wrote:
From: on Sat, Oct 7 2006 6:39 am
Dave Heil wrote:
wrote:
Dave Heil wrote:
wrote:
From: on Tues, Oct 3 2006 3:25 pm
wrote:
From: Nada Tapu on Sat, Sep 30 2006 2:23 pm
On Fri, 29 Sep 2006 20:56:08 -0400, wrote:

Manual radiotelegraphy was a MUST to use early radio
as a communications medium. The technology of early
radio was primitive, simple, and not yet developed.
On-off keying was the ONLY practical way to make it
possible to communicate.

Yet some pioneers (like Reginald Fessenden) were using voice
communication as early as 1900, and had practical long-distance
radiotelephony by 1906.

"PRACTICAL?!?"

Yes.

What is "PRACTICAL" about inserting a
single carbon microphone in series with the antenna
lead-in to 'brute force' modulate a CW carrier?!?

It was not only PRACTICAL, Len, it was the ONLY way known at the time.
I don't think they used "the antenna lead-in", old boy. They probably
used the feedline. Think of it as more of a "lead-out". You should get
the lead out.

The modulation was done in the ground lead, not the aerial lead. (They
used the term "aerial" in those days).

It was practical enough to be heard across the pond.

That sounds pretty practical.

For its time. Then triode vacuum tubes came along and changed things.

The first triode vacuum tube (deForrest called them "audions"
in those days) was invented in 1906...same year as Reggie's
"Christmas" broadcast. :-)

DeForest spelled his name with only one "r".

Vacuum tubes that could be used in 'practical' transmitters were not
available in 1906. Nor an oscillator circuit. Those things took a few
years to develop.

At NO TIME did any OTHER broadcaster or voice transmitter
adopt the Fessenden brute-force amplitude modulator. NO ONE.
Not in the USA, not in Canada, not anywhere in the world.

How do you know for sure, Len? Did you visit every transmitting station
in the world?

The truth is that you don't know - you're just making things up. Maybe
others adopted Fessenden's idea and failed. Or maybe they succeeded,
but after a time lost interest and went on with other things.

You don't know for sure. All you know is that you haven't come across
any documentation that someone else adopted Fessenden's idea.

So much for your redefinition of "practical."

You seem to think that a thing cannot be practical unless it is copied.
That's simply not true.

...and the insistence of "amateur only" subject matter in
this newsgroup. :-)

Who insists on that?

It appears that Len expects me to reply to his "you have never..."
statements by saying what I have done in non-amateur radio. Old trick,
doesn't work.

Tsk, tsk, you've TOLD ME what I should have done in the
military,

When did I write that? You are telling an untruth, Len.

yet you've never served in the military or in
the US government.

How do you know for sure who served and who didn't?

I served 8 years in the US Army.
You can see and read what I did for three years there via:

http://sujan.hallikainen.org/Broadca...s/My3Years.pdf

If I had a dollar for every time you've mentioned your Army experience
on rrap, I'd probably have enough for a brand new Orion II with all the
filters.

6 MB in size, takes about 19 minutes download on a dial-up
connection.

Are you still using dial-up, Len? I'm not.

Why do you live in the past?

Twenty pages with many photo illustrations.
High-power HF transmitters. 1953 to 1956.

How does anyone know for sure that it's all accurate, Len? You didn't
even get the distance from the USSR to Tokyo correct - maybe you made
other mistakes?

The other reason for Len's antics is so he can tell us, once again, the
different things he's done.

"It ain't braggin' if ya done it!" :-)

How do we know for sure that you did it?

Have you noticed that Len doesn't ask about what other people have done
in *amateur* radio? And this is an *amateur* radio newsgroup!

Tsk, I have done so.

No, you haven't.

All that you've displayed (via links)
is an old 70's era receiver, supposedly built for less than
$100, on Kees Talen's website "HBR" pages (HomeBrew Receiver,
after the various "HBR" articles in QST of decades ago).

Actually it cost about $10.

I've discussed much more of my amateur radio activities here. You
weren't paying attention.

Have you forgotten the picture of my current station on my website? (I
have several - AOL gives them out free. Len hasn't taken advantage of
that AOL feature, even though he has several screen names).

Didja know Fessenden's 1906 "broadcast" used an alternator transmitter?

I surely did.

Of course that limited his voice-radio operations to below 100 kHz
(3000 meters)

Tsk, tsk, that was before 1920. 1920 is 86 years ago.

Why do you live in the past so much?

1956 was 50 years ago. Why do *you* live in the past?

For a double-degreed education in things electrical you
just displayed a surprising amount of ILL logic and
definite misunderstanding of the real definition of
"practical."

Note the dig at my BSEE and MSEE degrees. What Len doesn't realize is
that, in the history of electrical engineering, all sorts of
now-incredible things were once considered practical.

Tom Edison thought for sure that Direct Current would be
The Way for widespread electrical power distribution. :-)

Is NOT practical now.

So Edison made a mistake on that. I wasn't talking about him.

In the history of electrical engineering, all sorts of now-incredible
things were once considered practical. That's a fact.

Academics once insisted that "current flow" was opposite
that of electron flow.

Current flow *is* opposite electron flow, Len. It's an engineering
convention.

Was written up in lots of textbooks.

Still is. Current flows from positive to negative. Electrons go the
other way.

Is NOT practical now.

Then why is it still the conventional representation in electrical
engineering?

Some insist that "Greenlee Chassis Punches" are necessary
for homebuilt radio construction.

I don't. btw, the resceiver on the HBR website was built without them.

Is ONLY "practical" for knocking out conduit attachment
holes in electrical power distribution boxes or some
70s-era boatanchor construction project (i.e., using
vacuum tubes and needing socket holes for same).

No, that's not true at all, Len.

For homebrew radio construction, they have a lot of uses:

- Holes for meters and displays
- Holes for connectors, ranging from SO-239 to DB-25
- Holes for chassis-mount components such as large electrolytic
capacitors and flush-mount transformers
- Holes for ventilation

And much more. Of course those holes can be made other ways - Greenlee
punches have never been essential tools. They're just nice to have and
use.

Greenlee is still a corporation in Rockford, IL, but they
seem to have stopped making "chassis punches" for radio
hobbyists.

That's incorrect. They make a wider line of chassis punches than ever
before.

btw, the classic Adel nibbling tool is still in production.

For example, the very first operational general-purpose electronic
digital computer was the ENIAC, which was built at one of my alma
maters here in Philadelphia. Its design and construction were paid for
(some would say "subsidized") by the U.S. Army (some would say "the
taxpayers"). Its original stated purpose was for the calculation of
artillery aiming information.

"Firing Tables" those are called,

That's nice, Len.

Is "artillery aiming information" somehow incorrect?

Some may point to machines like the Colossus, Mark 1 or even the ABC as
the "first computer". But they all lack something that ENIAC had. Some,
like the ABC and even Babbage's Difference Engine, were never fully
operational. Some, like the Mark 1, used relays and mechanics for
calculation, and were not really electronic. Some were built for a
specific task, such as breaking codes, and were not really general
purpose. Some were partly or entirely analog, such as the Differential
Analyzer. ENIAC was the first to do it all.

ENIAC "broke codes?" Really? "Did it all?" :-)

ENIAC had all the features needed to be the very first operational
general-purpose electronic
digital computer. And it was.

Ever hear of 'the BSTJ?' That's the Bell System Technical
Journal. Before the Bell break-up it was published
(mostly) monthly. They had a nice write-up in it on the
three electromechanical 'computers' that Bell Labs made
for making Firing Tables during WWII.

They were slow - at least an order of magnitude slower than ENIAC. They
were not general purpose, either. Their technology led nowhere.

Good old "amateur radio subject in an amateur radio
newsgroup!" :-)

You mean like your constant rehash of ADA?

ENIAC took up an enormous amount of space and power, used over 17,000
tubes and required programming in machine language to do anything
useful.

ever do any "programming in machine language?"

Yes.

At any
time? I have. Want me to list them? :-)

No.

Its complexity and sheer size meant that breakdowns were frequent. One
solution was to never turn it off, because many failures occurred
during turn-on and turn-off.

Good old tube filaments!

They're called heaters, Len.

Part of the problem was that the parts used in the original
construction were not the most reliable possible. ENIAC was built under
wartime restrictions, and they had to use what they could get. The
quality of some parts, particularly common octal tubes, noticeably
decreased over the war years because they were being made by a variety
of companies, using inexperienced people and whatever facilities were
available.

People reproduce without any experience. :-)

Fortunately, some do not.

The experienced tube companies and people were needed for
radar and proximity fuse work, not the manufacture of 6SN7s.

Tsk, in the history of the War Production Board, the
number 1 priority went to the Manhattan Project. Second
priority was the manufacture of quartz crystal units (a
million a month total between '43 and '45). The company
that would change its corporate name to MOTOROLA (Galvin
Manufacturing) was the center of quartz production control
but Galvin also designed and built wartime radios...one
(the first handie-talkie) being done before the USA was
drawn into WW2. Heck, Lewyt Vacuum Cleaner Company built
high-power transmitters (BC-339) during WW2.

What does that have to do with ENIAC?

The point is that the ENIAC folks got the machine to work with the
parts available.

The reliability of ENIAC was such that it would typically run for 1 to
2 days before something needed fixing. Its record was only about 5 days
of continuous operation. The folks using it got very very good at
identifying and fixing the problems.

ENIAC was never duplicated. During its development, so much was learned
that newer machines like EDSAC, EDVAC and ultimately the UNIVAC were
designed, rather than repeat the ENIAC design.

ENIAC flunked.

No, it passed.

The Army accepted ENIAC, moved it to the Aberdeen Proving Grounds, and
used it until 1955.
If it were not a 'practical' device, they would have simply abandoned
it or scrapped it.

The US Army abandoned and/or scrapped a lot of things in those days.
For example, a lot of material was destroyed or abandoned in place
because it wasn't practical to bring it back to the USA. Projects were
simply stopped. WW2 "surplus" was sold for pennies on the dollar just
to get rid of it.

If ENIAC "flunked", why did the Army use it for at least 9 years?

It went defunct.

After 1955, yes.

One of a kind.

ENIAC was never duplicated. During its development, so much was learned
that newer machines like EDSAC, EDVAC and ultimately the UNIVAC were
designed, rather than repeat the ENIAC design.

By modern standards, or even those of 20, 30, or 40 years ago, ENIAC
is/was totally impractical.

Try 51 years, not just 40 years ago.

51 years was 1955. ENIAC served the Army for at least 9 years (1946 to
1955). Say, that's longer than *you* claim to have served, Len! ;-)
;-) ;-)

But by the standards of its time, it was a tremendous advance.

According to Moore School PR and the Eckert-Mauchley company
that also went defunct afterwards... :-)

Bought out by a larger company.

ENIAC *was* a tremendous advance. And it was practical, by the
standards of its time.

Calculations that took *weeks* using pre-ENIAC methods could be done in
*seconds* using the machine.

Now, now, you are comparing pomegranites and pumpkins.

Nope. I'm comparing calculating speeds.

Quit

You're telling me what to do, Len. You frequently tell people what to
do, when they prove you wrong. What is wrong with live and let live?

trying to compare humans operating Monroe or Friden desk
calculators for those Firing Table data tabulations with
the MINUTES it took using ENIAC.

Why? Did you ever see a firing table calculation (not tabulation) done
on ENIAC? Or do one by hand? Ever see the machine itself? Ever read the
original papers on it?

The boundaries of "numerically hard"
calculation were pushed back enormously.

Tsk. It's a given that mechanical means, then electrical
means has been acknowledged as making mathematical
calculations faster since LONG before ENIAC existed.

Irrelevant. The point is that the use of electronics by ENIAC increased
the speed by *orders* of magnitude. No mechanical or electromechanical
machine could hope to keep up.

Mechanical and electromechanical computing and calculating were
rendered hopelessly obsolete by ENIAC's success. ENIAC caused the focus
to move to purely electronic computing and calculating. Within a few
years, commercial machines like UNIVAC were on the market. (A UNIVAC
correctly predicted the outcome of the 1952 presidential election,
based on just a few percent of the returns).

Most important of all, the ENIAC was considered "practical" enough by
the US Army. Soon after it was publically announced in 1946, the Army
moved it to the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland, where it was used
for its intended purposes until 1955.

The government PAID for it and now they were stuck with this
big white elephant.

Yes, the Army paid for it.

No, it wasn't a "white elephant". It was practical and they used it.

The Army accepted ENIAC, moved it to the Aberdeen Proving Grounds, and
used it until 1955.
If it were not a 'practical' device, they would have simply abandoned
it or scrapped it.

The US Army abandoned and/or scrapped a lot of things in those days.
For example, a lot of material was destroyed or abandoned in place
because it wasn't practical to bring it back to the USA. Projects were
simply stopped. WW2 "surplus" was sold for pennies on the dollar just
to get rid of it.

If ENIAC was a "white elephant". why did the Army use it for at least 9
years?

Probably didn't bother declaring it
"surplus" since no one wanted to buy it. :-)

They couldn't decalre it surplus because they were using it.

That's why I wrote the above ENIAC story.

BFD. You went to Moore, "touched" the museum piece that it is.

It's clear you're very jealous, Len.

How many computers made today have a useful life as long as ENIAC?

My HP Pavilion box for one. My wife's HP Pavilion for two.
One hellishly FASTER clock rate than ENIAC, enormous RAM,
ROM, and mass storage medium. Built about 4 years ago.

ENIAC was in service at least 9 years, Len.

My Apple ][ Plus for three...built in 1980 sold to me in
1980...been running now and then ever since.

You never turn it off?

Dinky little
clock rate of 1 MHz, a thousand times slower than the HP
Pavilions but still a lot faster than ENIAC could ever do.
A quarter of a century later it still boots up, runs
programs.

But it's not practical any more.

Those machines can all trace their design right back to ENIAC - and not
to any mechanical or electromechanical device.

btw, in 1976, ENIAC was returned to where it was built, and a museum
display set up with parts of it. In the 1990s, part of it was restored
to operating condition, and some calculations done as a demonstration.

[big Ben Stein "wowwwww..." here]

Thirty years before 1976 the Rosenwald Museum of Science and
Industry in Chicago had a working interactive tic-tac-toe
calculator made from relays. Was mounted behind glass so the
visitors could see the relays in operation. Interactive,
Jimmie, any visitor could try it without instruction. :-)

Not general purpose, and not a computer.

I got to see and touch parts of ENIAC.

Wowee. I've touched the Liberty Bell at Independance Hall
in Philly.

So did I - several times.

When I ran the Philadelphia Independence Marathon, the finish line was
in front of Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell.

Between the two, I'd much prefer the Liberty
Bell.

Why must one prefer one over the other?

ENIAC is defunct. Liberty is NOT.

"Liberty is not a bell". And the way things are going, Liberty is
slowly being eroded.

btw, the Liberty Bell *is* defunct for its original purpose (ringing).

Also read the papers on it. A
machine that changed the world, made from very ordinary parts and
techniques, assembled in a new way.

PR minutae you spout.

The word is spelled "minutiae", Len.

Maybe you ought to get on a committee
to build a SHRINE for ENIAC?

There's already a museum. No shrine needed.

"All worship the Machine That
CHANGED THE WORLD!!!" :-)

You really are jealous, aren't you, Len? Fact is, ENIAC *did* change
the world.

Webster's spells it "minutia" for singular, "minutiae" for plural.

Len's should have chosen the singular. He made an error.

Typical.

Tsk, tsk,

lays on the MINUTAE in plural form so much
that I was correct. :-)

"Minutiae" is the plural, Len.

WTF Moore School and ENIAC have to do with AMATEUR RADIO POLICY
seems to have vanished

I'll explain it again, Len:

In the history of electrical engineering, all sorts of now-incredible
things were once considered practical. That's a fact.

ENIAC is just one example of how things that are now considered
incredible were once practical.

The main point is that it's not superfluous. Voice radio was
"practical" enough for MW broadcasting by 1920 - that's not an opinion,
it's a demonstrated fact.

Yes. There is nothing currently underway to move toward anything in the
near future to change amplitude modulation for medium wave broadcasting.

There are AM BC receivers from the 1920s that, if restored, will
perform admirably today in their intended purpose.

Then let the Navy use them. :-) ["perform admirably" :-) ]

??

Some NTSC TV sets from 60 years ago, if restored, can still be used to
watch VHF TV.

Why? Aren't those good for 80m "CW" transceiver parts?
[rock-bound at 3.58 MHz... :-) ]

"Cost less than $100...etc., etc., etc." :-)

Of course HDTV will eventually replace NTSC.

"Eventually?!?"

Yes, eventually. How many times have they moved the date when NTSC TV
will end? How many NTSC TV sets and other hardware are being sold
today?

Once you watch DTV in operation, side by side with an older
NTSC set, the tremendous difference in DTV can be seen AND
heard. With the truly flat-screen LCD, Plasma, or DLP display
with a wider picture than possible with NTSC, the detail and
expanse is striking with DTV.

Yes - but most of the shows are still JUNK. The quality of the picture
and sound doesn't make up for the lack of quality in the programming.

say "if it ain't broke, don't fix it?"

What's wrong with that?

be the Amish of ham radio.

Do you have a problem with "the Amish"? Do you know anything about them
or their way of life?

Do you know what happened in Nickel Mines, PA last week?

He knows very little about me and has resorted to wild speculation and
untruths for a long time.

Sounds like that USMC Imposter
Robeson's tactic.

How do you know if someone is a "USMC Imposter", Len?

See above about ENIAC. It was very practical, in its time - but never
repeated.

ENIAC defuct.

"defuct"?

Flunked in reliability, flunked in architecture
(BCD accumulators/registers, not binary). NEVER repeated.
A MUSEUM PIECE.

If it were so bad, why did the Army use it for at least 9 years?

ENIAC served the Army longer than *you* did, Len ;-)

I'm still looking for a definition of "morsemanship"

Poor baby. Can't understand it? Post-graduate degree and
you still can't connect the dots? :-)

It's not in the dictionary.

My history sources go far beyond ARRL publications.
And ARRL history isn't "bowdlerized".

ARRL carefully OMITS certain items of history and IMPLIES
amateurs are 'responsible' for all advances. :-)

More untruths from Len.

Notice how Len doesn't mention any HF experience of his after ADA,
except cb?

WRONG. Civil avionics work included HF...used in US
Aviation Radio Service.

OK

Maritime Radio Service
includes personal use of an HF SSB transceiver
(SGC-2020) two years ago.
Contract work involved
DoD design and evaluation which did not need my
civilian Commercial operator license sign-off.

Somebody else's radio on somebody else's boat, authorized under
somebody else's license.

To do so would require not only a license, but assembling a station.

"Plug and play" nowadays, was that way a half century
ago. :-)

For cb

Collins Radio used to make whole stations,
quit the amateur radio market and still makes money.

Superfluous

Note that while Len talks endlessly about places he has worked and
projects he has worked on, there's almost nothing about radio projects
he has done himself, with his own money, at home.

This newsgroup is Amateur Radio Policy, not Amateur Radio
Homebrew. :-)

There's the one-tube unlicensed oscillator transmitter of 1948, his
conversion of some ARC-5s and their sale, the store-bought ICOM
receiver and the compact Johnson....and not much else.

WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.

Two complete ARC-5 receiver-transmitters for 40 meters.

Already mentioned.

Conversion earned me some money on resale. I still have
one 6-9 MHz ARC-5 receiver that runs, assorted parts from
both receivers and transmitters. Did that in 1948,
not the "phonograph transmitter" built as a lark in
1947...which worked on the AM BC band and did not violate
any FCC regulations at the time. :-)

Already mentioned.

You are confused with the 1947 HF regenerative receiver
that I suppose DID 'regenerate' a bit much out a 200 foot
long wire antenna at times. :-)

Oh, my, a "store-bought Icom receiver!" Their model IC-R70.
Paid for "in cash" (check, actually) at an HRO in Van Nuys,
CA (later moved to two successive locations in Burbank, CA).
Cost about $600 then. No problem, could afford it.

Already mentioned.

Oh, yeah, the "compact Johnson." The E. F. Johnson
Viking Messenger is small but not necessarily compact.

Practical for its time.

If you need some verification I can get some URLs for
CB nostalgia types for you. On the "compact johnson,"

I wrote about your "compact Johnson", Len - and that's all. See the
capital J? That's a proper name.

Plus if FCC *does* drop Element 1, what will Len do?

Then I will drop the advocacy of eliminating the morse
code test...as I have written many times in here.

First time I've seen you wrote that.

Besides, if the test is gone, there's no reason to advocate for its
elimination.

The question is what will you do without that obsession to fill your
time?

There
would be no NEED for advocacy of eliminating that test
since it had already been eliminated in that case.

Well, duh.

Tsk, you are SO unbelieving, all that FABRICATION about
"reasons" you imagine! Poor baby.

You have advocated far more than simple elimination of the Morse Code
test.

N2EFrom: on Sun, Oct 8 2006 5:29 am


wrote:
From: on Sat, Oct 7 2006 6:39 am
Dave Heil wrote:
wrote:
Dave Heil wrote:
wrote:
From: on Tues, Oct 3 2006 3:25 pm
wrote:
From: Nada Tapu on Sat, Sep 30 2006 2:23 pm
On Fri, 29 Sep 2006 20:56:08 -0400, wrote:



At NO TIME did any OTHER broadcaster or voice transmitter
adopt the Fessenden brute-force amplitude modulator. NO ONE.
Not in the USA, not in Canada, not anywhere in the world.

How do you know for sure, Len? Did you visit every transmitting station
in the world?

No. There is NO historical record of ANY broadcasting
station USING that single-high-power-special-carbon-
microphone "modulator" that you claim is "practical."

The truth is that you don't know - you're just making things up. Maybe
others adopted Fessenden's idea and failed. Or maybe they succeeded,
but after a time lost interest and went on with other things.

The "truth" is that you are ****ed, want to rationalize
your previous claim of "practicality" and are trying to
side-pedal onto some area where you can rail at the
challengers, saying the challengers LIE.

You don't know for sure. All you know is that you haven't come across
any documentation that someone else adopted Fessenden's idea.

All I know is that NO ONE seems to have documented it...
and there has been LOTS of documentation about broad-
casting for all of its existance...from manufacturers
to users.

Feel free to post ANY source that claims to have used
Reggie's brute-force modulator of a single-high-power-
special-carbon-microphone "modulator" that you say is
"practical."

Why don't you write some of the 50 KW AM broadcasters
and suggest this "practical" idea? Try KMPC here in San
Fernando Valley. 50 KW RF output into three towers.
Do you know of any carbon microphone maker that sells a
FIFTY KILOWATT MICROPHONE? Can you engineer one?

How about the studio people at KMPC? Would you like to
tell them that, for "practical" reasons, they all have to
cluster around a SINGLE microphone that is passing 50 KW
of RF energy? Hmmm? The studio MUST be moved to the
transmitter site unless you can figure out some way for
the SINGLE microphone to exist in present studios yet
handle the 50 KW RF from the transmitter and back out to
the antenna.

So much for your redefinition of "practical."

You seem to think that a thing cannot be practical unless it is copied.
That's simply not true.

I think (no "seem" about it) that you dribbled out some
nonsense about your radio hero's "practical" thing and
are trying (vainly) to get the hell out of it through
a lot of NON-thinking.



yet you've never served in the military or in
the US government.

How do you know for sure who served and who didn't?

YOU did NOT serve in ANY military. Period. You don't
have the attitude for anything but being elitist, you-
are-better-superiority.


If I had a dollar for every time you've mentioned your Army experience
on rrap, I'd probably have enough for a brand new Orion II with all the
filters.

NOT enough. Not enough to cover the costs of your HBR
clone pictured on Kees Talen's website.


Twenty pages with many photo illustrations.
High-power HF transmitters. 1953 to 1956.

How does anyone know for sure that it's all accurate, Len? You didn't
even get the distance from the USSR to Tokyo correct - maybe you made
other mistakes?

It was already reviewed by three who were THERE, plus
a civilian engineer who worked there for both the USA
and USAF. Several others who were THERE, including a
USAF MSgt who worked at Kashiwa after the USAF took it
over have looked at the final copy FIRST. A draft
copy went with the CD containing photos about Hardy
Barracks to a Pacific Stars and Stripes journalist in
Tokyo. That journalist supplied some extra data which
was incorporated into the final version.

I was in the Army at the time, NOT the USAF. Didn't
need to compute any air distances of possible enemy
aircraft directions. Are you going to say there was
"no danger" from the USSR in the early 1950s?!? Go
tell that to the Far East Command folks...now the
USARPAC based at Fort Shafter, HI.

Speaking of "distances," want to give the distance
to the moon again like you did the first time? :-)

"It ain't braggin' if ya done it!" :-)

How do we know for sure that you did it?

You don't...because you NEVER CHECK. All you do is
say I am "in error" (LIE). I have the third-party
documentation, was there.

You were never there. You never served in any
military.


Have you noticed that Len doesn't ask about what other people have done
in *amateur* radio? And this is an *amateur* radio newsgroup!

Tsk, I have done so.

No, you haven't.

Oh, so now YOU just said what you claimed you didn't say
earlier in your post! [can you say 'hypocrite?']


All that you've displayed (via links)
is an old 70's era receiver, supposedly built for less than
$100, on Kees Talen's website "HBR" pages (HomeBrew Receiver,
after the various "HBR" articles in QST of decades ago).

Actually it cost about $10.

Ten dollars is LESS THAN $100.

If it only cost "$10" then I've only mentioned a large
HF communications station ten times... :-)

You have to get your money for that Orion somewhere else.

You can't design an Orion clone by yourself? :-)


In the history of electrical engineering, all sorts of now-incredible
things were once considered practical. That's a fact.

Yawn.


Current flow *is* opposite electron flow, Len. It's an engineering
convention.

The engineering convention I go to is called 'WESCON'
the WEStern electronics show and CONvention. Alternates
years between Anaheim, CA, and San Francisco, CA. One-
week combination trade show and technical talks.


Still is. Current flows from positive to negative. Electrons go the
other way.

Is NOT practical now.

Then why is it still the conventional representation in electrical
engineering?

Is it? :-) Have you cracked a NEW text published after
two decades ago? :-)

Are you going to explain "current flow" from the faceplate
of a CRT back to the cathode? :-)




ENIAC "broke codes?" Really? "Did it all?" :-)

ENIAC had all the features needed to be the very first operational
general-purpose electronic digital computer. And it was.

ENIAC broke codes?

Don't waffle. Either it did or it didn't.


Ever hear of 'the BSTJ?' That's the Bell System Technical
Journal. Before the Bell break-up it was published
(mostly) monthly. They had a nice write-up in it on the
three electromechanical 'computers' that Bell Labs made
for making Firing Tables during WWII.

They were slow - at least an order of magnitude slower than ENIAC. They
were not general purpose, either. Their technology led nowhere.

Tell that to Bell Labs. :-) Tell that to Claude
Elwood Shannon. :-)



ever do any "programming in machine language?"

Yes.

Which processor or CPU?


Good old tube filaments!

They're called heaters, Len.

Tsk. Out came the knuckle-spanking ruler again! :-)

I have lots of old engineering texts which refer to
the glowing part of vacuum tubes as 'filaments.'

More than I have old engineering texts which talk
about "current flow."

Are you now going to whip out some hydro engineering
texts and explain that "current flow" goes uphill in
a stream? :-)



The point is that the ENIAC folks got the machine to work with the
parts available.

What does ENIAC have to do with amateur radio policy?


The Army accepted ENIAC, moved it to the Aberdeen Proving Grounds, and
used it until 1955.
If it were not a 'practical' device, they would have simply abandoned
it or scrapped it.

Tsk, you are an amateur extra pro-coder and KNOW what
the US Army thinks-knows-does!

Marvelous! All from NEVER serving in any military!

Yawn.



Mechanical and electromechanical computing and calculating were
rendered hopelessly obsolete by ENIAC's success. ENIAC caused the focus
to move to purely electronic computing and calculating. Within a few
years, commercial machines like UNIVAC were on the market. (A UNIVAC
correctly predicted the outcome of the 1952 presidential election,
based on just a few percent of the returns).

Predicted all by itself? No programmer did anything?

Amazing!

But, UNIVAC was not ENIAC. :-)


It's clear you're very jealous, Len.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yawn.



Those machines can all trace their design right back to ENIAC - and not
to any mechanical or electromechanical device.

Oh, my, not to Alfred Boole? :-)

Not to Von Neuman? Not to hundreds of thousands
like Bardeen, Brattain, and Shockley? Or Jack Kilby?
Or the innovator of the floppy disk mass storage
device (whoever did that first)?

Right you are, Mr. Computer Guru. Nothing about "Harvard"
architecture, "pipelining", bilateral digital switching,
standardized logic levels, RAM, ROM, EPROM, or BINARY
registers instead of the BCD variant ENIAC used. Modern
computers "trace their design right back to ENIAC?"
Nooooooo.

Try as hard as I can, I can't find ANY relatively modern
computer that needs 6SN7s (a dual triode, octal base),
not even 12AU7s. The last vacuum tube used with computers
was the CRT and that's quickly going away...



ENIAC is defunct. Liberty is NOT.

"Liberty is not a bell".

Whatever you say, Mr. Patriot.

I think of LIBERTY and FREEDOM in the larger sense, but
if all you can think of is some 'bell' go for it.

Ring your own chimes, Mr. Never Served.



You really are jealous, aren't you, Len? Fact is, ENIAC *did* change
the world.

Still stuck on that religious object at Moore? Tsk.



How do you know if someone is a "USMC Imposter", Len?

Real veterans KNOW this, Jimmie. You don't because you will
never be a military veteran.




ENIAC served the Army longer than *you* did, Len ;-)

No problem, ENIAC served the ARMY an infinity more
than YOU did. You NEVER served...any military.

BTW, what did it say on ENIAC's DD-214? :-)




Oh, yeah, the "compact Johnson." The E. F. Johnson
Viking Messenger is small but not necessarily compact.

Practical for its time.

Is it like the "ENIAC" of CB?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[damn, it's hard to keep a straight face with your postings]


I wrote about your "compact Johnson", Len - and that's all. See the
capital J? That's a proper name.

It's just a SURNAME, Jimmie, for "E. F. Johnson."

E. F. Johnson made a LOT of different radios. Which one
do you think I have?

Have you seen the E. F. Johnson mobile transceivers they
have now? Much more compact than the Viking Messenger.



Plus if FCC *does* drop Element 1, what will Len do?

Then I will drop the advocacy of eliminating the morse
code test...as I have written many times in here.

First time I've seen you wrote that.

Here's a plain and simple fact: You LIE, Jimmie.

I have explained what I will do many times. So many
times that I might juggle a few words to make it look
a bit different. The INTENT and MEANING is still the
same.

Besides, if the test is gone, there's no reason to advocate for its
elimination.

Golleee, Gomer, you finally figured that out all by
yourself?

BWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



The question is what will you do without that obsession to fill your
time?

What "obsession?" :-)

Changing federal laws and regulations is a POLITICAL
matter. I am active in politics, many things, but none
are "obsessions." ["obsessions" like the religious
affection for a defunct computer]



You have advocated far more than simple elimination of the Morse Code
test.

How about that? :-)

Elimination of the morse code test was NEVER "simple." :-)

To do so would mean the End of the World As Morsemen
Knew It!

Morse code testing is practically a Religious Rite to all
morsemen, ending it is like defaming God, a Heresy with
a capital H. :-)


But, as always to you, ByteBrothers famous phrase invoked.

wrote:
N2EY Wrote: From: on Sun, Oct 8 2006 5:29 am
wrote:
From: on Sat, Oct 7 2006 6:39 am
Dave Heil wrote:
wrote:
Dave Heil wrote:
wrote:
From: on Tues, Oct 3 2006 3:25 pm
wrote:
From: Nada Tapu on Sat, Sep 30 2006 2:23 pm
On Fri, 29 Sep 2006 20:56:08 -0400, wrote:

At NO TIME did any OTHER broadcaster or voice transmitter
adopt the Fessenden brute-force amplitude modulator. NO ONE.
Not in the USA, not in Canada, not anywhere in the world.

How do you know for sure, Len? Did you visit every transmitting station
in the world?

No.

Then you don't really know. You're just guessing, and passing off your
uneducated guess as a fact.

There is NO historical record of ANY broadcasting
station USING that single-high-power-special-carbon-
microphone "modulator" that you claim is "practical."

Incorrect.

There is no historical record *that you can find*.

Also, note your original claim: (direct quote - see above to be sure)

"At NO TIME did any OTHER broadcaster or voice transmitter
adopt the Fessenden brute-force amplitude modulator. NO ONE.
Not in the USA, not in Canada, not anywhere in the world."

"broadcaster or voice transmitter" - that means you claim that not only
did broadcasters not use Fessenden's method, but that no experimenters,
amateurs, commercial users or military units did, either.

The fact that *you* can't find an historical record doesn't mean you
have proof it didn't happen.

The truth is that you don't know - you're just making things up. Maybe
others adopted Fessenden's idea and failed. Or maybe they succeeded,
but after a time lost interest and went on with other things.

The "truth" is that you are ****ed,

Not me, Len. You're the one shouting and calling names because your
claim has been shown to be unfounded.

You claim to be a "professional writer", but your logic and use of
words is very sloppy.

want to rationalize
your previous claim of "practicality" and are trying to
side-pedal onto some area where you can rail at the
challengers, saying the challengers LIE.

Totally incorrect, Len.

I haven't said that you or anyone else here on rrap lied.

What you have done is to tell untruths, make mistakes, promulgate
errors. That's not the same as lying.

For something to be a lie, the person stating it has to know it is
untrue, and then state it as if it were true, with the intention of
deceiving the reader or listener.

You don't know for sure. All you know is that you haven't come across
any documentation that someone else adopted Fessenden's idea.

All I know is that NO ONE seems to have documented it...

And that's true.

But it's not the same as:

"At NO TIME did any OTHER broadcaster or voice transmitter
adopt the Fessenden brute-force amplitude modulator. NO ONE.
Not in the USA, not in Canada, not anywhere in the world."

and there has been LOTS of documentation about broad-
casting for all of its existance...from manufacturers
to users.

That doesn't mean every attempt at voice radio from ~100 years ago was
documented so that you could find it, Len. There are lots of things you
don't know.

Feel free to post ANY source that claims to have used
Reggie's brute-force modulator of a single-high-power-
special-carbon-microphone "modulator" that you say is
"practical."

Why?

Why don't you write some of the 50 KW AM broadcasters
and suggest this "practical" idea? Try KMPC here in San
Fernando Valley. 50 KW RF output into three towers.
Do you know of any carbon microphone maker that sells a
FIFTY KILOWATT MICROPHONE? Can you engineer one?

How about the studio people at KMPC? Would you like to
tell them that, for "practical" reasons, they all have to
cluster around a SINGLE microphone that is passing 50 KW
of RF energy? Hmmm? The studio MUST be moved to the
transmitter site unless you can figure out some way for
the SINGLE microphone to exist in present studios yet
handle the 50 KW RF from the transmitter and back out to
the antenna.

Now you're just ranting. You're all angry and upset because, once
again, you've been shown to be mistaken in your claim.

Here it is again:

"At NO TIME did any OTHER broadcaster or voice transmitter
adopt the Fessenden brute-force amplitude modulator. NO ONE.
Not in the USA, not in Canada, not anywhere in the world."

No mention of high power. No mention of "practicality", "studios" or a
limit to just broadcasting.

Ever hear of loop modulation, Len?

So much for your redefinition of "practical."

You seem to think that a thing cannot be practical unless it is copied.
That's simply not true.

I think (no "seem" about it) that you dribbled out some
nonsense about your radio hero's "practical" thing and
are trying (vainly) to get the hell out of it through
a lot of NON-thinking.

You seem to think that a thing cannot be practical unless it is copied.
That's simply not true.

yet you've never served in the military or in
the US government.

How do you know for sure who served and who didn't?

YOU did NOT serve in ANY military. Period.

How do you know for sure, Len?

You don't
have the attitude for anything but being elitist, you-
are-better-superiority.

Now you're just making stuff up. What attitude should a veteran have?
I've known plenty of military veterans, Len - from WW2, Korea, Vietnam,
and more recent conflicts. None of them display an attitude or behavior
like yours.

If I had a dollar for every time you've mentioned your Army experience
on rrap, I'd probably have enough for a brand new Orion II with all the
filters.

NOT enough.

More than enough, probably.

You've been posting here to rrap for over ten years, Len. That's more
than 3650 days. Probably more than 4000 days.

If you mentioned your Army days here just once a day, that would be
over 3650 dollars. While you don't post here every day, there have been
days when you mentioned your Army experience more than once. In fact,
you sometimes mention it more than once per post!

Not enough to cover the costs of your HBR
clone pictured on Kees Talen's website.

Heck, Len, that receiver only cost me $10. You've probably mentioned
your Army experience ten times this month!

And my "Silver Receiver" (aka Southgate Type 4) on the HBR website is
not a clone of anything. It's a unique design. Perhaps I should
describe that receiver - it had some unusual features. Like the ability
to use a wide variety of tubes without being modified.

You don't...because you NEVER CHECK.

How can I be sure that the information you give is correct, Len? You
can't both give the info and the check method.

All you do is
say I am "in error" (LIE).

Nope. You're in error - again!

Being in error and lying are two different things, Len.

I haven't said that you or anyone else here on rrap lied.

What you have done is to tell untruths, make mistakes, promulgate
errors. That's not the same as lying.

For something to be a lie, the person stating it has to know it is
untrue, and then state it as if it were true, with the intention of
deceiving the reader or listener.

In the history of electrical engineering, all sorts of now-incredible
things were once considered practical. That's a fact.

Is NOT practical now.

ENIAC had all the features needed to be the very first operational
general-purpose electronic digital computer. And it was.

Ever hear of 'the BSTJ?' That's the Bell System Technical
Journal. Before the Bell break-up it was published
(mostly) monthly. They had a nice write-up in it on the
three electromechanical 'computers' that Bell Labs made
for making Firing Tables during WWII.

They were slow - at least an order of magnitude slower than ENIAC. They
were not general purpose, either. Their technology led nowhere.

Tell that to Bell Labs. :-) Tell that to Claude
Elwood Shannon. :-)

It's not me who said it. The Army did.

Good old tube filaments!

They're called heaters, Len.

Tsk. Out came the knuckle-spanking ruler again! :-)

I have lots of old engineering texts which refer to
the glowing part of vacuum tubes as 'filaments.'

Filaments are used in directly heated cathodes.

Heaters are used in indirectly heated cathodes.

The tubes in ENIAC were mostly indirectly heated types. Therefore, the
term "heaters" is more accurate than "filaments".

The point is that the ENIAC folks got the machine to work with the
parts available.

What does ENIAC have to do with amateur radio policy?

What does ADA have to do with amateur radio policy?

The Army accepted ENIAC, moved it to the Aberdeen Proving Grounds, and
used it until 1955.
If it were not a 'practical' device, they would have simply abandoned
it or scrapped it.

Tsk, you are an amateur extra pro-coder and KNOW what
the US Army thinks-knows-does!

On the issue of ENIAC - yes, I do.

Just take a look at this (if you have the guts):

ELECTRONIC COMPUTERS WITHIN THE ORDNANCE CORPS

HISTORICAL MONOGRAPH FROM 1961

Karl Kempf
Historical Officer
Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD
November 1961

Available online at:

http://ftp.arl.mil/~mike/comphist/61ordnance/index.html

That's official Army history. Do you know more about ENIAC than the
Historical Officer at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds?

Here's the chapter on ENIAC:

http://ftp.arl.mil/~mike/comphist/61ordnance/chap2.html

Read what the official Army historical officer wrote, and you'll see
I'm right. They specifically mention the relay computers as taking all
night to perform a computation, and to being outmoded by ENIAC and its
successors.

ENIAC was a bargain, too - cost less than a million dollars.

and btw:

ENIAC did not used BCD (binary-coded-decimal). It was a true decimal
machine, with decimal ring counters and ten data lines for each digit.
The use of decimal rather than binary architecture was the only
fundamental part of ENIAC's structure that was not copied in later
machines.

Now be a big boy and admit your mistakes, Len.

wrote in
oups.com:

wrote:
N2EY Wrote: From: on Sun, Oct 8 2006 5:29 am
wrote:
From: on Sat, Oct 7 2006 6:39 am
Dave Heil wrote:
wrote:
Dave Heil wrote:
wrote:
From: on Tues, Oct 3 2006 3:25 pm
wrote:
From: Nada Tapu on Sat, Sep 30 2006 2:23 pm
On Fri, 29 Sep 2006 20:56:08 -0400, wrote:

At NO TIME did any OTHER broadcaster or voice transmitter
adopt the Fessenden brute-force amplitude modulator. NO ONE.
Not in the USA, not in Canada, not anywhere in the world.

How do you know for sure, Len? Did you visit every transmitting
station in the world?

No.

Then you don't really know. You're just guessing, and passing off your
uneducated guess as a fact.


That's what Len always does. Normally right changing the subject line.

SC

wrote:
From: on Sun, Oct 8 2006 5:29 am
wrote:
From: on Sat, Oct 7 2006 6:39 am

Ever hear of 'the BSTJ?' That's the Bell System Technical
Journal. Before the Bell break-up it was published
(mostly) monthly. They had a nice write-up in it on the
three electromechanical 'computers' that Bell Labs made
for making Firing Tables during WWII.

They were slow - at least an order of magnitude slower than ENIAC. They
were not general purpose, either. Their technology led nowhere.

Tell that to Bell Labs. :-) Tell that to Claude
Elwood Shannon. :-)

I don't have to - the Army already did:

Quoting Chapter 1 of "ELECTRONIC COMPUTERS WITHIN THE ORDNANCE CORPS"

(an official US Army history):

"Two Bell Relay Computers were used. They were accurate, but slow and
required expert maintenance. Dust and humidity adversely affected their
operation."

The point is that the ENIAC folks got the machine to work with the
parts available.

The Army accepted ENIAC, moved it to the Aberdeen Proving Grounds, and
used it until 1955.

If it were not a 'practical' device, they would have simply abandoned
it or scrapped it.

Mechanical and electromechanical computing and calculating were
rendered hopelessly obsolete by ENIAC's success. ENIAC caused the focus
to move to purely electronic computing and calculating. Within a few
years, commercial machines like UNIVAC were on the market. (A UNIVAC
correctly predicted the outcome of the 1952 presidential election,
based on just a few percent of the returns).

Predicted all by itself? No programmer did anything?

Amazing!

But, UNIVAC was not ENIAC. :-)


It's clear you're very jealous, Len.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yawn.


Those machines can all trace their design right back to ENIAC - and not
to any mechanical or electromechanical device.

Oh, my, not to Alfred Boole? :-)

Nope.

Not to Von Neuman?

Do you mean John von Neumann? He was on the team that built ENIAC.

Not to hundreds of thousands
like Bardeen, Brattain, and Shockley?

They invented the transistor, not the computer, Len.

Right you are, Mr. Computer Guru. Nothing about "Harvard"
architecture,

Von Neumann architecture is the key.

"pipelining",

ENIAC could do parallel computations.

bilateral digital switching,
standardized logic levels,

ENIAC's were standardized.

RAM,

ENIAC had accumulators - aka registers.

ROM, EPROM,

Had those, too.

or BINARY
registers instead of the BCD variant ENIAC used.

ENIAC was a decimal machine. Not BCD.

Modern
computers "trace their design right back to ENIAC?"
Nooooooo.

Yes, they do.

At least the US Army thinks so:

http://ftp.arl.army.mil/ftp/historic...-comp-tree.gif

The root of the tree is ENIAC.

Some quotes from Army history:

"During the period 1946 - 1955 the ENIAC was operated successfully for
a total of 80,223 hours of operation. It performed about five thousand
arithmetic operations for each second of its useful life. ENIAC led the
computer field through 1952 when it served as the main computation
machine for the solution of the scientific problems of the nation. It
surpassed all other existing computers in solving problems involving a
large number of arithmetic operations. It was the major instrument for
the computation of all ballistic tables for the U.S. Army and Air
Force. In addition to ballistics, the ENIAC's field of application
included weather prediction, atomic energy calculations, cosmic ray
studies, thermal ignition, random number studies, wind tunnel design,
and other scientific uses."


Try as hard as I can, I can't find ANY relatively modern
computer that needs 6SN7s (a dual triode, octal base),
not even 12AU7s.

You didn't look very hard:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,10...1/article.html


The last vacuum tube used with computers
was the CRT and that's quickly going away...

So what? It's only been 60 years since ENIAC was announced...

From: on Mon, Oct 9 2006 6:20 pm

wrote:
From: on Sun, Oct 8 2006 5:29 am
wrote:
From: on Sat, Oct 7 2006 6:39 am


Try as hard as I can, I can't find ANY relatively modern
computer that needs 6SN7s (a dual triode, octal base),
not even 12AU7s.

You didn't look very hard:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,10...1/article.html

ERROR on "correction," Jimmie.

That's a 2002 ad-promo, four years OLD.

A click on the link for more data turns up blank with
the small advisory of no suppliers for this item. :-)

Search all you want of the HP, Dell, Compaq, the
independents such as PC Club...or the big warehouse
suppliers such as CDC or Frys. You won't find any
with vacuum tubes in them on the market this year
or the year before.

Now try to be a MAN, Jimmie, acknowledge your failure
to followup on the one-time "deal" of a single audio
output tube in a single specialty personal computer.


So what? It's only been 60 years since ENIAC was announced...

Tsk. You've been around for a decade less and your
THINKING is obsolete and self-centered.

BTW, what did ENIAC have to do with AMATEUR RADIO?

Anything at all?

ENIAC and the amateur code test deserve a place in
MUSEUMS, not the reality of life in today's world.

Please direct any more hero worship of ENIAC to the
ACM historian. You DO have an ACM membership, don't
you?

wrote:
From: on Mon, Oct 9 2006 6:20 pm
wrote:
From: on Sun, Oct 8 2006 5:29 am
wrote:
From: on Sat, Oct 7 2006 6:39 am

Try as hard as I can, I can't find ANY relatively modern
computer that needs 6SN7s (a dual triode, octal base),
not even 12AU7s.

You didn't look very hard:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,10...1/article.html

ERROR on "correction,"

Yes, *you* made an error, Len.

That's a 2002 ad-promo, four years OLD.

You wrote:

"I can't find ANY relatively modern
computer that needs 6SN7s (a dual triode, octal base),
not even 12AU7s."

2002 is certainly "relatively modern" compared to 1946.

You made a mistake, Len.

A click on the link for more data turns up blank with
the small advisory of no suppliers for this item. :-)

You specified "relatively modern", not "current production".

2002 is "relatively modern" compared to 1946. And that system was
brand-new in 2002.

Search all you want of the HP, Dell, Compaq, the
independents such as PC Club...or the big warehouse
suppliers such as CDC or Frys. You won't find any
with vacuum tubes in them on the market this year
or the year before.

So what? You specified "relatively modern", not "current production".
2002 is "relatively modern" compared to 1946. And that system was
brand-new in 2002.

You cannot change the criteria after the fact.

So what? It's only been 60 years since ENIAC was announced...

Tsk. You've been around for a decade less and your
THINKING is obsolete and self-centered.

You mean, like someone who doesn't want the zoning in their
neighhborhood to change in any way at all? Who wants the standards of
the very early 1960s to be enshrined forever in his neighborhood?

Like someone who wants to stop development of land he does not own?

BTW, what did ENIAC have to do with AMATEUR RADIO?

That it was practical in its time.

What do your ramblings about non-amateur-radio subjects have to do with
amateur radio, Len?

Anything at all?

Oh yes. Many of those who worked on ENIAC were hams. You did not work
on ENIAC and have never been a ham....

ENIAC and the amateur code test deserve a place in
MUSEUMS, not the reality of life in today's world.

In your *opinion*.

Please direct any more hero worship of ENIAC to the
ACM historian.

Why deal with second handers when the real stuff is out there?

Did you finish reading the US Army historical monograph I linked to?

Here are the links again:

Electronic Computers Within the Ordnance Corps

Historical Monograph from 1961

Karl Kempf
Historical Officer
Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD
November 1961

Index:

http://ftp.arl.mil/~mike/comphist/61ordnance/index.html

Chap 2 on ENIAC:

http://ftp.arl.mil/~mike/comphist/61ordnance/chap2.html

Tree of Computing:

http://ftp.arl.mil/~mike/comphist/61ordnance/chap7.html

That's the real stuff, straight from the Army. Covers not only ENIAC
but its successors. Read what the US Army Historical Officer wrote in
the official US Army documents.

The "Tree of Computing" sums it up nicely.

btw, the "Ordnance Corps" are the nice folks who take care of things
like how to do artillery barrages....

From: on Fri, Oct 13 2006 3:44am

wrote:
From: on Mon, Oct 9 2006 6:20 pm
wrote:
From: on Sun, Oct 8 2006 5:29 am
wrote:
From: on Sat, Oct 7 2006 6:39 am

Try as hard as I can, I can't find ANY relatively modern
computer that needs 6SN7s (a dual triode, octal base),
not even 12AU7s.

You didn't look very hard:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,10...1/article.html

ERROR on "correction,"

Yes, *you* made an error, Len.

That's a 2002 ad-promo, four years OLD.

You wrote:

"I can't find ANY relatively modern
computer that needs 6SN7s (a dual triode, octal base),
not even 12AU7s."

2002 is certainly "relatively modern" compared to 1946.

You made a mistake, Len.

Only under Jimmie's whiny little REdefinition of the
word "mistake." :-)

The original IBM PC that debuted in 1980 (26 years ago)
did NOT have any vacuum tubes in it. Neither did any
subsequent IBM PC...right on up to the total emptying
of IBM's Boca Raton, FL, PC operations.

Did IBM ever produce any AMATEUR RADIO products?

No? Then why do you go on and on and on and on
about this niche subject and the "glory" that was
ENIAC? Did ENIAC ever serve AMATEUR RADIO in any
way?

If you look back at personal computing, you will NOT
find any vacuum tubes used in them...except in your
absolute world a couple of short-lived PC systems that
incorporated a CRT (a vacuum tube) into the PC package.
[CP/M OS systems using an 8080 or Z80 CPU]

The original Apple (6502 processor based) didn't use
vacuum tubes. The original Apple Macintosh packaged
a CRT into the Mac's box since it brought out the icon-
based GUI display that was possible only with CRTs
at that time. Did ANY of the Apple computers use a
vacuum tube for SOUND output? No?

Look to the earlier personal computers such as the
Commodore, Atari, Sinclair, etc., etc., etc. NONE had
any vacuum tubes in them for SOUND output. NONE of
the pocket calculators had vacuum tubes. Some of the
earlier desktop calculators had GAS displays for
alphanumerics; HP and Tektronix both had PCs with
incorporated CRTs (in which the very earliest models
had some vacuum tubes for the CRT HV supply circuits).
NONE had any tubes for SOUND output.

There's a niche area of guitarists who prefer tubes
for the particular "warm sound" (distorted) they
associate with over-driving amplifiers. That "tube
sound" MYTH has been 'over-driven' to the point of
nausea, about like the "gold-coated speaker cable"
myth that is claimed to produce "golden sound" from
music amplifiers. :-)

Tube amps and gold-coated "monster cable" is a
triumph of Public Relations bull**** warping the
minds of the buying public. Not unlike the mythos
of morse that was CREATED in earlier radio. :-)

A click on the link for more data turns up blank with
the small advisory of no suppliers for this item. :-)

You specified "relatively modern", not "current production".

2002 is "relatively modern" compared to 1946. And that system was
brand-new in 2002.

That ONE system was DEFUNCT before 2005. :-)

Go back to the personal computer bellweather year of
1980. Any of those personal computers on the market
use vacuum tubes? No?

26 years ago is NOT "current production" nor is it
hardly "relatively modern." :-)

Search all you want of the HP, Dell, Compaq, the
independents such as PC Club...or the big warehouse
suppliers such as CDC or Frys. You won't find any
with vacuum tubes in them on the market this year
or the year before.

So what? You specified "relatively modern", not "current production".
2002 is "relatively modern" compared to 1946. And that system was
brand-new in 2002.

You cannot change the criteria after the fact.

Your whining, foot stamping, and crying out "mistake!
mistake!" about a SINGLE exception in the millions upon
millions of personal computers based on the original
IBM architecture PC of 26 years ago is a lot of your
bull****, Jimmie. That your SINGLE exception went
DEFUNCT after a year on the market only proves that you
are a whiny, foot-stamping, cryer who is bound and
determined to attempt humiliation of anyone disagreeing
with you. You've proved that activity for years in
here. :-)


BTW, what did ENIAC have to do with AMATEUR RADIO?

That it was practical in its time.

ENIAC did something for RADIO? [I don't think so...]

What do your ramblings about non-amateur-radio subjects have to do with
amateur radio, Len?

"Non-amateur-radio subjects?" Like ENIAC? An early
mainframe computer that was really a programmable
calculator? :-)

Anything at all?

Oh yes. Many of those who worked on ENIAC were hams.

Name them. :-)

Did they become hams JUST to work on ENIAC?

How was ENIAC used in RADIO?


You did not work on ENIAC and have never been a ham....

I've never claimed to... :-)

However, I was alive in 1946 and you were not. :-)

YOU never worked on ENIAC. You've never claimed to have
worked on ANY computer, main-frame, minicomputer, nor
personal computer.

Are you a member of the ACM? [Association for Computing
Machinery, the first and still-existing professional
association for computing and information technology] I was
a voting member of the ACM for a few years.

Jimmie is NOT a military veteran. Jimmie can never be
a military veteran. Jimmie has never done anything on
computers except to operate personal computers in
endless tirades against no-coders.


ENIAC and the amateur code test deserve a place in
MUSEUMS, not the reality of life in today's world.

In your *opinion*.

...yes, an OPINION shared by thousands and thousands and
thousands of others.

As of 2004 the US Census Bureau stated that 1 out of 5
Americans had SOME access to the Internet. That involves
access via a personal computer (or its cousin, the "work-
station"). That is roughly 50 to 60 MILLION Americans.

The original (and only) ENIAC used an architecture that
is NOT common to present-day personal computers. About
the only term that IS common is that ENIAC used "digital
circuits." That's about the end of it for commonality
with MILLIONS and MILLIONS of personal computers in the
daily use worldwide.

The ONLY radio service in the USA still requiring tested
morse code skill to permit operation below 30 MHz is the
AMATEUR radio service. ALL of the other radio services
have either dropped morse code for communications or never
considered it when that radio service was formed. There is
NO wired or wireless communications service in the USA that
uses manual telegraphy means today. Defunct. Kaput.


Please direct any more hero worship of ENIAC to the
ACM historian.

Why deal with second handers when the real stuff is out there?

"Real stuff?!?" ENIAC is a MUSEUM PIECE, Jimmie. It is
NOT "real stuff" except in your mind. It serves ONLY
the Moore School of Engineering as an EXHIBIT for PR
purposes. It is a dinosaur. Defunct. Kaput.


Did you finish reading the US Army historical monograph I linked to?

No. I rank that along with some "US Army historical" things
that described George Armstrong Custer as a "hero" of the
June 1876 Battle of the Little Big Horn. Some "hero." A
loose cannon who was LAST in his West Point class, a poor
tactician who made a tragic, fatal mistake for the 7th
Cavalry. Thank you, but NO, I'd rather read the NON-PR
historical references that described things as the REALLY
were without the orgasmic after-glow of hero worship.

ENIAC never saw battle, Jimmie. It was never close to the
battlefields like the Brit's Colossus nor did it "solve
ciphers" (decryption) like Colossus did. The US military
DOES have fielded computers (plural) and systems which
ARE useable today and ARE in use. You can read about
those if you wish...but you won't since none of them are
directly related to ENIAC.

Indeed, NONE of today's computers are related to ENIAC
any more than WE are "related" to some proto-humans of
Africa.


btw, the "Ordnance Corps" are the nice folks who take care of things
like how to do artillery barrages....

No, Jimmie Noserve, the "ordnance" folks maintain the
ammunition and weaponry. The ARTILLERY folks do the
actual laying-in and firing. Really. Had you ever served
in the military (you didn't) you would be informed of that.
In the US Army, the "line" (those who are the most involved
with actual battle) units are INFANTRY, ARTILLERY, and
ARMOR. All other units exist to serve them.


As ever to you, the ByteBrothers famous phrase is invoked.

wrote:
From: on Fri, Oct 13 2006 3:44am
wrote:
From: on Mon, Oct 9 2006 6:20 pm
wrote:
From: on Sun, Oct 8 2006 5:29 am
wrote:
From: on Sat, Oct 7 2006 6:39 am

Try as hard as I can, I can't find ANY relatively modern
computer that needs 6SN7s (a dual triode, octal base),
not even 12AU7s.

You didn't look very hard:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,10...1/article.html

ERROR on "correction,"

Yes, *you* made an error, Len.

That's a 2002 ad-promo, four years OLD.

You wrote:

"I can't find ANY relatively modern
computer that needs 6SN7s (a dual triode, octal base),
not even 12AU7s."

2002 is certainly "relatively modern" compared to 1946.

You made a mistake, Len.

Only under
whiny little REdefinition of the
word "mistake." :-)

Nope. You made a mistake, pure and simple. That is, unless you
deliberately wrote an untruth with the intent to deceive, in which case
it was a lie.

The original IBM PC that debuted in 1980 (26 years ago)
did NOT have any vacuum tubes in it.

The display that came with it had a CRT. The portable IBM PC, with
built-in display, had a CRT as well.

Neither did any
subsequent IBM PC...right on up to the total emptying
of IBM's Boca Raton, FL, PC operations.

But you didn't ask about the "IBM PC"

You wrote that you "can't find ANY relatively modern computer" with
vacuum tubes.

Not just IBM PCs, but "ANY relatively modern computer".

Did IBM ever produce any AMATEUR RADIO products?

No? Then why do you go on and on and on and on
about this niche subject and the "glory" that was
ENIAC?

To prove a point, Len: That a thing can be practical in its time even
if it is considered impractical in other times, and even if it is never
repeated.

That's true whether the device is ENIAC, Fessenden's early AM voice
work with modulated alternators, or something completely different.

I proved my point. You are now trying to misdirect, rather than admit
you were flat-out wrong.

Did ENIAC ever serve AMATEUR RADIO in any
way?

Yes.

If you look back at personal computing, you will NOT
find any vacuum tubes used in them...except in your
absolute world a couple of short-lived PC systems that
incorporated a CRT (a vacuum tube) into the PC package.
[CP/M OS systems using an 8080 or Z80 CPU]

The computer I referenced used a vacuum tube. The portable IBM PC used
a CRT, too.

The original Apple (6502 processor based) didn't use
vacuum tubes. The original Apple Macintosh packaged
a CRT into the Mac's box since it brought out the icon-
based GUI display that was possible only with CRTs
at that time. Did ANY of the Apple computers use a
vacuum tube for SOUND output? No?

You didn't ask about the "original Apple"

You wrote that you "can't find ANY relatively modern computer" with
vacuum tubes.

Not just Apples, but "ANY relatively modern computer".

Look to the earlier personal computers such as the
Commodore, Atari, Sinclair, etc., etc., etc. NONE had
any vacuum tubes in them for SOUND output. NONE of
the pocket calculators had vacuum tubes. Some of the
earlier desktop calculators had GAS displays for
alphanumerics; HP and Tektronix both had PCs with
incorporated CRTs (in which the very earliest models
had some vacuum tubes for the CRT HV supply circuits).
NONE had any tubes for SOUND output.

Doesn't matter, Len. You could have found the link I provided with just
a few keystrokes.

There's a niche area of guitarists who prefer tubes
for the particular "warm sound" (distorted) they
associate with over-driving amplifiers.

Are you a musician, Len?

That "tube
sound" MYTH has been 'over-driven' to the point of
nausea, about like the "gold-coated speaker cable"
myth that is claimed to produce "golden sound" from
music amplifiers. :-)

Tell it to those who actually play the things.

Tube amps and gold-coated "monster cable" is a
triumph of Public Relations bull**** warping the
minds of the buying public.

You are confusing audiophools with audiophiles.

Not unlike the mythos
of morse that was CREATED in earlier radio. :-)

By whom?

As I have shown, voice radio was practical as early was 1906, and in
regular use for broadcasting by 1921. Yet Morse Code on radio was used
by many radio services for many more decades after 1921. The use of
Morse Code by the US Coast Guard and the maritime radio services lasted
well into the 1990s. That's more than 90 years after Fessenden's voice
transmissions, and more than 75 vears after 1921.

Morse Code is still in wide use in Amateur Radio today - almost 100
years after Fessenden.

It wasn't "mythos" that kept Morse Code in use.

A click on the link for more data turns up blank with
the small advisory of no suppliers for this item. :-)

You specified "relatively modern", not "current production".

2002 is "relatively modern" compared to 1946. And that system was
brand-new in 2002.

That ONE system was DEFUNCT before 2005. :-)

How do you know? Are there none in use today?

Go back to the personal computer bellweather year of
1980.

Why?

Any of those personal computers on the market
use vacuum tubes?

Yes - in the CRTs.

No?

Are you confused?

26 years ago is NOT "current production" nor is it
hardly "relatively modern." :-)

2002 is relatively modern, Len.

Search all you want of the HP, Dell, Compaq, the
independents such as PC Club...or the big warehouse
suppliers such as CDC or Frys. You won't find any
with vacuum tubes in them on the market this year
or the year before.

So what? You specified "relatively modern", not "current production".
2002 is "relatively modern" compared to 1946. And that system was
brand-new in 2002.

You cannot change the criteria after the fact.

Your whining, foot stamping, and crying out "mistake!
mistake!" about a SINGLE exception in the millions upon
millions of personal computers based on the original
IBM architecture PC of 26 years ago is a lot of your
bull****,

Gee, Len, you're the one carrying on like an overtired two-year-old.
I'm calm, cool and collected. Not whining, foot stamping, or crying out
anything. I'm just correcting your mistakes with facts.

Basic Logic 101, Len: If you make an absolute statement that something
never happens, does not exist, or always happens, and someone provides
one or more exceptions, your statement is proved false. That's all
there is to it. Doesn't matter if there is just one exception or many,
the absolute statement is proved false - invalid - a mistake - if there
is an exception.

That your SINGLE exception went
DEFUNCT after a year on the market only proves that you
are a whiny, foot-stamping, cryer who is bound and
determined to attempt humiliation of anyone disagreeing
with you.

It seems that you consider any correction of your mistakes to be a
humiliation. Why is that?

You've proved that activity for years in here. :-)

You keep making mistakes and I keep correcting some of them.

BTW, what did ENIAC have to do with AMATEUR RADIO?

That it was practical in its time.

ENIAC did something for RADIO? [I don't think so...]

Actually, it did.

What do your ramblings about non-amateur-radio subjects have to do with
amateur radio, Len?

"Non-amateur-radio subjects?"

Yes.

Like ENIAC?

Like your experiences in Japan, real estate, "computer modem
communications", and a host of other non-amateur-radio subjects.

An early
mainframe computer that was really a programmable
calculator? :-)

Did the Aberdeen Proving Ground Historical Officer get it wrong?

"ELECTRONIC COMPUTERS WITHIN THE ORDNANCE CORPS

CHAPTER II -- ENIAC

The World's First Electronic Automatic Computer"

http://ftp.arl.mil/~mike/comphist/61ordnance/chap2.html

You did not work on ENIAC and have never been a ham....

I've never claimed to... :-)

However, I was alive in 1946 and you were not. :-)

YOU never worked on ENIAC. You've never claimed to have
worked on ANY computer, main-frame, minicomputer, nor
personal computer.

You are mistaken.

Are you a member of the ACM? [Association for Computing
Machinery, the first and still-existing professional
association for computing and information technology] I was
a voting member of the ACM for a few years.

And now you're not?


ENIAC and the amateur code test deserve a place in
MUSEUMS, not the reality of life in today's world.

In your *opinion*.

...yes, an OPINION shared by thousands and thousands and
thousands of others.

Yet when it came time to express that opinion to FCC, there were *more*
who held the opinion that the Morse Code test should remain as a
requirement for at least some US amateur radio licenses.

Do you believe in democracy, Len? The majority of those who expressed
an opinion on the Morse Code test to FCC want at least some Morse Code
testing to remain.

As of 2004 the US Census Bureau stated that 1 out of 5
Americans had SOME access to the Internet. That involves
access via a personal computer (or its cousin, the "work-
station"). That is roughly 50 to 60 MILLION Americans.

Old news. Are you still tied to dialup?

The original (and only) ENIAC used an architecture that
is NOT common to present-day personal computers. About
the only term that IS common is that ENIAC used "digital
circuits." That's about the end of it for commonality
with MILLIONS and MILLIONS of personal computers in the
daily use worldwide.

Nope. Wrong.

See:

The Tree of Computing:

http://ftp.arl.mil/~mike/comphist/61ordnance/chap7.html

The ONLY radio service in the USA still requiring tested
morse code skill to permit operation below 30 MHz is the
AMATEUR radio service.

Because the amateur radio service *uses* the mode extensively.

ALL of the other radio services
have either dropped morse code for communications or never
considered it when that radio service was formed.

So what? Amateurs use it. Why should the test for an amateur license
not cover what amateurs actually do?

There is
NO wired or wireless communications service in the USA that
uses manual telegraphy means today.

Are you sure?

And even if it's true - so what? That's not amateur radio.

Please direct any more hero worship of ENIAC to the
ACM historian.

Why deal with second handers when the real stuff is out there?

"Real stuff?!?"

Yes - like this:

"ELECTRONIC COMPUTERS WITHIN THE ORDNANCE CORPS

CHAPTER II -- ENIAC

The World's First Electronic Automatic Computer"

http://ftp.arl.mil/~mike/comphist/61ordnance/chap2.html

ENIAC is a MUSEUM PIECE,

Now it is. But for almost a decade it was used by the US Army for a
wide variety of calculations. And it was the root of the Tree of
Computing.

Didn't you read the monograph?

It is
NOT "real stuff" except in your mind.

It's real, Len. A part of it still works, too.

It serves ONLY
the Moore School of Engineering as an EXHIBIT for PR
purposes. It is a dinosaur. Defunct. Kaput.

Part of it still works, though.

Did you finish reading the US Army historical monograph I linked to?

No.

Then you are hiding from the truth.

I rank that along with some "US Army historical" things
that described George Armstrong Custer as a "hero" of the
June 1876 Battle of the Little Big Horn. Some "hero." A
loose cannon who was LAST in his West Point class, a poor
tactician who made a tragic, fatal mistake for the 7th
Cavalry.

Custer had nothing to do with ENIAC.

And if you didn't read the monograph, how do you know what it says?

Thank you, but NO, I'd rather read the NON-PR
historical references that described things as the REALLY
were without the orgasmic after-glow of hero worship.

I think you're afraid of reading a history that disproves your
cherished opinions and biases, Len. The facts presented in the
monograph are too upsetting to you for you to even read them.

ENIAC never saw battle,

Why should it?

It was never close to the
battlefields like the Brit's Colossus nor did it "solve
ciphers" (decryption) like Colossus did. The US military
DOES have fielded computers (plural) and systems which
ARE useable today and ARE in use. You can read about
those if you wish...but you won't since none of them are
directly related to ENIAC.

They're all directly related to ENIAC because they are its descendants.

Indeed, NONE of today's computers are related to ENIAC
any more than WE are "related" to some proto-humans of
Africa.

More than 95% of human DNA is identical to that of chimpanzees, Len.

btw, the "Ordnance Corps" are the nice folks who take care of things
like how to do artillery barrages....

No,
the "ordnance" folks maintain the
ammunition and weaponry.

Then who makes up the firing tables?

The ARTILLERY folks do the
actual laying-in and firing.

The Ordnance Corps tells them how to do that. Firing tables - remember?

Really. Had you ever served
in the military (you didn't) you would be informed of that.
In the US Army, the "line" (those who are the most involved
with actual battle) units are INFANTRY, ARTILLERY, and
ARMOR. All other units exist to serve them.


As ever to you, the ByteBrothers famous phrase is invoked.

What phrase is that, Len?

"Klaatu barada necto"?

"All your base are belong to us"?

"Shut the hell up, you little USMC feldwebel"?

Which phrase is it?

wrote:

Indeed, NONE of today's computers are related to ENIAC
any more than WE are "related" to some proto-humans of
Africa.

Today's computers are the direct descendants of ENIAC - the world's
very first fully operational, high speed, general purpose, electronic
digital computer.

There are far fewer generations between ENIAC and "today's computers"
than there are between modern humans and the species those humans
evolved from.

btw, Len, more than 95% of *your* DNA is identical to the DNA of a
chimpanzee. Have a banana and calm down.

As ever to you, the ByteBrothers famous phrase is invoked.

Is that the phrase:

"Open the pod bay doors, HAL" ?

Or how about:

"I wouldn't call it *intelligent* life, Jim...." ?

Or:

"Why does the porridge bird lay his egg in the air?"

Or:

"How can you be in two places at once if you're not anywhere at all?"