Enoch’s Thoughts

February 8, 2012

Fancy Fridge

Filed under: Uncategorized — etblog @ 10:00 am

When we moved into our newly-acquired House At The Lake (official name still under discussion) we were initially pleased that it featured a Sub-Zero refrigerator in the kitchen. My spouse liked the way it looked, and I’m a sucker for clever engineering. Let me esplain.

Most residential reefers share a single compressor and thermostat for refrigeration and freezing purposes. A single thermostat controls the temperature in the freezer, and a moveable flap determines how much of the cold air leaks into the refrigerator section. The “freezer” knob controls the thermostat, and the “refrigerator” knob moves the flap. There is obviously unpredictable thermal interaction between the two, which sometimes leads to confusion and mis-diagnoses, but the design is cost-efficient, and works well enough for the vast majority of refrigerator-equipped homes in the world.

Looks like a cabinet, eh?


Sub-Zeros, which are built into the overall kitchen cabinet decor, utilize a two-compressor design, one compressor and thermostat for the freezer section, and a separate compressor and thermostat for the refrigerator section. In addition, they are tightly sealed, making them highly efficient. I don’t know that I would have ever chosen to purchase one by itself, but between the built-in look and the quality reputation, I can see why a family building a nice, new kitchen might opt for one.

After a fairly short time, however, we discovered that there were a few “areas for improvement” with our refrigerator.

Opening it

The ability to open one’s refrigerator is not an outlandish expectation. However, at least for ours, that was initially a challenge. The combination of the tight seal, and the cabinet-like design, meant that, for normal mortals, eight fingers on both hands were required.

Normal Mortal opening door the old way

I personally could open it with one hand, but I am a near-professional bass player, and you should not try this at home.

I spent a few days mentally exploring options. First, I made sure that there were no magic tricks, hidden levers, or tapped holes indicating a missing handle. The user’s manual gave no hints. I contemplated the construction of a handle, first from aluminum, next from ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene (one of my favorite problem-solvers from my Superior Steel Fabricators days), but decided that whatever I built might tear the door molding off, or spoil the seal. And it would most likely, despite my best efforts, be ugly. I have seen some of my work.

Normal Mortal using rope


So I finally turned to my narrow, yet shallow, nautical lore, and decided to try a rope. Yep. Sounds horrid, doesn’t it. But at least I got a white rope, to match the decor. Initially I used nylon, because I actually had some white nylon rope of the right diameter. Nylon rope is nice on the hands, but it eventually stretches and requires re-tightening. So after a few months, I bought some white polypropylene, and it has served us well. The way the door molding is designed, the rope fits right into the groove, and, if tied correctly, stays in place.

Rope in groove


A friend of the previous owners (Ed and Wendy) visited our house not long after I installed the rope. Obviously very familiar with the problem, he laughed out loud when saw my solution, and insisted on sending Ed a photo.

So now we can get into the refrigerator with just one hand. Then we discovered one or two additional problems. Maybe three.

Chill, dude

There was a definite temperature differential between the lower shelves and the upper shelves of the refrigerator. Not only did a thermometer show it, you could tell when you picked up a quart of milk, or drank a bottle of whatever.

Symptom two was the fact that items in the lowest drawers froze solid, which is not the recommended state for lettuce. If we raised the temperature setting enough to prevent freezing, objects on the top shelf began to come back to life. Not a recommended state for food.

Finally, over the first few months of using the refrigerator, but unbeknownst to us, an iceberg gradually formed behind the drawers on the bottom shelf, to the point that the shelves wouldn’t close, which is when we finally noticed it. It took about twenty minutes with a hair dryer to loosen the ‘berg into big chunks I could remove. After another few months, it happened again. Another iceberg, another twenty minutes. Ed admitted they had suffered from the same problem.

At this point I was tempted to just replace the refrigerator. But it fit so snugly into the kitchen cabinetry. And they ain’t givin’ ’em away, either. Back to the drawing, er, thinking, board.

As far as I could tell, the refrigerator was working as designed. The water for the iceberg could only have been condensation, since the freezer and ice maker were below the refrigerator, and it was too much to attribute to spillage.

I looked at some service call notes in the stack of house information and manuals Ed had left (thank you, Ed), and at multiple variations of Sub-Zero circuit diagrams (thank you, Internet).

Circuit Diagram - note fan

I finally concluded that the problem was the clever design. There is a small circulating fan under the cooling coils at the top of the refrigerator section, which runs when the compressor is on. Unfortunately, due to the efficient seal and separate compressor design, the compressor just doesn’t run very much. Which means the less-cool air in the refrigerator rises to the top, while the thermostat sensor chilling out at the bottom of the compartment still thinks all is well. And water that condenses on the sides, runs down to eventually form an iceberg on, and around, the drip lip on the back panel.

Clearly some circulation was needed. I mused about various solutions, including a wind-up fan, or a battery-operated fan. But eventually I came back to the Sub-Zero circuit diagrams. Some of the later diagrams show the little fan at the top running all the time, not just when the compressor runs.

Wouldn't win a beauty contest - but it works!


I estimated the additional cost of electricity due to increased fan operation, and added in a possible replacement cost for the fan down the road. The answer was still less than the value of the milk we would throw out in a year. Not to mention the cost of running a hair dryer for twenty minutes every few months, with the refrigerator door wide open.

So after a jury-rigged test run, I re-wired the harness near the door switch with a “y-assembly” of 16-gauge wire and crimp-on connectors.

The result

So far, so good. The top-shelf stuff feels cooler, lasts longer, and the thermometer shows the temperature in the correct range most of the time.

Oh, come on, it's not THAT bad.


We can still open the door, and nobody makes fun of the rope, especially if I threaten to remove it.

And there is no hint of an iceberg forming yet.

If I had no shame, I might call it a Titanic achievement. Which, apparently, I don’t.

January 24, 2012

Hank, Part 1

Filed under: Uncategorized — etblog @ 8:00 pm

Background

With the support and encouragement of my parents, I built a crystal radio from a kit when I was 10. At the age of 12, I built a tuner and amplifier, followed by a Heathkit electronic organ when I was 14, both also kits, so I knew how to solder. As a teen, I helped my church youth choir put together a “portable” sound system from an old 2-channel Bogen tube PA amp, so I knew a little about sound gear. After four years at Georgia Tech, I was beginning to get some self-confidence. As part of my degree program, I took an Educational Technology class from Pete Jensen that included sound recording as part of a lab assignment. But when I got to the lab, nothing worked, so I found a soldering iron, re-soldered some connectors, re-connected some cables, and then completed the assignment. Later I saw Pete, told him what I had done, and said I hoped he didn’t mind. He said, “You want a job?”

At the time, I had a student job, which supposedly consisted of cleaning up the Physics department machine shop. I mostly played with the lathes and milling machines, which was educational and fun for me, but not so productive for the shop. After few minutes of reflection on Pete’s offer, I realized this could be a win-win-win, so I took the job.

A couple of days into the job, Pete took me over to the Engineering Experiment Station around 3:30 in the afternoon to meet Hank – 3:30 because of Hank’s unorthodox schedule. He usually arrived at work between 2 and 3 PM, when he would check his mailbox, chat with co-workers, and maybe do a little work of some sort until 5 or 6, then head home. At home, he would have supper with Barbara and their three girls, then go out to his workshop and work until the wee hours of the morning, partly on Georgia Tech stuff, and partly on his own projects.

On his way to bed as the sun was rising, he would often meet wife Barbara as she was getting up to get their three girls ready for school. I was single and naive, and I thought that they had a perfect marriage. Both of them were clever people, and they seemed to get along really well. I thought he and Barbara understood each other. It was only when things started to unravel that I began to understand how hard it must be to try to sustain a marriage with that sort of schedule.

Shop work

His shop was a concrete block building behind their small house near Grant Park, which I suppose was a one-car garage at one time. The shop had a couple of large industrial racks reaching to the ceiling on either side, and an electronics workbench at one end. He had a television mounted overhead, and a stereo system with big, high-quality speakers he had built. He would work through the night, either with music playing, or watching classic movies on Ted Turner’s upstart cable channel.

Hank hated the loud, obnoxious commercials that made money for Ted during the movies. One day he realized that the movies were all black and white, while the commercials were all in (garish) color. He quickly built a circuit that could detect the presence of the chroma burst required for color pictures, and, when it detected the chroma burst, would kill the audio. He bolted it to the bottom of the TV and turned it on. The audio played normally while the black and white movies were playing, but as soon as a commercial came on, the sound went completely dead.

After a few days of my visiting the house, eating dinner with Barbara and the girls, and hanging around the shop, Hank finally put me to work. Depending on the time of year, I would either work on televisions or air conditioners. He would pick up abandoned stuff from trash piles, bring it home to fix, and then sell it for bargain prices.

Fixing air conditioners usually consisted of cleaning them up with a hose and a brush, then, after they were dry, troubleshooting the control circuit. I don’t remember ever replacing a compressor, or recharging a unit (although he may have done that), but I do remember changing quite a few thermostats and control pushbutton assemblies.

Fixing televisions usually consisted of replacing either the picture tube or the flyback transformer. He taught me early on how to ground the high-voltage lead of the picture tube to make sure there was no stray voltage lurking around. Because I already knew how to solder, replacing flybacks was easy. And replacing picture tubes was even easier, except for the danger of dropping the tube and causing an implosion. Fortunately, I never imploded a picture tube.

One night we had repaired a rather disheveled television in a veneer cabinet. (Remember when televisions were made like pieces of furniture?) Anyway, this television, which was already unlikely to bring top dollar, was missing one critical component: an on-off switch. Hank pawed through several boxes of leftover electrical and electronic hardware looking for something that would work. All of a sudden, he flashed a familiar, lop-sided grin, and he pulled out a switch intended for a tall stairwell or closet light. It had a pull-chain extended by a six-foot-long string. We installed it and wired it in, and he said, “There – a remote control.”

Engine work

I can’t remember how long I had been hanging around Hank and his shop, but eventually I needed to rebuild the engine on my GMC pickup. My Dad bought it for me new in 1971 in exchange for my painting the house and doing other miscellaneous repair work around home. If I remember right, the truck cost $2,100, and came complete with a 307 V8, 3-speed manual transmission, a heater, and front disk brakes. There was even a warning sticker on the tailgate, notifying any tailgaters that this truck was equipped with Disk Brakes, so watch out!

The truck had a slow oil leak that I didn’t discover until I was driving back to Atlanta from Athens one night. A few more years of occasionally running low on oil eventually took their toll, and somewhere around 80,000 miles, circa 1975, the oil pressure was low enough that I needed to rebuild it. So naturally, I took it to Hank’s. I pulled and rebuilt the engine with his oversight and his tools, which he was glad to lend me as long as they were cleaned and replaced every night. I can’t remember how I got around during the rebuilding, but I suspect it involved Hank fairly often.

It’s probably worth mentioning that I had been working on cars since before I could drive. My Dad showed me how to change the oil and lubricate the steering and suspension on our Chevys. Eventually, under his guidance, I moved up to re-packing front wheel bearings, and replacing brake shoes.

In 1970, my friend Dyches and I bought a 1964 Austin-Healey Sprite from a desperate student. The car had been sitting on the side of the road in Atlanta since Thanksgiving, and by this time it was nearly Christmas. The student happily took $50 for the car. Dyches and I pulled it back to the Physics shop with his Oldsmobile and a tow rope, and we got it running without buying any parts. After a few months, I bought out Dyches’ half. I learned a lot about auto repair with that car. Trial and error, mostly error.

So I was more than ready to learn from Hank when the opportunity arose.

Why?

Around this same time, a friend gave me the classic Robert Pirsig book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It really resonated with Hank’s view of the world as he had expressed it to me over pecan waffles during midnight runs to the Waffle House. The book weaves multiple threads, including the nature of quality (an important topic for Hank), the demons of psychosis, and, yes, the joy of motorcycle riding and maintenance. I re-read it a few years ago, and was surprised to see how much of my current world view is still consistent with Pirsig’s book.

Since Hank’s death many years ago, I have occasionally mused about the nature of our relationship. It was certainly a friendship. And he was a very significant mentor in a wide variety of technical areas. I don’t think he was a father figure to me, because I already had the best possible father figure, in the person of my actual father. Finally, I wondered if the reverse might be true – that I was a “son figure” to Hank. I guess that makes as much sense as any other theory.

A couple of years ago, I started trying to document what I could remember about his life, not necessarily to encourage anyone to emulate him, although there was much good in his life. I guess it was mostly because, of all the people who have had a positive effect on my life, he is definitely near the top of the list. Like many of us, he lived a quiet life, and, because of his family situation, much of what he did and said remains unrecorded, even unremembered. Thanks to the internet, I can perhaps change that in my own modest way.

In the next Hank posting, I’ll tell you how he helped me retain the love of my life.

January 16, 2012

Leisure Lake Living

Filed under: Uncategorized — etblog @ 3:58 pm

Written Sunday, January 15, 2011

We moved into our new home on July 8, 2011, exactly 27 weeks and 2 days ago (thanks to wolframalpha.com for the calculation). I went on my first canoe ride on the lake TODAY! Ok, I must confess, in the spirit of truth, that I have been on a couple of kayak rides. And I’ve even tried Ben’s rowing shell. But this is the first time I have been in my canoe. (Here’s proof.)

picture of dock taken from canoe

Fuzzy Picture of Dock Taken From Canoe on Lake

The fact is, as much as I love living here (a lot!), I feel like I am working harder than I ever have. In addition to maintaining a larger house, I have already had to move the dock out three times to accommodate the lowering water level, build an extension to the walkway (I did have help from Bo and Franklin for that) and repair one of the winches that ripped off in last week’s 30 mile-an-hour gusts (with help from my multi-talented spouse).

And for the first four months I was also finishing up the remodeling job we left undone when we moved out of the old house. Our renter has been most patient, but it needed to be done.

Before you start feeling sorry for me, however, we have had many great times here already, with multiple gatherings, organized and impromptu. The entertainment potential we saw when we first looked at the house has been borne out many times over. And I won’t even mention the ot-hay ub-tay, from which I crawled less than an hour ago, limp as a noodle.

There’s plenty of work left for this year. But I feel like I made a symbolic step in the right direction during my New Year’s break. I amended the title of my iPad to-do list. Instead of House Work, it now reads House Work and Play.

January 6, 2012

Truth

Filed under: Uncategorized — etblog @ 12:29 pm
  • Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God? – typical courtroom attestation
  • It’s just a little white lie; it won’t hurt any one. – frequent justification
  • Does this dress make me look fat/old/slutty/… ? – typical opportunity for a little white lie
  • I don’t exactly lie. I practice what I like to call ‘Truth Management.’ – Christian singer from the 80s, being more honest than it might sound
  • A lie can get half-way around the world before the truth can get its boots on. – source unknown
  • The Bible is full of true stories, some of which actually happened. – source unknown
  • Sometimes I love you, and sometimes I lie, ’cause no one feels anything all the time. – Bo Bedingfield, song lyric, pending release
  • Would you lie to protect a loved one? – classic truth-teller’s dilemma
  • Would you lie to protect a surprise party? – Well, that’s sort of the point, isn’t it?

I am in favor of truth. Telling a lie means remembering at least three aspects of an event – what really happened, why you don’t want to tell what really happened, and what story you made up instead. That’s a lot of work, and a lot of complexity.

Here are two truth-related stories. The first is one of dozens of stories related to my late friend Philip Hankamer. Maybe one day I’ll share more of his stories; he was quite a character.

This first story took place during a rather large equipment relocation in a building with a raised floor. The equipment being brought in required lots of small power distribution cables to be located under various specific floor tiles, and one large power feed cable which would connect to the main power supply cabinet.

A well-meaning but hapless post-grad was in charge of coordinating the move, and provided a detailed diagram showing where all the cables were to be placed. But, after the equipment was placed, and the electrician began connecting the cables, the main power cable was found to be four feet short, and no one knew why.

As all parties stood around staring down at the drawing, and the floor tiles, and the cable pieces, the post-grad spoke up. “That is my fault,” he said. “After I gave the drawings to the electrician for the estimate, we decided to move the equipment four feet, but I never communicated that to the electrician.”

The electrician had, naturally, allowed extra footage for all of the cables except the expensive power feed, which he had carefully cut to reach the specified location.

“Just do whatever you have to do to fix it. We’ll pay for it,” said the post-grad.

Here’s the point of the story. After everyone else had left, Hankamer turned to the post-grad and said, “That was amazing. I have never seen anyone take direct responsibility for an error like that. People usually try to spread the blame around.”

Well, it was the truth.

The second story is about four college students who had tired of dorm life, and were looking for a house to live in. They found a nice old house within walking distance of the campus, and then, in the naive exuberance of youth, decided to see if they might buy the house instead of renting, because that would be, like, way better. So one of the more “responsible” of the guys called the number listed in the want-ad, and asked the lady who answered if she would be interested in selling the house instead of renting it.

Bad move. The house had been in the family for years, and even the hint of such a final separation offer was enough to bring the lady to tears. She was quite upset and made it clear that she did not want to even discuss the house with him anymore. Unfortunately, the student had given the lady his name.

Another of the four students waited a reasonable interval, then called the number to discuss renting. The conversation went much better, and a deal was struck. All was well until…

…the renter required a list of the persons who would be occupying the house. But she already had a bad impression of the first student based on the abortive attempt to “buy” the house. Not a good scene.

So he lied. He used a false name on the list of occupants. Of course, this meant he couldn’t write a check to her. Or answer the phone with his real name. (This was long before Caller ID.) And he had to remember to use the fake name in any house-related correspondence. And someone else had to sign up for all the utilities. And it just bugged him for the entire 12 months they lived there, having that constant lie lurking in the back of his already fragile, college-student psyche, reminding him of it every day he lived in the house.

Eventually he confessed. Coward that he was, he waited until they were moving out, and the potential fall-out was minimized. She had a hard time understanding what he had done, or why, and had pretty much forgotten the “can we buy your house” phone call. It didn’t really even matter – he could have skipped the whole thing, because the student and the lady would in all probability never have any contact with each other.

But he felt that he had to tell her.

It was, after all, the truth.

Yes, both of these stories are autobiographical. The second one happened first, and may have led to my inexplicably blurting out the truth in the first story.

Since those days, I have seriously pursued truth, and often mused about the questions and comments that I listed at the beginning of this posting.

I don’t have all the answers. Sometimes I intentionally tangle up aspects of truth by invoking misleading precision. (“That depends on what the definition of ‘is’ is.”) And I confess that I practice “truth management” sometimes. But I have come up with a test question that helps me decide when to tell the truth and when to “finesse” it, or at least to decide whether I am actually being noble, or just devious.

It seems like a good question to close with.

“If I decide not to tell the truth in this instance, who am I trying to protect? Some other party, deserving of the noble protection of my carefully crafted falsehood, or my own slithery self?”

That sheds an amazingly clear light on most of my Truth Decisions.

November 2, 2011

A personal glimpse

Filed under: Uncategorized — etblog @ 6:53 am

“He believed that love happened all the time, everywhere. In that most important way, Steve was never ironic, never cynical, never pessimistic.”

My spouse shared with me a link to the eulogy delivered at the funeral of Steve Jobs by his sister. It is a particularly intimate look at this unique individual. In addition to the link, I’m also posting a .pdf of the print version, for your reading option.

Note Mona’s mention of the Cromemco computer, the same brand I picked to control a concrete mixing plant.

Here’s the link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/opinion/mona-simpsons-eulogy-for-steve-jobs.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all%3Fsrc%3Dtp&smid=fb-share

And here’s the .pdf version: A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs – NYTimes.com.

October 24, 2011

Computers I Have Known

Filed under: Uncategorized — etblog @ 9:02 am

Just after the death of Steve Jobs was announced, a close niece sent a text asking me to comment on her reaction to his death.

As I pondered an appropriate answer that would fit into a text message, I started thinking about the evolution of computing machinery that I’ve witnessed across most of my earthly existence, and the stories I could tell. If computers were ladies, I might be considered promiscuous, or worse: I still regularly find myself in a computage-a-trois. Sometimes one just isn’t enough.

Most of the stories will have to wait, but here’s a brief Roll Call, strictly from memory, thus subject to the usual disclaimers.

B-5500 Photo from UVa, circa 1964

Burroughs B-5500

Burroughs B-5500 – Freshman programming class at Ga Tech. I suspect I had read about computers during high school (as previously noted, I knew about lasers from Popular Science), but this one was my first – a mainframe whose cabinets formed a beast approximately 6 feet tall, 3 feet deep, and 30 feet long, not counting the outboard tape and disk drives, card readers and line printers. It featured an astounding 4×4-foot array of neon lights/switches that displayed all the contents of all of the 48-bit registers, and allowed the operator to modify register contents to correct errors. One of the cabinets, amazingly, housed one farad of capacitance to filter the incoming power. (The farad is generally considered an impractically large unit of measurement – most capacitors are rated in pico- and micro-farads.) Input consisted of decks of punch cards typed on IBM 026 card punch machines. Input decks were handed over a counter to the priest-like machine operators for processing, followed by long waits for green-and-white striped printouts, which usually bore the bad news of a syntax error, and demanded a better performance of me.

DEC PDP 8

DEC PDP 8

Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) PDP 8 – Four years later when I joined the GT School of Information and Computer Science (ICS), headed, naturally, by a man with a degree in Library Science. The PDP 8 was a 16-bit “mini-computer” that fit into three 19-inch-wide racks. Booting it up required keying in seven instructions using the toggle switches on the front, which made it smart enough to read a paper tape from the Teletype ASR 33, which made it smart enough to read from a 4″ diameter reel of DecTape, which finally loaded the operating system. Interactive – keyboard input, output (upper-case ASCII only) printed on yellow rolled paper. System storage and retrieval via disk and tape. User storage and retrieval: paper tape punch and reader.

DEC PDP 11/45 – Around the next year (1973). Single rack system with a Telefile disk system, two drives, 11 platters per drive. UNIX operating system, the first OS I knew that supported multiple users. UNIX was developed by a handful of Bell Labs employees, including Dennis Ritchie, who died around the same time as Steve Jobs, and was equally mourned by computer geeks. The UNIX commands I learned in 1973 are still valuable on Macs, Linux machines, and Sun workstations, all of which are descendants of the original OS.

DEC Graphics Terminal (GT) 40

DEC GT 40 running Lunar Lander

DEC GT 40 running Lunar Lander

Acquired by ICS a year or so after the 11-45. Featured a monochrome cathode ray tube (CRT) display and keyboard (also used by time-sharing systems, see below), but with the addition of a graphics display driver that could draw pictures instead of just printing letters, and, even cooler, a “light pen” that could be used to draw on the screen, or, even better, let students (and staff) play Lunar Lander.

CDC Cyber 64 – A big, time-sharing mainframe that pushed ICS out of the main computer space in the new Rich building. The story of moving the B-5500 deserves its own posting, which I hereby promise to attempt soon. The Cyber was powered by three huge motor-generator sets that converted the 60 Hertz alternating current power feed into 440 Hertz, which reduced the size of the necessary filter capacitors. In addition to retaining card and line printer I/O (input/output), there were rooms full of CRT terminals for students to create, run, and debug programs. (In trying to confirm the OS for this machine, I discovered that there were several CDC machines close to the 64, but my memory has apparently mangled their names into Cyber 64. I also found a cool site that retains scanned copies of old computer documentation, called bitsavers.org.)

Did I say this was going to be brief? I know this seems like a lot to read, against the possibility that I will say more about Steve Jobs. It was a lot to type too. But I will, in fact, get back to my niece’s text message query eventually.

After a few years at Tech, I left the lush academic computing environment for a more modest enterprise that turned out to offer its own share of computer relationship options. And so I continue the Roll Call.

TRS-80 model 1 – I think this early Tandy/Radio Shack computer was my first home computer acquisition. The processor was built into the keyboard enclosure, which included an RCA television output jack for the video display (TV not included) and a mini-DIN connector for the input and output jacks of a portable cassette recorder (also not included). I don’t remember how I acquired the Model 1, but I do remember a brief attempt to program a usable checkbook balancing program in BASIC, which turned out to be much harder than I had anticipated. Perhaps the best thing about the Model 1 was the cheerful user’s manual. The instructions for using the cassette recorder to store and retrieve files included these classic lines. “With practice, you will be able to tell where the data starts by listening to the sounds played through the speaker. And, if you can actually interpret the data from the sounds, you are a mutant, and will go far in the computer industry.”

TRS 80 model 2 – Purchased for the Controls Division of Superior Steel Fabricators, Inc. This all-in-one unit included a built-in keyboard, video display, and two floppy disk drives that used 8″ floppies. Available software included a word processor, spreadsheet program, database program, and a terminal emulator for connecting to mainframes using an external dial-up modem. It included a printer port, and I added a small flatbed plotter that could draw circuit diagrams in 8 colors on letter-size paper, but required hours of manual programming to do so.

TRS 80 model 4 – Superior Steel’s office used the next generation Radio Shack computer, similar in configuration but using the more svelte 4.5″ floppy drives. This machine ran a bookkeeping program that printed our paychecks. Eventually we retrofitted our IBM Selectric typewriter with a serial interface, which allowed us to create WiteOut-free business letters.

Texas Instruments 5-TI programmable controller – not exactly a computer, but a digital replacement for banks of relays and timers that allowed us to create complex control systems for material handling equipment. I/O consisted of racks of 120-volt modules that could sense switch positions and pushbuttons, and operate motor starters, valves, lights and solenoids. Programmed using TI’s proprietary “ladder logic,” that visually emulated the traditional method of drawing control circuits.

Cromemco Personal Computer (PC)

Cromemco C10

Cromemco C10

The first actual computer we used to operate a control system. I selected the Cromemco over an upstart offering from IBM, because it had better specs. It was used on a high-speed concrete mixer truck filling system, storing the recipes for the next several trucks. It was programmed by an unsung genius from Athens named Richard Simmons (not the exercise guru) who, when he realized the commercial value of his skills, quickly started his own business.

Telecat 286 – When I left Superior Steel for BellSouth in 1986, one of the benefits of working for the Phone Company was the opportunity to bring home a Telecat, one of many built-to-spec Personal Computers that sprang up during that time. BellSouth’s Telecat purchasing contract was an attempt to find an affordable clone that was “IBM compatible.” By the way, the best test of IBM compatibility at the time was the Microsoft Flight Simulator program, which exercised most of the low-level system calls. This was the first computer my kids were exposed to, mostly through games like Captain Comic and F-15 Strike Eagle.

Sun Solaris workstation – Two years later, when our group moved into BellSouth’s new Science and Technology organization, we were given a choice for our desktop machine: either an Apple or a Sun workstation. Interestingly, Windows was not an option. I picked a Sun workstation because it seemed more, well, scientific. Getting the Sun also marked my initial exposure to the best application program I have ever used, FrameMaker. But that’s a story for another post.

Apple Performa – We had access to various Apple computers in the lab, the models of which escape me. Eventually BellSouth offered some of the older machines for sale to employees, and I brought our first Apple home.

Dell, HP PCs – As “personal” computers became an office commodity (and secretaries concurrently disappeared), my computers at work flew by as quickly as the technology itself was exploding. Every replacement was noticeably faster, and included enough storage to devour the previous model’s content without so much as a burp. Interestingly, word processing, spreadsheets, and database management were still the primary programs I used. And I still used my Sun workstation to do things a Unix-based machine could do effectively, like process regexes, sort, grep, awk, and run Perl (my new BASIC).

IBM ThinkPad – My first work laptop was bought for the lab, but I occasionally carried it home to continue my work. Yes, that was a convenient option, but it foreshadowed today’s nearly constant connectivity with my corporate overlords and overladies.

Flower-Power iMac

Flower Power iMac

Flower Power iMac

As the progeny reached college age in the 90s, they needed computers themselves. I had already figured out that Apple products required the least support, and were the easiest to use, so that’s what we got for them. Most of the time they were great, but occasionally (as today) we bumped into programs or professors that required a Windows-based PC. Fortunately, I always had an old work machine at home I could use to translate. Eventually they graduated to iBooks, and I got to bring the iMacs home, still plenty of computer to meet my needs, with a Unix shell to boot! The 20-cubic-foot PDP 11/45 of my early GT ICS days was now sitting on my desk at home in less than a cubic foot. And with a hippie-colored plastic cover, no less.

Mac tower– when the Flower Power iMac finally quit, I bought a used G4 to mount the iMac drive in. (I had to look that model number up, and found this cool graphic of Mac models). Of all of the computers I have used this one, combined with the premature failure of an external backup hard drive, is the only one that has ever lost a significant amount of my data. It took weeks of piddling to recover my Quicken account data.

Mac mini -A Christmas gift from Bo and Marilyn several years ago, and still my main personal computer. I have taken it on several family vacations (hey, we can hardly get by without a printer, now can we?) and at least one wedding this year.

iPad – I bought this computer (yes, it qualifies) myself for several reasons previously described, and it continues to be a useful tool, and an occasional spousal annoyance. But the convenience is hard to beat – as I type this, it is 3:23 am. My body has decided I have had enough sleep for a while. A few minutes ago I worked the Monday NYT Crossword, then got soundly thrashed in Words With Friends by a touring musician who plays WWF at all hours, and fiercely too. And I’m finishing up this posting in the comfort of our dark living room, just steps away from the bed to which I soon hope to return for a rematch.

Which brings me to my niece’s text. If you can possibly recall the beginning of this electronic epic, she sent me a text asking me to comment on her reaction to his death. She wrote, “I am surprised at how violently I’m reacting to the news. In one way or another, I’ve been connected to Steve Jobs since my first experiences with the Macintosh at your house. He’s been such an icon for what leaders of business can and should be. Am I ridiculous for being so, so sad about his passing?”

After a few minutes of thought, I sent this reply. “Not at all. Our computers, and the information they bear for us, become intimate friends, all the more so when they have been designed to fit us so well.”

Anyone who referred to a Burroughs 5500 as an “intimate friend” would have been considered crazy at the time. But as computing machines have decreased in size, and increased in friendliness, we have approached a point where that description is not too much of a stretch. Eliza, an entertaining program in the 70s that pretended to be a psychoanalyst by analyzing your typed answers for key words (“Tell me more about your mother”) has become Siri, who communicates by spoken language instead of typing, and who responds to a request to the famous HAL 9000 line ““Open the pod bay doors,” by saying, “We intelligent agents will never live that down, apparently.” Still key word analysis, but with a style to win a geek’s heart.

Thanks in large part to Steve Jobs’ vision, and the work of many lesser known patriarchs like Dennis Ritchie, computing machines have become our phones, our maps, our cameras, our entertainment, and our door to Friendship. It is no wonder that we revere Jobs in ways no CEO has been revered before. And we are saddened by his premature death.

I don’t really have a clever closing for this post, except to say that perhaps next time I’ll talk about power tools. Those posts will be much shorter. “Table Saws I Have Known.” Turns out, the quantity is one. For Corded Electric Drills, the quantity is two. And I can’t even name a single Power Tool designer. Sounds like a piece of cake.

September 20, 2011

Ironman City

Filed under: Uncategorized — etblog @ 9:29 am

Pittsburgh surprised us. Neither of us had ever been to the jewel of Western PA (sorry, Erie, your turn will just have to wait), so when a family marriage celebration beckoned us, how could we resist?

Southerners used to joke that Pittsburgh was the Birmingham of the North, but both cities have recently cleaned up their act, so to speak. Yet our preconceptions lingered, and they weren’t helped by our initial airport experience. We had a last minute gate change to the far end of a far terminal, the display screen at the gate never showed any content, just a blank screen saver, and the gate was manned by a single, earnest, hard-working, but ultimately lonely fellow. The jetway looked dingy, the plane felt dingy, the seats seemed dingy. It all seemed calculated to reinforce our Pittsburgh stereotypes.

Of course, the fact that it was already after our bedtime, with an arrival time projected for the wee hours of the night, probably skewed our perceptions somewhat. And I was encouraged that the pilot and flight crew seemed literate and mostly awake.

Our perception of Pittsburgh started to change when we arrived at their international airport and were greeted with Favorite Son displays of both Andy Warhol and the beloved Fred (a.k.a., “Mr.”) Rogers, and a reminder that Pittsburgh is home to Carnegie-Mellon. Oh, and some organization known as the “Steelers.” Outside of a few nomenclature oddities (airside terminal?, land side terminal?, commercial curbs?) the airport arrival process was smooth, the crisp air was enervating, and the hotel shuttle got us to our nearby destination efficiently.

In order to get a King bed (instead of two doubles, which would have been much less fun), we opted for an “accessible” room. Since the Leader Of The Band is wheelchair-bound, I am pretty observant about handicapped accommodations, but I have never actually stayed in an accessible room. Perhaps it was because I was also in the middle of a Terry Pratchett fantasy with his customary cast of non-human characters, but it felt like it had been designed for a gnome, or perhaps a dwarf. (But not a gargoyle – the smooth hotel exterior would have given them no place to perch.)

Anyway, the clothes rack, shower head, door peephole, tissue box, and thermostat were all at waist level for me. Seriously, it was quite a thoughtful implementation, and the profusion of grab bars was an opulent treat at bath time.

We slept in the next morning, and awoke to find a lovely, hilly countryside, inlaid with a 3-digit interstate and crisscross-crossed by a tangled collection of local streets, including Cliff Mine Road which wound up the hill behind the hotel.

I have alluded before to the elegance of the grid of streets laid out in the flat burg of Chicago with Lake Michigan as its Eastern border. Pittsburgh is the antithesis, through no fault of General Pitt, for whom the city, and the original Fort, were named. (There’s also a fascinating story about the loss and eventual recovery of the “h” which terminates the city’s name.)

The Point at night

Pittsburgh is centered on a point, the aquatic convergence at which the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers unite to form the Ohio River, which eventually flows into Lake Erie. There is a tall ridge on the southern side of the point, which I’m sure General Pitt selected because of its eventual commercial real estate potential. The ridge features a couple of inclined railways that carry travelers between the top and bottom of the ridge for a nominal fee.

As a result of the three rivers, the many bridges which span same, and the hilly terrain, a grid-based road system is mathematically impossible. In fact, it appears that the road planners intentionally embraced chaos and randomness, with which a sufficiently motivated driver quickly learns to cope. Want to go right? Turn left. “I need to head East.” “Find a road that appears to go West.” Odds are, it’ll get you there. It’s not really that bad, but learning to be One with the Improbable is a useful driving skill in Pittsburgh.

Snack at The Regatta grill

We really enjoyed our stay. The food, always an important factor for me, was good, including:

  • The rehearsal dinner at Buca di Beppo family-style italian restaurant;
  • My brunch at Panera of Greek Salad, Asiago Roast Beast, and strong coffee;
  • The sit-down wedding reception at the Hyeholde Restaurant, a castle in Moon Township, built in the 30s, and definitely worth visiting;
  • Post-wedding appetizers back at the hotel, featuring a tasty hummus platter, a salad with a lovely spread of mixed greens, and yummy sautéed pierogies (don”t tell the Chicagoans we were cheating on them), washed down with the cheapest wine on the menu, our favorite;
  • And breakfast at a British-themed airport restaurant, whose English Breakfast consisted of eggs, toast, rasher (bacon), banger (link sausage), grilled tomatoes and mushrooms, and baked beans. It was even better than I expected.

    British Breakfast

The weather was ideal for an outdoor wedding, cool and slightly overcast but with no danger of rain. The sky cleared enough so our trip to Mount Washington that night was extremely pleasant, overlooking the three rivers, the illuminated bridges, the riverboats, and the night skyline.

All told, it was a great trip. I heartily recommend Pittsburgh if you are looking for an unexpectedly delightful destination.

Famous People on Mt. Washington

August 16, 2011

Feathers and Hay

Filed under: Uncategorized — etblog @ 7:33 pm

Feathers

I’ve spent much of the last few weeks trying to feather my new nest, in ways that perhaps only I can understand.

Not counting my initial foray into the innards of the fancy sound system, which deserves a posting of its own, the first thing I worked on was the rather impressive collection of multi-gang light switches adorning nearly every wall of the house. As obvious as the correct installation of a single light switch should be (it is clearly marked “on” and “off”), there was one in the bathroom that was installed upside down. Drove me crazy, until I got it turned over.

Three-way switches and the like are not so obvious (no “on” and “off”), but I decided my own standard a while ago – when all the relevant switches are down, the light (or fan) should be off. So if you walk through the house and flip all the switches into the down position, everything should be off. I’m still working on getting them right, since one circuit may be controlled by switches in three different rooms on two different floors.

Next I replaced a couple of vent-fan switches with timers. It’s hardly fair to ask a bathroom user to remember to come back and turn off the vent fan, but those fans can be real power suckers. Not only does the fan itself consume significant electricity, but it pulls conditioned air out of the house, adding to your heating/cooling load. The timer is a simple fix. Plus, in the dark, it’s real easy to tell which switch is the light, ’cause the timer has a knob instead of a toggle.

Speaking of telling switches apart, I then spent about half-an-hour labeling switches on the main floor. It started with the situation previously described in The Case of the Inoperative Ceiling Fan. I realized that I often had to try two or three switches, sometimes on opposite sides of the room, before I got the results I wanted. Lots of flexibility leaves plenty of room for confusion, and the labels are a simple fix. Plus we expect to entertain guests frequently, and it just seems impolite to laugh at them as they try to find the right combination of switches. The labels are real purty, but the jury is still out, however, on whether the Management will ultimately approve of them.

The shower was my next focus. The previous residents had a small child, so they had wisely lowered the temperature of the hot water tank. My spouse requested I raise it a bit, but before I did that, I felt obligated to fix the HC orientation in the master bathroom shower. Yep, against decades of proud plumbing tradition, turning the knob to the left made the water colder instead of hotter.

Fortunately, the shower valve was a Delta, and years of back-to-back hotel shower installations taught Delta to design a cartridge that can be easily flipped, although the model we have does require you to turn off the main water supply to do so. The kind that you pull out to turn on can be flipped with the water still on – you simply remove the knob, rotate the cartridge insert 180 degrees, and re-install the knob. Ours is a Monitor model – clockwise turns it off, counter-clockwise makes it increasingly warmer (unless it’s in backwards!) That model requires you to remove the cartridge to flip it. Done.

I also learned how the “monitor” function works to prevent scalding. Turns out it is purely manual. You turn the shower on in full hot position and measure the water temperature. If it is over 120 degrees F, you remove and re-insert the adjustable stop point so the water can’t get as hot, repeating as necessary. You are supposed to check it any time the max water temperature changes. I doubt that happens very often, but, as solutions go, it is still way better then nothing.

The last thing I did this weekend was move my DSL router to a more central, and more concealed, location. While I was at it, I also ran a phone line and an Ethernet connection down to my cavern in the basement. The presence of this posting is an indication of my modest success in this venture.

Hay

My Dad tells the story of a farmer who made his way through thick snow to the local church building one Sunday morning. Turns out he was the only member who showed up, so the preacher asked whether they should have the service. The farmer replied by saying, “If I went out to feed my cattle and only one showed up, I would still feed him.”

So the preacher commenced to preachin’, and didn’t quit until he had preached considerably more than an hour. At the end, he looked at the farmer and said, “Well?”

The farmer replied, “Preacher, I would feed that cow for sure, but I don’t believe I would give him the whole bale of hay!”

Once again, I’ve probably given you the whole bale of hay.

I guess now you have something to ruminate on. Sorry, I cudn’t help myself.

August 10, 2011

Responsibility

Filed under: Uncategorized — etblog @ 9:49 am

Last night on the way home from work, I stopped by Sears to get a battery. The original factory battery in my car finally gave out after 4 years, and I had to jump it off to head home. The only batteries Sears had in stock for my car were more expensive than I would normally pay, but I decided the convenience of a single stop (and no more jumper cables) made up for the cost of the fancier battery. In addition, I decided to let Sears install the battery, which I would not normally do – I much prefer to do my own auto work. But the rep said it would only take about 45 minutes, so my wife and I enjoyed a sumptuous Food Court dinner while Sears did the dirty work. Almost, that is.

In fact, it took over twice as long as the estimate, so I was glad when they finally gave me back my car. This morning, it cranked fine, but there was an odd rattle when the car idled in Drive. There’s a snap-on plastic cover over the fuse block, so I assumed that it just wasn’t snapped on correctly. When I dropped my wife off, I popped open the hood to confirm my hypothesis, but it turns out that I was quite wrong. The rattle was caused by a metal pipe-like piece, about 16 inches long and over an inch in diameter which was perched on top of the engine just like it belonged there.

The mysterious rattle was cause by a frame cross-member that the mechanic had removed and set aside (on the engine!) in order to replace the battery. The three bolts that were supposed to hold the cross-member in place were nowhere to be seen.

Applying the “you broke it, you fix it” philosophy, I drove back out to Sears this morning and waited for them to open. When they did, the morning rep scratched his head and mumbled that it was too bad that the computer was down, because then he could figure out who had done such a thing. A more capable-looking mechanic came up and asked what the problem was, and I explained it to him. He stared at the cross-member for a while, then at the car, then back at the cross-member, then back at the car. He said he was looking to see if the bolts had fallen off. I seriously got the feeling that he (1) didn’t believe that it could have been left off, (2) that it probably wasn’t where I said I had found it, and possibly (3) thought that I had actually taken it off myself.

Finally he looked at the mechanic’s cart (which I pointed out to him) and found the three bolts, lending my story some much-needed veracity.

This episode has two significant wrongs, which is why I am taking the time to write it down.

I. Clearly the original error was failing to re-install the cross-member. During the last 45 minutes of the installation, I watched the mechanic from a distance as he wandered around between stations, stopping occasionally to work on my car, and he did not look engaged, or, in retrospect, particularly competent. This is a rather large piece of metal to miss, and there is a matching piece on the other side of the engine compartment, so its absence is pretty clear. In addition, if he had kept his cart appropriately organized, he would have seen the three bolts, and perhaps wondered, “I wonder where those go….” Finally, he really shouldn’t have set the piece down on the back of the engine, where it was out of sight and, apparently out of mind.

Still, I would be willing to forgive all of those, but for the second wrong.

II. The mechanic this morning never showed the slightest shred of responsibility, nor did he offer even the least hint of an apology. Trust me, I was listening carefully. I was not irate, but I was clear that this was not good. Not only did he not apologize, he really made me feel as if somehow this whole thing was my fault. Furthermore, when I also pointed out that the factory-installed plastic terminal covers were also missing, he explained that it is really better to leave them off, “so any acid leaks will dry.” Just to press him a bit, I pointed out that the covers also provide protection against an accidental short circuit, he retorted that “mechanics always disconnect the battery before starting work on a car.” At this point I gave up, and resisted the urge to point out that I had always assumed that mechanics also re-installed any parts they removed, but that was clearly not the case here. I further resisted the urge to ask whether he thought the factory would go to the trouble to install the terminal covers just for fun. It’s not like they add curb appeal.

I read a report several years ago that one of the best ways for a hospital or doctor’s office to reduce malpractice suits is to simply admit it when they make an error, and apologize.

Taking responsibility, which includes apologizing for your company even when the fault is not yours, is a classy way to do business. Failing to do so will leave your customers in the state I am now in about this particular Sears Auto Center. I will not let them touch my car again.

That seems like a pretty good definition of a bad customer experience.

August 7, 2011

Alakein’

Filed under: Uncategorized — etblog @ 7:22 pm

We sat on the deck a few minutes ago and watched a thunderstorm roll by. Although the lake is only about 100 yards away, the trees on the Corp of Engineers buffer zone are so tall and thick we can’t see the water. Nevertheless, it was a relaxing end to a Sunday afternoon, with wind and clouds and thunder and lightning and the pleasant company of Jayne’s feet. (Sort of an inside joke – she has been posting regular photos of her feet on Facebook this summer, much to the amazement, amusement, and befuddlement of her Friends. The rest of her was there, too, in case you were worrying.)

Saturday I spent two hours at Lowe’s checking off an endless eclectic list of “repair and resolve” items, including an electric hedge trimmer, my first ever. When I got home, I put it to use, being ever-so-careful not to cut the power cord. (Note to self: a green extension cord may not be the best color choice for use with a hedge trimmer.) I trimmed the front grass (fortunately it is a small yard) and unloaded the rest of the loot from Lowe’s while sweating profusely, which seems to be a normal state for me this summer.

As promised, Bo came by and brought some friends, so we spent some time in and around the water. I repaired the rudder on one of the kayaks, and once again tried Ben’s rowing shell, with some measure of success. Success is defined as follows: I launched it with only one unintended disembarking, I got it out to the middle of the cove, and got it back again. I remain impressed by the single rowers who make it look so effortless (including Ben).

This morning four of us played some music after breakfast, and I picked up a few dobro hints from John. This afternoon I installed a timer on the guest bathroom vent fan, solved the Case of the Inoperative Ceiling Fan (turns out it was controlled by one of the mystery switches in the living room, but required a volt meter to diagnose, and a careful sequence of switch, remote, and pull-chain operation to finally activate it), and then sawed and drilled a variety of holes in the entertainment center to add some much-needed ventilation. Now all the entertaining parts are strewn about the living room, waiting for me to re-connect them.

The last four weeks have been so abnormal, I haven’t even been tempted to try to write about them, as you may have noticed. As a small example, consider 5 trips from Gainesville to the Atlanta airport (and back) over 5 days. Not to mention that I really haven’t had either the energy nor the mind-share to write anything.

By contrast, this weekend is close to what will probably pass for normal for a while – fun, exhausting, exhilarating, and even restful at times. Plus I found the energy, motivation, and time to write something, as proven by the fact you have been reading my words. (Thanks, by the way.)

Sounds good to me.

« Newer PostsOlder Posts »

Powered by WordPress