
turns on the aux heat. It's a pretty simple control algorythm

I assume they could but I haven't seen one that did.

On Fri, 24 Apr 2020 13:14:07 -0400, wrote:

On Fri, 24 Apr 2020 02:10:41 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 23:37:48 -0400, wrote:

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 16:25:39 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 12:02:39 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 4/23/20 10:29 AM, micky wrote:
Another problem with getting a heat pump is that the wirign to the
thermostat is inadequate. no easy way to run a new wire to the same
location**.

I don't have a heat pump, but 2 stage AC and heat. This requires 7 wires
(including power return) to the thermostat. I now have 10 wires
installed (3 for later use).

I have a 2 stage furnace plus AC running on 4 wires - using a single
stage thermostat.

1) I know they make wireless thermostats and wifi thermostats, but I
wonder if they made ones that are wired but can get by on only 4 wires,
maybe by modulating the signal or something, and demodulating it at the
furnace end.

I have seen one of those. It has a unit next to the furnace, and the
connection to the wall unit works like USB USB (2 wires for power, and 2
for data). I don't remember brand/model.

2) Also, a much harder question: For years I've been looking for this,
a setback thermostat that had a Next button. So if you come home early,
leave early, go to bed or get up early, instead of having to use the up
or down button and count how mnay degrees you set the temp up or down,
you push one button once, to go to the next time period/temparature.

My thermostat doesn't have that, just the manual override (temporary
(changes to schedule at next scheduled time) or permanent).

[snip]

The problem is, with a heat pump you need W1 and W2, that makes 5. One
will start the heat pump compressor and if it can't make the stat - 10
degrees or something W2 kicks the heat strips on. You really need 2
wires for that (plus the hot, cool and fan).
If you just want your furnace to be a single stage, that's OK but in
Bal'mer he will need that toaster wire if he is not burning oil.

My 2 stage furnace has "smarts" built in that allow it to function as
a 2 stage furnace with a single stage thermostat. If it has ti run
longer than a certain time it kicks onto high. It id a Tempstar.

No reason a heat pump can't do the same. If when the heat pump starts
it cannot produce a temperature rise of X degrees in a given time it
turns on the aux heat. It's a pretty simple control algorythm

I assume they could but I haven't seen one that did.
I believe the original "water furnace" did. I'll have to ask Dave if
I see him (Dave Hatherton - founder of Water Furnace, was a highschool
classmate of mine)
I (as Energex R&D) had also worked on a conceptual basis on the
technology in the early seventies and a simple timer, tripped by the
call for heat, was considered as a way to call for aux heat if the
outlet heat fromthe heat pump didn't reach a minimum setpoint.
Simple "NAND" function. Timer expired and setpoint not reached, start
aux heat. That signal ANDed to the thermostat signal to shut off the
AUX when the thermostat stopped calling for heat and shut down the
heat pump.
I never got to implementing it but had figured out how many gallons
per minute of water needed to be circulated from the wells, and all
the other theoretical details.

On 2020-04-25 9:49 a.m., Bud Frede wrote:
Clare Snyder writes:

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 12:02:39 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 4/23/20 10:29 AM, micky wrote:
Another problem with getting a heat pump is that the wirign to the
thermostat is inadequate. no easy way to run a new wire to the same
location**.

I don't have a heat pump, but 2 stage AC and heat. This requires 7 wires
(including power return) to the thermostat. I now have 10 wires
installed (3 for later use).

I have a 2 stage furnace plus AC running on 4 wires - using a single
stage thermostat.

I have the same setup here.

In the past I had tried various fancy thermostats and didn't have luck
with them. The manuals were horrible and I don't think the people who
designed the thermostats ever had to actually use them.

A few years ago when it was time to replace my furnace and AV, they
threw in a new thermostat with it. It's a White-Rogers programmable
model. I can't control it across the internet with my phone, and I'm
sure it doesn't have all the fancy features, but it works reliably, it
was easy to figure out how to use, and the manual was well-written.

I think this is like the old constant upgrade cycle Microsoft did with
Office. The average person only used 10% of the features, but they kept
adding more and more features so they could sell a new version to you.
If it was still available for purchase, and if it would still run on a
modern computer, many people would be happier with Office '95 or
something rather than the latest and greatest Office
whatever-version-they're-up-to-now.

There are some things that get new features that I use and that improve
the experience. For the most part though, I'm at that 10% level and the
rest is just added complexity and is actually a drawback for me.

It feels strange to think this way. I'm in IT and I am constantly
learning new things and growing my skills. It's just that there are some
areas where I'd like less complexity. It's less to worry about, less
hassle, etc.

I try to resist "Gear Acquisition Syndrome" and not upgrade just because
there's something new. I want what I guess I could call "appropriate
complexity." :-)

Yeah, I'm not the typical consumer, and I know that I'm not who the
product makers aim at. Maybe I'm just getting old or something...



i have open the door , close the door

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 12:49:15 -0400, Bud Frede
wrote:

Clare Snyder writes:

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 12:02:39 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 4/23/20 10:29 AM, micky wrote:
Another problem with getting a heat pump is that the wirign to the
thermostat is inadequate. no easy way to run a new wire to the same
location**.

I don't have a heat pump, but 2 stage AC and heat. This requires 7 wires
(including power return) to the thermostat. I now have 10 wires
installed (3 for later use).

I have a 2 stage furnace plus AC running on 4 wires - using a single
stage thermostat.

I have the same setup here.

In the past I had tried various fancy thermostats and didn't have luck
with them. The manuals were horrible and I don't think the people who
designed the thermostats ever had to actually use them.

A few years ago when it was time to replace my furnace and AV, they
threw in a new thermostat with it. It's a White-Rogers programmable
model. I can't control it across the internet with my phone, and I'm
sure it doesn't have all the fancy features, but it works reliably, it
was easy to figure out how to use, and the manual was well-written.

I think this is like the old constant upgrade cycle Microsoft did with
Office. The average person only used 10% of the features, but they kept
adding more and more features so they could sell a new version to you.
If it was still available for purchase, and if it would still run on a
modern computer, many people would be happier with Office '95 or
something rather than the latest and greatest Office
whatever-version-they're-up-to-now.

There are some things that get new features that I use and that improve
the experience. For the most part though, I'm at that 10% level and the
rest is just added complexity and is actually a drawback for me.

It feels strange to think this way. I'm in IT and I am constantly
learning new things and growing my skills. It's just that there are some
areas where I'd like less complexity. It's less to worry about, less
hassle, etc.

I try to resist "Gear Acquisition Syndrome" and not upgrade just because
there's something new. I want what I guess I could call "appropriate
complexity." :-)

Yeah, I'm not the typical consumer, and I know that I'm not who the
product makers aim at. Maybe I'm just getting old or something...


Like the motto of my IT company here in Ontario - "appropriate
technology for the information age".
In the beginning I sold a LOT of off-lease and reconditioned hardware
which allowed many companies to get into office and retail
computerization at an affordable price.

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 15:21:36 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 12:49:15 -0400, Bud Frede
wrote:

Clare Snyder writes:

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 12:02:39 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 4/23/20 10:29 AM, micky wrote:
Another problem with getting a heat pump is that the wirign to the
thermostat is inadequate. no easy way to run a new wire to the same
location**.

I don't have a heat pump, but 2 stage AC and heat. This requires 7 wires
(including power return) to the thermostat. I now have 10 wires
installed (3 for later use).

I have a 2 stage furnace plus AC running on 4 wires - using a single
stage thermostat.

I have the same setup here.

In the past I had tried various fancy thermostats and didn't have luck
with them. The manuals were horrible and I don't think the people who
designed the thermostats ever had to actually use them.

A few years ago when it was time to replace my furnace and AV, they
threw in a new thermostat with it. It's a White-Rogers programmable
model. I can't control it across the internet with my phone, and I'm
sure it doesn't have all the fancy features, but it works reliably, it
was easy to figure out how to use, and the manual was well-written.

I think this is like the old constant upgrade cycle Microsoft did with
Office. The average person only used 10% of the features, but they kept
adding more and more features so they could sell a new version to you.
If it was still available for purchase, and if it would still run on a
modern computer, many people would be happier with Office '95 or
something rather than the latest and greatest Office
whatever-version-they're-up-to-now.

There are some things that get new features that I use and that improve
the experience. For the most part though, I'm at that 10% level and the
rest is just added complexity and is actually a drawback for me.

It feels strange to think this way. I'm in IT and I am constantly
learning new things and growing my skills. It's just that there are some
areas where I'd like less complexity. It's less to worry about, less
hassle, etc.

I try to resist "Gear Acquisition Syndrome" and not upgrade just because
there's something new. I want what I guess I could call "appropriate
complexity." :-)

Yeah, I'm not the typical consumer, and I know that I'm not who the
product makers aim at. Maybe I'm just getting old or something...


Like the motto of my IT company here in Ontario - "appropriate
technology for the information age".
In the beginning I sold a LOT of off-lease and reconditioned hardware
which allowed many companies to get into office and retail
computerization at an affordable price.

That is where I usually get my PCs if I can't get one for free.

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 17:02:20 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 15:21:36 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 12:49:15 -0400, Bud Frede
wrote:

Clare Snyder writes:

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 12:02:39 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 4/23/20 10:29 AM, micky wrote:
Another problem with getting a heat pump is that the wirign to the
thermostat is inadequate. no easy way to run a new wire to the same
location**.

I don't have a heat pump, but 2 stage AC and heat. This requires 7 wires
(including power return) to the thermostat. I now have 10 wires
installed (3 for later use).

I have a 2 stage furnace plus AC running on 4 wires - using a single
stage thermostat.

I have the same setup here.

In the past I had tried various fancy thermostats and didn't have luck
with them. The manuals were horrible and I don't think the people who
designed the thermostats ever had to actually use them.

A few years ago when it was time to replace my furnace and AV, they
threw in a new thermostat with it. It's a White-Rogers programmable
model. I can't control it across the internet with my phone, and I'm
sure it doesn't have all the fancy features, but it works reliably, it
was easy to figure out how to use, and the manual was well-written.

I think this is like the old constant upgrade cycle Microsoft did with
Office. The average person only used 10% of the features, but they kept
adding more and more features so they could sell a new version to you.
If it was still available for purchase, and if it would still run on a
modern computer, many people would be happier with Office '95 or
something rather than the latest and greatest Office
whatever-version-they're-up-to-now.

There are some things that get new features that I use and that improve
the experience. For the most part though, I'm at that 10% level and the
rest is just added complexity and is actually a drawback for me.

It feels strange to think this way. I'm in IT and I am constantly
learning new things and growing my skills. It's just that there are some
areas where I'd like less complexity. It's less to worry about, less
hassle, etc.

I try to resist "Gear Acquisition Syndrome" and not upgrade just because
there's something new. I want what I guess I could call "appropriate
complexity." :-)

Yeah, I'm not the typical consumer, and I know that I'm not who the
product makers aim at. Maybe I'm just getting old or something...


Like the motto of my IT company here in Ontario - "appropriate
technology for the information age".
In the beginning I sold a LOT of off-lease and reconditioned hardware
which allowed many companies to get into office and retail
computerization at an affordable price.

That is where I usually get my PCs if I can't get one for free.


in 33 years I'm on my second brand new computer (and it's about 7
years old, more or less)(Not counting my first non-ibm compatible
RatShack CoCo - which I still own)

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 20:21:34 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 17:02:20 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 15:21:36 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 12:49:15 -0400, Bud Frede
wrote:

Clare Snyder writes:

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 12:02:39 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 4/23/20 10:29 AM, micky wrote:
Another problem with getting a heat pump is that the wirign to the
thermostat is inadequate. no easy way to run a new wire to the same
location**.

I don't have a heat pump, but 2 stage AC and heat. This requires 7 wires
(including power return) to the thermostat. I now have 10 wires
installed (3 for later use).

I have a 2 stage furnace plus AC running on 4 wires - using a single
stage thermostat.

I have the same setup here.

In the past I had tried various fancy thermostats and didn't have luck
with them. The manuals were horrible and I don't think the people who
designed the thermostats ever had to actually use them.

A few years ago when it was time to replace my furnace and AV, they
threw in a new thermostat with it. It's a White-Rogers programmable
model. I can't control it across the internet with my phone, and I'm
sure it doesn't have all the fancy features, but it works reliably, it
was easy to figure out how to use, and the manual was well-written.

I think this is like the old constant upgrade cycle Microsoft did with
Office. The average person only used 10% of the features, but they kept
adding more and more features so they could sell a new version to you.
If it was still available for purchase, and if it would still run on a
modern computer, many people would be happier with Office '95 or
something rather than the latest and greatest Office
whatever-version-they're-up-to-now.

There are some things that get new features that I use and that improve
the experience. For the most part though, I'm at that 10% level and the
rest is just added complexity and is actually a drawback for me.

It feels strange to think this way. I'm in IT and I am constantly
learning new things and growing my skills. It's just that there are some
areas where I'd like less complexity. It's less to worry about, less
hassle, etc.

I try to resist "Gear Acquisition Syndrome" and not upgrade just because
there's something new. I want what I guess I could call "appropriate
complexity." :-)

Yeah, I'm not the typical consumer, and I know that I'm not who the
product makers aim at. Maybe I'm just getting old or something...


Like the motto of my IT company here in Ontario - "appropriate
technology for the information age".
In the beginning I sold a LOT of off-lease and reconditioned hardware
which allowed many companies to get into office and retail
computerization at an affordable price.

That is where I usually get my PCs if I can't get one for free.


in 33 years I'm on my second brand new computer (and it's about 7
years old, more or less)(Not counting my first non-ibm compatible
RatShack CoCo - which I still own)

The only new computer I ever bought was when my wife still had her
business and I was working for IBM. It was on full IBM enterprise
maintenance and if I put a call in on it, I could take the call, order
the parts and write them off.
The IRS let me fully depreciate it in the first year and write off the
M/A contract. It worked out well for me.

In alt.home.repair, on Sat, 25 Apr 2020 21:31:03 -0400,
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 20:21:34 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 17:02:20 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 15:21:36 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 12:49:15 -0400, Bud Frede
wrote:

Clare Snyder writes:

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 12:02:39 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 4/23/20 10:29 AM, micky wrote:
Another problem with getting a heat pump is that the wirign to the
thermostat is inadequate. no easy way to run a new wire to the same
location**.

I don't have a heat pump, but 2 stage AC and heat. This requires 7 wires
(including power return) to the thermostat. I now have 10 wires
installed (3 for later use).

I have a 2 stage furnace plus AC running on 4 wires - using a single
stage thermostat.

I have the same setup here.

In the past I had tried various fancy thermostats and didn't have luck
with them. The manuals were horrible and I don't think the people who
designed the thermostats ever had to actually use them.

A few years ago when it was time to replace my furnace and AV, they
threw in a new thermostat with it. It's a White-Rogers programmable
model. I can't control it across the internet with my phone, and I'm
sure it doesn't have all the fancy features, but it works reliably, it
was easy to figure out how to use, and the manual was well-written.

I think this is like the old constant upgrade cycle Microsoft did with
Office. The average person only used 10% of the features, but they kept
adding more and more features so they could sell a new version to you.
If it was still available for purchase, and if it would still run on a
modern computer, many people would be happier with Office '95 or
something rather than the latest and greatest Office
whatever-version-they're-up-to-now.

There are some things that get new features that I use and that improve
the experience. For the most part though, I'm at that 10% level and the
rest is just added complexity and is actually a drawback for me.

It feels strange to think this way. I'm in IT and I am constantly
learning new things and growing my skills. It's just that there are some
areas where I'd like less complexity. It's less to worry about, less
hassle, etc.

I try to resist "Gear Acquisition Syndrome" and not upgrade just because
there's something new. I want what I guess I could call "appropriate
complexity." :-)

Yeah, I'm not the typical consumer, and I know that I'm not who the
product makers aim at. Maybe I'm just getting old or something...


Like the motto of my IT company here in Ontario - "appropriate
technology for the information age".
In the beginning I sold a LOT of off-lease and reconditioned hardware
which allowed many companies to get into office and retail
computerization at an affordable price.

That is where I usually get my PCs if I can't get one for free.


in 33 years I'm on my second brand new computer (and it's about 7
years old, more or less)(Not counting my first non-ibm compatible
RatShack CoCo - which I still own)

The only new computer I ever bought was when my wife still had her
business and I was working for IBM. It was on full IBM enterprise
maintenance and if I put a call in on it, I could take the call, order
the parts and write them off.
The IRS let me fully depreciate it in the first year and write off the
M/A contract. It worked out well for me.

The only new computer I've owned in 36 years was a PC Jr. It sold for
iirc $1600, but they would take 500 off if you had the bar codes of 20
or 25 products by Kimberly Clark or some similar company, so they were
worth 20 or 25 a piece. The last day after people had left work, I went
around and found 1 or 2 boxes of kleenex and I cut out the bar code,
without even asking anyone, but I know no one cared. Then a week
later of course they stopped making the Jr.

11 years later, I bought The next one at a hamfest, and it didn't work.
I gradually figured out that he had replaced one of the 2 floppies with
something special, then put it back the way it was before selling it,
but he didn't undo some change to a mobo jumper, so it thought it had
only one drive and it had two and that was enough to stop everything,
except maybe there was a one line message on the screeen.

I've bought 2 others used at hamfests, one laptop from ebay, and been
given a bunch.

On Fri, 01 May 2020 08:06:06 -0400, micky
wrote:

In alt.home.repair, on Sat, 25 Apr 2020 21:31:03 -0400,
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 20:21:34 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 17:02:20 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 15:21:36 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 12:49:15 -0400, Bud Frede
wrote:

Clare Snyder writes:

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 12:02:39 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 4/23/20 10:29 AM, micky wrote:
Another problem with getting a heat pump is that the wirign to the
thermostat is inadequate. no easy way to run a new wire to the same
location**.

I don't have a heat pump, but 2 stage AC and heat. This requires 7 wires
(including power return) to the thermostat. I now have 10 wires
installed (3 for later use).

I have a 2 stage furnace plus AC running on 4 wires - using a single
stage thermostat.

I have the same setup here.

In the past I had tried various fancy thermostats and didn't have luck
with them. The manuals were horrible and I don't think the people who
designed the thermostats ever had to actually use them.

A few years ago when it was time to replace my furnace and AV, they
threw in a new thermostat with it. It's a White-Rogers programmable
model. I can't control it across the internet with my phone, and I'm
sure it doesn't have all the fancy features, but it works reliably, it
was easy to figure out how to use, and the manual was well-written.

I think this is like the old constant upgrade cycle Microsoft did with
Office. The average person only used 10% of the features, but they kept
adding more and more features so they could sell a new version to you.
If it was still available for purchase, and if it would still run on a
modern computer, many people would be happier with Office '95 or
something rather than the latest and greatest Office
whatever-version-they're-up-to-now.

There are some things that get new features that I use and that improve
the experience. For the most part though, I'm at that 10% level and the
rest is just added complexity and is actually a drawback for me.

It feels strange to think this way. I'm in IT and I am constantly
learning new things and growing my skills. It's just that there are some
areas where I'd like less complexity. It's less to worry about, less
hassle, etc.

I try to resist "Gear Acquisition Syndrome" and not upgrade just because
there's something new. I want what I guess I could call "appropriate
complexity." :-)

Yeah, I'm not the typical consumer, and I know that I'm not who the
product makers aim at. Maybe I'm just getting old or something...


Like the motto of my IT company here in Ontario - "appropriate
technology for the information age".
In the beginning I sold a LOT of off-lease and reconditioned hardware
which allowed many companies to get into office and retail
computerization at an affordable price.

That is where I usually get my PCs if I can't get one for free.


in 33 years I'm on my second brand new computer (and it's about 7
years old, more or less)(Not counting my first non-ibm compatible
RatShack CoCo - which I still own)

The only new computer I ever bought was when my wife still had her
business and I was working for IBM. It was on full IBM enterprise
maintenance and if I put a call in on it, I could take the call, order
the parts and write them off.
The IRS let me fully depreciate it in the first year and write off the
M/A contract. It worked out well for me.

The only new computer I've owned in 36 years was a PC Jr. It sold for
iirc $1600, but they would take 500 off if you had the bar codes of 20
or 25 products by Kimberly Clark or some similar company, so they were
worth 20 or 25 a piece. The last day after people had left work, I went
around and found 1 or 2 boxes of kleenex and I cut out the bar code,
without even asking anyone, but I know no one cared. Then a week
later of course they stopped making the Jr.

11 years later, I bought The next one at a hamfest, and it didn't work.
I gradually figured out that he had replaced one of the 2 floppies with
something special, then put it back the way it was before selling it,
but he didn't undo some change to a mobo jumper, so it thought it had
only one drive and it had two and that was enough to stop everything,
except maybe there was a one line message on the screeen.

I've bought 2 others used at hamfests, one laptop from ebay, and been
given a bunch.

IBM diskette drives are not the same as the ones in other machines.
When other companies cloned our machines they were not exactly the
same, maybe for legal reasons.

On Fri, 01 May 2020 13:30:55 -0400, wrote:

On Fri, 01 May 2020 08:06:06 -0400, micky
wrote:

In alt.home.repair, on Sat, 25 Apr 2020 21:31:03 -0400,
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 20:21:34 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 17:02:20 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 15:21:36 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 12:49:15 -0400, Bud Frede
wrote:

Clare Snyder writes:

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 12:02:39 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 4/23/20 10:29 AM, micky wrote:
Another problem with getting a heat pump is that the wirign to the
thermostat is inadequate. no easy way to run a new wire to the same
location**.

I don't have a heat pump, but 2 stage AC and heat. This requires 7 wires
(including power return) to the thermostat. I now have 10 wires
installed (3 for later use).

I have a 2 stage furnace plus AC running on 4 wires - using a single
stage thermostat.

I have the same setup here.

In the past I had tried various fancy thermostats and didn't have luck
with them. The manuals were horrible and I don't think the people who
designed the thermostats ever had to actually use them.

A few years ago when it was time to replace my furnace and AV, they
threw in a new thermostat with it. It's a White-Rogers programmable
model. I can't control it across the internet with my phone, and I'm
sure it doesn't have all the fancy features, but it works reliably, it
was easy to figure out how to use, and the manual was well-written.

I think this is like the old constant upgrade cycle Microsoft did with
Office. The average person only used 10% of the features, but they kept
adding more and more features so they could sell a new version to you.
If it was still available for purchase, and if it would still run on a
modern computer, many people would be happier with Office '95 or
something rather than the latest and greatest Office
whatever-version-they're-up-to-now.

There are some things that get new features that I use and that improve
the experience. For the most part though, I'm at that 10% level and the
rest is just added complexity and is actually a drawback for me.

It feels strange to think this way. I'm in IT and I am constantly
learning new things and growing my skills. It's just that there are some
areas where I'd like less complexity. It's less to worry about, less
hassle, etc.

I try to resist "Gear Acquisition Syndrome" and not upgrade just because
there's something new. I want what I guess I could call "appropriate
complexity." :-)

Yeah, I'm not the typical consumer, and I know that I'm not who the
product makers aim at. Maybe I'm just getting old or something...


Like the motto of my IT company here in Ontario - "appropriate
technology for the information age".
In the beginning I sold a LOT of off-lease and reconditioned hardware
which allowed many companies to get into office and retail
computerization at an affordable price.

That is where I usually get my PCs if I can't get one for free.


in 33 years I'm on my second brand new computer (and it's about 7
years old, more or less)(Not counting my first non-ibm compatible
RatShack CoCo - which I still own)

The only new computer I ever bought was when my wife still had her
business and I was working for IBM. It was on full IBM enterprise
maintenance and if I put a call in on it, I could take the call, order
the parts and write them off.
The IRS let me fully depreciate it in the first year and write off the
M/A contract. It worked out well for me.

The only new computer I've owned in 36 years was a PC Jr. It sold for
iirc $1600, but they would take 500 off if you had the bar codes of 20
or 25 products by Kimberly Clark or some similar company, so they were
worth 20 or 25 a piece. The last day after people had left work, I went
around and found 1 or 2 boxes of kleenex and I cut out the bar code,
without even asking anyone, but I know no one cared. Then a week
later of course they stopped making the Jr.

11 years later, I bought The next one at a hamfest, and it didn't work.
I gradually figured out that he had replaced one of the 2 floppies with
something special, then put it back the way it was before selling it,
but he didn't undo some change to a mobo jumper, so it thought it had
only one drive and it had two and that was enough to stop everything,
except maybe there was a one line message on the screeen.

I've bought 2 others used at hamfests, one laptop from ebay, and been
given a bunch.

IBM diskette drives are not the same as the ones in other machines.
When other companies cloned our machines they were not exactly the
same, maybe for legal reasons.
When the company I worked for was building "clones" and selling hard
drive kits for IBM PCs some of the floppies we were using WERE
identical to IBM's drives. They were made by Alps, Mitsubishi,
Shugart, Panasonic, Matsu****a, TEAC and Tandon and I believe IBM even
used some Sanyo Denki drives.

Going back to the full height single sided ( drives there were
companies like Tandon and Qume, and Magnetic Peripherals -ALL of
which were available to the third tier manufacturers - and used by
IBM.
You may be correct going back to "hard sectored" drives - which were
virtually all Shugart - but that's going back to '76 or '77 - before
the "PC". The old 180KB jobs.
By '87 the hard sector drives were pretty much relegated to the
non-ibm compatible - the CPM boxes were one axample that still used
hard sector drives when I got into the business back in '86

On Friday, May 1, 2020 at 6:06:42 PM UTC-4, Clare Snyder wrote:
On Fri, 01 May 2020 13:30:55 -0400, wrote:

On Fri, 01 May 2020 08:06:06 -0400, micky
wrote:

In alt.home.repair, on Sat, 25 Apr 2020 21:31:03 -0400,
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 20:21:34 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 17:02:20 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 15:21:36 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 12:49:15 -0400, Bud Frede
wrote:

Clare Snyder writes:

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 12:02:39 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 4/23/20 10:29 AM, micky wrote:
Another problem with getting a heat pump is that the wirign to the
thermostat is inadequate. no easy way to run a new wire to the same
location**.

I don't have a heat pump, but 2 stage AC and heat. This requires 7 wires
(including power return) to the thermostat. I now have 10 wires
installed (3 for later use).

I have a 2 stage furnace plus AC running on 4 wires - using a single
stage thermostat.

I have the same setup here.

In the past I had tried various fancy thermostats and didn't have luck
with them. The manuals were horrible and I don't think the people who
designed the thermostats ever had to actually use them.

A few years ago when it was time to replace my furnace and AV, they
threw in a new thermostat with it. It's a White-Rogers programmable
model. I can't control it across the internet with my phone, and I'm
sure it doesn't have all the fancy features, but it works reliably, it
was easy to figure out how to use, and the manual was well-written.

I think this is like the old constant upgrade cycle Microsoft did with
Office. The average person only used 10% of the features, but they kept
adding more and more features so they could sell a new version to you.
If it was still available for purchase, and if it would still run on a
modern computer, many people would be happier with Office '95 or
something rather than the latest and greatest Office
whatever-version-they're-up-to-now.

There are some things that get new features that I use and that improve
the experience. For the most part though, I'm at that 10% level and the
rest is just added complexity and is actually a drawback for me.

It feels strange to think this way. I'm in IT and I am constantly
learning new things and growing my skills. It's just that there are some
areas where I'd like less complexity. It's less to worry about, less
hassle, etc.

I try to resist "Gear Acquisition Syndrome" and not upgrade just because
there's something new. I want what I guess I could call "appropriate
complexity." :-)

Yeah, I'm not the typical consumer, and I know that I'm not who the
product makers aim at. Maybe I'm just getting old or something...


Like the motto of my IT company here in Ontario - "appropriate
technology for the information age".
In the beginning I sold a LOT of off-lease and reconditioned hardware
which allowed many companies to get into office and retail
computerization at an affordable price.

That is where I usually get my PCs if I can't get one for free.


in 33 years I'm on my second brand new computer (and it's about 7
years old, more or less)(Not counting my first non-ibm compatible
RatShack CoCo - which I still own)

The only new computer I ever bought was when my wife still had her
business and I was working for IBM. It was on full IBM enterprise
maintenance and if I put a call in on it, I could take the call, order
the parts and write them off.
The IRS let me fully depreciate it in the first year and write off the
M/A contract. It worked out well for me.

The only new computer I've owned in 36 years was a PC Jr. It sold for
iirc $1600, but they would take 500 off if you had the bar codes of 20
or 25 products by Kimberly Clark or some similar company, so they were
worth 20 or 25 a piece. The last day after people had left work, I went
around and found 1 or 2 boxes of kleenex and I cut out the bar code,
without even asking anyone, but I know no one cared. Then a week
later of course they stopped making the Jr.

11 years later, I bought The next one at a hamfest, and it didn't work.
I gradually figured out that he had replaced one of the 2 floppies with
something special, then put it back the way it was before selling it,
but he didn't undo some change to a mobo jumper, so it thought it had
only one drive and it had two and that was enough to stop everything,
except maybe there was a one line message on the screeen.

I've bought 2 others used at hamfests, one laptop from ebay, and been
given a bunch.

IBM diskette drives are not the same as the ones in other machines.
When other companies cloned our machines they were not exactly the
same, maybe for legal reasons.
When the company I worked for was building "clones" and selling hard
drive kits for IBM PCs some of the floppies we were using WERE
identical to IBM's drives. They were made by Alps, Mitsubishi,
Shugart, Panasonic, Matsu****a, TEAC and Tandon and I believe IBM even
used some Sanyo Denki drives.

Going back to the full height single sided ( drives there were
companies like Tandon and Qume, and Magnetic Peripherals -ALL of
which were available to the third tier manufacturers - and used by
IBM.
You may be correct going back to "hard sectored" drives - which were
virtually all Shugart - but that's going back to '76 or '77 - before
the "PC". The old 180KB jobs.
By '87 the hard sector drives were pretty much relegated to the
non-ibm compatible - the CPM boxes were one axample that still used
hard sector drives when I got into the business back in '86

I agree with that. I never heard of any incompatibility between IBM
PC floppy drives their media and the clones. The thing that made the
Compaq and later PCs so successful was that they were just about 100%
compatible with IBM. If you couldn't take a floppy disk from one machine
to another, it would have been a disaster.

On 2/5/20 8:06 am, Clare Snyder wrote:
On Fri, 01 May 2020 13:30:55 -0400, wrote:

On Fri, 01 May 2020 08:06:06 -0400, micky
wrote:

In alt.home.repair, on Sat, 25 Apr 2020 21:31:03 -0400,
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 20:21:34 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 17:02:20 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 15:21:36 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 12:49:15 -0400, Bud Frede
wrote:

Clare Snyder writes:

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 12:02:39 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 4/23/20 10:29 AM, micky wrote:
Another problem with getting a heat pump is that the wirign to the
thermostat is inadequate. no easy way to run a new wire to the same
location**.

I don't have a heat pump, but 2 stage AC and heat. This requires 7 wires
(including power return) to the thermostat. I now have 10 wires
installed (3 for later use).

I have a 2 stage furnace plus AC running on 4 wires - using a single
stage thermostat.

I have the same setup here.

In the past I had tried various fancy thermostats and didn't have luck
with them. The manuals were horrible and I don't think the people who
designed the thermostats ever had to actually use them.

A few years ago when it was time to replace my furnace and AV, they
threw in a new thermostat with it. It's a White-Rogers programmable
model. I can't control it across the internet with my phone, and I'm
sure it doesn't have all the fancy features, but it works reliably, it
was easy to figure out how to use, and the manual was well-written.

I think this is like the old constant upgrade cycle Microsoft did with
Office. The average person only used 10% of the features, but they kept
adding more and more features so they could sell a new version to you.
If it was still available for purchase, and if it would still run on a
modern computer, many people would be happier with Office '95 or
something rather than the latest and greatest Office
whatever-version-they're-up-to-now.

There are some things that get new features that I use and that improve
the experience. For the most part though, I'm at that 10% level and the
rest is just added complexity and is actually a drawback for me.

It feels strange to think this way. I'm in IT and I am constantly
learning new things and growing my skills. It's just that there are some
areas where I'd like less complexity. It's less to worry about, less
hassle, etc.

I try to resist "Gear Acquisition Syndrome" and not upgrade just because
there's something new. I want what I guess I could call "appropriate
complexity." :-)

Yeah, I'm not the typical consumer, and I know that I'm not who the
product makers aim at. Maybe I'm just getting old or something...


Like the motto of my IT company here in Ontario - "appropriate
technology for the information age".
In the beginning I sold a LOT of off-lease and reconditioned hardware
which allowed many companies to get into office and retail
computerization at an affordable price.

That is where I usually get my PCs if I can't get one for free.


in 33 years I'm on my second brand new computer (and it's about 7
years old, more or less)(Not counting my first non-ibm compatible
RatShack CoCo - which I still own)

The only new computer I ever bought was when my wife still had her
business and I was working for IBM. It was on full IBM enterprise
maintenance and if I put a call in on it, I could take the call, order
the parts and write them off.
The IRS let me fully depreciate it in the first year and write off the
M/A contract. It worked out well for me.

The only new computer I've owned in 36 years was a PC Jr. It sold for
iirc $1600, but they would take 500 off if you had the bar codes of 20
or 25 products by Kimberly Clark or some similar company, so they were
worth 20 or 25 a piece. The last day after people had left work, I went
around and found 1 or 2 boxes of kleenex and I cut out the bar code,
without even asking anyone, but I know no one cared. Then a week
later of course they stopped making the Jr.

11 years later, I bought The next one at a hamfest, and it didn't work.
I gradually figured out that he had replaced one of the 2 floppies with
something special, then put it back the way it was before selling it,
but he didn't undo some change to a mobo jumper, so it thought it had
only one drive and it had two and that was enough to stop everything,
except maybe there was a one line message on the screeen.

I've bought 2 others used at hamfests, one laptop from ebay, and been
given a bunch.

IBM diskette drives are not the same as the ones in other machines.
When other companies cloned our machines they were not exactly the
same, maybe for legal reasons.
When the company I worked for was building "clones" and selling hard
drive kits for IBM PCs some of the floppies we were using WERE
identical to IBM's drives. They were made by Alps, Mitsubishi,
Shugart, Panasonic, Matsu****a, TEAC and Tandon and I believe IBM even
used some Sanyo Denki drives.

Going back to the full height single sided ( drives there were
companies like Tandon and Qume, and Magnetic Peripherals -ALL of
which were available to the third tier manufacturers - and used by
IBM.

Indeed, the full height soft sectored drives by Tandon, TM100-2 as OEM
in early PCs up until the AT, were exactly the same internally as drives
in other computers. Might have had an IBM logo on the front plate but
that was all. Those drives needed occasional head alignment and that
involved an oscilloscope and an analogue alignment disk. You had to
adjust the heads until the image on screen was symmetrical. Those
alignment disks were A$100 each (in 1980s dollars) so you checked a
drive's heads out before you put a valuable alignment disk in it.

You may be correct going back to "hard sectored" drives - which were
virtually all Shugart - but that's going back to '76 or '77 - before
the "PC". The old 180KB jobs.
By '87 the hard sector drives were pretty much relegated to the
non-ibm compatible - the CPM boxes were one axample that still used
hard sector drives when I got into the business back in '86

Northstar Horizon was the only one I recall that was hard sectored until
late in the piece. Earlier there were plenty in the 8 inch drives. There
were also a few around running on the S100 bus system. I can't recall
the brand now but I sourced one for a friend who had an orphaned S100
based CP/M system and the only way he could get a set of drives was
through that bus. The unit was this one;
https://ub.fnwi.uva.nl/computermuseu...es/exidy2a.gif
The drives I sourced for the owner were very much like the drives
pictured on the right. Got him a heap of blank disks too since they
were, at that time, becoming very scarce. He probably still has it.


--

Xeno


Nothing astonishes Noddy so much as common sense and plain dealing.
(with apologies to Ralph Waldo Emerson)

On 2/5/20 11:02 am, trader_4 wrote:
On Friday, May 1, 2020 at 6:06:42 PM UTC-4, Clare Snyder wrote:
On Fri, 01 May 2020 13:30:55 -0400, wrote:

On Fri, 01 May 2020 08:06:06 -0400, micky
wrote:

In alt.home.repair, on Sat, 25 Apr 2020 21:31:03 -0400,
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 20:21:34 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 17:02:20 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 15:21:36 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 12:49:15 -0400, Bud Frede
wrote:

Clare Snyder writes:

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 12:02:39 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 4/23/20 10:29 AM, micky wrote:
Another problem with getting a heat pump is that the wirign to the
thermostat is inadequate. no easy way to run a new wire to the same
location**.

I don't have a heat pump, but 2 stage AC and heat. This requires 7 wires
(including power return) to the thermostat. I now have 10 wires
installed (3 for later use).

I have a 2 stage furnace plus AC running on 4 wires - using a single
stage thermostat.

I have the same setup here.

In the past I had tried various fancy thermostats and didn't have luck
with them. The manuals were horrible and I don't think the people who
designed the thermostats ever had to actually use them.

A few years ago when it was time to replace my furnace and AV, they
threw in a new thermostat with it. It's a White-Rogers programmable
model. I can't control it across the internet with my phone, and I'm
sure it doesn't have all the fancy features, but it works reliably, it
was easy to figure out how to use, and the manual was well-written.

I think this is like the old constant upgrade cycle Microsoft did with
Office. The average person only used 10% of the features, but they kept
adding more and more features so they could sell a new version to you.
If it was still available for purchase, and if it would still run on a
modern computer, many people would be happier with Office '95 or
something rather than the latest and greatest Office
whatever-version-they're-up-to-now.

There are some things that get new features that I use and that improve
the experience. For the most part though, I'm at that 10% level and the
rest is just added complexity and is actually a drawback for me.

It feels strange to think this way. I'm in IT and I am constantly
learning new things and growing my skills. It's just that there are some
areas where I'd like less complexity. It's less to worry about, less
hassle, etc.

I try to resist "Gear Acquisition Syndrome" and not upgrade just because
there's something new. I want what I guess I could call "appropriate
complexity." :-)

Yeah, I'm not the typical consumer, and I know that I'm not who the
product makers aim at. Maybe I'm just getting old or something...


Like the motto of my IT company here in Ontario - "appropriate
technology for the information age".
In the beginning I sold a LOT of off-lease and reconditioned hardware
which allowed many companies to get into office and retail
computerization at an affordable price.

That is where I usually get my PCs if I can't get one for free.


in 33 years I'm on my second brand new computer (and it's about 7
years old, more or less)(Not counting my first non-ibm compatible
RatShack CoCo - which I still own)

The only new computer I ever bought was when my wife still had her
business and I was working for IBM. It was on full IBM enterprise
maintenance and if I put a call in on it, I could take the call, order
the parts and write them off.
The IRS let me fully depreciate it in the first year and write off the
M/A contract. It worked out well for me.

The only new computer I've owned in 36 years was a PC Jr. It sold for
iirc $1600, but they would take 500 off if you had the bar codes of 20
or 25 products by Kimberly Clark or some similar company, so they were
worth 20 or 25 a piece. The last day after people had left work, I went
around and found 1 or 2 boxes of kleenex and I cut out the bar code,
without even asking anyone, but I know no one cared. Then a week
later of course they stopped making the Jr.

11 years later, I bought The next one at a hamfest, and it didn't work.
I gradually figured out that he had replaced one of the 2 floppies with
something special, then put it back the way it was before selling it,
but he didn't undo some change to a mobo jumper, so it thought it had
only one drive and it had two and that was enough to stop everything,
except maybe there was a one line message on the screeen.

I've bought 2 others used at hamfests, one laptop from ebay, and been
given a bunch.

IBM diskette drives are not the same as the ones in other machines.
When other companies cloned our machines they were not exactly the
same, maybe for legal reasons.
When the company I worked for was building "clones" and selling hard
drive kits for IBM PCs some of the floppies we were using WERE
identical to IBM's drives. They were made by Alps, Mitsubishi,
Shugart, Panasonic, Matsu****a, TEAC and Tandon and I believe IBM even
used some Sanyo Denki drives.

Going back to the full height single sided ( drives there were
companies like Tandon and Qume, and Magnetic Peripherals -ALL of
which were available to the third tier manufacturers - and used by
IBM.
You may be correct going back to "hard sectored" drives - which were
virtually all Shugart - but that's going back to '76 or '77 - before
the "PC". The old 180KB jobs.
By '87 the hard sector drives were pretty much relegated to the
non-ibm compatible - the CPM boxes were one axample that still used
hard sector drives when I got into the business back in '86

I agree with that. I never heard of any incompatibility between IBM
PC floppy drives their media and the clones. The thing that made the
Compaq and later PCs so successful was that they were just about 100%
compatible with IBM. If you couldn't take a floppy disk from one machine
to another, it would have been a disaster.

Yes, the PC drives were 100% compatible. What did vary between
manufacturers (but not IBM and compatibles) was the format (sector size,
interleave, etc.) but a friend wrote a PC program that could read just
about any disk.

--

Xeno


Nothing astonishes Noddy so much as common sense and plain dealing.
(with apologies to Ralph Waldo Emerson)

On Sat, 2 May 2020 11:34:49 +1000, Xeno
wrote:

snipped

Indeed, the full height soft sectored drives by Tandon, TM100-2 as OEM
in early PCs up until the AT, were exactly the same internally as drives
in other computers. Might have had an IBM logo on the front plate but
that was all. Those drives needed occasional head alignment and that
involved an oscilloscope and an analogue alignment disk. You had to
adjust the heads until the image on screen was symmetrical. Those
alignment disks were A$100 each (in 1980s dollars) so you checked a
drive's heads out before you put a valuable alignment disk in it.
I had (possibly still have) an alugnmrnt disk and the software for
the Radio Shack COCO with the A-Dos controller that I used for years
to check and align 5 1/4" floppies. I think it cost me something like
$39 back in about '85 or so.

You may be correct going back to "hard sectored" drives - which were
virtually all Shugart - but that's going back to '76 or '77 - before
the "PC". The old 180KB jobs.
By '87 the hard sector drives were pretty much relegated to the
non-ibm compatible - the CPM boxes were one axample that still used
hard sector drives when I got into the business back in '86

The CP/M box the dealership got just before I left to run the ADP
financial system used single sided hard sectored 5 1/4 inch drives. I
THINK it was a proprietory system - not the PC based CP/M 86. I know
it only had one floppy and no hard drive - which made booting and
loading the system a PAIN. I think it was a shugart drive but wouldnt
swear to it. Maybee a Magnetic Peripherals
Northstar Horizon was the only one I recall that was hard sectored until
late in the piece. Earlier there were plenty in the 8 inch drives. There
were also a few around running on the S100 bus system. I can't recall
the brand now but I sourced one for a friend who had an orphaned S100
based CP/M system and the only way he could get a set of drives was
through that bus. The unit was this one;
https://ub.fnwi.uva.nl/computermuseu...es/exidy2a.gif
The drives I sourced for the owner were very much like the drives
pictured on the right. Got him a heap of blank disks too since they
were, at that time, becoming very scarce. He probably still has it.

On Sat, 2 May 2020 11:44:00 +1000, Xeno
wrote:

On 2/5/20 11:02 am, trader_4 wrote:
On Friday, May 1, 2020 at 6:06:42 PM UTC-4, Clare Snyder wrote:
On Fri, 01 May 2020 13:30:55 -0400, wrote:

On Fri, 01 May 2020 08:06:06 -0400, micky
wrote:

In alt.home.repair, on Sat, 25 Apr 2020 21:31:03 -0400,
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 20:21:34 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 17:02:20 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 15:21:36 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 12:49:15 -0400, Bud Frede
wrote:

Clare Snyder writes:

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 12:02:39 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 4/23/20 10:29 AM, micky wrote:
Another problem with getting a heat pump is that the wirign to the
thermostat is inadequate. no easy way to run a new wire to the same
location**.

I don't have a heat pump, but 2 stage AC and heat. This requires 7 wires
(including power return) to the thermostat. I now have 10 wires
installed (3 for later use).

I have a 2 stage furnace plus AC running on 4 wires - using a single
stage thermostat.

I have the same setup here.

In the past I had tried various fancy thermostats and didn't have luck
with them. The manuals were horrible and I don't think the people who
designed the thermostats ever had to actually use them.

A few years ago when it was time to replace my furnace and AV, they
threw in a new thermostat with it. It's a White-Rogers programmable
model. I can't control it across the internet with my phone, and I'm
sure it doesn't have all the fancy features, but it works reliably, it
was easy to figure out how to use, and the manual was well-written.

I think this is like the old constant upgrade cycle Microsoft did with
Office. The average person only used 10% of the features, but they kept
adding more and more features so they could sell a new version to you.
If it was still available for purchase, and if it would still run on a
modern computer, many people would be happier with Office '95 or
something rather than the latest and greatest Office
whatever-version-they're-up-to-now.

There are some things that get new features that I use and that improve
the experience. For the most part though, I'm at that 10% level and the
rest is just added complexity and is actually a drawback for me.

It feels strange to think this way. I'm in IT and I am constantly
learning new things and growing my skills. It's just that there are some
areas where I'd like less complexity. It's less to worry about, less
hassle, etc.

I try to resist "Gear Acquisition Syndrome" and not upgrade just because
there's something new. I want what I guess I could call "appropriate
complexity." :-)

Yeah, I'm not the typical consumer, and I know that I'm not who the
product makers aim at. Maybe I'm just getting old or something...


Like the motto of my IT company here in Ontario - "appropriate
technology for the information age".
In the beginning I sold a LOT of off-lease and reconditioned hardware
which allowed many companies to get into office and retail
computerization at an affordable price.

That is where I usually get my PCs if I can't get one for free.


in 33 years I'm on my second brand new computer (and it's about 7
years old, more or less)(Not counting my first non-ibm compatible
RatShack CoCo - which I still own)

The only new computer I ever bought was when my wife still had her
business and I was working for IBM. It was on full IBM enterprise
maintenance and if I put a call in on it, I could take the call, order
the parts and write them off.
The IRS let me fully depreciate it in the first year and write off the
M/A contract. It worked out well for me.

The only new computer I've owned in 36 years was a PC Jr. It sold for
iirc $1600, but they would take 500 off if you had the bar codes of 20
or 25 products by Kimberly Clark or some similar company, so they were
worth 20 or 25 a piece. The last day after people had left work, I went
around and found 1 or 2 boxes of kleenex and I cut out the bar code,
without even asking anyone, but I know no one cared. Then a week
later of course they stopped making the Jr.

11 years later, I bought The next one at a hamfest, and it didn't work.
I gradually figured out that he had replaced one of the 2 floppies with
something special, then put it back the way it was before selling it,
but he didn't undo some change to a mobo jumper, so it thought it had
only one drive and it had two and that was enough to stop everything,
except maybe there was a one line message on the screeen.

I've bought 2 others used at hamfests, one laptop from ebay, and been
given a bunch.

IBM diskette drives are not the same as the ones in other machines.
When other companies cloned our machines they were not exactly the
same, maybe for legal reasons.
When the company I worked for was building "clones" and selling hard
drive kits for IBM PCs some of the floppies we were using WERE
identical to IBM's drives. They were made by Alps, Mitsubishi,
Shugart, Panasonic, Matsu****a, TEAC and Tandon and I believe IBM even
used some Sanyo Denki drives.

Going back to the full height single sided ( drives there were
companies like Tandon and Qume, and Magnetic Peripherals -ALL of
which were available to the third tier manufacturers - and used by
IBM.
You may be correct going back to "hard sectored" drives - which were
virtually all Shugart - but that's going back to '76 or '77 - before
the "PC". The old 180KB jobs.
By '87 the hard sector drives were pretty much relegated to the
non-ibm compatible - the CPM boxes were one axample that still used
hard sector drives when I got into the business back in '86

I agree with that. I never heard of any incompatibility between IBM
PC floppy drives their media and the clones. The thing that made the
Compaq and later PCs so successful was that they were just about 100%
compatible with IBM. If you couldn't take a floppy disk from one machine
to another, it would have been a disaster.

Yes, the PC drives were 100% compatible. What did vary between
manufacturers (but not IBM and compatibles) was the format (sector size,
interleave, etc.) but a friend wrote a PC program that could read just
about any disk.
My Coco with A-DOS could even read PC disks. As long as the data was
compatible with a program on the computer. A lot of qbasic and other
versions of basic would halfways run on the cocobasic - and I ported a
lot of stuff over. Haven't done any basic programming for AGES. Used
to edit a lot of 6809 machine language too - been likely 30 years or
more since the last attempt. Had OS9 and c compiler too - I'd be
totally useless on it now - - -

On Fri, 01 May 2020 18:06:24 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Fri, 01 May 2020 13:30:55 -0400, wrote:

On Fri, 01 May 2020 08:06:06 -0400, micky
wrote:

In alt.home.repair, on Sat, 25 Apr 2020 21:31:03 -0400,
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 20:21:34 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 17:02:20 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 15:21:36 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 12:49:15 -0400, Bud Frede
wrote:

Clare Snyder writes:

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 12:02:39 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 4/23/20 10:29 AM, micky wrote:
Another problem with getting a heat pump is that the wirign to the
thermostat is inadequate. no easy way to run a new wire to the same
location**.

I don't have a heat pump, but 2 stage AC and heat. This requires 7 wires
(including power return) to the thermostat. I now have 10 wires
installed (3 for later use).

I have a 2 stage furnace plus AC running on 4 wires - using a single
stage thermostat.

I have the same setup here.

In the past I had tried various fancy thermostats and didn't have luck
with them. The manuals were horrible and I don't think the people who
designed the thermostats ever had to actually use them.

A few years ago when it was time to replace my furnace and AV, they
threw in a new thermostat with it. It's a White-Rogers programmable
model. I can't control it across the internet with my phone, and I'm
sure it doesn't have all the fancy features, but it works reliably, it
was easy to figure out how to use, and the manual was well-written.

I think this is like the old constant upgrade cycle Microsoft did with
Office. The average person only used 10% of the features, but they kept
adding more and more features so they could sell a new version to you.
If it was still available for purchase, and if it would still run on a
modern computer, many people would be happier with Office '95 or
something rather than the latest and greatest Office
whatever-version-they're-up-to-now.

There are some things that get new features that I use and that improve
the experience. For the most part though, I'm at that 10% level and the
rest is just added complexity and is actually a drawback for me.

It feels strange to think this way. I'm in IT and I am constantly
learning new things and growing my skills. It's just that there are some
areas where I'd like less complexity. It's less to worry about, less
hassle, etc.

I try to resist "Gear Acquisition Syndrome" and not upgrade just because
there's something new. I want what I guess I could call "appropriate
complexity." :-)

Yeah, I'm not the typical consumer, and I know that I'm not who the
product makers aim at. Maybe I'm just getting old or something...


Like the motto of my IT company here in Ontario - "appropriate
technology for the information age".
In the beginning I sold a LOT of off-lease and reconditioned hardware
which allowed many companies to get into office and retail
computerization at an affordable price.

That is where I usually get my PCs if I can't get one for free.


in 33 years I'm on my second brand new computer (and it's about 7
years old, more or less)(Not counting my first non-ibm compatible
RatShack CoCo - which I still own)

The only new computer I ever bought was when my wife still had her
business and I was working for IBM. It was on full IBM enterprise
maintenance and if I put a call in on it, I could take the call, order
the parts and write them off.
The IRS let me fully depreciate it in the first year and write off the
M/A contract. It worked out well for me.

The only new computer I've owned in 36 years was a PC Jr. It sold for
iirc $1600, but they would take 500 off if you had the bar codes of 20
or 25 products by Kimberly Clark or some similar company, so they were
worth 20 or 25 a piece. The last day after people had left work, I went
around and found 1 or 2 boxes of kleenex and I cut out the bar code,
without even asking anyone, but I know no one cared. Then a week
later of course they stopped making the Jr.

11 years later, I bought The next one at a hamfest, and it didn't work.
I gradually figured out that he had replaced one of the 2 floppies with
something special, then put it back the way it was before selling it,
but he didn't undo some change to a mobo jumper, so it thought it had
only one drive and it had two and that was enough to stop everything,
except maybe there was a one line message on the screeen.

I've bought 2 others used at hamfests, one laptop from ebay, and been
given a bunch.

IBM diskette drives are not the same as the ones in other machines.
When other companies cloned our machines they were not exactly the
same, maybe for legal reasons.
When the company I worked for was building "clones" and selling hard
drive kits for IBM PCs some of the floppies we were using WERE
identical to IBM's drives. They were made by Alps, Mitsubishi,
Shugart, Panasonic, Matsu****a, TEAC and Tandon and I believe IBM even
used some Sanyo Denki drives.

Going back to the full height single sided ( drives there were
companies like Tandon and Qume, and Magnetic Peripherals -ALL of
which were available to the third tier manufacturers - and used by
IBM.
You may be correct going back to "hard sectored" drives - which were
virtually all Shugart - but that's going back to '76 or '77 - before
the "PC". The old 180KB jobs.
By '87 the hard sector drives were pretty much relegated to the
non-ibm compatible - the CPM boxes were one axample that still used
hard sector drives when I got into the business back in '86

I know there were some 5.25" clone drives that didn't work on an IBM
(maybe Commodore?)
Once you got to the 3.5" none of the clone drives worked on first
generation PS/2s They inverted the logic on pin 2.
IBM drives did not have a media select pin.

On Fri, 1 May 2020 18:02:06 -0700 (PDT), trader_4
wrote:

On Friday, May 1, 2020 at 6:06:42 PM UTC-4, Clare Snyder wrote:
On Fri, 01 May 2020 13:30:55 -0400, wrote:

On Fri, 01 May 2020 08:06:06 -0400, micky
wrote:

In alt.home.repair, on Sat, 25 Apr 2020 21:31:03 -0400,
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 20:21:34 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 17:02:20 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 15:21:36 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 12:49:15 -0400, Bud Frede
wrote:

Clare Snyder writes:

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 12:02:39 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 4/23/20 10:29 AM, micky wrote:
Another problem with getting a heat pump is that the wirign to the
thermostat is inadequate. no easy way to run a new wire to the same
location**.

I don't have a heat pump, but 2 stage AC and heat. This requires 7 wires
(including power return) to the thermostat. I now have 10 wires
installed (3 for later use).

I have a 2 stage furnace plus AC running on 4 wires - using a single
stage thermostat.

I have the same setup here.

In the past I had tried various fancy thermostats and didn't have luck
with them. The manuals were horrible and I don't think the people who
designed the thermostats ever had to actually use them.

A few years ago when it was time to replace my furnace and AV, they
threw in a new thermostat with it. It's a White-Rogers programmable
model. I can't control it across the internet with my phone, and I'm
sure it doesn't have all the fancy features, but it works reliably, it
was easy to figure out how to use, and the manual was well-written.

I think this is like the old constant upgrade cycle Microsoft did with
Office. The average person only used 10% of the features, but they kept
adding more and more features so they could sell a new version to you.
If it was still available for purchase, and if it would still run on a
modern computer, many people would be happier with Office '95 or
something rather than the latest and greatest Office
whatever-version-they're-up-to-now.

There are some things that get new features that I use and that improve
the experience. For the most part though, I'm at that 10% level and the
rest is just added complexity and is actually a drawback for me.

It feels strange to think this way. I'm in IT and I am constantly
learning new things and growing my skills. It's just that there are some
areas where I'd like less complexity. It's less to worry about, less
hassle, etc.

I try to resist "Gear Acquisition Syndrome" and not upgrade just because
there's something new. I want what I guess I could call "appropriate
complexity." :-)

Yeah, I'm not the typical consumer, and I know that I'm not who the
product makers aim at. Maybe I'm just getting old or something...


Like the motto of my IT company here in Ontario - "appropriate
technology for the information age".
In the beginning I sold a LOT of off-lease and reconditioned hardware
which allowed many companies to get into office and retail
computerization at an affordable price.

That is where I usually get my PCs if I can't get one for free.


in 33 years I'm on my second brand new computer (and it's about 7
years old, more or less)(Not counting my first non-ibm compatible
RatShack CoCo - which I still own)

The only new computer I ever bought was when my wife still had her
business and I was working for IBM. It was on full IBM enterprise
maintenance and if I put a call in on it, I could take the call, order
the parts and write them off.
The IRS let me fully depreciate it in the first year and write off the
M/A contract. It worked out well for me.

The only new computer I've owned in 36 years was a PC Jr. It sold for
iirc $1600, but they would take 500 off if you had the bar codes of 20
or 25 products by Kimberly Clark or some similar company, so they were
worth 20 or 25 a piece. The last day after people had left work, I went
around and found 1 or 2 boxes of kleenex and I cut out the bar code,
without even asking anyone, but I know no one cared. Then a week
later of course they stopped making the Jr.

11 years later, I bought The next one at a hamfest, and it didn't work.
I gradually figured out that he had replaced one of the 2 floppies with
something special, then put it back the way it was before selling it,
but he didn't undo some change to a mobo jumper, so it thought it had
only one drive and it had two and that was enough to stop everything,
except maybe there was a one line message on the screeen.

I've bought 2 others used at hamfests, one laptop from ebay, and been
given a bunch.

IBM diskette drives are not the same as the ones in other machines.
When other companies cloned our machines they were not exactly the
same, maybe for legal reasons.
When the company I worked for was building "clones" and selling hard
drive kits for IBM PCs some of the floppies we were using WERE
identical to IBM's drives. They were made by Alps, Mitsubishi,
Shugart, Panasonic, Matsu****a, TEAC and Tandon and I believe IBM even
used some Sanyo Denki drives.

Going back to the full height single sided ( drives there were
companies like Tandon and Qume, and Magnetic Peripherals -ALL of
which were available to the third tier manufacturers - and used by
IBM.
You may be correct going back to "hard sectored" drives - which were
virtually all Shugart - but that's going back to '76 or '77 - before
the "PC". The old 180KB jobs.
By '87 the hard sector drives were pretty much relegated to the
non-ibm compatible - the CPM boxes were one axample that still used
hard sector drives when I got into the business back in '86

I agree with that. I never heard of any incompatibility between IBM
PC floppy drives their media and the clones. The thing that made the
Compaq and later PCs so successful was that they were just about 100%
compatible with IBM. If you couldn't take a floppy disk from one machine
to another, it would have been a disaster.

They all wrote compatible data formats. I was talking about the
interface. On the 3.5s you could write a disk a clone wouldn't read.
Just format a 720 at 1.44. The clone will puke on it. Another IBM
machine will work.

wrote :
On Fri, 01 May 2020 08:06:06 -0400, micky
wrote:

In alt.home.repair, on Sat, 25 Apr 2020 21:31:03 -0400,
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 20:21:34 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 17:02:20 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 15:21:36 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 12:49:15 -0400, Bud Frede
wrote:

Clare Snyder writes:

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 12:02:39 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 4/23/20 10:29 AM, micky wrote:
Another problem with getting a heat pump is that the wirign to the
thermostat is inadequate. no easy way to run a new wire to the
same location**.

I don't have a heat pump, but 2 stage AC and heat. This requires 7
wires (including power return) to the thermostat. I now have 10
wires installed (3 for later use).

I have a 2 stage furnace plus AC running on 4 wires - using a single
stage thermostat.

I have the same setup here.

In the past I had tried various fancy thermostats and didn't have luck
with them. The manuals were horrible and I don't think the people who
designed the thermostats ever had to actually use them.

A few years ago when it was time to replace my furnace and AV, they
threw in a new thermostat with it. It's a White-Rogers programmable
model. I can't control it across the internet with my phone, and I'm
sure it doesn't have all the fancy features, but it works reliably, it
was easy to figure out how to use, and the manual was well-written.

I think this is like the old constant upgrade cycle Microsoft did with
Office. The average person only used 10% of the features, but they kept
adding more and more features so they could sell a new version to you.
If it was still available for purchase, and if it would still run on a
modern computer, many people would be happier with Office '95 or
something rather than the latest and greatest Office
whatever-version-they're-up-to-now.

There are some things that get new features that I use and that improve
the experience. For the most part though, I'm at that 10% level and the
rest is just added complexity and is actually a drawback for me.

It feels strange to think this way. I'm in IT and I am constantly
learning new things and growing my skills. It's just that there are
some areas where I'd like less complexity. It's less to worry about,
less hassle, etc.

I try to resist "Gear Acquisition Syndrome" and not upgrade just
because there's something new. I want what I guess I could call
"appropriate complexity." :-)

Yeah, I'm not the typical consumer, and I know that I'm not who the
product makers aim at. Maybe I'm just getting old or something...


Like the motto of my IT company here in Ontario - "appropriate
technology for the information age".
In the beginning I sold a LOT of off-lease and reconditioned hardware
which allowed many companies to get into office and retail
computerization at an affordable price.

That is where I usually get my PCs if I can't get one for free.


in 33 years I'm on my second brand new computer (and it's about 7
years old, more or less)(Not counting my first non-ibm compatible
RatShack CoCo - which I still own)

The only new computer I ever bought was when my wife still had her
business and I was working for IBM. It was on full IBM enterprise
maintenance and if I put a call in on it, I could take the call, order
the parts and write them off.
The IRS let me fully depreciate it in the first year and write off the
M/A contract. It worked out well for me.

The only new computer I've owned in 36 years was a PC Jr. It sold for
iirc $1600, but they would take 500 off if you had the bar codes of 20
or 25 products by Kimberly Clark or some similar company, so they were
worth 20 or 25 a piece. The last day after people had left work, I went
around and found 1 or 2 boxes of kleenex and I cut out the bar code,
without even asking anyone, but I know no one cared. Then a week
later of course they stopped making the Jr.

11 years later, I bought The next one at a hamfest, and it didn't work.
I gradually figured out that he had replaced one of the 2 floppies with
something special, then put it back the way it was before selling it,
but he didn't undo some change to a mobo jumper, so it thought it had
only one drive and it had two and that was enough to stop everything,
except maybe there was a one line message on the screeen.

I've bought 2 others used at hamfests, one laptop from ebay, and been
given a bunch.

IBM diskette drives are not the same as the ones in other machines.
When other companies cloned our machines they were not exactly the
same, maybe for legal reasons.

Might have been at the introduction of the double density disk.

On 2/5/20 6:27 pm, FromTheRafters wrote:
wrote :
On Fri, 01 May 2020 08:06:06 -0400, micky
wrote:

In alt.home.repair, on Sat, 25 Apr 2020 21:31:03 -0400,
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 20:21:34 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 17:02:20 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 15:21:36 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 12:49:15 -0400, Bud Frede

wrote:

Clare Snyder writes:

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 12:02:39 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 4/23/20 10:29 AM, micky wrote:
Another problem with getting a heat pump is that the wirign
to the
thermostat is inadequate.** no easy way to run a new wire to
the same location**.

I don't have a heat pump, but 2 stage AC and heat. This
requires 7 wires* (including power return) to the thermostat.
I now have 10 wires* installed (3 for later use).

*I have a 2 stage furnace plus AC running on 4 wires - using a
single
stage thermostat.

I have the same setup here.

In the past I had tried various fancy thermostats and didn't
have luck
with them. The manuals were horrible and I don't think the
people who
designed the thermostats ever had to actually use them.

A few years ago when it was time to replace my furnace and AV, they
threw in a new thermostat with it. It's a White-Rogers programmable
model. I can't control it across the internet with my phone, and
I'm
sure it doesn't have all the fancy features, but it works
reliably, it
was easy to figure out how to use, and the manual was well-written.

I think this is like the old constant upgrade cycle Microsoft
did with
Office. The average person only used 10% of the features, but
they kept
adding more and more features so they could sell a new version
to you.
If it was still available for purchase, and if it would still
run on a
modern computer, many people would be happier with Office '95 or
something rather than the latest and greatest Office
whatever-version-they're-up-to-now.

There are some things that get new features that I use and that
improve
the experience. For the most part though, I'm at that 10% level
and the
rest is just added complexity and is actually a drawback for me.

It feels strange to think this way. I'm in IT and I am constantly
learning new things and growing my skills. It's just that there
are some areas where I'd like less complexity. It's less to
worry about, less hassle, etc.

I try to resist "Gear Acquisition Syndrome" and not upgrade just
because there's something new. I want what I guess I could call
"appropriate complexity." :-)

Yeah, I'm not the typical consumer, and I know that I'm not who the
product makers aim at. Maybe I'm just getting old or something...


Like the motto of my IT company here in Ontario - "appropriate
technology for the information age".
In the beginning I sold a LOT of off-lease and reconditioned
hardware
which allowed many companies to get into office and retail
computerization at an affordable price.

That is where I usually get my PCs if I can't get one for free.


in 33 years I'm on my second brand new computer (and it's about 7
years old, more or less)(Not counting my first non-ibm compatible
RatShack CoCo - which I still own)

The only new computer I ever bought was when my wife still had her
business and I was working for IBM. It was on full IBM enterprise
maintenance and if I put a call in on it, I could take the call, order
the parts and write them off. The IRS let me fully depreciate it in
the first year and write off the
M/A contract. It worked out well for me.

The only new computer I've owned in 36 years was a PC Jr. It sold for
iirc $1600, but they would take 500 off if you had the bar codes of 20
or 25 products by Kimberly Clark or some similar company, so they were
worth 20 or 25 a piece.* The last day after people had left work, I went
around and found 1 or 2 boxes of kleenex and I cut out the bar code,
without even asking anyone, but I know no one cared.*** Then a week
later of course they stopped making the Jr.
11 years later, I bought The next one at a hamfest, and it didn't work.
I gradually figured out that he had replaced one of the 2 floppies with
something special, then put it back the way it was before selling it,
but he didn't undo some change to a mobo jumper, so it thought it had
only one drive and it had two and that was enough to stop* everything,
except maybe there was a one line message on the screeen.
I've bought 2 others used at hamfests, one laptop from ebay, and been
given a bunch.

IBM diskette drives are not the same as the ones in other machines.
When other companies cloned our machines they were not exactly the
same, maybe for legal reasons.

Might have been at the introduction of the double density disk.

Disk drives were always procured from OEMs. IBM drives set a standard
that was followed by the clones but there was nothing particularly
special about them. The only thing that IBM really had full control over
was the BIOS. That was why the clones had workalike BIOSes. I read
somewhere that was the biggest mistake IBM made - the open architecture
- and they tried to rectify that with the PS2 - and why the PS2 disappeared.

This, from Wikipedia, might explain it;

The IBM copyright appears in only the ROM BIOS and on the
company logo, and the company reportedly received no patents
on the PC, with outsiders manufacturing 90% of it.

and

Perhaps Chess's most unusual decision for IBM was to publish
the PC's technical specifications, allowing outsiders to create
products for it.

Because of this, and the open architecture, I see no earthly reason why
IBM PC floppy drives would be any different to any other similar spec
OEM drive. If another PC Clone had difficulty running a PC drive, then
it would be safe to assume the clone had the issue of compatibility, not
the drive. With an open architecture like the ISA bus, any drive that
adhered to standard specifications would/should work.

For the PS/2 however, I could believe that drives may have been a little
different from standard.

Next-generation IBM PS/2
The IBM PS/2 line was introduced in 1987. The Model 30 at the
bottom end of the lineup was very similar to earlier models;
it used an 8086 processor and an ISA bus. The Model 30 was
not "IBM compatible" in that it did not have standard 5.25-inch
drive bays; it came with a 3.5-inch floppy drive and optionally
a 3.5-inch-sized hard disk. Most models in the PS/2 line further
departed from "IBM compatible" by replacing the ISA bus
completely with Micro Channel Architecture. The MCA bus was not
received well by the customer base for PC's, since it was
proprietary to IBM. It was rarely implemented by any of the other
PC-compatible makers. Eventually IBM would abandon this
architecture entirely and return to the standard ISA bus.

The above was IBMs doomed attempt to regain control of the PC market. It
was a dismal failure.


--

Xeno


Nothing astonishes Noddy so much as common sense and plain dealing.
(with apologies to Ralph Waldo Emerson)

On Sat, 02 May 2020 01:12:39 -0400, wrote:

On Fri, 01 May 2020 18:06:24 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Fri, 01 May 2020 13:30:55 -0400, wrote:

On Fri, 01 May 2020 08:06:06 -0400, micky
wrote:

In alt.home.repair, on Sat, 25 Apr 2020 21:31:03 -0400,
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 20:21:34 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 17:02:20 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 15:21:36 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 12:49:15 -0400, Bud Frede
wrote:

Clare Snyder writes:

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 12:02:39 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 4/23/20 10:29 AM, micky wrote:
Another problem with getting a heat pump is that the wirign to the
thermostat is inadequate. no easy way to run a new wire to the same
location**.

I don't have a heat pump, but 2 stage AC and heat. This requires 7 wires
(including power return) to the thermostat. I now have 10 wires
installed (3 for later use).

I have a 2 stage furnace plus AC running on 4 wires - using a single
stage thermostat.

I have the same setup here.

In the past I had tried various fancy thermostats and didn't have luck
with them. The manuals were horrible and I don't think the people who
designed the thermostats ever had to actually use them.

A few years ago when it was time to replace my furnace and AV, they
threw in a new thermostat with it. It's a White-Rogers programmable
model. I can't control it across the internet with my phone, and I'm
sure it doesn't have all the fancy features, but it works reliably, it
was easy to figure out how to use, and the manual was well-written.

I think this is like the old constant upgrade cycle Microsoft did with
Office. The average person only used 10% of the features, but they kept
adding more and more features so they could sell a new version to you.
If it was still available for purchase, and if it would still run on a
modern computer, many people would be happier with Office '95 or
something rather than the latest and greatest Office
whatever-version-they're-up-to-now.

There are some things that get new features that I use and that improve
the experience. For the most part though, I'm at that 10% level and the
rest is just added complexity and is actually a drawback for me.

It feels strange to think this way. I'm in IT and I am constantly
learning new things and growing my skills. It's just that there are some
areas where I'd like less complexity. It's less to worry about, less
hassle, etc.

I try to resist "Gear Acquisition Syndrome" and not upgrade just because
there's something new. I want what I guess I could call "appropriate
complexity." :-)

Yeah, I'm not the typical consumer, and I know that I'm not who the
product makers aim at. Maybe I'm just getting old or something...


Like the motto of my IT company here in Ontario - "appropriate
technology for the information age".
In the beginning I sold a LOT of off-lease and reconditioned hardware
which allowed many companies to get into office and retail
computerization at an affordable price.

That is where I usually get my PCs if I can't get one for free.


in 33 years I'm on my second brand new computer (and it's about 7
years old, more or less)(Not counting my first non-ibm compatible
RatShack CoCo - which I still own)

The only new computer I ever bought was when my wife still had her
business and I was working for IBM. It was on full IBM enterprise
maintenance and if I put a call in on it, I could take the call, order
the parts and write them off.
The IRS let me fully depreciate it in the first year and write off the
M/A contract. It worked out well for me.

The only new computer I've owned in 36 years was a PC Jr. It sold for
iirc $1600, but they would take 500 off if you had the bar codes of 20
or 25 products by Kimberly Clark or some similar company, so they were
worth 20 or 25 a piece. The last day after people had left work, I went
around and found 1 or 2 boxes of kleenex and I cut out the bar code,
without even asking anyone, but I know no one cared. Then a week
later of course they stopped making the Jr.

11 years later, I bought The next one at a hamfest, and it didn't work.
I gradually figured out that he had replaced one of the 2 floppies with
something special, then put it back the way it was before selling it,
but he didn't undo some change to a mobo jumper, so it thought it had
only one drive and it had two and that was enough to stop everything,
except maybe there was a one line message on the screeen.

I've bought 2 others used at hamfests, one laptop from ebay, and been
given a bunch.

IBM diskette drives are not the same as the ones in other machines.
When other companies cloned our machines they were not exactly the
same, maybe for legal reasons.
When the company I worked for was building "clones" and selling hard
drive kits for IBM PCs some of the floppies we were using WERE
identical to IBM's drives. They were made by Alps, Mitsubishi,
Shugart, Panasonic, Matsu****a, TEAC and Tandon and I believe IBM even
used some Sanyo Denki drives.

Going back to the full height single sided ( drives there were
companies like Tandon and Qume, and Magnetic Peripherals -ALL of
which were available to the third tier manufacturers - and used by
IBM.
You may be correct going back to "hard sectored" drives - which were
virtually all Shugart - but that's going back to '76 or '77 - before
the "PC". The old 180KB jobs.
By '87 the hard sector drives were pretty much relegated to the
non-ibm compatible - the CPM boxes were one axample that still used
hard sector drives when I got into the business back in '86

I know there were some 5.25" clone drives that didn't work on an IBM
(maybe Commodore?)
Once you got to the 3.5" none of the clone drives worked on first
generation PS/2s They inverted the logic on pin 2.
IBM drives did not have a media select pin.
Wasn't much that DID work on first gen PS/2s - and their
Micro-Channel???? It was going to "revolutionize" the computer world.

We got involved with a couple of microchannel clone projects - almost
killed us - and almost killed IBM too. EISA bus technology didn't do
much better but at least it was compatible with the standard ISA bus
peripherals

On Sat, 02 May 2020 01:15:02 -0400, wrote:

On Fri, 1 May 2020 18:02:06 -0700 (PDT), trader_4
wrote:

On Friday, May 1, 2020 at 6:06:42 PM UTC-4, Clare Snyder wrote:
On Fri, 01 May 2020 13:30:55 -0400, wrote:

On Fri, 01 May 2020 08:06:06 -0400, micky
wrote:

In alt.home.repair, on Sat, 25 Apr 2020 21:31:03 -0400,
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 20:21:34 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 17:02:20 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 15:21:36 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 12:49:15 -0400, Bud Frede
wrote:

Clare Snyder writes:

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 12:02:39 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 4/23/20 10:29 AM, micky wrote:
Another problem with getting a heat pump is that the wirign to the
thermostat is inadequate. no easy way to run a new wire to the same
location**.

I don't have a heat pump, but 2 stage AC and heat. This requires 7 wires
(including power return) to the thermostat. I now have 10 wires
installed (3 for later use).

I have a 2 stage furnace plus AC running on 4 wires - using a single
stage thermostat.

I have the same setup here.

In the past I had tried various fancy thermostats and didn't have luck
with them. The manuals were horrible and I don't think the people who
designed the thermostats ever had to actually use them.

A few years ago when it was time to replace my furnace and AV, they
threw in a new thermostat with it. It's a White-Rogers programmable
model. I can't control it across the internet with my phone, and I'm
sure it doesn't have all the fancy features, but it works reliably, it
was easy to figure out how to use, and the manual was well-written.

I think this is like the old constant upgrade cycle Microsoft did with
Office. The average person only used 10% of the features, but they kept
adding more and more features so they could sell a new version to you.
If it was still available for purchase, and if it would still run on a
modern computer, many people would be happier with Office '95 or
something rather than the latest and greatest Office
whatever-version-they're-up-to-now.

There are some things that get new features that I use and that improve
the experience. For the most part though, I'm at that 10% level and the
rest is just added complexity and is actually a drawback for me.

It feels strange to think this way. I'm in IT and I am constantly
learning new things and growing my skills. It's just that there are some
areas where I'd like less complexity. It's less to worry about, less
hassle, etc.

I try to resist "Gear Acquisition Syndrome" and not upgrade just because
there's something new. I want what I guess I could call "appropriate
complexity." :-)

Yeah, I'm not the typical consumer, and I know that I'm not who the
product makers aim at. Maybe I'm just getting old or something...


Like the motto of my IT company here in Ontario - "appropriate
technology for the information age".
In the beginning I sold a LOT of off-lease and reconditioned hardware
which allowed many companies to get into office and retail
computerization at an affordable price.

That is where I usually get my PCs if I can't get one for free.


in 33 years I'm on my second brand new computer (and it's about 7
years old, more or less)(Not counting my first non-ibm compatible
RatShack CoCo - which I still own)

The only new computer I ever bought was when my wife still had her
business and I was working for IBM. It was on full IBM enterprise
maintenance and if I put a call in on it, I could take the call, order
the parts and write them off.
The IRS let me fully depreciate it in the first year and write off the
M/A contract. It worked out well for me.

The only new computer I've owned in 36 years was a PC Jr. It sold for
iirc $1600, but they would take 500 off if you had the bar codes of 20
or 25 products by Kimberly Clark or some similar company, so they were
worth 20 or 25 a piece. The last day after people had left work, I went
around and found 1 or 2 boxes of kleenex and I cut out the bar code,
without even asking anyone, but I know no one cared. Then a week
later of course they stopped making the Jr.

11 years later, I bought The next one at a hamfest, and it didn't work.
I gradually figured out that he had replaced one of the 2 floppies with
something special, then put it back the way it was before selling it,
but he didn't undo some change to a mobo jumper, so it thought it had
only one drive and it had two and that was enough to stop everything,
except maybe there was a one line message on the screeen.

I've bought 2 others used at hamfests, one laptop from ebay, and been
given a bunch.

IBM diskette drives are not the same as the ones in other machines.
When other companies cloned our machines they were not exactly the
same, maybe for legal reasons.
When the company I worked for was building "clones" and selling hard
drive kits for IBM PCs some of the floppies we were using WERE
identical to IBM's drives. They were made by Alps, Mitsubishi,
Shugart, Panasonic, Matsu****a, TEAC and Tandon and I believe IBM even
used some Sanyo Denki drives.

Going back to the full height single sided ( drives there were
companies like Tandon and Qume, and Magnetic Peripherals -ALL of
which were available to the third tier manufacturers - and used by
IBM.
You may be correct going back to "hard sectored" drives - which were
virtually all Shugart - but that's going back to '76 or '77 - before
the "PC". The old 180KB jobs.
By '87 the hard sector drives were pretty much relegated to the
non-ibm compatible - the CPM boxes were one axample that still used
hard sector drives when I got into the business back in '86

I agree with that. I never heard of any incompatibility between IBM
PC floppy drives their media and the clones. The thing that made the
Compaq and later PCs so successful was that they were just about 100%
compatible with IBM. If you couldn't take a floppy disk from one machine
to another, it would have been a disaster.

They all wrote compatible data formats. I was talking about the
interface. On the 3.5s you could write a disk a clone wouldn't read.
Just format a 720 at 1.44. The clone will puke on it. Another IBM
machine will work.
I remember 1.44s formatted to 720. To read them on a normal PC you
just had to put tape over the density selector notch on the diskette
case. There was a "switch" in at least some versions of DOS to change
the density. the /F: switch seems to ring a bell. I know it was there
in DOS 6.2 - not sure about how many earlier versions.

On Saturday, May 2, 2020 at 1:36:04 PM UTC-4, Clare Snyder wrote:
On Sat, 02 May 2020 01:15:02 -0400, wrote:

On Fri, 1 May 2020 18:02:06 -0700 (PDT), trader_4
wrote:

On Friday, May 1, 2020 at 6:06:42 PM UTC-4, Clare Snyder wrote:
On Fri, 01 May 2020 13:30:55 -0400, wrote:

On Fri, 01 May 2020 08:06:06 -0400, micky
wrote:

In alt.home.repair, on Sat, 25 Apr 2020 21:31:03 -0400,
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 20:21:34 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 17:02:20 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 15:21:36 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 12:49:15 -0400, Bud Frede
wrote:

Clare Snyder writes:

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 12:02:39 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 4/23/20 10:29 AM, micky wrote:
Another problem with getting a heat pump is that the wirign to the
thermostat is inadequate. no easy way to run a new wire to the same
location**.

I don't have a heat pump, but 2 stage AC and heat. This requires 7 wires
(including power return) to the thermostat. I now have 10 wires
installed (3 for later use).

I have a 2 stage furnace plus AC running on 4 wires - using a single
stage thermostat.

I have the same setup here.

In the past I had tried various fancy thermostats and didn't have luck
with them. The manuals were horrible and I don't think the people who
designed the thermostats ever had to actually use them.

A few years ago when it was time to replace my furnace and AV, they
threw in a new thermostat with it. It's a White-Rogers programmable
model. I can't control it across the internet with my phone, and I'm
sure it doesn't have all the fancy features, but it works reliably, it
was easy to figure out how to use, and the manual was well-written.

I think this is like the old constant upgrade cycle Microsoft did with
Office. The average person only used 10% of the features, but they kept
adding more and more features so they could sell a new version to you.
If it was still available for purchase, and if it would still run on a
modern computer, many people would be happier with Office '95 or
something rather than the latest and greatest Office
whatever-version-they're-up-to-now.

There are some things that get new features that I use and that improve
the experience. For the most part though, I'm at that 10% level and the
rest is just added complexity and is actually a drawback for me.

It feels strange to think this way. I'm in IT and I am constantly
learning new things and growing my skills. It's just that there are some
areas where I'd like less complexity. It's less to worry about, less
hassle, etc.

I try to resist "Gear Acquisition Syndrome" and not upgrade just because
there's something new. I want what I guess I could call "appropriate
complexity." :-)

Yeah, I'm not the typical consumer, and I know that I'm not who the
product makers aim at. Maybe I'm just getting old or something...


Like the motto of my IT company here in Ontario - "appropriate
technology for the information age".
In the beginning I sold a LOT of off-lease and reconditioned hardware
which allowed many companies to get into office and retail
computerization at an affordable price.

That is where I usually get my PCs if I can't get one for free.


in 33 years I'm on my second brand new computer (and it's about 7
years old, more or less)(Not counting my first non-ibm compatible
RatShack CoCo - which I still own)

The only new computer I ever bought was when my wife still had her
business and I was working for IBM. It was on full IBM enterprise
maintenance and if I put a call in on it, I could take the call, order
the parts and write them off.
The IRS let me fully depreciate it in the first year and write off the
M/A contract. It worked out well for me.

The only new computer I've owned in 36 years was a PC Jr. It sold for
iirc $1600, but they would take 500 off if you had the bar codes of 20
or 25 products by Kimberly Clark or some similar company, so they were
worth 20 or 25 a piece. The last day after people had left work, I went
around and found 1 or 2 boxes of kleenex and I cut out the bar code,
without even asking anyone, but I know no one cared. Then a week
later of course they stopped making the Jr.

11 years later, I bought The next one at a hamfest, and it didn't work.
I gradually figured out that he had replaced one of the 2 floppies with
something special, then put it back the way it was before selling it,
but he didn't undo some change to a mobo jumper, so it thought it had
only one drive and it had two and that was enough to stop everything,
except maybe there was a one line message on the screeen.

I've bought 2 others used at hamfests, one laptop from ebay, and been
given a bunch.

IBM diskette drives are not the same as the ones in other machines.
When other companies cloned our machines they were not exactly the
same, maybe for legal reasons.
When the company I worked for was building "clones" and selling hard
drive kits for IBM PCs some of the floppies we were using WERE
identical to IBM's drives. They were made by Alps, Mitsubishi,
Shugart, Panasonic, Matsu****a, TEAC and Tandon and I believe IBM even
used some Sanyo Denki drives.

Going back to the full height single sided ( drives there were
companies like Tandon and Qume, and Magnetic Peripherals -ALL of
which were available to the third tier manufacturers - and used by
IBM.
You may be correct going back to "hard sectored" drives - which were
virtually all Shugart - but that's going back to '76 or '77 - before
the "PC". The old 180KB jobs.
By '87 the hard sector drives were pretty much relegated to the
non-ibm compatible - the CPM boxes were one axample that still used
hard sector drives when I got into the business back in '86

I agree with that. I never heard of any incompatibility between IBM
PC floppy drives their media and the clones. The thing that made the
Compaq and later PCs so successful was that they were just about 100%
compatible with IBM. If you couldn't take a floppy disk from one machine
to another, it would have been a disaster.

They all wrote compatible data formats. I was talking about the
interface. On the 3.5s you could write a disk a clone wouldn't read.
Just format a 720 at 1.44. The clone will puke on it. Another IBM
machine will work.
I remember 1.44s formatted to 720. To read them on a normal PC you
just had to put tape over the density selector notch on the diskette
case. There was a "switch" in at least some versions of DOS to change
the density. the /F: switch seems to ring a bell. I know it was there
in DOS 6.2 - not sure about how many earlier versions.

I recently sold a high density, removable 100MB floppy drive from an old Gateway
notebook. It was backward compatible with 1.44, for the high density
you had to use special diskettes. That standard wasn't used much, never
really went anywhere. But I guess somebody needed one for $40.

On Sat, 2 May 2020 20:12:39 +1000, Xeno
wrote:

On 2/5/20 6:27 pm, FromTheRafters wrote:
wrote :
On Fri, 01 May 2020 08:06:06 -0400, micky
wrote:

In alt.home.repair, on Sat, 25 Apr 2020 21:31:03 -0400,
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 20:21:34 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 17:02:20 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 15:21:36 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 12:49:15 -0400, Bud Frede

wrote:

Clare Snyder writes:

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 12:02:39 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 4/23/20 10:29 AM, micky wrote:
Another problem with getting a heat pump is that the wirign
to the
thermostat is inadequate.Â*Â* no easy way to run a new wire to
the same location**.

I don't have a heat pump, but 2 stage AC and heat. This
requires 7 wiresÂ* (including power return) to the thermostat.
I now have 10 wiresÂ* installed (3 for later use).

Â*I have a 2 stage furnace plus AC running on 4 wires - using a
single
stage thermostat.

I have the same setup here.

In the past I had tried various fancy thermostats and didn't
have luck
with them. The manuals were horrible and I don't think the
people who
designed the thermostats ever had to actually use them.

A few years ago when it was time to replace my furnace and AV, they
threw in a new thermostat with it. It's a White-Rogers programmable
model. I can't control it across the internet with my phone, and
I'm
sure it doesn't have all the fancy features, but it works
reliably, it
was easy to figure out how to use, and the manual was well-written.

I think this is like the old constant upgrade cycle Microsoft
did with
Office. The average person only used 10% of the features, but
they kept
adding more and more features so they could sell a new version
to you.
If it was still available for purchase, and if it would still
run on a
modern computer, many people would be happier with Office '95 or
something rather than the latest and greatest Office
whatever-version-they're-up-to-now.

There are some things that get new features that I use and that
improve
the experience. For the most part though, I'm at that 10% level
and the
rest is just added complexity and is actually a drawback for me.

It feels strange to think this way. I'm in IT and I am constantly
learning new things and growing my skills. It's just that there
are some areas where I'd like less complexity. It's less to
worry about, less hassle, etc.

I try to resist "Gear Acquisition Syndrome" and not upgrade just
because there's something new. I want what I guess I could call
"appropriate complexity." :-)

Yeah, I'm not the typical consumer, and I know that I'm not who the
product makers aim at. Maybe I'm just getting old or something...


Like the motto of my IT company here in Ontario - "appropriate
technology for the information age".
In the beginning I sold a LOT of off-lease and reconditioned
hardware
which allowed many companies to get into office and retail
computerization at an affordable price.

That is where I usually get my PCs if I can't get one for free.


in 33 years I'm on my second brand new computer (and it's about 7
years old, more or less)(Not counting my first non-ibm compatible
RatShack CoCo - which I still own)

The only new computer I ever bought was when my wife still had her
business and I was working for IBM. It was on full IBM enterprise
maintenance and if I put a call in on it, I could take the call, order
the parts and write them off. The IRS let me fully depreciate it in
the first year and write off the
M/A contract. It worked out well for me.

The only new computer I've owned in 36 years was a PC Jr. It sold for
iirc $1600, but they would take 500 off if you had the bar codes of 20
or 25 products by Kimberly Clark or some similar company, so they were
worth 20 or 25 a piece.Â* The last day after people had left work, I went
around and found 1 or 2 boxes of kleenex and I cut out the bar code,
without even asking anyone, but I know no one cared.Â*Â*Â* Then a week
later of course they stopped making the Jr.
11 years later, I bought The next one at a hamfest, and it didn't work.
I gradually figured out that he had replaced one of the 2 floppies with
something special, then put it back the way it was before selling it,
but he didn't undo some change to a mobo jumper, so it thought it had
only one drive and it had two and that was enough to stopÂ* everything,
except maybe there was a one line message on the screeen.
I've bought 2 others used at hamfests, one laptop from ebay, and been
given a bunch.

IBM diskette drives are not the same as the ones in other machines.
When other companies cloned our machines they were not exactly the
same, maybe for legal reasons.

Might have been at the introduction of the double density disk.

Disk drives were always procured from OEMs. IBM drives set a standard
that was followed by the clones but there was nothing particularly
special about them. The only thing that IBM really had full control over
was the BIOS. That was why the clones had workalike BIOSes. I read
somewhere that was the biggest mistake IBM made - the open architecture
- and they tried to rectify that with the PS2 - and why the PS2 disappeared.

This, from Wikipedia, might explain it;

The IBM copyright appears in only the ROM BIOS and on the
company logo, and the company reportedly received no patents
on the PC, with outsiders manufacturing 90% of it.

and

Perhaps Chess's most unusual decision for IBM was to publish
the PC's technical specifications, allowing outsiders to create
products for it.

Because of this, and the open architecture, I see no earthly reason why
IBM PC floppy drives would be any different to any other similar spec
OEM drive. If another PC Clone had difficulty running a PC drive, then
it would be safe to assume the clone had the issue of compatibility, not
the drive. With an open architecture like the ISA bus, any drive that
adhered to standard specifications would/should work.

For the PS/2 however, I could believe that drives may have been a little
different from standard.

Next-generation IBM PS/2
The IBM PS/2 line was introduced in 1987. The Model 30 at the
bottom end of the lineup was very similar to earlier models;
it used an 8086 processor and an ISA bus. The Model 30 was
not "IBM compatible" in that it did not have standard 5.25-inch
drive bays; it came with a 3.5-inch floppy drive and optionally
a 3.5-inch-sized hard disk. Most models in the PS/2 line further
departed from "IBM compatible" by replacing the ISA bus
completely with Micro Channel Architecture. The MCA bus was not
received well by the customer base for PC's, since it was
proprietary to IBM. It was rarely implemented by any of the other
PC-compatible makers. Eventually IBM would abandon this
architecture entirely and return to the standard ISA bus.

The above was IBMs doomed attempt to regain control of the PC market. It
was a dismal failure.

The PS/2 was never aimed at the home market. It was designed to be
integrated into an office with a mainframe. The Microchannel was an
attempt to eliminate all of that IRQ and memory assignment BS you ran
into when you plugged a card in. By being proprietary, cards were
designed not to come up with these conflicts and as a general rule
that worked. It also made it less likely that a PC hobbyist was going
to be screwing with the company owned machine on his desk. I ran PS/2s
until I lost the channel for free parts, then I went back to an open
architecture machine.

I agree the 5.25" diskette and all of the hard drives were industry
standard but a PS/2 3.5" diskette drive wasn't. There was no media
sense pin in the drive and pin 2 in the cable (media select) was
controlled by the adapter, not the drive. You could format a HD disk
at 720 and vice versa. You just needed to bulk degauss the diskette
when you changed formats.

On Sat, 02 May 2020 14:49:02 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 2 May 2020 20:12:39 +1000, Xeno
wrote:

On 2/5/20 6:27 pm, FromTheRafters wrote:
wrote :
On Fri, 01 May 2020 08:06:06 -0400, micky
wrote:

In alt.home.repair, on Sat, 25 Apr 2020 21:31:03 -0400,
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 20:21:34 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 17:02:20 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 15:21:36 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 12:49:15 -0400, Bud Frede

wrote:

Clare Snyder writes:

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 12:02:39 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 4/23/20 10:29 AM, micky wrote:
Another problem with getting a heat pump is that the wirign
to the
thermostat is inadequate.** no easy way to run a new wire to
the same location**.

I don't have a heat pump, but 2 stage AC and heat. This
requires 7 wires* (including power return) to the thermostat.
I now have 10 wires* installed (3 for later use).

*I have a 2 stage furnace plus AC running on 4 wires - using a
single
stage thermostat.

I have the same setup here.

In the past I had tried various fancy thermostats and didn't
have luck
with them. The manuals were horrible and I don't think the
people who
designed the thermostats ever had to actually use them.

A few years ago when it was time to replace my furnace and AV, they
threw in a new thermostat with it. It's a White-Rogers programmable
model. I can't control it across the internet with my phone, and
I'm
sure it doesn't have all the fancy features, but it works
reliably, it
was easy to figure out how to use, and the manual was well-written.

I think this is like the old constant upgrade cycle Microsoft
did with
Office. The average person only used 10% of the features, but
they kept
adding more and more features so they could sell a new version
to you.
If it was still available for purchase, and if it would still
run on a
modern computer, many people would be happier with Office '95 or
something rather than the latest and greatest Office
whatever-version-they're-up-to-now.

There are some things that get new features that I use and that
improve
the experience. For the most part though, I'm at that 10% level
and the
rest is just added complexity and is actually a drawback for me.

It feels strange to think this way. I'm in IT and I am constantly
learning new things and growing my skills. It's just that there
are some areas where I'd like less complexity. It's less to
worry about, less hassle, etc.

I try to resist "Gear Acquisition Syndrome" and not upgrade just
because there's something new. I want what I guess I could call
"appropriate complexity." :-)

Yeah, I'm not the typical consumer, and I know that I'm not who the
product makers aim at. Maybe I'm just getting old or something...


Like the motto of my IT company here in Ontario - "appropriate
technology for the information age".
In the beginning I sold a LOT of off-lease and reconditioned
hardware
which allowed many companies to get into office and retail
computerization at an affordable price.

That is where I usually get my PCs if I can't get one for free.


in 33 years I'm on my second brand new computer (and it's about 7
years old, more or less)(Not counting my first non-ibm compatible
RatShack CoCo - which I still own)

The only new computer I ever bought was when my wife still had her
business and I was working for IBM. It was on full IBM enterprise
maintenance and if I put a call in on it, I could take the call, order
the parts and write them off. The IRS let me fully depreciate it in
the first year and write off the
M/A contract. It worked out well for me.

The only new computer I've owned in 36 years was a PC Jr. It sold for
iirc $1600, but they would take 500 off if you had the bar codes of 20
or 25 products by Kimberly Clark or some similar company, so they were
worth 20 or 25 a piece.* The last day after people had left work, I went
around and found 1 or 2 boxes of kleenex and I cut out the bar code,
without even asking anyone, but I know no one cared.*** Then a week
later of course they stopped making the Jr.
11 years later, I bought The next one at a hamfest, and it didn't work.
I gradually figured out that he had replaced one of the 2 floppies with
something special, then put it back the way it was before selling it,
but he didn't undo some change to a mobo jumper, so it thought it had
only one drive and it had two and that was enough to stop* everything,
except maybe there was a one line message on the screeen.
I've bought 2 others used at hamfests, one laptop from ebay, and been
given a bunch.

IBM diskette drives are not the same as the ones in other machines.
When other companies cloned our machines they were not exactly the
same, maybe for legal reasons.

Might have been at the introduction of the double density disk.

Disk drives were always procured from OEMs. IBM drives set a standard
that was followed by the clones but there was nothing particularly
special about them. The only thing that IBM really had full control over
was the BIOS. That was why the clones had workalike BIOSes. I read
somewhere that was the biggest mistake IBM made - the open architecture
- and they tried to rectify that with the PS2 - and why the PS2 disappeared.

This, from Wikipedia, might explain it;

The IBM copyright appears in only the ROM BIOS and on the
company logo, and the company reportedly received no patents
on the PC, with outsiders manufacturing 90% of it.

and

Perhaps Chess's most unusual decision for IBM was to publish
the PC's technical specifications, allowing outsiders to create
products for it.

Because of this, and the open architecture, I see no earthly reason why
IBM PC floppy drives would be any different to any other similar spec
OEM drive. If another PC Clone had difficulty running a PC drive, then
it would be safe to assume the clone had the issue of compatibility, not
the drive. With an open architecture like the ISA bus, any drive that
adhered to standard specifications would/should work.

For the PS/2 however, I could believe that drives may have been a little
different from standard.

Next-generation IBM PS/2
The IBM PS/2 line was introduced in 1987. The Model 30 at the
bottom end of the lineup was very similar to earlier models;
it used an 8086 processor and an ISA bus. The Model 30 was
not "IBM compatible" in that it did not have standard 5.25-inch
drive bays; it came with a 3.5-inch floppy drive and optionally
a 3.5-inch-sized hard disk. Most models in the PS/2 line further
departed from "IBM compatible" by replacing the ISA bus
completely with Micro Channel Architecture. The MCA bus was not
received well by the customer base for PC's, since it was
proprietary to IBM. It was rarely implemented by any of the other
PC-compatible makers. Eventually IBM would abandon this
architecture entirely and return to the standard ISA bus.

The above was IBMs doomed attempt to regain control of the PC market. It
was a dismal failure.

The PS/2 was never aimed at the home market. It was designed to be
integrated into an office with a mainframe. The Microchannel was an
attempt to eliminate all of that IRQ and memory assignment BS you ran
into when you plugged a card in. By being proprietary, cards were
designed not to come up with these conflicts and as a general rule
that worked. It also made it less likely that a PC hobbyist was going
to be screwing with the company owned machine on his desk. I ran PS/2s
until I lost the channel for free parts, then I went back to an open
architecture machine.

I agree the 5.25" diskette and all of the hard drives were industry
standard but a PS/2 3.5" diskette drive wasn't. There was no media
sense pin in the drive and pin 2 in the cable (media select) was
controlled by the adapter, not the drive. You could format a HD disk
at 720 and vice versa. You just needed to bulk degauss the diskette
when you changed formats.
As I noted you could do it on a clone too if you knew how. Kind of a
STOOPID thing to do - formatting a 1.44 to 720

On Sat, 02 May 2020 13:36:01 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 02 May 2020 01:15:02 -0400, wrote:

On Fri, 1 May 2020 18:02:06 -0700 (PDT), trader_4
wrote:

On Friday, May 1, 2020 at 6:06:42 PM UTC-4, Clare Snyder wrote:
On Fri, 01 May 2020 13:30:55 -0400, wrote:

On Fri, 01 May 2020 08:06:06 -0400, micky
wrote:

In alt.home.repair, on Sat, 25 Apr 2020 21:31:03 -0400,
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 20:21:34 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 17:02:20 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 15:21:36 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 12:49:15 -0400, Bud Frede
wrote:

Clare Snyder writes:

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 12:02:39 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 4/23/20 10:29 AM, micky wrote:
Another problem with getting a heat pump is that the wirign to the
thermostat is inadequate. no easy way to run a new wire to the same
location**.

I don't have a heat pump, but 2 stage AC and heat. This requires 7 wires
(including power return) to the thermostat. I now have 10 wires
installed (3 for later use).

I have a 2 stage furnace plus AC running on 4 wires - using a single
stage thermostat.

I have the same setup here.

In the past I had tried various fancy thermostats and didn't have luck
with them. The manuals were horrible and I don't think the people who
designed the thermostats ever had to actually use them.

A few years ago when it was time to replace my furnace and AV, they
threw in a new thermostat with it. It's a White-Rogers programmable
model. I can't control it across the internet with my phone, and I'm
sure it doesn't have all the fancy features, but it works reliably, it
was easy to figure out how to use, and the manual was well-written.

I think this is like the old constant upgrade cycle Microsoft did with
Office. The average person only used 10% of the features, but they kept
adding more and more features so they could sell a new version to you.
If it was still available for purchase, and if it would still run on a
modern computer, many people would be happier with Office '95 or
something rather than the latest and greatest Office
whatever-version-they're-up-to-now.

There are some things that get new features that I use and that improve
the experience. For the most part though, I'm at that 10% level and the
rest is just added complexity and is actually a drawback for me.

It feels strange to think this way. I'm in IT and I am constantly
learning new things and growing my skills. It's just that there are some
areas where I'd like less complexity. It's less to worry about, less
hassle, etc.

I try to resist "Gear Acquisition Syndrome" and not upgrade just because
there's something new. I want what I guess I could call "appropriate
complexity." :-)

Yeah, I'm not the typical consumer, and I know that I'm not who the
product makers aim at. Maybe I'm just getting old or something...


Like the motto of my IT company here in Ontario - "appropriate
technology for the information age".
In the beginning I sold a LOT of off-lease and reconditioned hardware
which allowed many companies to get into office and retail
computerization at an affordable price.

That is where I usually get my PCs if I can't get one for free.


in 33 years I'm on my second brand new computer (and it's about 7
years old, more or less)(Not counting my first non-ibm compatible
RatShack CoCo - which I still own)

The only new computer I ever bought was when my wife still had her
business and I was working for IBM. It was on full IBM enterprise
maintenance and if I put a call in on it, I could take the call, order
the parts and write them off.
The IRS let me fully depreciate it in the first year and write off the
M/A contract. It worked out well for me.

The only new computer I've owned in 36 years was a PC Jr. It sold for
iirc $1600, but they would take 500 off if you had the bar codes of 20
or 25 products by Kimberly Clark or some similar company, so they were
worth 20 or 25 a piece. The last day after people had left work, I went
around and found 1 or 2 boxes of kleenex and I cut out the bar code,
without even asking anyone, but I know no one cared. Then a week
later of course they stopped making the Jr.

11 years later, I bought The next one at a hamfest, and it didn't work.
I gradually figured out that he had replaced one of the 2 floppies with
something special, then put it back the way it was before selling it,
but he didn't undo some change to a mobo jumper, so it thought it had
only one drive and it had two and that was enough to stop everything,
except maybe there was a one line message on the screeen.

I've bought 2 others used at hamfests, one laptop from ebay, and been
given a bunch.

IBM diskette drives are not the same as the ones in other machines.
When other companies cloned our machines they were not exactly the
same, maybe for legal reasons.
When the company I worked for was building "clones" and selling hard
drive kits for IBM PCs some of the floppies we were using WERE
identical to IBM's drives. They were made by Alps, Mitsubishi,
Shugart, Panasonic, Matsu****a, TEAC and Tandon and I believe IBM even
used some Sanyo Denki drives.

Going back to the full height single sided ( drives there were
companies like Tandon and Qume, and Magnetic Peripherals -ALL of
which were available to the third tier manufacturers - and used by
IBM.
You may be correct going back to "hard sectored" drives - which were
virtually all Shugart - but that's going back to '76 or '77 - before
the "PC". The old 180KB jobs.
By '87 the hard sector drives were pretty much relegated to the
non-ibm compatible - the CPM boxes were one axample that still used
hard sector drives when I got into the business back in '86

I agree with that. I never heard of any incompatibility between IBM
PC floppy drives their media and the clones. The thing that made the
Compaq and later PCs so successful was that they were just about 100%
compatible with IBM. If you couldn't take a floppy disk from one machine
to another, it would have been a disaster.

They all wrote compatible data formats. I was talking about the
interface. On the 3.5s you could write a disk a clone wouldn't read.
Just format a 720 at 1.44. The clone will puke on it. Another IBM
machine will work.
I remember 1.44s formatted to 720. To read them on a normal PC you
just had to put tape over the density selector notch on the diskette
case. There was a "switch" in at least some versions of DOS to change
the density. the /F: switch seems to ring a bell. I know it was there
in DOS 6.2 - not sure about how many earlier versions.

You could override the format selection from the drive in DOS and I
think that started in 4 or 5. I skipped 4 but I am sure it was
available in IBM DOS 5.0. Not sure about MS DOS. By then it was 2
different products.
The other issue was if you formatted with a thin head (1.44) it did
not clean the crap in the gap and a wide head (720) would puke on it.
We just got in the habit of bulk degaussing diskettes before we
formatted them. IBM had a part number for a good degaussing tool.
(basically a big coil).
We also played with the 2.4m 5.25" drives out of 3174s. That would
work as a 1.2m OK but you needed a different controller to get 2.4M.
If you used a machine with a 2.88m 3.5 controller and the pass through
card that supported the 5.25" drive, you could use Format/f to use the
disk at 2.4m but I think that only worked on PC DOS 6.3. Dunno for
sure because, by then I was all 3.5" diskettes. My hacker buddies were
doing it somehow tho.
We also had the tool to low level 520 AS/400 hard drives to 512 so
SCSI was our hard drive controller of choice. ;-)

On Sat, 02 May 2020 17:36:14 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 02 May 2020 14:49:02 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 2 May 2020 20:12:39 +1000, Xeno
wrote:

On 2/5/20 6:27 pm, FromTheRafters wrote:
wrote :
On Fri, 01 May 2020 08:06:06 -0400, micky
wrote:

In alt.home.repair, on Sat, 25 Apr 2020 21:31:03 -0400,
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 20:21:34 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 17:02:20 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 15:21:36 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 12:49:15 -0400, Bud Frede

wrote:

Clare Snyder writes:

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 12:02:39 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 4/23/20 10:29 AM, micky wrote:
Another problem with getting a heat pump is that the wirign
to the
thermostat is inadequate.Â*Â* no easy way to run a new wire to
the same location**.

I don't have a heat pump, but 2 stage AC and heat. This
requires 7 wiresÂ* (including power return) to the thermostat.
I now have 10 wiresÂ* installed (3 for later use).

Â*I have a 2 stage furnace plus AC running on 4 wires - using a
single
stage thermostat.

I have the same setup here.

In the past I had tried various fancy thermostats and didn't
have luck
with them. The manuals were horrible and I don't think the
people who
designed the thermostats ever had to actually use them.

A few years ago when it was time to replace my furnace and AV, they
threw in a new thermostat with it. It's a White-Rogers programmable
model. I can't control it across the internet with my phone, and
I'm
sure it doesn't have all the fancy features, but it works
reliably, it
was easy to figure out how to use, and the manual was well-written.

I think this is like the old constant upgrade cycle Microsoft
did with
Office. The average person only used 10% of the features, but
they kept
adding more and more features so they could sell a new version
to you.
If it was still available for purchase, and if it would still
run on a
modern computer, many people would be happier with Office '95 or
something rather than the latest and greatest Office
whatever-version-they're-up-to-now.

There are some things that get new features that I use and that
improve
the experience. For the most part though, I'm at that 10% level
and the
rest is just added complexity and is actually a drawback for me.

It feels strange to think this way. I'm in IT and I am constantly
learning new things and growing my skills. It's just that there
are some areas where I'd like less complexity. It's less to
worry about, less hassle, etc.

I try to resist "Gear Acquisition Syndrome" and not upgrade just
because there's something new. I want what I guess I could call
"appropriate complexity." :-)

Yeah, I'm not the typical consumer, and I know that I'm not who the
product makers aim at. Maybe I'm just getting old or something...


Like the motto of my IT company here in Ontario - "appropriate
technology for the information age".
In the beginning I sold a LOT of off-lease and reconditioned
hardware
which allowed many companies to get into office and retail
computerization at an affordable price.

That is where I usually get my PCs if I can't get one for free.


in 33 years I'm on my second brand new computer (and it's about 7
years old, more or less)(Not counting my first non-ibm compatible
RatShack CoCo - which I still own)

The only new computer I ever bought was when my wife still had her
business and I was working for IBM. It was on full IBM enterprise
maintenance and if I put a call in on it, I could take the call, order
the parts and write them off. The IRS let me fully depreciate it in
the first year and write off the
M/A contract. It worked out well for me.

The only new computer I've owned in 36 years was a PC Jr. It sold for
iirc $1600, but they would take 500 off if you had the bar codes of 20
or 25 products by Kimberly Clark or some similar company, so they were
worth 20 or 25 a piece.Â* The last day after people had left work, I went
around and found 1 or 2 boxes of kleenex and I cut out the bar code,
without even asking anyone, but I know no one cared.Â*Â*Â* Then a week
later of course they stopped making the Jr.
11 years later, I bought The next one at a hamfest, and it didn't work.
I gradually figured out that he had replaced one of the 2 floppies with
something special, then put it back the way it was before selling it,
but he didn't undo some change to a mobo jumper, so it thought it had
only one drive and it had two and that was enough to stopÂ* everything,
except maybe there was a one line message on the screeen.
I've bought 2 others used at hamfests, one laptop from ebay, and been
given a bunch.

IBM diskette drives are not the same as the ones in other machines.
When other companies cloned our machines they were not exactly the
same, maybe for legal reasons.

Might have been at the introduction of the double density disk.

Disk drives were always procured from OEMs. IBM drives set a standard
that was followed by the clones but there was nothing particularly
special about them. The only thing that IBM really had full control over
was the BIOS. That was why the clones had workalike BIOSes. I read
somewhere that was the biggest mistake IBM made - the open architecture
- and they tried to rectify that with the PS2 - and why the PS2 disappeared.

This, from Wikipedia, might explain it;

The IBM copyright appears in only the ROM BIOS and on the
company logo, and the company reportedly received no patents
on the PC, with outsiders manufacturing 90% of it.

and

Perhaps Chess's most unusual decision for IBM was to publish
the PC's technical specifications, allowing outsiders to create
products for it.

Because of this, and the open architecture, I see no earthly reason why
IBM PC floppy drives would be any different to any other similar spec
OEM drive. If another PC Clone had difficulty running a PC drive, then
it would be safe to assume the clone had the issue of compatibility, not
the drive. With an open architecture like the ISA bus, any drive that
adhered to standard specifications would/should work.

For the PS/2 however, I could believe that drives may have been a little
different from standard.

Next-generation IBM PS/2
The IBM PS/2 line was introduced in 1987. The Model 30 at the
bottom end of the lineup was very similar to earlier models;
it used an 8086 processor and an ISA bus. The Model 30 was
not "IBM compatible" in that it did not have standard 5.25-inch
drive bays; it came with a 3.5-inch floppy drive and optionally
a 3.5-inch-sized hard disk. Most models in the PS/2 line further
departed from "IBM compatible" by replacing the ISA bus
completely with Micro Channel Architecture. The MCA bus was not
received well by the customer base for PC's, since it was
proprietary to IBM. It was rarely implemented by any of the other
PC-compatible makers. Eventually IBM would abandon this
architecture entirely and return to the standard ISA bus.

The above was IBMs doomed attempt to regain control of the PC market. It
was a dismal failure.

The PS/2 was never aimed at the home market. It was designed to be
integrated into an office with a mainframe. The Microchannel was an
attempt to eliminate all of that IRQ and memory assignment BS you ran
into when you plugged a card in. By being proprietary, cards were
designed not to come up with these conflicts and as a general rule
that worked. It also made it less likely that a PC hobbyist was going
to be screwing with the company owned machine on his desk. I ran PS/2s
until I lost the channel for free parts, then I went back to an open
architecture machine.

I agree the 5.25" diskette and all of the hard drives were industry
standard but a PS/2 3.5" diskette drive wasn't. There was no media
sense pin in the drive and pin 2 in the cable (media select) was
controlled by the adapter, not the drive. You could format a HD disk
at 720 and vice versa. You just needed to bulk degauss the diskette
when you changed formats.
As I noted you could do it on a clone too if you knew how. Kind of a
STOOPID thing to do - formatting a 1.44 to 720


Unless you had a convertible and couldn't find 720 diskettes. ;-)
..

On Sat, 02 May 2020 20:33:59 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 02 May 2020 17:36:14 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 02 May 2020 14:49:02 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 2 May 2020 20:12:39 +1000, Xeno
wrote:

On 2/5/20 6:27 pm, FromTheRafters wrote:
wrote :
On Fri, 01 May 2020 08:06:06 -0400, micky
wrote:

In alt.home.repair, on Sat, 25 Apr 2020 21:31:03 -0400,
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 20:21:34 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 17:02:20 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 15:21:36 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 12:49:15 -0400, Bud Frede

wrote:

Clare Snyder writes:

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 12:02:39 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 4/23/20 10:29 AM, micky wrote:
Another problem with getting a heat pump is that the wirign
to the
thermostat is inadequate.** no easy way to run a new wire to
the same location**.

I don't have a heat pump, but 2 stage AC and heat. This
requires 7 wires* (including power return) to the thermostat.
I now have 10 wires* installed (3 for later use).

*I have a 2 stage furnace plus AC running on 4 wires - using a
single
stage thermostat.

I have the same setup here.

In the past I had tried various fancy thermostats and didn't
have luck
with them. The manuals were horrible and I don't think the
people who
designed the thermostats ever had to actually use them.

A few years ago when it was time to replace my furnace and AV, they
threw in a new thermostat with it. It's a White-Rogers programmable
model. I can't control it across the internet with my phone, and
I'm
sure it doesn't have all the fancy features, but it works
reliably, it
was easy to figure out how to use, and the manual was well-written.

I think this is like the old constant upgrade cycle Microsoft
did with
Office. The average person only used 10% of the features, but
they kept
adding more and more features so they could sell a new version
to you.
If it was still available for purchase, and if it would still
run on a
modern computer, many people would be happier with Office '95 or
something rather than the latest and greatest Office
whatever-version-they're-up-to-now.

There are some things that get new features that I use and that
improve
the experience. For the most part though, I'm at that 10% level
and the
rest is just added complexity and is actually a drawback for me.

It feels strange to think this way. I'm in IT and I am constantly
learning new things and growing my skills. It's just that there
are some areas where I'd like less complexity. It's less to
worry about, less hassle, etc.

I try to resist "Gear Acquisition Syndrome" and not upgrade just
because there's something new. I want what I guess I could call
"appropriate complexity." :-)

Yeah, I'm not the typical consumer, and I know that I'm not who the
product makers aim at. Maybe I'm just getting old or something...


Like the motto of my IT company here in Ontario - "appropriate
technology for the information age".
In the beginning I sold a LOT of off-lease and reconditioned
hardware
which allowed many companies to get into office and retail
computerization at an affordable price.

That is where I usually get my PCs if I can't get one for free.


in 33 years I'm on my second brand new computer (and it's about 7
years old, more or less)(Not counting my first non-ibm compatible
RatShack CoCo - which I still own)

The only new computer I ever bought was when my wife still had her
business and I was working for IBM. It was on full IBM enterprise
maintenance and if I put a call in on it, I could take the call, order
the parts and write them off. The IRS let me fully depreciate it in
the first year and write off the
M/A contract. It worked out well for me.

The only new computer I've owned in 36 years was a PC Jr. It sold for
iirc $1600, but they would take 500 off if you had the bar codes of 20
or 25 products by Kimberly Clark or some similar company, so they were
worth 20 or 25 a piece.* The last day after people had left work, I went
around and found 1 or 2 boxes of kleenex and I cut out the bar code,
without even asking anyone, but I know no one cared.*** Then a week
later of course they stopped making the Jr.
11 years later, I bought The next one at a hamfest, and it didn't work.
I gradually figured out that he had replaced one of the 2 floppies with
something special, then put it back the way it was before selling it,
but he didn't undo some change to a mobo jumper, so it thought it had
only one drive and it had two and that was enough to stop* everything,
except maybe there was a one line message on the screeen.
I've bought 2 others used at hamfests, one laptop from ebay, and been
given a bunch.

IBM diskette drives are not the same as the ones in other machines.
When other companies cloned our machines they were not exactly the
same, maybe for legal reasons.

Might have been at the introduction of the double density disk.

Disk drives were always procured from OEMs. IBM drives set a standard
that was followed by the clones but there was nothing particularly
special about them. The only thing that IBM really had full control over
was the BIOS. That was why the clones had workalike BIOSes. I read
somewhere that was the biggest mistake IBM made - the open architecture
- and they tried to rectify that with the PS2 - and why the PS2 disappeared.

This, from Wikipedia, might explain it;

The IBM copyright appears in only the ROM BIOS and on the
company logo, and the company reportedly received no patents
on the PC, with outsiders manufacturing 90% of it.

and

Perhaps Chess's most unusual decision for IBM was to publish
the PC's technical specifications, allowing outsiders to create
products for it.

Because of this, and the open architecture, I see no earthly reason why
IBM PC floppy drives would be any different to any other similar spec
OEM drive. If another PC Clone had difficulty running a PC drive, then
it would be safe to assume the clone had the issue of compatibility, not
the drive. With an open architecture like the ISA bus, any drive that
adhered to standard specifications would/should work.

For the PS/2 however, I could believe that drives may have been a little
different from standard.

Next-generation IBM PS/2
The IBM PS/2 line was introduced in 1987. The Model 30 at the
bottom end of the lineup was very similar to earlier models;
it used an 8086 processor and an ISA bus. The Model 30 was
not "IBM compatible" in that it did not have standard 5.25-inch
drive bays; it came with a 3.5-inch floppy drive and optionally
a 3.5-inch-sized hard disk. Most models in the PS/2 line further
departed from "IBM compatible" by replacing the ISA bus
completely with Micro Channel Architecture. The MCA bus was not
received well by the customer base for PC's, since it was
proprietary to IBM. It was rarely implemented by any of the other
PC-compatible makers. Eventually IBM would abandon this
architecture entirely and return to the standard ISA bus.

The above was IBMs doomed attempt to regain control of the PC market. It
was a dismal failure.

The PS/2 was never aimed at the home market. It was designed to be
integrated into an office with a mainframe. The Microchannel was an
attempt to eliminate all of that IRQ and memory assignment BS you ran
into when you plugged a card in. By being proprietary, cards were
designed not to come up with these conflicts and as a general rule
that worked. It also made it less likely that a PC hobbyist was going
to be screwing with the company owned machine on his desk. I ran PS/2s
until I lost the channel for free parts, then I went back to an open
architecture machine.

I agree the 5.25" diskette and all of the hard drives were industry
standard but a PS/2 3.5" diskette drive wasn't. There was no media
sense pin in the drive and pin 2 in the cable (media select) was
controlled by the adapter, not the drive. You could format a HD disk
at 720 and vice versa. You just needed to bulk degauss the diskette
when you changed formats.
As I noted you could do it on a clone too if you knew how. Kind of a
STOOPID thing to do - formatting a 1.44 to 720


Unless you had a convertible and couldn't find 720 diskettes. ;-)
.
The convertible wouldn't accept a 1.44 drive?

On Sat, 02 May 2020 21:37:47 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 02 May 2020 20:33:59 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 02 May 2020 17:36:14 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 02 May 2020 14:49:02 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 2 May 2020 20:12:39 +1000, Xeno
wrote:

On 2/5/20 6:27 pm, FromTheRafters wrote:
wrote :
On Fri, 01 May 2020 08:06:06 -0400, micky
wrote:

In alt.home.repair, on Sat, 25 Apr 2020 21:31:03 -0400,
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 20:21:34 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 17:02:20 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 15:21:36 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 12:49:15 -0400, Bud Frede

wrote:

Clare Snyder writes:

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 12:02:39 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 4/23/20 10:29 AM, micky wrote:
Another problem with getting a heat pump is that the wirign
to the
thermostat is inadequate.Â*Â* no easy way to run a new wire to
the same location**.

I don't have a heat pump, but 2 stage AC and heat. This
requires 7 wiresÂ* (including power return) to the thermostat.
I now have 10 wiresÂ* installed (3 for later use).

Â*I have a 2 stage furnace plus AC running on 4 wires - using a
single
stage thermostat.

I have the same setup here.

In the past I had tried various fancy thermostats and didn't
have luck
with them. The manuals were horrible and I don't think the
people who
designed the thermostats ever had to actually use them.

A few years ago when it was time to replace my furnace and AV, they
threw in a new thermostat with it. It's a White-Rogers programmable
model. I can't control it across the internet with my phone, and
I'm
sure it doesn't have all the fancy features, but it works
reliably, it
was easy to figure out how to use, and the manual was well-written.

I think this is like the old constant upgrade cycle Microsoft
did with
Office. The average person only used 10% of the features, but
they kept
adding more and more features so they could sell a new version
to you.
If it was still available for purchase, and if it would still
run on a
modern computer, many people would be happier with Office '95 or
something rather than the latest and greatest Office
whatever-version-they're-up-to-now.

There are some things that get new features that I use and that
improve
the experience. For the most part though, I'm at that 10% level
and the
rest is just added complexity and is actually a drawback for me.

It feels strange to think this way. I'm in IT and I am constantly
learning new things and growing my skills. It's just that there
are some areas where I'd like less complexity. It's less to
worry about, less hassle, etc.

I try to resist "Gear Acquisition Syndrome" and not upgrade just
because there's something new. I want what I guess I could call
"appropriate complexity." :-)

Yeah, I'm not the typical consumer, and I know that I'm not who the
product makers aim at. Maybe I'm just getting old or something...


Like the motto of my IT company here in Ontario - "appropriate
technology for the information age".
In the beginning I sold a LOT of off-lease and reconditioned
hardware
which allowed many companies to get into office and retail
computerization at an affordable price.

That is where I usually get my PCs if I can't get one for free.


in 33 years I'm on my second brand new computer (and it's about 7
years old, more or less)(Not counting my first non-ibm compatible
RatShack CoCo - which I still own)

The only new computer I ever bought was when my wife still had her
business and I was working for IBM. It was on full IBM enterprise
maintenance and if I put a call in on it, I could take the call, order
the parts and write them off. The IRS let me fully depreciate it in
the first year and write off the
M/A contract. It worked out well for me.

The only new computer I've owned in 36 years was a PC Jr. It sold for
iirc $1600, but they would take 500 off if you had the bar codes of 20
or 25 products by Kimberly Clark or some similar company, so they were
worth 20 or 25 a piece.Â* The last day after people had left work, I went
around and found 1 or 2 boxes of kleenex and I cut out the bar code,
without even asking anyone, but I know no one cared.Â*Â*Â* Then a week
later of course they stopped making the Jr.
11 years later, I bought The next one at a hamfest, and it didn't work.
I gradually figured out that he had replaced one of the 2 floppies with
something special, then put it back the way it was before selling it,
but he didn't undo some change to a mobo jumper, so it thought it had
only one drive and it had two and that was enough to stopÂ* everything,
except maybe there was a one line message on the screeen.
I've bought 2 others used at hamfests, one laptop from ebay, and been
given a bunch.

IBM diskette drives are not the same as the ones in other machines.
When other companies cloned our machines they were not exactly the
same, maybe for legal reasons.

Might have been at the introduction of the double density disk.

Disk drives were always procured from OEMs. IBM drives set a standard
that was followed by the clones but there was nothing particularly
special about them. The only thing that IBM really had full control over
was the BIOS. That was why the clones had workalike BIOSes. I read
somewhere that was the biggest mistake IBM made - the open architecture
- and they tried to rectify that with the PS2 - and why the PS2 disappeared.

This, from Wikipedia, might explain it;

The IBM copyright appears in only the ROM BIOS and on the
company logo, and the company reportedly received no patents
on the PC, with outsiders manufacturing 90% of it.

and

Perhaps Chess's most unusual decision for IBM was to publish
the PC's technical specifications, allowing outsiders to create
products for it.

Because of this, and the open architecture, I see no earthly reason why
IBM PC floppy drives would be any different to any other similar spec
OEM drive. If another PC Clone had difficulty running a PC drive, then
it would be safe to assume the clone had the issue of compatibility, not
the drive. With an open architecture like the ISA bus, any drive that
adhered to standard specifications would/should work.

For the PS/2 however, I could believe that drives may have been a little
different from standard.

Next-generation IBM PS/2
The IBM PS/2 line was introduced in 1987. The Model 30 at the
bottom end of the lineup was very similar to earlier models;
it used an 8086 processor and an ISA bus. The Model 30 was
not "IBM compatible" in that it did not have standard 5.25-inch
drive bays; it came with a 3.5-inch floppy drive and optionally
a 3.5-inch-sized hard disk. Most models in the PS/2 line further
departed from "IBM compatible" by replacing the ISA bus
completely with Micro Channel Architecture. The MCA bus was not
received well by the customer base for PC's, since it was
proprietary to IBM. It was rarely implemented by any of the other
PC-compatible makers. Eventually IBM would abandon this
architecture entirely and return to the standard ISA bus.

The above was IBMs doomed attempt to regain control of the PC market. It
was a dismal failure.

The PS/2 was never aimed at the home market. It was designed to be
integrated into an office with a mainframe. The Microchannel was an
attempt to eliminate all of that IRQ and memory assignment BS you ran
into when you plugged a card in. By being proprietary, cards were
designed not to come up with these conflicts and as a general rule
that worked. It also made it less likely that a PC hobbyist was going
to be screwing with the company owned machine on his desk. I ran PS/2s
until I lost the channel for free parts, then I went back to an open
architecture machine.

I agree the 5.25" diskette and all of the hard drives were industry
standard but a PS/2 3.5" diskette drive wasn't. There was no media
sense pin in the drive and pin 2 in the cable (media select) was
controlled by the adapter, not the drive. You could format a HD disk
at 720 and vice versa. You just needed to bulk degauss the diskette
when you changed formats.
As I noted you could do it on a clone too if you knew how. Kind of a
STOOPID thing to do - formatting a 1.44 to 720


Unless you had a convertible and couldn't find 720 diskettes. ;-)
.
The convertible wouldn't accept a 1.44 drive?

Nope, It did not have a high density capable controller. The 1.44m
disk wasn't on the market yet. (similar to the original PC that was
limited to low density drives).

On Sat, 02 May 2020 23:53:17 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 02 May 2020 21:37:47 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 02 May 2020 20:33:59 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 02 May 2020 17:36:14 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 02 May 2020 14:49:02 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 2 May 2020 20:12:39 +1000, Xeno
wrote:

On 2/5/20 6:27 pm, FromTheRafters wrote:
wrote :
On Fri, 01 May 2020 08:06:06 -0400, micky
wrote:

In alt.home.repair, on Sat, 25 Apr 2020 21:31:03 -0400,
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 20:21:34 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 17:02:20 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 15:21:36 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 12:49:15 -0400, Bud Frede

wrote:

Clare Snyder writes:

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 12:02:39 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 4/23/20 10:29 AM, micky wrote:
Another problem with getting a heat pump is that the wirign
to the
thermostat is inadequate.** no easy way to run a new wire to
the same location**.

I don't have a heat pump, but 2 stage AC and heat. This
requires 7 wires* (including power return) to the thermostat.
I now have 10 wires* installed (3 for later use).

*I have a 2 stage furnace plus AC running on 4 wires - using a
single
stage thermostat.

I have the same setup here.

In the past I had tried various fancy thermostats and didn't
have luck
with them. The manuals were horrible and I don't think the
people who
designed the thermostats ever had to actually use them.

A few years ago when it was time to replace my furnace and AV, they
threw in a new thermostat with it. It's a White-Rogers programmable
model. I can't control it across the internet with my phone, and
I'm
sure it doesn't have all the fancy features, but it works
reliably, it
was easy to figure out how to use, and the manual was well-written.

I think this is like the old constant upgrade cycle Microsoft
did with
Office. The average person only used 10% of the features, but
they kept
adding more and more features so they could sell a new version
to you.
If it was still available for purchase, and if it would still
run on a
modern computer, many people would be happier with Office '95 or
something rather than the latest and greatest Office
whatever-version-they're-up-to-now.

There are some things that get new features that I use and that
improve
the experience. For the most part though, I'm at that 10% level
and the
rest is just added complexity and is actually a drawback for me.

It feels strange to think this way. I'm in IT and I am constantly
learning new things and growing my skills. It's just that there
are some areas where I'd like less complexity. It's less to
worry about, less hassle, etc.

I try to resist "Gear Acquisition Syndrome" and not upgrade just
because there's something new. I want what I guess I could call
"appropriate complexity." :-)

Yeah, I'm not the typical consumer, and I know that I'm not who the
product makers aim at. Maybe I'm just getting old or something...


Like the motto of my IT company here in Ontario - "appropriate
technology for the information age".
In the beginning I sold a LOT of off-lease and reconditioned
hardware
which allowed many companies to get into office and retail
computerization at an affordable price.

That is where I usually get my PCs if I can't get one for free.


in 33 years I'm on my second brand new computer (and it's about 7
years old, more or less)(Not counting my first non-ibm compatible
RatShack CoCo - which I still own)

The only new computer I ever bought was when my wife still had her
business and I was working for IBM. It was on full IBM enterprise
maintenance and if I put a call in on it, I could take the call, order
the parts and write them off. The IRS let me fully depreciate it in
the first year and write off the
M/A contract. It worked out well for me.

The only new computer I've owned in 36 years was a PC Jr. It sold for
iirc $1600, but they would take 500 off if you had the bar codes of 20
or 25 products by Kimberly Clark or some similar company, so they were
worth 20 or 25 a piece.* The last day after people had left work, I went
around and found 1 or 2 boxes of kleenex and I cut out the bar code,
without even asking anyone, but I know no one cared.*** Then a week
later of course they stopped making the Jr.
11 years later, I bought The next one at a hamfest, and it didn't work.
I gradually figured out that he had replaced one of the 2 floppies with
something special, then put it back the way it was before selling it,
but he didn't undo some change to a mobo jumper, so it thought it had
only one drive and it had two and that was enough to stop* everything,
except maybe there was a one line message on the screeen.
I've bought 2 others used at hamfests, one laptop from ebay, and been
given a bunch.

IBM diskette drives are not the same as the ones in other machines.
When other companies cloned our machines they were not exactly the
same, maybe for legal reasons.

Might have been at the introduction of the double density disk.

Disk drives were always procured from OEMs. IBM drives set a standard
that was followed by the clones but there was nothing particularly
special about them. The only thing that IBM really had full control over
was the BIOS. That was why the clones had workalike BIOSes. I read
somewhere that was the biggest mistake IBM made - the open architecture
- and they tried to rectify that with the PS2 - and why the PS2 disappeared.

This, from Wikipedia, might explain it;

The IBM copyright appears in only the ROM BIOS and on the
company logo, and the company reportedly received no patents
on the PC, with outsiders manufacturing 90% of it.

and

Perhaps Chess's most unusual decision for IBM was to publish
the PC's technical specifications, allowing outsiders to create
products for it.

Because of this, and the open architecture, I see no earthly reason why
IBM PC floppy drives would be any different to any other similar spec
OEM drive. If another PC Clone had difficulty running a PC drive, then
it would be safe to assume the clone had the issue of compatibility, not
the drive. With an open architecture like the ISA bus, any drive that
adhered to standard specifications would/should work.

For the PS/2 however, I could believe that drives may have been a little
different from standard.

Next-generation IBM PS/2
The IBM PS/2 line was introduced in 1987. The Model 30 at the
bottom end of the lineup was very similar to earlier models;
it used an 8086 processor and an ISA bus. The Model 30 was
not "IBM compatible" in that it did not have standard 5.25-inch
drive bays; it came with a 3.5-inch floppy drive and optionally
a 3.5-inch-sized hard disk. Most models in the PS/2 line further
departed from "IBM compatible" by replacing the ISA bus
completely with Micro Channel Architecture. The MCA bus was not
received well by the customer base for PC's, since it was
proprietary to IBM. It was rarely implemented by any of the other
PC-compatible makers. Eventually IBM would abandon this
architecture entirely and return to the standard ISA bus.

The above was IBMs doomed attempt to regain control of the PC market. It
was a dismal failure.

The PS/2 was never aimed at the home market. It was designed to be
integrated into an office with a mainframe. The Microchannel was an
attempt to eliminate all of that IRQ and memory assignment BS you ran
into when you plugged a card in. By being proprietary, cards were
designed not to come up with these conflicts and as a general rule
that worked. It also made it less likely that a PC hobbyist was going
to be screwing with the company owned machine on his desk. I ran PS/2s
until I lost the channel for free parts, then I went back to an open
architecture machine.

I agree the 5.25" diskette and all of the hard drives were industry
standard but a PS/2 3.5" diskette drive wasn't. There was no media
sense pin in the drive and pin 2 in the cable (media select) was
controlled by the adapter, not the drive. You could format a HD disk
at 720 and vice versa. You just needed to bulk degauss the diskette
when you changed formats.
As I noted you could do it on a clone too if you knew how. Kind of a
STOOPID thing to do - formatting a 1.44 to 720


Unless you had a convertible and couldn't find 720 diskettes. ;-)
.
The convertible wouldn't accept a 1.44 drive?

Nope, It did not have a high density capable controller. The 1.44m
disk wasn't on the market yet. (similar to the original PC that was
limited to low density drives).
Award offered a bios upograde for the portable to support the 1.44
floppy drive. The controller had no problem with the high density
drive - just the Bios. Phoenix provided one too.Available within a
year of initial introduction of the convertible. (another of IBM's
terrible ideas) about the same time the 1.44 arrived on the scene.

On Sun, 03 May 2020 01:49:23 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 02 May 2020 23:53:17 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 02 May 2020 21:37:47 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 02 May 2020 20:33:59 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 02 May 2020 17:36:14 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 02 May 2020 14:49:02 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 2 May 2020 20:12:39 +1000, Xeno
wrote:

On 2/5/20 6:27 pm, FromTheRafters wrote:
wrote :
On Fri, 01 May 2020 08:06:06 -0400, micky
wrote:

In alt.home.repair, on Sat, 25 Apr 2020 21:31:03 -0400,
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 20:21:34 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 17:02:20 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 15:21:36 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 12:49:15 -0400, Bud Frede

wrote:

Clare Snyder writes:

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 12:02:39 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 4/23/20 10:29 AM, micky wrote:
Another problem with getting a heat pump is that the wirign
to the
thermostat is inadequate.Â*Â* no easy way to run a new wire to
the same location**.

I don't have a heat pump, but 2 stage AC and heat. This
requires 7 wiresÂ* (including power return) to the thermostat.
I now have 10 wiresÂ* installed (3 for later use).

Â*I have a 2 stage furnace plus AC running on 4 wires - using a
single
stage thermostat.

I have the same setup here.

In the past I had tried various fancy thermostats and didn't
have luck
with them. The manuals were horrible and I don't think the
people who
designed the thermostats ever had to actually use them.

A few years ago when it was time to replace my furnace and AV, they
threw in a new thermostat with it. It's a White-Rogers programmable
model. I can't control it across the internet with my phone, and
I'm
sure it doesn't have all the fancy features, but it works
reliably, it
was easy to figure out how to use, and the manual was well-written.

I think this is like the old constant upgrade cycle Microsoft
did with
Office. The average person only used 10% of the features, but
they kept
adding more and more features so they could sell a new version
to you.
If it was still available for purchase, and if it would still
run on a
modern computer, many people would be happier with Office '95 or
something rather than the latest and greatest Office
whatever-version-they're-up-to-now.

There are some things that get new features that I use and that
improve
the experience. For the most part though, I'm at that 10% level
and the
rest is just added complexity and is actually a drawback for me.

It feels strange to think this way. I'm in IT and I am constantly
learning new things and growing my skills. It's just that there
are some areas where I'd like less complexity. It's less to
worry about, less hassle, etc.

I try to resist "Gear Acquisition Syndrome" and not upgrade just
because there's something new. I want what I guess I could call
"appropriate complexity." :-)

Yeah, I'm not the typical consumer, and I know that I'm not who the
product makers aim at. Maybe I'm just getting old or something...


Like the motto of my IT company here in Ontario - "appropriate
technology for the information age".
In the beginning I sold a LOT of off-lease and reconditioned
hardware
which allowed many companies to get into office and retail
computerization at an affordable price.

That is where I usually get my PCs if I can't get one for free.


in 33 years I'm on my second brand new computer (and it's about 7
years old, more or less)(Not counting my first non-ibm compatible
RatShack CoCo - which I still own)

The only new computer I ever bought was when my wife still had her
business and I was working for IBM. It was on full IBM enterprise
maintenance and if I put a call in on it, I could take the call, order
the parts and write them off. The IRS let me fully depreciate it in
the first year and write off the
M/A contract. It worked out well for me.

The only new computer I've owned in 36 years was a PC Jr. It sold for
iirc $1600, but they would take 500 off if you had the bar codes of 20
or 25 products by Kimberly Clark or some similar company, so they were
worth 20 or 25 a piece.Â* The last day after people had left work, I went
around and found 1 or 2 boxes of kleenex and I cut out the bar code,
without even asking anyone, but I know no one cared.Â*Â*Â* Then a week
later of course they stopped making the Jr.
11 years later, I bought The next one at a hamfest, and it didn't work.
I gradually figured out that he had replaced one of the 2 floppies with
something special, then put it back the way it was before selling it,
but he didn't undo some change to a mobo jumper, so it thought it had
only one drive and it had two and that was enough to stopÂ* everything,
except maybe there was a one line message on the screeen.
I've bought 2 others used at hamfests, one laptop from ebay, and been
given a bunch.

IBM diskette drives are not the same as the ones in other machines.
When other companies cloned our machines they were not exactly the
same, maybe for legal reasons.

Might have been at the introduction of the double density disk.

Disk drives were always procured from OEMs. IBM drives set a standard
that was followed by the clones but there was nothing particularly
special about them. The only thing that IBM really had full control over
was the BIOS. That was why the clones had workalike BIOSes. I read
somewhere that was the biggest mistake IBM made - the open architecture
- and they tried to rectify that with the PS2 - and why the PS2 disappeared.

This, from Wikipedia, might explain it;

The IBM copyright appears in only the ROM BIOS and on the
company logo, and the company reportedly received no patents
on the PC, with outsiders manufacturing 90% of it.

and

Perhaps Chess's most unusual decision for IBM was to publish
the PC's technical specifications, allowing outsiders to create
products for it.

Because of this, and the open architecture, I see no earthly reason why
IBM PC floppy drives would be any different to any other similar spec
OEM drive. If another PC Clone had difficulty running a PC drive, then
it would be safe to assume the clone had the issue of compatibility, not
the drive. With an open architecture like the ISA bus, any drive that
adhered to standard specifications would/should work.

For the PS/2 however, I could believe that drives may have been a little
different from standard.

Next-generation IBM PS/2
The IBM PS/2 line was introduced in 1987. The Model 30 at the
bottom end of the lineup was very similar to earlier models;
it used an 8086 processor and an ISA bus. The Model 30 was
not "IBM compatible" in that it did not have standard 5.25-inch
drive bays; it came with a 3.5-inch floppy drive and optionally
a 3.5-inch-sized hard disk. Most models in the PS/2 line further
departed from "IBM compatible" by replacing the ISA bus
completely with Micro Channel Architecture. The MCA bus was not
received well by the customer base for PC's, since it was
proprietary to IBM. It was rarely implemented by any of the other
PC-compatible makers. Eventually IBM would abandon this
architecture entirely and return to the standard ISA bus.

The above was IBMs doomed attempt to regain control of the PC market. It
was a dismal failure.

The PS/2 was never aimed at the home market. It was designed to be
integrated into an office with a mainframe. The Microchannel was an
attempt to eliminate all of that IRQ and memory assignment BS you ran
into when you plugged a card in. By being proprietary, cards were
designed not to come up with these conflicts and as a general rule
that worked. It also made it less likely that a PC hobbyist was going
to be screwing with the company owned machine on his desk. I ran PS/2s
until I lost the channel for free parts, then I went back to an open
architecture machine.

I agree the 5.25" diskette and all of the hard drives were industry
standard but a PS/2 3.5" diskette drive wasn't. There was no media
sense pin in the drive and pin 2 in the cable (media select) was
controlled by the adapter, not the drive. You could format a HD disk
at 720 and vice versa. You just needed to bulk degauss the diskette
when you changed formats.
As I noted you could do it on a clone too if you knew how. Kind of a
STOOPID thing to do - formatting a 1.44 to 720


Unless you had a convertible and couldn't find 720 diskettes. ;-)
.
The convertible wouldn't accept a 1.44 drive?

Nope, It did not have a high density capable controller. The 1.44m
disk wasn't on the market yet. (similar to the original PC that was
limited to low density drives).
Award offered a bios upograde for the portable to support the 1.44
floppy drive. The controller had no problem with the high density
drive - just the Bios. Phoenix provided one too.Available within a
year of initial introduction of the convertible. (another of IBM's
terrible ideas) about the same time the 1.44 arrived on the scene.

I never heard of anyone doing it. It would have been a nice upgrade
but usually the upgrade was a back pack hard drive.
It was slow but you did get lots of storage.

On Sun, 03 May 2020 15:37:05 -0400, wrote:

On Sun, 03 May 2020 01:49:23 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 02 May 2020 23:53:17 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 02 May 2020 21:37:47 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 02 May 2020 20:33:59 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 02 May 2020 17:36:14 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 02 May 2020 14:49:02 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 2 May 2020 20:12:39 +1000, Xeno
wrote:

On 2/5/20 6:27 pm, FromTheRafters wrote:
wrote :
On Fri, 01 May 2020 08:06:06 -0400, micky
wrote:

In alt.home.repair, on Sat, 25 Apr 2020 21:31:03 -0400,
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 20:21:34 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 17:02:20 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 15:21:36 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 12:49:15 -0400, Bud Frede

wrote:

Clare Snyder writes:

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 12:02:39 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 4/23/20 10:29 AM, micky wrote:
Another problem with getting a heat pump is that the wirign
to the
thermostat is inadequate.** no easy way to run a new wire to
the same location**.

I don't have a heat pump, but 2 stage AC and heat. This
requires 7 wires* (including power return) to the thermostat.
I now have 10 wires* installed (3 for later use).

*I have a 2 stage furnace plus AC running on 4 wires - using a
single
stage thermostat.

I have the same setup here.

In the past I had tried various fancy thermostats and didn't
have luck
with them. The manuals were horrible and I don't think the
people who
designed the thermostats ever had to actually use them.

A few years ago when it was time to replace my furnace and AV, they
threw in a new thermostat with it. It's a White-Rogers programmable
model. I can't control it across the internet with my phone, and
I'm
sure it doesn't have all the fancy features, but it works
reliably, it
was easy to figure out how to use, and the manual was well-written.

I think this is like the old constant upgrade cycle Microsoft
did with
Office. The average person only used 10% of the features, but
they kept
adding more and more features so they could sell a new version
to you.
If it was still available for purchase, and if it would still
run on a
modern computer, many people would be happier with Office '95 or
something rather than the latest and greatest Office
whatever-version-they're-up-to-now.

There are some things that get new features that I use and that
improve
the experience. For the most part though, I'm at that 10% level
and the
rest is just added complexity and is actually a drawback for me.

It feels strange to think this way. I'm in IT and I am constantly
learning new things and growing my skills. It's just that there
are some areas where I'd like less complexity. It's less to
worry about, less hassle, etc.

I try to resist "Gear Acquisition Syndrome" and not upgrade just
because there's something new. I want what I guess I could call
"appropriate complexity." :-)

Yeah, I'm not the typical consumer, and I know that I'm not who the
product makers aim at. Maybe I'm just getting old or something...


Like the motto of my IT company here in Ontario - "appropriate
technology for the information age".
In the beginning I sold a LOT of off-lease and reconditioned
hardware
which allowed many companies to get into office and retail
computerization at an affordable price.

That is where I usually get my PCs if I can't get one for free.


in 33 years I'm on my second brand new computer (and it's about 7
years old, more or less)(Not counting my first non-ibm compatible
RatShack CoCo - which I still own)

The only new computer I ever bought was when my wife still had her
business and I was working for IBM. It was on full IBM enterprise
maintenance and if I put a call in on it, I could take the call, order
the parts and write them off. The IRS let me fully depreciate it in
the first year and write off the
M/A contract. It worked out well for me.

The only new computer I've owned in 36 years was a PC Jr. It sold for
iirc $1600, but they would take 500 off if you had the bar codes of 20
or 25 products by Kimberly Clark or some similar company, so they were
worth 20 or 25 a piece.* The last day after people had left work, I went
around and found 1 or 2 boxes of kleenex and I cut out the bar code,
without even asking anyone, but I know no one cared.*** Then a week
later of course they stopped making the Jr.
11 years later, I bought The next one at a hamfest, and it didn't work.
I gradually figured out that he had replaced one of the 2 floppies with
something special, then put it back the way it was before selling it,
but he didn't undo some change to a mobo jumper, so it thought it had
only one drive and it had two and that was enough to stop* everything,
except maybe there was a one line message on the screeen.
I've bought 2 others used at hamfests, one laptop from ebay, and been
given a bunch.

IBM diskette drives are not the same as the ones in other machines.
When other companies cloned our machines they were not exactly the
same, maybe for legal reasons.

Might have been at the introduction of the double density disk.

Disk drives were always procured from OEMs. IBM drives set a standard
that was followed by the clones but there was nothing particularly
special about them. The only thing that IBM really had full control over
was the BIOS. That was why the clones had workalike BIOSes. I read
somewhere that was the biggest mistake IBM made - the open architecture
- and they tried to rectify that with the PS2 - and why the PS2 disappeared.

This, from Wikipedia, might explain it;

The IBM copyright appears in only the ROM BIOS and on the
company logo, and the company reportedly received no patents
on the PC, with outsiders manufacturing 90% of it.

and

Perhaps Chess's most unusual decision for IBM was to publish
the PC's technical specifications, allowing outsiders to create
products for it.

Because of this, and the open architecture, I see no earthly reason why
IBM PC floppy drives would be any different to any other similar spec
OEM drive. If another PC Clone had difficulty running a PC drive, then
it would be safe to assume the clone had the issue of compatibility, not
the drive. With an open architecture like the ISA bus, any drive that
adhered to standard specifications would/should work.

For the PS/2 however, I could believe that drives may have been a little
different from standard.

Next-generation IBM PS/2
The IBM PS/2 line was introduced in 1987. The Model 30 at the
bottom end of the lineup was very similar to earlier models;
it used an 8086 processor and an ISA bus. The Model 30 was
not "IBM compatible" in that it did not have standard 5.25-inch
drive bays; it came with a 3.5-inch floppy drive and optionally
a 3.5-inch-sized hard disk. Most models in the PS/2 line further
departed from "IBM compatible" by replacing the ISA bus
completely with Micro Channel Architecture. The MCA bus was not
received well by the customer base for PC's, since it was
proprietary to IBM. It was rarely implemented by any of the other
PC-compatible makers. Eventually IBM would abandon this
architecture entirely and return to the standard ISA bus.

The above was IBMs doomed attempt to regain control of the PC market. It
was a dismal failure.

The PS/2 was never aimed at the home market. It was designed to be
integrated into an office with a mainframe. The Microchannel was an
attempt to eliminate all of that IRQ and memory assignment BS you ran
into when you plugged a card in. By being proprietary, cards were
designed not to come up with these conflicts and as a general rule
that worked. It also made it less likely that a PC hobbyist was going
to be screwing with the company owned machine on his desk. I ran PS/2s
until I lost the channel for free parts, then I went back to an open
architecture machine.

I agree the 5.25" diskette and all of the hard drives were industry
standard but a PS/2 3.5" diskette drive wasn't. There was no media
sense pin in the drive and pin 2 in the cable (media select) was
controlled by the adapter, not the drive. You could format a HD disk
at 720 and vice versa. You just needed to bulk degauss the diskette
when you changed formats.
As I noted you could do it on a clone too if you knew how. Kind of a
STOOPID thing to do - formatting a 1.44 to 720


Unless you had a convertible and couldn't find 720 diskettes. ;-)
.
The convertible wouldn't accept a 1.44 drive?

Nope, It did not have a high density capable controller. The 1.44m
disk wasn't on the market yet. (similar to the original PC that was
limited to low density drives).
Award offered a bios upograde for the portable to support the 1.44
floppy drive. The controller had no problem with the high density
drive - just the Bios. Phoenix provided one too.Available within a
year of initial introduction of the convertible. (another of IBM's
terrible ideas) about the same time the 1.44 arrived on the scene.

I never heard of anyone doing it. It would have been a nice upgrade
but usually the upgrade was a back pack hard drive.
It was slow but you did get lots of storage.
We sold hard drive addons for the original PC as well as bios
upgrades which allowed them to use high density double sided floppies,
as well as controllers that allowed use of the high density drives on
the original bios on the PC.
We also sold bios upgrades for the early PS/2 . Don't think we ever
sold one for the brain-dead convertible, but we sold litterally
thousands of the "lunchbox" portable computers and tens of thousands
of add-on hard drives.(TCR was the largest distributor of hard drives
for personal computers in Canada before Computer Brokers Canada ate
our lunch) Interesting - through various mergers TCR became part of
SYNNEX - as did CBC

On Sun, 03 May 2020 20:56:41 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sun, 03 May 2020 15:37:05 -0400, wrote:

On Sun, 03 May 2020 01:49:23 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 02 May 2020 23:53:17 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 02 May 2020 21:37:47 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 02 May 2020 20:33:59 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 02 May 2020 17:36:14 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 02 May 2020 14:49:02 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 2 May 2020 20:12:39 +1000, Xeno
wrote:

On 2/5/20 6:27 pm, FromTheRafters wrote:
wrote :
On Fri, 01 May 2020 08:06:06 -0400, micky
wrote:

In alt.home.repair, on Sat, 25 Apr 2020 21:31:03 -0400,
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 20:21:34 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 17:02:20 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 15:21:36 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 12:49:15 -0400, Bud Frede

wrote:

Clare Snyder writes:

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 12:02:39 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 4/23/20 10:29 AM, micky wrote:
Another problem with getting a heat pump is that the wirign
to the
thermostat is inadequate.Â*Â* no easy way to run a new wire to
the same location**.

I don't have a heat pump, but 2 stage AC and heat. This
requires 7 wiresÂ* (including power return) to the thermostat.
I now have 10 wiresÂ* installed (3 for later use).

Â*I have a 2 stage furnace plus AC running on 4 wires - using a
single
stage thermostat.

I have the same setup here.

In the past I had tried various fancy thermostats and didn't
have luck
with them. The manuals were horrible and I don't think the
people who
designed the thermostats ever had to actually use them.

A few years ago when it was time to replace my furnace and AV, they
threw in a new thermostat with it. It's a White-Rogers programmable
model. I can't control it across the internet with my phone, and
I'm
sure it doesn't have all the fancy features, but it works
reliably, it
was easy to figure out how to use, and the manual was well-written.

I think this is like the old constant upgrade cycle Microsoft
did with
Office. The average person only used 10% of the features, but
they kept
adding more and more features so they could sell a new version
to you.
If it was still available for purchase, and if it would still
run on a
modern computer, many people would be happier with Office '95 or
something rather than the latest and greatest Office
whatever-version-they're-up-to-now.

There are some things that get new features that I use and that
improve
the experience. For the most part though, I'm at that 10% level
and the
rest is just added complexity and is actually a drawback for me.

It feels strange to think this way. I'm in IT and I am constantly
learning new things and growing my skills. It's just that there
are some areas where I'd like less complexity. It's less to
worry about, less hassle, etc.

I try to resist "Gear Acquisition Syndrome" and not upgrade just
because there's something new. I want what I guess I could call
"appropriate complexity." :-)

Yeah, I'm not the typical consumer, and I know that I'm not who the
product makers aim at. Maybe I'm just getting old or something...


Like the motto of my IT company here in Ontario - "appropriate
technology for the information age".
In the beginning I sold a LOT of off-lease and reconditioned
hardware
which allowed many companies to get into office and retail
computerization at an affordable price.

That is where I usually get my PCs if I can't get one for free.


in 33 years I'm on my second brand new computer (and it's about 7
years old, more or less)(Not counting my first non-ibm compatible
RatShack CoCo - which I still own)

The only new computer I ever bought was when my wife still had her
business and I was working for IBM. It was on full IBM enterprise
maintenance and if I put a call in on it, I could take the call, order
the parts and write them off. The IRS let me fully depreciate it in
the first year and write off the
M/A contract. It worked out well for me.

The only new computer I've owned in 36 years was a PC Jr. It sold for
iirc $1600, but they would take 500 off if you had the bar codes of 20
or 25 products by Kimberly Clark or some similar company, so they were
worth 20 or 25 a piece.Â* The last day after people had left work, I went
around and found 1 or 2 boxes of kleenex and I cut out the bar code,
without even asking anyone, but I know no one cared.Â*Â*Â* Then a week
later of course they stopped making the Jr.
11 years later, I bought The next one at a hamfest, and it didn't work.
I gradually figured out that he had replaced one of the 2 floppies with
something special, then put it back the way it was before selling it,
but he didn't undo some change to a mobo jumper, so it thought it had
only one drive and it had two and that was enough to stopÂ* everything,
except maybe there was a one line message on the screeen.
I've bought 2 others used at hamfests, one laptop from ebay, and been
given a bunch.

IBM diskette drives are not the same as the ones in other machines.
When other companies cloned our machines they were not exactly the
same, maybe for legal reasons.

Might have been at the introduction of the double density disk.

Disk drives were always procured from OEMs. IBM drives set a standard
that was followed by the clones but there was nothing particularly
special about them. The only thing that IBM really had full control over
was the BIOS. That was why the clones had workalike BIOSes. I read
somewhere that was the biggest mistake IBM made - the open architecture
- and they tried to rectify that with the PS2 - and why the PS2 disappeared.

This, from Wikipedia, might explain it;

The IBM copyright appears in only the ROM BIOS and on the
company logo, and the company reportedly received no patents
on the PC, with outsiders manufacturing 90% of it.

and

Perhaps Chess's most unusual decision for IBM was to publish
the PC's technical specifications, allowing outsiders to create
products for it.

Because of this, and the open architecture, I see no earthly reason why
IBM PC floppy drives would be any different to any other similar spec
OEM drive. If another PC Clone had difficulty running a PC drive, then
it would be safe to assume the clone had the issue of compatibility, not
the drive. With an open architecture like the ISA bus, any drive that
adhered to standard specifications would/should work.

For the PS/2 however, I could believe that drives may have been a little
different from standard.

Next-generation IBM PS/2
The IBM PS/2 line was introduced in 1987. The Model 30 at the
bottom end of the lineup was very similar to earlier models;
it used an 8086 processor and an ISA bus. The Model 30 was
not "IBM compatible" in that it did not have standard 5.25-inch
drive bays; it came with a 3.5-inch floppy drive and optionally
a 3.5-inch-sized hard disk. Most models in the PS/2 line further
departed from "IBM compatible" by replacing the ISA bus
completely with Micro Channel Architecture. The MCA bus was not
received well by the customer base for PC's, since it was
proprietary to IBM. It was rarely implemented by any of the other
PC-compatible makers. Eventually IBM would abandon this
architecture entirely and return to the standard ISA bus.

The above was IBMs doomed attempt to regain control of the PC market. It
was a dismal failure.

The PS/2 was never aimed at the home market. It was designed to be
integrated into an office with a mainframe. The Microchannel was an
attempt to eliminate all of that IRQ and memory assignment BS you ran
into when you plugged a card in. By being proprietary, cards were
designed not to come up with these conflicts and as a general rule
that worked. It also made it less likely that a PC hobbyist was going
to be screwing with the company owned machine on his desk. I ran PS/2s
until I lost the channel for free parts, then I went back to an open
architecture machine.

I agree the 5.25" diskette and all of the hard drives were industry
standard but a PS/2 3.5" diskette drive wasn't. There was no media
sense pin in the drive and pin 2 in the cable (media select) was
controlled by the adapter, not the drive. You could format a HD disk
at 720 and vice versa. You just needed to bulk degauss the diskette
when you changed formats.
As I noted you could do it on a clone too if you knew how. Kind of a
STOOPID thing to do - formatting a 1.44 to 720


Unless you had a convertible and couldn't find 720 diskettes. ;-)
.
The convertible wouldn't accept a 1.44 drive?

Nope, It did not have a high density capable controller. The 1.44m
disk wasn't on the market yet. (similar to the original PC that was
limited to low density drives).
Award offered a bios upograde for the portable to support the 1.44
floppy drive. The controller had no problem with the high density
drive - just the Bios. Phoenix provided one too.Available within a
year of initial introduction of the convertible. (another of IBM's
terrible ideas) about the same time the 1.44 arrived on the scene.

I never heard of anyone doing it. It would have been a nice upgrade
but usually the upgrade was a back pack hard drive.
It was slow but you did get lots of storage.
We sold hard drive addons for the original PC as well as bios
upgrades which allowed them to use high density double sided floppies,
as well as controllers that allowed use of the high density drives on
the original bios on the PC.
We also sold bios upgrades for the early PS/2 . Don't think we ever
sold one for the brain-dead convertible, but we sold litterally
thousands of the "lunchbox" portable computers and tens of thousands
of add-on hard drives.(TCR was the largest distributor of hard drives
for personal computers in Canada before Computer Brokers Canada ate
our lunch) Interesting - through various mergers TCR became part of
SYNNEX - as did CBC

I had a ST238 on my First Day Ship 5150 PC1 (the first IBM PC) but I
did swap the system board ;-)

I never did it but there was a 5 slot "AT" board that fit in the 5150
case. It was for the luggable version of the AT. (5162).
That was a 286 board with the same form factor as the original PC. in
the 5155 case There was also a suite of short height cards for it. By
then I was running a wooden AT with a 339 board in it so I never
fooled with it.

http://gfretwell.com/ftp/Woodiy%20AT.jpg
http://gfretwell.com/ftp/Woodiy%20AT%20inside.jpg

Shortly after that I made a PS/2-M70 woodie. with a 5" bay

http://gfretwell.com/electrical/woody.jpg

On Mon, 04 May 2020 00:13:09 -0400, wrote:

On Sun, 03 May 2020 20:56:41 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sun, 03 May 2020 15:37:05 -0400, wrote:

On Sun, 03 May 2020 01:49:23 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 02 May 2020 23:53:17 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 02 May 2020 21:37:47 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 02 May 2020 20:33:59 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 02 May 2020 17:36:14 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 02 May 2020 14:49:02 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 2 May 2020 20:12:39 +1000, Xeno
wrote:

On 2/5/20 6:27 pm, FromTheRafters wrote:
wrote :
On Fri, 01 May 2020 08:06:06 -0400, micky
wrote:

In alt.home.repair, on Sat, 25 Apr 2020 21:31:03 -0400,
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 20:21:34 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 17:02:20 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 15:21:36 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 12:49:15 -0400, Bud Frede

wrote:

Clare Snyder writes:

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 12:02:39 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 4/23/20 10:29 AM, micky wrote:
Another problem with getting a heat pump is that the wirign
to the
thermostat is inadequate.** no easy way to run a new wire to
the same location**.

I don't have a heat pump, but 2 stage AC and heat. This
requires 7 wires* (including power return) to the thermostat.
I now have 10 wires* installed (3 for later use).

*I have a 2 stage furnace plus AC running on 4 wires - using a
single
stage thermostat.

I have the same setup here.

In the past I had tried various fancy thermostats and didn't
have luck
with them. The manuals were horrible and I don't think the
people who
designed the thermostats ever had to actually use them.

A few years ago when it was time to replace my furnace and AV, they
threw in a new thermostat with it. It's a White-Rogers programmable
model. I can't control it across the internet with my phone, and
I'm
sure it doesn't have all the fancy features, but it works
reliably, it
was easy to figure out how to use, and the manual was well-written.

I think this is like the old constant upgrade cycle Microsoft
did with
Office. The average person only used 10% of the features, but
they kept
adding more and more features so they could sell a new version
to you.
If it was still available for purchase, and if it would still
run on a
modern computer, many people would be happier with Office '95 or
something rather than the latest and greatest Office
whatever-version-they're-up-to-now.

There are some things that get new features that I use and that
improve
the experience. For the most part though, I'm at that 10% level
and the
rest is just added complexity and is actually a drawback for me.

It feels strange to think this way. I'm in IT and I am constantly
learning new things and growing my skills. It's just that there
are some areas where I'd like less complexity. It's less to
worry about, less hassle, etc.

I try to resist "Gear Acquisition Syndrome" and not upgrade just
because there's something new. I want what I guess I could call
"appropriate complexity." :-)

Yeah, I'm not the typical consumer, and I know that I'm not who the
product makers aim at. Maybe I'm just getting old or something...


Like the motto of my IT company here in Ontario - "appropriate
technology for the information age".
In the beginning I sold a LOT of off-lease and reconditioned
hardware
which allowed many companies to get into office and retail
computerization at an affordable price.

That is where I usually get my PCs if I can't get one for free.


in 33 years I'm on my second brand new computer (and it's about 7
years old, more or less)(Not counting my first non-ibm compatible
RatShack CoCo - which I still own)

The only new computer I ever bought was when my wife still had her
business and I was working for IBM. It was on full IBM enterprise
maintenance and if I put a call in on it, I could take the call, order
the parts and write them off. The IRS let me fully depreciate it in
the first year and write off the
M/A contract. It worked out well for me.

The only new computer I've owned in 36 years was a PC Jr. It sold for
iirc $1600, but they would take 500 off if you had the bar codes of 20
or 25 products by Kimberly Clark or some similar company, so they were
worth 20 or 25 a piece.* The last day after people had left work, I went
around and found 1 or 2 boxes of kleenex and I cut out the bar code,
without even asking anyone, but I know no one cared.*** Then a week
later of course they stopped making the Jr.
11 years later, I bought The next one at a hamfest, and it didn't work.
I gradually figured out that he had replaced one of the 2 floppies with
something special, then put it back the way it was before selling it,
but he didn't undo some change to a mobo jumper, so it thought it had
only one drive and it had two and that was enough to stop* everything,
except maybe there was a one line message on the screeen.
I've bought 2 others used at hamfests, one laptop from ebay, and been
given a bunch.

IBM diskette drives are not the same as the ones in other machines.
When other companies cloned our machines they were not exactly the
same, maybe for legal reasons.

Might have been at the introduction of the double density disk.

Disk drives were always procured from OEMs. IBM drives set a standard
that was followed by the clones but there was nothing particularly
special about them. The only thing that IBM really had full control over
was the BIOS. That was why the clones had workalike BIOSes. I read
somewhere that was the biggest mistake IBM made - the open architecture
- and they tried to rectify that with the PS2 - and why the PS2 disappeared.

This, from Wikipedia, might explain it;

The IBM copyright appears in only the ROM BIOS and on the
company logo, and the company reportedly received no patents
on the PC, with outsiders manufacturing 90% of it.

and

Perhaps Chess's most unusual decision for IBM was to publish
the PC's technical specifications, allowing outsiders to create
products for it.

Because of this, and the open architecture, I see no earthly reason why
IBM PC floppy drives would be any different to any other similar spec
OEM drive. If another PC Clone had difficulty running a PC drive, then
it would be safe to assume the clone had the issue of compatibility, not
the drive. With an open architecture like the ISA bus, any drive that
adhered to standard specifications would/should work.

For the PS/2 however, I could believe that drives may have been a little
different from standard.

Next-generation IBM PS/2
The IBM PS/2 line was introduced in 1987. The Model 30 at the
bottom end of the lineup was very similar to earlier models;
it used an 8086 processor and an ISA bus. The Model 30 was
not "IBM compatible" in that it did not have standard 5.25-inch
drive bays; it came with a 3.5-inch floppy drive and optionally
a 3.5-inch-sized hard disk. Most models in the PS/2 line further
departed from "IBM compatible" by replacing the ISA bus
completely with Micro Channel Architecture. The MCA bus was not
received well by the customer base for PC's, since it was
proprietary to IBM. It was rarely implemented by any of the other
PC-compatible makers. Eventually IBM would abandon this
architecture entirely and return to the standard ISA bus.

The above was IBMs doomed attempt to regain control of the PC market. It
was a dismal failure.

The PS/2 was never aimed at the home market. It was designed to be
integrated into an office with a mainframe. The Microchannel was an
attempt to eliminate all of that IRQ and memory assignment BS you ran
into when you plugged a card in. By being proprietary, cards were
designed not to come up with these conflicts and as a general rule
that worked. It also made it less likely that a PC hobbyist was going
to be screwing with the company owned machine on his desk. I ran PS/2s
until I lost the channel for free parts, then I went back to an open
architecture machine.

I agree the 5.25" diskette and all of the hard drives were industry
standard but a PS/2 3.5" diskette drive wasn't. There was no media
sense pin in the drive and pin 2 in the cable (media select) was
controlled by the adapter, not the drive. You could format a HD disk
at 720 and vice versa. You just needed to bulk degauss the diskette
when you changed formats.
As I noted you could do it on a clone too if you knew how. Kind of a
STOOPID thing to do - formatting a 1.44 to 720


Unless you had a convertible and couldn't find 720 diskettes. ;-)
.
The convertible wouldn't accept a 1.44 drive?

Nope, It did not have a high density capable controller. The 1.44m
disk wasn't on the market yet. (similar to the original PC that was
limited to low density drives).
Award offered a bios upograde for the portable to support the 1.44
floppy drive. The controller had no problem with the high density
drive - just the Bios. Phoenix provided one too.Available within a
year of initial introduction of the convertible. (another of IBM's
terrible ideas) about the same time the 1.44 arrived on the scene.

I never heard of anyone doing it. It would have been a nice upgrade
but usually the upgrade was a back pack hard drive.
It was slow but you did get lots of storage.
We sold hard drive addons for the original PC as well as bios
upgrades which allowed them to use high density double sided floppies,
as well as controllers that allowed use of the high density drives on
the original bios on the PC.
We also sold bios upgrades for the early PS/2 . Don't think we ever
sold one for the brain-dead convertible, but we sold litterally
thousands of the "lunchbox" portable computers and tens of thousands
of add-on hard drives.(TCR was the largest distributor of hard drives
for personal computers in Canada before Computer Brokers Canada ate
our lunch) Interesting - through various mergers TCR became part of
SYNNEX - as did CBC

I had a ST238 on my First Day Ship 5150 PC1 (the first IBM PC) but I
did swap the system board ;-)

I never did it but there was a 5 slot "AT" board that fit in the 5150
case. It was for the luggable version of the AT. (5162).
That was a 286 board with the same form factor as the original PC. in
the 5155 case There was also a suite of short height cards for it. By
then I was running a wooden AT with a 339 board in it so I never
fooled with it.

http://gfretwell.com/ftp/Woodiy%20AT.jpg
http://gfretwell.com/ftp/Woodiy%20AT%20inside.jpg

Shortly after that I made a PS/2-M70 woodie. with a 5" bay

http://gfretwell.com/electrical/woody.jpg
We were building XTs running up to 12Mhz at least -and 20 and 24Mhz
ATs. Were you running the 238 on MFM or RLL? We "upped" a lot of MFM
drives to RLL. We put XT and AT as well as 386 and even some 486
boards into the lunchbox portables - green, amber,and white mono, cga,
ega mono and color and even a few VGA screens. Sold a lot of the
orange Plasma screens too. ESDI drives were popular for a short time
before I left. We sold a lot of SCSI stuff too - including a lot of CD
drives. We had CD servers with 2 and 3 controllers - 7 drives per
controller.

When I went out on my own I didn't bother building systems except for
myself - and even then it was more "rebuilding" stuff that I took in
on exchanges - I never had a requirement for anything "cutting edge"

On Mon, 04 May 2020 01:13:51 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Mon, 04 May 2020 00:13:09 -0400, wrote:

On Sun, 03 May 2020 20:56:41 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sun, 03 May 2020 15:37:05 -0400, wrote:

On Sun, 03 May 2020 01:49:23 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 02 May 2020 23:53:17 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 02 May 2020 21:37:47 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 02 May 2020 20:33:59 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 02 May 2020 17:36:14 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 02 May 2020 14:49:02 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 2 May 2020 20:12:39 +1000, Xeno
wrote:

On 2/5/20 6:27 pm, FromTheRafters wrote:
wrote :
On Fri, 01 May 2020 08:06:06 -0400, micky
wrote:

In alt.home.repair, on Sat, 25 Apr 2020 21:31:03 -0400,
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 20:21:34 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 17:02:20 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 15:21:36 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 12:49:15 -0400, Bud Frede

wrote:

Clare Snyder writes:

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 12:02:39 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 4/23/20 10:29 AM, micky wrote:
Another problem with getting a heat pump is that the wirign
to the
thermostat is inadequate.Â*Â* no easy way to run a new wire to
the same location**.

I don't have a heat pump, but 2 stage AC and heat. This
requires 7 wiresÂ* (including power return) to the thermostat.
I now have 10 wiresÂ* installed (3 for later use).

Â*I have a 2 stage furnace plus AC running on 4 wires - using a
single
stage thermostat.

I have the same setup here.

In the past I had tried various fancy thermostats and didn't
have luck
with them. The manuals were horrible and I don't think the
people who
designed the thermostats ever had to actually use them.

A few years ago when it was time to replace my furnace and AV, they
threw in a new thermostat with it. It's a White-Rogers programmable
model. I can't control it across the internet with my phone, and
I'm
sure it doesn't have all the fancy features, but it works
reliably, it
was easy to figure out how to use, and the manual was well-written.

I think this is like the old constant upgrade cycle Microsoft
did with
Office. The average person only used 10% of the features, but
they kept
adding more and more features so they could sell a new version
to you.
If it was still available for purchase, and if it would still
run on a
modern computer, many people would be happier with Office '95 or
something rather than the latest and greatest Office
whatever-version-they're-up-to-now.

There are some things that get new features that I use and that
improve
the experience. For the most part though, I'm at that 10% level
and the
rest is just added complexity and is actually a drawback for me.

It feels strange to think this way. I'm in IT and I am constantly
learning new things and growing my skills. It's just that there
are some areas where I'd like less complexity. It's less to
worry about, less hassle, etc.

I try to resist "Gear Acquisition Syndrome" and not upgrade just
because there's something new. I want what I guess I could call
"appropriate complexity." :-)

Yeah, I'm not the typical consumer, and I know that I'm not who the
product makers aim at. Maybe I'm just getting old or something...


Like the motto of my IT company here in Ontario - "appropriate
technology for the information age".
In the beginning I sold a LOT of off-lease and reconditioned
hardware
which allowed many companies to get into office and retail
computerization at an affordable price.

That is where I usually get my PCs if I can't get one for free.


in 33 years I'm on my second brand new computer (and it's about 7
years old, more or less)(Not counting my first non-ibm compatible
RatShack CoCo - which I still own)

The only new computer I ever bought was when my wife still had her
business and I was working for IBM. It was on full IBM enterprise
maintenance and if I put a call in on it, I could take the call, order
the parts and write them off. The IRS let me fully depreciate it in
the first year and write off the
M/A contract. It worked out well for me.

The only new computer I've owned in 36 years was a PC Jr. It sold for
iirc $1600, but they would take 500 off if you had the bar codes of 20
or 25 products by Kimberly Clark or some similar company, so they were
worth 20 or 25 a piece.Â* The last day after people had left work, I went
around and found 1 or 2 boxes of kleenex and I cut out the bar code,
without even asking anyone, but I know no one cared.Â*Â*Â* Then a week
later of course they stopped making the Jr.
11 years later, I bought The next one at a hamfest, and it didn't work.
I gradually figured out that he had replaced one of the 2 floppies with
something special, then put it back the way it was before selling it,
but he didn't undo some change to a mobo jumper, so it thought it had
only one drive and it had two and that was enough to stopÂ* everything,
except maybe there was a one line message on the screeen.
I've bought 2 others used at hamfests, one laptop from ebay, and been
given a bunch.

IBM diskette drives are not the same as the ones in other machines.
When other companies cloned our machines they were not exactly the
same, maybe for legal reasons.

Might have been at the introduction of the double density disk.

Disk drives were always procured from OEMs. IBM drives set a standard
that was followed by the clones but there was nothing particularly
special about them. The only thing that IBM really had full control over
was the BIOS. That was why the clones had workalike BIOSes. I read
somewhere that was the biggest mistake IBM made - the open architecture
- and they tried to rectify that with the PS2 - and why the PS2 disappeared.

This, from Wikipedia, might explain it;

The IBM copyright appears in only the ROM BIOS and on the
company logo, and the company reportedly received no patents
on the PC, with outsiders manufacturing 90% of it.

and

Perhaps Chess's most unusual decision for IBM was to publish
the PC's technical specifications, allowing outsiders to create
products for it.

Because of this, and the open architecture, I see no earthly reason why
IBM PC floppy drives would be any different to any other similar spec
OEM drive. If another PC Clone had difficulty running a PC drive, then
it would be safe to assume the clone had the issue of compatibility, not
the drive. With an open architecture like the ISA bus, any drive that
adhered to standard specifications would/should work.

For the PS/2 however, I could believe that drives may have been a little
different from standard.

Next-generation IBM PS/2
The IBM PS/2 line was introduced in 1987. The Model 30 at the
bottom end of the lineup was very similar to earlier models;
it used an 8086 processor and an ISA bus. The Model 30 was
not "IBM compatible" in that it did not have standard 5.25-inch
drive bays; it came with a 3.5-inch floppy drive and optionally
a 3.5-inch-sized hard disk. Most models in the PS/2 line further
departed from "IBM compatible" by replacing the ISA bus
completely with Micro Channel Architecture. The MCA bus was not
received well by the customer base for PC's, since it was
proprietary to IBM. It was rarely implemented by any of the other
PC-compatible makers. Eventually IBM would abandon this
architecture entirely and return to the standard ISA bus.

The above was IBMs doomed attempt to regain control of the PC market. It
was a dismal failure.

The PS/2 was never aimed at the home market. It was designed to be
integrated into an office with a mainframe. The Microchannel was an
attempt to eliminate all of that IRQ and memory assignment BS you ran
into when you plugged a card in. By being proprietary, cards were
designed not to come up with these conflicts and as a general rule
that worked. It also made it less likely that a PC hobbyist was going
to be screwing with the company owned machine on his desk. I ran PS/2s
until I lost the channel for free parts, then I went back to an open
architecture machine.

I agree the 5.25" diskette and all of the hard drives were industry
standard but a PS/2 3.5" diskette drive wasn't. There was no media
sense pin in the drive and pin 2 in the cable (media select) was
controlled by the adapter, not the drive. You could format a HD disk
at 720 and vice versa. You just needed to bulk degauss the diskette
when you changed formats.
As I noted you could do it on a clone too if you knew how. Kind of a
STOOPID thing to do - formatting a 1.44 to 720


Unless you had a convertible and couldn't find 720 diskettes. ;-)
.
The convertible wouldn't accept a 1.44 drive?

Nope, It did not have a high density capable controller. The 1.44m
disk wasn't on the market yet. (similar to the original PC that was
limited to low density drives).
Award offered a bios upograde for the portable to support the 1.44
floppy drive. The controller had no problem with the high density
drive - just the Bios. Phoenix provided one too.Available within a
year of initial introduction of the convertible. (another of IBM's
terrible ideas) about the same time the 1.44 arrived on the scene.

I never heard of anyone doing it. It would have been a nice upgrade
but usually the upgrade was a back pack hard drive.
It was slow but you did get lots of storage.
We sold hard drive addons for the original PC as well as bios
upgrades which allowed them to use high density double sided floppies,
as well as controllers that allowed use of the high density drives on
the original bios on the PC.
We also sold bios upgrades for the early PS/2 . Don't think we ever
sold one for the brain-dead convertible, but we sold litterally
thousands of the "lunchbox" portable computers and tens of thousands
of add-on hard drives.(TCR was the largest distributor of hard drives
for personal computers in Canada before Computer Brokers Canada ate
our lunch) Interesting - through various mergers TCR became part of
SYNNEX - as did CBC

I had a ST238 on my First Day Ship 5150 PC1 (the first IBM PC) but I
did swap the system board ;-)

I never did it but there was a 5 slot "AT" board that fit in the 5150
case. It was for the luggable version of the AT. (5162).
That was a 286 board with the same form factor as the original PC. in
the 5155 case There was also a suite of short height cards for it. By
then I was running a wooden AT with a 339 board in it so I never
fooled with it.

http://gfretwell.com/ftp/Woodiy%20AT.jpg
http://gfretwell.com/ftp/Woodiy%20AT%20inside.jpg

Shortly after that I made a PS/2-M70 woodie. with a 5" bay

http://gfretwell.com/electrical/woody.jpg
We were building XTs running up to 12Mhz at least -and 20 and 24Mhz
ATs.
I was running standard boards. 4.77 MZ XTs and 8 MZ ATs

Were you running the 238 on MFM or RLL? We "upped" a lot of MFM
drives to RLL.

An ST 328 (30m) is an ST 225 (20m) running RLL. It is a lousy drive in
retrospect with a stepper access so you end up with track drift after
a while as things wear out.
That was my only stepper drive disk.
We put XT and AT as well as 386 and even some 486
boards into the lunchbox portables - green, amber,and white mono, cga,
ega mono and color and even a few VGA screens. Sold a lot of the
orange Plasma screens too. ESDI drives were popular for a short time
before I left. We sold a lot of SCSI stuff too - including a lot of CD
drives. We had CD servers with 2 and 3 controllers - 7 drives per
controller.

I never did take the ESDI path. I went straight to SCSI.
once I got into PS/2 stuff and expanded beyond the F2DBA drives.