I previously did a video on a typewriter working as a printer and in researching that I found that there were IBM Wheelwriters with a printer option. I managed to get my hands on one despite them being extremely rare!
It's actually a bit of a mixed bag though because at it's absolute best, the fastest it can print is only 16 characters per second. Way too slow to have been reasonable.
I mentioned that I had written out a more in depth part to go with the ST video and I've got it finished and published here: https://techtangents.net/2021/07/23/first-contact-the-atari-sts-surprisingly-numerous-faults/
This is something I really need to do more often because it is great to be able to get all of my thoughts on a subject somewhere people c...
Here is the floppy drive repair for the Atari ST as a separate video. This has a new intro and outro as well as some new footage from opening the drive but is otherwise mostly the same as what was in the long version.
This should be the final version of this video barring any issues with it. I massively trimmed this one down and only used about 14m of the original video as is and decided to pull out the floppy drive repair as a separate video to come later. I replaced the majority of the end with a scripted VO segment instead of the long rambling I did originally. There is also now a written component that I'll be publishing on my blog that I'll link when I can that goes into a little more detail on the is...
2021-07-21 02:13:58 +0000 UTC View Post
After searching for at least six years I finally managed to get my hands on an Atari ST! When making this video I was really excited and had a particular idea of how I wanted to make it, but a number of things worked against that. This is a non-final version of the video that is the "full picture" I originally envisioned and how it didn't go as expected.
-- Minor Spoliers Break --
I'm going to be considerably chopping this video up to make a more concise version because this rea...
This is a device I've been trying to get my hands on for years! I finally had the stars align for me to get one for a great price and I am elated to finally have one! It needed a little bit of work that ended up being nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be.
On the whole this printer isn't all that special, it's more the combination of it's features that really draws me to it. It fascinates me to see a printer of this vintage using inkjet to print but built as a dot-matrix device....
I've been trying to get this one done for nearly a week now but have had a ton of technical issues. But I wanted to get an update video made on how I am and upcoming projects, I am back to filming regular videos now!
2021-07-03 16:20:05 +0000 UTC View Post
Here's my first crack at a simpler video to produce for right now. I'm fairly happy with how it turned out and I actually had some good fun with this one because I've enjoyed looking at this catalog a number of times myself.
Now that I've done this once I have a better idea of what this kind of setup would be good for. I have some other ideas I might give a shot like this. It was so easy to film like this that it was no stress at all. I might actually want to try making a more permanen...
Earlier this week I woke up with severe pain and had to go to the ER, I won't get into what exactly happened but the results weren't definitive. I'm not currently in pain, but it's only because I have an idea of what has happened now and how to avoid it. But need to see a specialist for more answers. That is complicated by me needing to sign up for health insurance now(which I don't get from YT) so I'm waiting for more on that before making any further appointments.
I shouldn't really ...
Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxbcIZfe3x0
Woah! It's actually a part 2 to something! I kid but I' know I'm not very good about getting around to those. This was one I really wanted to get done as soon as possible and I'm posting this immediately after it finished uploading.
This is the video I really wanted to make with this computer. It's so cool and has a few impressive features f...
Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PcWXyiqF40
Here is the final version of the video that I just released. Thanks for the feedback on the last one! I added a couple of things to this one from that.
Video Link: https://youtu.be/OhCZwq6ixCA
I picked up this Sony Vaio Slimtop recently and wanted to get it going. I wasn't really planning on making this a two part video, but there was a lot more to get done on this computer than I thought and it would have been too much to all do in one video. I'm really looking forward to part two where I can really get into what is awesome with this computer though. This long versi...
Video: https://youtu.be/nAwwhFipVWQ
I couldn't leave well enough alone and bought a fan controller for my server. I was just going to deal with it, but I sunk so much money into the fans and was so close to having a silent server that I just had to try. And it turned out it was a good thing I did because I am extremely happy with the results!
This should conclude my server saga for a while. I need to s...
This was another one of those projects that didn't really go as I planned. I was sent a replacement motherboard for my server and took the opportunity I would have to easily get to everything in the case to replace the fans that are failing. I tried to make it completely silent with all noctua fans, which were extremely quiet at reasonable speeds, but the now fully working motherboard gave me a challenge I could not overcome in getting the fans to do what I want.
There is a minor issue...
I didn't have a chance to give everyone here early access to this one so I apologize. I was working as quickly as I could to get this one done and released on a Friday.
The videos I've been putting more time into are taking longer than I planned so I decided to get a quick project done I've been wanting to do for a few weeks now. It was just a small thing of replacing the drives in my Tiny Pentium, but I thought it could be interesting to compare the SD and HDD in it with the CF cards ...
I posted about this one a while ago and mentioned in the update but the boards are here now and totally work!
I'm currently working on a video about ripping CDs which is...not...what I said I was going to be doing. But it's a convoluted extension of the SCSI emulator video and another project I've been trying to get all the parts together for running on 2yrs now. The actual work for that project is done and I'm now writing the script to go over everything on video. It's going to be a g...
I wanted to just record something quick to give some updates on where some of my current projects are at. I've got a few things in progress but little things keep popping up and slowing me down. I should be able to get something out soon, I may just have o cut back my plans a bit on making a bigger video next so I can get something finished.
UPDATE:
The server drives are sorted out now. The TL:DR version is to wipe the superblock of drives in an mdadm array. And the 4 drives I could...
I stayed up until just about 2am to catch it as it rolled over so I'm pretty tired as I type this but,
thank you all so much.
This last week has been a bit of a whirlwind of projects. I had buckled down and got a lot of testing done on the SCSI2SD review. But after some last minute developments, that video is actually getting expanded as a comparison between the SCSI2SD and MacSD. The MacSD was something I found out about while researching the SCSI2SD more and I'm being sent one from the designer for the video now. They're being extremely helpful with it and have already been making some updates to their firmware ba...
2021-03-25 01:57:09 +0000 UTC View Post
Almost every video I do with CRTs in them I get questions about why my hands or other things in front of them seem to "glow" and I figured it would just be easiest to make one video that explains the whole process.
I have to color correct CRTs in every single shot they are in because bright filming lights unfairly wash them out. The side effect of this is that anything in front of them also gets adjusted. I go over this whole process in the video but it's pretty much unavoidable unless...
I finished up the video about my test bench! It started out with 4hrs of footage and I tried to cut it down to only what was really needed because there was a lot of experimentation in the build process for this.
It came out way better than I thought it would, it was just a lot of work to get it together. I started on it in February...but it was worth it. This is going to be such a huge help going forward.
I'm posting this right after I get it done so I need to finish up a few t...
The thing I mentioned would be coming soon in the last sneak peek and oh man I don't know if I've ever been more excited for something. This is the first CD-ROM drive released to consumers a Philips CM-100. I still need to get a few things so I can use it but as soon as I am physically able to, I'm going to be making a full video about this thing because it's just so awesome!
I also want to say thank you because this is now the second most expensive vintage computer part I've ever boug...
I bought this PSU a while ago and got talking about it with some people who I would have thought would have known they exist but they seem to have slipped under the radar for some vintage computer enthusiasts. So I thought I would take a quick look at it and talk about how I've used it.
I'm going to release this at the same time as the test bench video but figured you might want to see it early.
I thought I would try something a little different here for supporters and give a little update on something I've been working on. This is a test bench I'm building for old computer parts, it's started out as an ATX style kit but I wanted to heavily modify it to suit my needs so it's been a slower process to build it as I've been changing parts out and waiting for new ones to be delivered. It's just about done now as far as the bench itself goes but I need to do a final assembly with it still...
2021-03-14 02:13:39 +0000 UTC View Post
This video is the epitome of things not going how I expected. I have been working on the second part of the SCSI2SD stuff, but realized that was going to take a while and was feeling like I was on a bit of a roll with videos and wanted to keep up the pace. So I thought I would record a quick mail video comparing two calculators I was sent. But I forgot one of them was from the UK. So I figured, "Oh good, I'll just swap out the power cable on the Step Up/Down Transformer I bought last year and...
2021-03-10 13:19:18 +0000 UTC View Post
I really appreciate all the feedback and suggestions I got on the poll. It helped me decide how to finish this one. I know most of the votes were for one long video, but I remembered I have a second channel so I decided to do something between that and the second most popular option. So I split the video into two halves, the first part is all about building the drive enclosure. The second part (called part 1.5) is my raw testing and next I'll do a proper part 2 on using and demonstrating it.<...
2021-02-25 23:06:45 +0000 UTC View PostAlright, I could really use some feedback. I'm at a fork in the road on this SCSI2SD video I posted. I tried shortening it a lot but the way this video flowed isn't working well for that. I'm afraid it will be almost as much work to do that as it would be to make a whole new video again on the same thing.
Like I said in the other post, I don't think this video is "bad" it's just long and meanders a lot. I like the part about building the enclosure, I think it came out well and people m...
Hello, I have some broader stuff I want to talk about first. Sorry for the production delays again...I had some less than ideal luck on projects this month. I got a 21" VGA Trinitron CRT I thought I could repair and it turned out to have some crazy management computer stuff in it that you can't just fix with effort and tenacity like I was hoping. I also tried again to fully learn how to connect obscure terminals to linux and made a huge amount of progress on setting them up, only to find out ...
2021-02-20 14:45:56 +0000 UTC View Post
I've been meaning to do a supporter update video for a while now, so here's a near hour long ramble on some things I've been meaning to talk about.
Mentioned Links:
Y2K Tape: https://archive.org/details/vortex-2000-the-millennium-bug-resource-guide
Star Trek Adventure Tape:
2021-01-25 23:49:21 +0000 UTC
View Post
Whew, this one ran into a couple of additional hurdles to get finished but I think it came out well in the end.
I don't know how much I want to give away on this video because I was extremely surprised and happy with everything about this.