On 08/01/2013 09:27, tony sayer wrote:
OK - TV's have always been specialist - but most other machinery was pretty
simple.


I dont think TVs were THAT specialist when they were full o' valves


Now this is a good point. A TV of say 1960 or even earlier had pretty
straightforward circuitry so much so that I managed to convert a 1960's
era 405 line set to 625 lines and it worked very well.

Course these days a few chipset's and well, what can you do with
those?...


Reprogram them, put a different OS on, change the jumpers, quite a lot
if you want on most modern sets.
However its not really worth it as you can probably buy something that
does what you want for peanuts.

In article ,
tony sayer wrote:
OK - TV's have always been specialist - but most other machinery was pretty
simple.


I dont think TVs were THAT specialist when they were full o' valves


Now this is a good point. A TV of say 1960 or even earlier had pretty
straightforward circuitry so much so that I managed to convert a 1960's
era 405 line set to 625 lines and it worked very well.

How did you sort out the UHF tuner and FM sound?

--
*Go the extra mile. It makes your boss look like an incompetent slacker *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article om,
dennis@home scribeth thus
On 08/01/2013 09:27, tony sayer wrote:
OK - TV's have always been specialist - but most other machinery was pretty
simple.


I dont think TVs were THAT specialist when they were full o' valves


Now this is a good point. A TV of say 1960 or even earlier had pretty
straightforward circuitry so much so that I managed to convert a 1960's
era 405 line set to 625 lines and it worked very well.

Course these days a few chipset's and well, what can you do with
those?...




Reprogram them, put a different OS on, change the jumpers, quite a lot
if you want on most modern sets.


Can you give us an example as to say how you'd change the sound
intercarrier ?...

Or the vision modulation demodulation?..





However its not really worth it as you can probably buy something that
does what you want for peanuts.

Well what would be the point of that ?..
--
Tony Sayer

In article , Dave Plowman (News)
scribeth thus
In article ,
tony sayer wrote:
OK - TV's have always been specialist - but most other machinery was pretty
simple.


I dont think TVs were THAT specialist when they were full o' valves


Now this is a good point. A TV of say 1960 or even earlier had pretty
straightforward circuitry so much so that I managed to convert a 1960's
era 405 line set to 625 lines and it worked very well.

How did you sort out the UHF tuner

Might not believe this but made one, UHF unit that was, bloody unstable then
bought one..


and FM sound?

Ratio detector using an EB91 ...

then tried intercarrier techniques and learnt all about vision buzz;(....



--
Tony Sayer

On Tuesday, January 8, 2013 9:24:15 AM UTC, tony sayer wrote:
Most people don't even make any attempt to grasp the rudiments of anything

vaguely technical or ... anything at all really



Other than me and the missus, I can't think of anyone else in our immediate

family, who would have the vaguest notion how to put the spare wheel onto

their car. I would be surprised if they actually knew where to find it, or

the jack and tools even ...



Arfa



That .. Ought to be part of the driving test. A simple job that every

driver, unless of course physically disabled from doing so, should have

that competency......

I can't agree with that, far too risky to have someone try to replace a car wheel perhaps 5 years after they've past their test, and onn a differnt car fromn their test car.





--

Tony Sayer

On Tuesday, January 8, 2013 10:48:59 AM UTC, Tim Watts wrote:
On Tuesday 08 January 2013 01:54 brass monkey wrote in uk.d-i-y:





WTF is a spare wheel?



A useful thing cars used to have...

But just how useful, sure on cars where it was needed but on todays cars.
Do you remmeber the days when you had to have someone walk in front of your car carry/waving a flag. They were necessary too in them days. ;-)




--

Tim Watts Personal Blog: http://www.dionic.net/tim/



If you are reading this from a web interface eg DIY Banter,

DIY Forum or Google Groups, please be aware this is NOT a forum, and

you are merely using a web portal to a USENET group. Many people block

posters coming from web portals due to perceived SPAM or inaneness.

For a better method of access, please see:



http://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/index.php?title=Usenet



"She got her looks from her father. He's a plastic surgeon."

"whisky-dave" wrote in message
...

On Tuesday, January 8, 2013 10:48:59 AM UTC, Tim Watts wrote:
On Tuesday 08 January 2013 01:54 brass monkey wrote in uk.d-i-y:





WTF is a spare wheel?



A useful thing cars used to have...

But just how useful, sure on cars where it was needed but on todays cars.
Do you remmeber the days when you had to have someone walk in front of your
car carry/waving a flag. They were necessary too in them days. ;-)



So what do you do when you get a puncture miles from anywhere with no mobile
telephone signal?

Mike

On Tue, 08 Jan 2013 09:24:15 +0000, tony sayer wrote:

Most people don't even make any attempt to grasp the rudiments of
anything vaguely technical or ... anything at all really

Other than me and the missus, I can't think of anyone else in our
immediate family, who would have the vaguest notion how to put the spare
wheel onto their car. I would be surprised if they actually knew where
to find it, or the jack and tools even ...

Arfa

That .. Ought to be part of the driving test. A simple job that every
driver, unless of course physically disabled from doing so, should have
that competency......

Personally, I think a requirement of using a motorway should be having
tow-off cover in case of breakdown.

On Tuesday, January 8, 2013 3:30:05 PM UTC, Muddymike wrote:
"whisky-dave" wrote in message

...



On Tuesday, January 8, 2013 10:48:59 AM UTC, Tim Watts wrote:

On Tuesday 08 January 2013 01:54 brass monkey wrote in uk.d-i-y:











WTF is a spare wheel?







A useful thing cars used to have...



But just how useful, sure on cars where it was needed but on todays cars.

Do you remmeber the days when you had to have someone walk in front of your

car carry/waving a flag. They were necessary too in them days. ;-)







So what do you do when you get a puncture miles from anywhere with no mobile

telephone signal?

Same thing I'd do if I ran out of petrol or the engine blew up or anything else went wrong I couldn't fix.
Not that I drive but I do believe there are services out there that chareg an anual fee to do that sort of thing.




Mike

In article , Muddymike
wrote:
"whisky-dave" wrote in message
...

On Tuesday, January 8, 2013 10:48:59 AM UTC, Tim Watts wrote:
On Tuesday 08 January 2013 01:54 brass monkey wrote in uk.d-i-y:





WTF is a spare wheel?



A useful thing cars used to have...

But just how useful, sure on cars where it was needed but on todays
cars. Do you remmeber the days when you had to have someone walk in
front of your car carry/waving a flag. They were necessary too in them
days. ;-)



So what do you do when you get a puncture miles from anywhere with no
mobile telephone signal?

Wait for someone to pass by. But seriously, how often have you had a
puncture in the last few years? In the 60s, I used to have them regularly.
My current car - 11 years old - has only needed me to fit the spare once
in 114,000 miles.

--
From KT24

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.18

On Tue, 8 Jan 2013 15:30:05 -0000, "Muddymike"
wrote:

So what do you do when you get a puncture miles from anywhere with no mobile
telephone signal?

Have some peasants fix it.

On Mon, 7 Jan 2013 23:31:11 -0800 (PST), harry
wrote:

At one time you had to carry many tires and tyre levers.
I expect these people thought the end of the world was nigh when spare
wheels were invented.

If you're going to try to make a point, at least make sure the point
actually exists.

On 08/01/13 15:39, Jethro_uk wrote:
On Tue, 08 Jan 2013 09:24:15 +0000, tony sayer wrote:

Most people don't even make any attempt to grasp the rudiments of
anything vaguely technical or ... anything at all really

Other than me and the missus, I can't think of anyone else in our
immediate family, who would have the vaguest notion how to put the spare
wheel onto their car. I would be surprised if they actually knew where
to find it, or the jack and tools even ...

Arfa

That .. Ought to be part of the driving test. A simple job that every
driver, unless of course physically disabled from doing so, should have
that competency......

Personally, I think a requirement of using a motorway should be having
tow-off cover in case of breakdown.

why? you phone up, someone comes, you pay them.

I've never had any AA or other recovery service. Once or twice I have
had to use roadside assistance: I simply paid for it.


When the car fuel pump finally packed up at home, the cost of getting it
trucked to the garage was less than the cost of joining the AA/RAC.

Ditto when a cam belt snapped in London..

And when another snapped in France, we towed it over on the ferry and
got it fixed in Dover.



--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

On 08/01/13 15:45, charles wrote:
In article , Muddymike
wrote:
"whisky-dave" wrote in message
...

On Tuesday, January 8, 2013 10:48:59 AM UTC, Tim Watts wrote:
On Tuesday 08 January 2013 01:54 brass monkey wrote in uk.d-i-y:





WTF is a spare wheel?



A useful thing cars used to have...

But just how useful, sure on cars where it was needed but on todays
cars. Do you remmeber the days when you had to have someone walk in
front of your car carry/waving a flag. They were necessary too in them
days. ;-)



So what do you do when you get a puncture miles from anywhere with no
mobile telephone signal?

Wait for someone to pass by. But seriously, how often have you had a
puncture in the last few years? In the 60s, I used to have them regularly.
My current car - 11 years old - has only needed me to fit the spare once
in 114,000 miles.

Only tow time sin the last ten years were a potho9le - only a mile from
home, drive it ion the flat. Wheel was destroyed anyway.

Then a 'Green' couple stuck a knife in the sidewall of the land rover.

Had to change the wheel and get a new one fitted.

That is essentially it.

few slow punctures - that's the pint - a tubeless tyre with a nail in it
doesn't go down instantly. It takes a knife or a pothole to do that.

Time to get it pumped up and take to the nearest tyre fitter.


--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

In article ,
Jethro_uk wrote:
That .. Ought to be part of the driving test. A simple job that every
driver, unless of course physically disabled from doing so, should have
that competency......

Personally, I think a requirement of using a motorway should be having
tow-off cover in case of breakdown.

IIRC, no need. If you use one of the phones, the operator will arrange it
for you.

--
*Middle age is when work is a lot less fun - and fun a lot more work.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Jan 8, 8:40*am, (Steve Firth) wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Of course teh top priority thing Blair did was to get the right people
into the Beeb and cancel spitting image.

Ah, talk about dumbing down and TurNiP will instantly pop-up to provide
a good practical example of someone so dumb that he can barely string
two sentences together.

How did getting "the right people into the Beeb" permit Blair to "cancel
spitting image"? Here's a clue TurNiP, Spitting Image was an ITV
production.

Here's another clue, TurNiP, Spitting Image was cancelled on 18th
February 1996, Anthony Charles Lynton Donkey******** Blair became Prime
Minister on 2 May 1997.

Pity. I used to enjoy it.
He's right though, it was all too near the truth.

We have a few ideal candidates right now.

On Jan 8, 3:30*pm, "Muddymike" wrote:
"whisky-dave" *wrote in message

...











On Tuesday, January 8, 2013 10:48:59 AM UTC, Tim Watts wrote:
On Tuesday 08 January 2013 01:54 brass monkey wrote in uk.d-i-y:

WTF is a spare wheel?

A useful thing cars used to have...

But just how useful, sure on cars where it was needed but on todays cars..
Do you remmeber the days when you had to have someone walk in front of your
car carry/waving a flag. They were necessary too in them days. ;-)

So what do you do when you get a puncture miles from anywhere with no mobile
telephone signal?

Mike

Walk to the top of the nearest hill?

On Jan 8, 3:50*pm, Grimly Curmudgeon wrote:
On Mon, 7 Jan 2013 23:31:11 -0800 (PST), harry

wrote:
At one time you had to carry many tires and tyre levers.
I expect these people thought the end of the world was nigh when spare
wheels were invented.

If you're going to try to make a point, at least make sure the point
actually exists.

In days of yore, tyres were so poor that most cars carried several
spare tyres plus of course a chauffeur to change them.
Once again,your ignorance shows.

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tirete...jsp?techid=141

On Tue, 8 Jan 2013 07:10:23 -0800 (PST), whisky-dave wrote:

That .. Ought to be part of the driving test. A simple job that every
driver, unless of course physically disabled from doing so, should
have that competency......

I can't agree with that, far too risky to have someone try to replace a
car wheel perhaps 5 years after they've past their test, and onn a
differnt car fromn their test car.

Less risky than someone passing their test at 17 and not having any
further questions asked about their competancy to drive until they are
70? And during those 53 years be able to hop skip and jump between any
number of vehicles, vehicles from 600cc 0-60 in 30 minuets to 6000cc 0-60
in 3 seconds...

I thought the modern test did include some very basic maintenace like
where the washer fluid filler is, checking bulbs and tyre wear/damage. I
passed my test 36 years ago, maintenance wasn't part of the test back
then.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On Tue, 8 Jan 2013 07:44:30 -0800 (PST), whisky-dave wrote:

WTF is a spare wheel?

A useful thing cars used to have...

But just how useful, sure on cars where it was needed but on todays
cars.

Punctures are rare but I don't think they are any less frequent now than
they were.

So what do you do when you get a puncture miles from anywhere with no
mobile telephone signal?

Same thing I'd do if I ran out of petrol or the engine blew up or
anything else went wrong I couldn't fix.
Not that I drive but I do believe there are services out there that
chareg an anual fee to do that sort of thing.

No spare, can't tow. Have to pick it up onto low loader and take it to
somewhere that can fit a new tyre (at 3AM on a Sunday morning?). You're
looking at several hours delay from when you start the ball rolling. No
mobile signal, miles from anywhere you might have a hour or twos walk
first...

Have spare and know how to change a wheel, 10 to 20 minuets later you are
on your way again.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On 08/01/2013 19:11, Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Tue, 8 Jan 2013 07:44:30 -0800 (PST), whisky-dave wrote:

WTF is a spare wheel?

A useful thing cars used to have...

But just how useful, sure on cars where it was needed but on todays
cars.

Punctures are rare but I don't think they are any less frequent now than
they were.

So what do you do when you get a puncture miles from anywhere with no
mobile telephone signal?

Same thing I'd do if I ran out of petrol or the engine blew up or
anything else went wrong I couldn't fix.
Not that I drive but I do believe there are services out there that
chareg an anual fee to do that sort of thing.

No spare, can't tow. Have to pick it up onto low loader and take it to
somewhere that can fit a new tyre (at 3AM on a Sunday morning?). You're
looking at several hours delay from when you start the ball rolling. No
mobile signal, miles from anywhere you might have a hour or twos walk
first...

Have spare and know how to change a wheel, 10 to 20 minuets later you are
on your way again.

Last puncture (more like a complete shredding) was on a *very* steep
hill, an extremely narrow road, and nowhere an ordinary jack could be
located (ground unsuitable and car too heavy to move). So having a spare
wheel only became useful when a recovery service came out with a
suitable jack. 10 or 20 minutes was actually more like an hour or two.

--
Rod

Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Tue, 8 Jan 2013 07:10:23 -0800 (PST), whisky-dave wrote:

That .. Ought to be part of the driving test. A simple job that
every driver, unless of course physically disabled from doing so,
should have that competency......

I can't agree with that, far too risky to have someone try to
replace a car wheel perhaps 5 years after they've past their test,
and onn a differnt car fromn their test car.

Less risky than someone passing their test at 17 and not having any
further questions asked about their competancy to drive until they are
70? And during those 53 years be able to hop skip and jump between any
number of vehicles, vehicles from 600cc 0-60 in 30 minuets to 6000cc
0-60 in 3 seconds...

I thought the modern test did include some very basic maintenace like
where the washer fluid filler is, checking bulbs and tyre
wear/damage. I passed my test 36 years ago, maintenance wasn't part
of the test back then.

I could not even open the bonnet on the last van I drove.

--
Adam

On Mon, 7 Jan 2013 14:02:52 +0000 (UTC), D.M.Chapman wrote:

... but that's two 11 year olds who spent several hours listening to
science instead of playing minecraft.

Ah Minecraft, big time sink if there vere was one but at least there is
the opertuneity to "build" stuff and use the imagination, rather than sat
gorping at the idiots lantern.

My lad (12) has "built" the basics of an 8 bit computer using the
Computercraft plugin for Minecraft. Needed a bit of help finding the
logic diagrams of binary adders and a general description of how you use
registers to store numbers but build it he did and it works at least to
enter and add two 8 bit numbers.

Just because there isn't a physical "product" doesn't mean they aren't
"building" things...

--
Cheers
Dave.

On 08/01/2013 14:29, tony sayer wrote:
In article om,
dennis@home scribeth thus
On 08/01/2013 09:27, tony sayer wrote:
OK - TV's have always been specialist - but most other machinery was pretty
simple.


I dont think TVs were THAT specialist when they were full o' valves


Now this is a good point. A TV of say 1960 or even earlier had pretty
straightforward circuitry so much so that I managed to convert a 1960's
era 405 line set to 625 lines and it worked very well.

Course these days a few chipset's and well, what can you do with
those?...




Reprogram them, put a different OS on, change the jumpers, quite a lot
if you want on most modern sets.


Can you give us an example as to say how you'd change the sound
intercarrier ?...

Or the vision modulation demodulation?..

Would you give an example of which chipset you need instructions for.
You could always choose one with a DSP that you know how to use so you
needn't ask questions that you aren't going to get an answer to.
Who knows? you may even be able to emulate a service remote and change
them to what you want with ease.






However its not really worth it as you can probably buy something that
does what you want for peanuts.

Well what would be the point of that ?..


What would be the point of not doing so if you want a particular function?

On 08/01/2013 19:19, polygonum wrote:

Last puncture (more like a complete shredding) was on a *very* steep
hill, an extremely narrow road, and nowhere an ordinary jack could be
located (ground unsuitable and car too heavy to move). So having a spare
wheel only became useful when a recovery service came out with a
suitable jack. 10 or 20 minutes was actually more like an hour or two.


Tyre shredded too much to drive to somewhere suitable?

My last puncture was in the roadworks on the M6 in rush hour.
I just decided it wasn't worth trying to save the tyre and drove to the
end where I could get on the hard shoulder and then got the AA to change
it.

I think the hundreds of motorists that i saved from an hours delay
should have bought me a new tyre. ;-)

dennis@home wrote:
On 08/01/2013 19:19, polygonum wrote:

Last puncture (more like a complete shredding) was on a *very* steep
hill, an extremely narrow road, and nowhere an ordinary jack could
be located (ground unsuitable and car too heavy to move). So having
a spare wheel only became useful when a recovery service came out
with a suitable jack. 10 or 20 minutes was actually more like an
hour or two.

Tyre shredded too much to drive to somewhere suitable?

My last puncture was in the roadworks on the M6 in rush hour.
I just decided it wasn't worth trying to save the tyre and drove to
the end where I could get on the hard shoulder and then got the AA to
change it.

I think the hundreds of motorists that i saved from an hours delay
should have bought me a new tyre. ;-)

How much are you paying for the tyres for your Astra?

--
Adam

On 08/01/2013 20:14, dennis@home wrote:
On 08/01/2013 19:19, polygonum wrote:

Last puncture (more like a complete shredding) was on a *very* steep
hill, an extremely narrow road, and nowhere an ordinary jack could be
located (ground unsuitable and car too heavy to move). So having a spare
wheel only became useful when a recovery service came out with a
suitable jack. 10 or 20 minutes was actually more like an hour or two.


Tyre shredded too much to drive to somewhere suitable?

My last puncture was in the roadworks on the M6 in rush hour.
I just decided it wasn't worth trying to save the tyre and drove to the
end where I could get on the hard shoulder and then got the AA to change
it.

I think the hundreds of motorists that i saved from an hours delay
should have bought me a new tyre. ;-)

Sorry - didn't explain sufficiently. Shredded as in totally shredded.
Ribbons of tyre wall between tread and wheel rim. It had ripped against
sharp rocks. And on a very steep hill so that the idea of trying to even
roll gently was dangerous.

(No - I was not the one driving at the time.)

--
Rod

On 07/01/2013 23:51, Tim Watts wrote:
Yep...

I wonder if in part, everything is now too complicated?

In 1970, you could open your car bonnet and identify everything - and the
choices when something went wrong were limited.

OK - TV's have always been specialist - but most other machinery was pretty
simple.

In 1970 you _had_ to be able to open your car bonnet and identify
everything because it _would_ break down. I used to carry a toolbox in
my first car, this one... well, I once had to get a jump-start, followed
swiftly (that day) by a new battery.

I've also spent nearly an an hour twice by the motorway because the
engine said "fault" and turned off. No clues. Nothing. Except by the
time the AA had turned up after 59.9999 minutes it was working fine.
Twice. In one evening. At least I missed the 2am fire alarm at the hotel
I was going to

Andy

In message om, brass
monkey writes

"Arfa Daily" wrote in message
...


"geoff" wrote in message
...
In message , Tim Watts
writes
On Monday 07 January 2013 21:30 geoff wrote in uk.d-i-y:

In message , Brian Gaff
writes
Well if he can raise the bar, but at the moment I feel that the bar has
not left the ground yet. Mind you I'm flabbergasted by the lack of
knowledge in average people of under 30 years. IE not knowing that
planets
and stars are different or which planets are gaseous and which rocky
and
which have no atmosphere etc.
Also not understanding the rudiments of how electricity works and how
transformers work. There are very simple books on these concepts and we
were taught them as a matter of course.

I see little desire to "find out", no sense of discovery, a lack of
wonderment how and why

we're becoming a nation of hairdressers


Yep...

I wonder if in part, everything is now too complicated?

In 1970, you could open your car bonnet and identify everything - and the
choices when something went wrong were limited.

OK - TV's have always been specialist - but most other machinery was
pretty
simple.


Most people don't even make any attempt to grasp the rudiments of
anything vaguely technical or ... anything at all really

Other than me and the missus, I can't think of anyone else in our
immediate family, who would have the vaguest notion how to put the spare
wheel onto their car. I would be surprised if they actually knew where to
find it, or the jack and tools even ...

WTF is a spare wheel?


Its the one you didn't know you haven't got until that time you actually
need it

--
geoff

On 08/01/2013 15:54, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 08/01/13 15:45, charles wrote:
In article , Muddymike
wrote:
"whisky-dave" wrote in message
...

On Tuesday, January 8, 2013 10:48:59 AM UTC, Tim Watts wrote:
On Tuesday 08 January 2013 01:54 brass monkey wrote in uk.d-i-y:





WTF is a spare wheel?



A useful thing cars used to have...

But just how useful, sure on cars where it was needed but on todays
cars. Do you remmeber the days when you had to have someone walk in
front of your car carry/waving a flag. They were necessary too in them
days. ;-)



So what do you do when you get a puncture miles from anywhere with no
mobile telephone signal?

Wait for someone to pass by. But seriously, how often have you had a
puncture in the last few years? In the 60s, I used to have them
regularly.
My current car - 11 years old - has only needed me to fit the spare
once
in 114,000 miles.

Only tow time sin the last ten years were a potho9le - only a mile from
home, drive it ion the flat. Wheel was destroyed anyway.

Then a 'Green' couple stuck a knife in the sidewall of the land rover.

Had to change the wheel and get a new one fitted.

That is essentially it.

few slow punctures - that's the pint - a tubeless tyre with a nail in it
doesn't go down instantly. It takes a knife or a pothole to do that.

Time to get it pumped up and take to the nearest tyre fitter.

There are plenty of potholes!

I have also been driving or a passenger in cars (with tubeless tyres)
when all of the following have happened: had a tyre wrecked by hitting a
dark hose off a tanker, with a nice metal end; driven over the remains
of an entire box of nails that had fallen off a truck (luckily
puncturing one rear tyre badly and missing the other three, plus the two
caravan tyres - especially as we were hurrying back for a ferry home);
had a blowout on the motorway; come back to the car miles from home at
two in the morning and found a flat tyre with a large bolt through it;
similarly with a screw at home when setting out for work. In all cases a
quick wheel change with no more than 15 minutes delay - at least half
would not be "fixable" with the modern foam emergency repair, causing
unnecessary delay, frustration and extra cost (missed ferry, late for
work, etc.)

The modern trend for no spare is very poor.

SteveW

On 07/01/2013 09:32, Brian Gaff wrote:
When did you go to school though. My education was in the fifties and 60s.
We did science properly when you really could burn yourself and blow up the
labs..
Brian

We had plenty of explosions, fires and on one memorable occasion a
lesson in the Junior Chemistry Lab, which was connected to the Advanced
Chemistry Lab by the Prep Room - the upper sixth were doing a
distillation in the other lab ... of tear gas!!!

We also had physics lessons where one pupil would be working on a water
experiment right next to someone using a cathode ray tube, connected to
(IIRC) 3500V, using reversed banana plugs, pushed onto the protuding
pins of the tube.

We also got to do proper woodwork, metalwork and machining - making our
own patterns, moulds, castings and then machining them on lathes,
millers, shapers and surface grinders.

SteveW

On 07/01/2013 10:13, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Brian Gaff wrote:
Unlike Maplin they had people who
know their stuff

It would depend on branch, but when Maplin were mainly a hobby electronics
place, my local one had very good staff.

Good staff, good stock and reasonable prices - but all that has been
gone for many years. Still good for a wander round while the wife is in
the nearby Sainsburys though.

SteveW

In article
,
harry wrote:
On Jan 8, 3:50 pm, Grimly Curmudgeon wrote:
On Mon, 7 Jan 2013 23:31:11 -0800 (PST), harry

wrote:
At one time you had to carry many tires and tyre levers.
I expect these people thought the end of the world was nigh when spare
wheels were invented.

If you're going to try to make a point, at least make sure the point
actually exists.

In days of yore, tyres were so poor that most cars carried several
spare tyres plus of course a chauffeur to change them.

The chauffeur's job was to heat the engine before the owner wanted to use
to ensure it started. It's a French word, btw.

--
From KT24

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.18

On Tue, 8 Jan 2013 11:02:41 -0800 (PST), harry
wrote:


At one time you had to carry many tires and tyre levers.
I expect these people thought the end of the world was nigh when spare
wheels were invented.

If you're going to try to make a point, at least make sure the point
actually exists.

In days of yore, tyres were so poor that most cars carried several
spare tyres plus of course a chauffeur to change them.
Once again,your ignorance shows.



A lot of modern tyres wouldn't fare very well on Edwardian roads
either. The amount of horse traffic about meant the roads were
littered with nails thrown from horseshoes as they wore.
couple that with road surfaces that were not as well sealed as most
roads today that gave refuge for all those nails to lurk its not
surprising there were frequent punctures.
Same thing happens today when untidy tradesman allow the contents of
boxes of nails ,cable clips,screws etc to accumulate on the load beds
of their vans where they percolate through the damaged seals of the
distorted back doors. One untidy ******* can damage a string of cars
in his wake.

G.Harman

On Tue, 08 Jan 2013 16:01:51 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

In article ,
Jethro_uk wrote:
That .. Ought to be part of the driving test. A simple job that every
driver, unless of course physically disabled from doing so, should have
that competency......

Personally, I think a requirement of using a motorway should be having
tow-off cover in case of breakdown.

IIRC, no need. If you use one of the phones, the operator will arrange it
for you.
Unless you have an immediate solution like a recovery service or your
favourite garage can get you off in a reasonable time don't you just
get removed to the nearest place of safety? Which could be the nearest
service area ,from which it can be expensive to be towed further from
as they won't let any old Tom Dick and Harry to access the compound
plus parking charges.

G.Harman

On 08/01/13 23:51, charles wrote:
In article
,
harry wrote:
On Jan 8, 3:50 pm, Grimly Curmudgeon wrote:
On Mon, 7 Jan 2013 23:31:11 -0800 (PST), harry

wrote:
At one time you had to carry many tires and tyre levers.
I expect these people thought the end of the world was nigh when spare
wheels were invented.

If you're going to try to make a point, at least make sure the point
actually exists.

In days of yore, tyres were so poor that most cars carried several
spare tyres plus of course a chauffeur to change them.

The chauffeur's job was to heat the engine before the owner wanted to use
to ensure it started. It's a French word, btw.

I thought his job was to light the fire. And get the steam up.. :-)


--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

"brass monkey" wrote in message
eb.com...

"Arfa Daily" wrote in message
...


"Huge" wrote in message
...
On 2013-01-07, geoff wrote:
In message , tim.....
writes

"Brian Gaff" wrote in message
...
That Irish guy, if you mean Science club. I watched the first one and
thought, a bit infantile this, and watched the second one and it was
even more rubbishy. Surely there is more knowledge out there than
what he spouts. Its like going back to the Junior school.

Oh, I quite liked it

The truth of the matter is that we have a country that is so dumbed
down
that he has to aim at the lowest common denominator and people seem
embarrassed at any display of scientific knowledge or intelligence.
Dara
seems to be someone who is bucking the trend - good luck to him

Quite. I suspect the agenda of the show is to try and show that science
isn't as geeky as most of the public think.



But they already had a good show in that respect. It was called
Tomorrow's World (I was on it once .... )

Arfa

Selling burgers?



Nope. That's the missus's business ! I only get roped in on the building and
maintenance side of things.

At the time, I was employed as an engineer for an American company that
built very high end computer graphics engines, used mainly for CAD purposes
to design aircraft and so on. Back in the days of VAXs and PDP11s :-)

We had this bit of kit called 'Spacegraph' that produced a true
'holographic' 3D image that floated in space in front of your face. It was a
truly remarkable system, but was very expensive, and was a solution looking
for a problem, really. One of the sales guys had a contact at the Beeb, and
he got it on Tomorrow's World, hoping it would generate some interest, but
other than academic, it didn't. As far as I know, the sales demo unit was
eventually sold off cheap to some university in the UK, but I can't remember
which one. I seem to recall that there was some NASA project to radar-map
the surface of Venus from one of the Voyagers or some other sat at the time,
and that this university was involved. They were hoping to use the
Spacegraph for the visual output of the processed data. Soon after that, the
UK arm of the company was absorbed into our head to head competitors as part
of a reverse technology deal, and we all left and let them get on with it.
It would be a shame to think that Spacegraph was broken up for scrap in the
end. I like to think that it's sitting quietly in a university cellar
somewhere, waiting to be re-discovered ...

Arfa

"harry" wrote in message
...
On Jan 8, 1:45 am, "Arfa Daily" wrote:
"geoff" wrote in message

...









In message , Tim Watts
writes
On Monday 07 January 2013 21:30 geoff wrote in uk.d-i-y:

In message , Brian Gaff
writes
Well if he can raise the bar, but at the moment I feel that the bar
has
not left the ground yet. Mind you I'm flabbergasted by the lack of
knowledge in average people of under 30 years. IE not knowing that
planets
and stars are different or which planets are gaseous and which rocky
and
which have no atmosphere etc.
Also not understanding the rudiments of how electricity works and
how
transformers work. There are very simple books on these concepts and
we
were taught them as a matter of course.

I see little desire to "find out", no sense of discovery, a lack of
wonderment how and why

we're becoming a nation of hairdressers

Yep...

I wonder if in part, everything is now too complicated?

In 1970, you could open your car bonnet and identify everything - and
the
choices when something went wrong were limited.

OK - TV's have always been specialist - but most other machinery was
pretty
simple.

Most people don't even make any attempt to grasp the rudiments of
anything
vaguely technical or ... anything at all really

Other than me and the missus, I can't think of anyone else in our
immediate
family, who would have the vaguest notion how to put the spare wheel onto
their car. I would be surprised if they actually knew where to find it,
or
the jack and tools even ...

Arfa



You are getting old.
The reason is that many cars now don't have one.

At one time you had to carry many tires and tyre levers.
I expect these people thought the end of the world was nigh when spare
wheels were invented.



My Focus has one, and so does the missus's Landy ( You can't miss that one -
it's fixed to the back door, although finding all the bits to the jack is a
bit of a puzzle if you don't know ... )

Arfa

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
On 07/01/13 23:51, Tim Watts wrote:
On Monday 07 January 2013 21:30 geoff wrote in uk.d-i-y:

In message , Brian Gaff
writes
Well if he can raise the bar, but at the moment I feel that the bar has
not left the ground yet. Mind you I'm flabbergasted by the lack of
knowledge in average people of under 30 years. IE not knowing that
planets
and stars are different or which planets are gaseous and which rocky
and
which have no atmosphere etc.
Also not understanding the rudiments of how electricity works and how
transformers work. There are very simple books on these concepts and we
were taught them as a matter of course.

I see little desire to "find out", no sense of discovery, a lack of
wonderment how and why

we're becoming a nation of hairdressers


Yep...

I wonder if in part, everything is now too complicated?

In 1970, you could open your car bonnet and identify everything - and the
choices when something went wrong were limited.

OK - TV's have always been specialist - but most other machinery was
pretty
simple.

I dont think TVs were THAT specialist when they were full o' valves

--

I think they were. There were a lot of bottle-swappers out in the field, but
not that many of us that were properly qualified to diagnose and repair the
things to component level on the bench. I worked for a large rental company
with many engineers, and I don't think that there was above about three of
us that were proper time-served engineers that truly understood the vagaries
of timebases and video output stages and sync separators etc ..

Arfa

On Jan 8, 7:03*pm, "Dave Liquorice"
wrote:
On Tue, 8 Jan 2013 07:10:23 -0800 (PST), whisky-dave wrote:
That .. Ought to be part of the driving test. A simple job that every
driver, unless of course physically disabled from doing so, should
have that competency......

I can't agree with that, far too risky to have someone try to replace a
car wheel perhaps 5 years after they've past their test, and onn a
differnt car fromn their test car.

Less risky than someone passing their test at 17 and not having any
further questions asked about their competancy to drive until they are
70? And during those 53 years be able to hop skip and jump between any
number of vehicles, vehicles from 600cc 0-60 in 30 minuets to 6000cc 0-60
in 3 seconds...

I thought the modern test did include some very basic maintenace like
where the washer fluid filler is, checking bulbs and tyre wear/damage. I
passed my test 36 years ago, maintenance wasn't part of the test back
then.

--
Funnily enough I picked up an AA book about the driving test/highway
code from the library yesterday.
I haven't looked at a highway code book for fifty years.

The new "theory test" has nothing about the mechanics of cars, not
even the spare wheel.

Mostly about imaginary situations/(potential) hazards you might
encounter and the highway code. There's a bit about what the various
red lights on the dashboard mean..