hello this is
community coffee break uh for
sunday 8th of november uh welcome
uh i'm bp 9 how are you and to my right
is peter give me away peter thank you
sir
and then we've got doug also give me a
wave doug
welcome welcome welcome to the coffee
break let's see
uh what have i been up to i've been up
to no good i've been up to no good
you all know that i've been messing with
um
with this uh uh model 100 right
you will remember that yeah
so you know i've been
you know i've been messing with this
right so
that's the the nice handy dandy you
butte whiz bang
model 100 great little machine and as
you
as you saw doug it has the um serial
port
yep that you use to connect to the
um that you use to connect to the uh
disk drive or whatever it is you've got
for uh for storage
well i started messing with
the handy dandy display that i got
on the perspex cover now let me deploy
this thing
and so my thought was i mean this is
jackie is all get out
i'm sorry but my thought was that i
would just put the model 100 right there
okay right and i would
put the um you see i've used shipping
tape
to uh to attach the display to the
perspex board
and i did that just to mock it up to see
how well it fits right so this is the
vt-100 you've already seen that
right um and then the model 100 will
well it was about what about legs on on
something to make it 45 degrees you know
so you got a leg at the back so you can
have about 45 degrees
so yeah so the idea is that um
that this is supposed to be on your lap
like this laptop
does like the laptop does already right
um but
i don't know there's a couple of use
cases for this
one of the use cases is that i am
trying to transcribe old
old old documentation that actually came
for this machine
you know stuff that hasn't been
digitized yet
so
yeah transcribe it to a document
to a text formatting language like tech
and then use the main machine to
actually process it create pdfs ebooks
whatever i need to create from that
another use case is literally just
to write write notes right documents
right
books whatever right um
and this might work for that
use case except the problem i've got is
that
this all looks all nice and and easy now
with with no you know with nothing
but nothing's connected right now just
imagine
if i had a serial port a serial cable
coming out of here
and then running somehow to
here so i've got like a three foot
serial cable that runs from here to here
then i've got a vga cable that's three
or four feet runs from here
to here in fact that's the cable right
there
then i've got to run power from here
from this unit out to a mains
or some source of 12 volts then i've got
to run power from
the model 100 to some source of
5 volts or 6 volts then i've got to run
power from here to some source of
some source of 5 volts
6 volts whatever usb provides and so it
just gets
uh it just gets crazy it i mean
it it is no longer a nice easy portable
solution anymore hello
sobu welcome hey salvo
i saw you were doing the the um retro
feel uh the retro imaging again for for
a second or so which was nice
uh it's my um it
happens and every time i start zoom
it's uh all black and white and it's a
pixelated
for some reason and all i have to do is
turn the camera off and on
okay interesting okay so i was talking
about my
hopefully my hope my you know projected
setup for the model 100 with the seven
inch screen and the
and the mvt 100 right here which is a
small screen
on that uh system that makes it look
like an um
like a cash register yeah i know i know
yeah well i was just explaining as you
as you
logged in so boo that this all looks
great
as long as you've got nice easy
um uh uh as long as nothing's connected
but uh i don't know if you saw that i
would have to connect
serial rs232 from here
to here right
then i would have to connect vga
from here
to here
then i would have to connect let's see
power
from here to some source of five or six
volts
power from some source from here to some
source of
um 12 volts and power from
here or two here from some source of um
six volts and so it's just all the power
just all the power requirements it just
get
it it's just not very portable anymore
at all i mean you could you could run
the uh
the five volts of the twelve volt
through a couple regularly true
that's true i've certainly considered
that and so boo look at my handiwork man
i mean it's all
it's all shipping it's all shipping tape
just to hold it in place right but
you've got to start somewhere right
the whole point is to see if you can
make it work is to see if it's even
viable is that um the plastic thing is
that on all the
speakers stand where you have some
papers while you're
presenting something no um and that's
one of the things that i need to
one of the things i need to do and peter
touched on this
earlier was that it would be great to be
able to hold the documents up at like 45
degrees
if you're transcribing documents which
is one of the use cases
for this uh for this setup you really
need something that will
that will hold the document up at 45 or
50.
like a document holder i'm
yeah but i wouldn't do that with this
laptop with the perspex case i mean what
this is
so whoever it was that asked i'm sorry i
forgot who asked
but uh was it usable that asked yes what
this was
what this what this started out as is a
um a platform to mount a laptop
in my vehicle because as a ham radio
operator and peter you know this
as a ham radio operator sometimes
running aprs
way back in the early days back when i
was a lad
you had you had to run a full-blown
laptop
in your vehicle right so what this was
i don't know if you can even see the
four um the four mounting
bolts there they mounted to plumbing
fixtures
that you ran yeah you ran plumbing pipe
down to
the seat mount on the passenger side
seat
so you fit this thing right here
remember
peter we drive on the right hand side of
the road in australia
in the us and so you know the driver is
on the left-hand side of the car
so the laptop is on the passenger side
it's on the right hand side for
for me um and so this thing
would sit it would be rigid would sit in
the car but stay out of the passenger's
way
and you could actually mount a laptop in
here of course that didn't last very
long
that's just way too bulky if you look at
the local
police or law enforcement uh vehicles
they have a similar setup
which is how i which is where i copied
this from
um but so i mean you can buy these as
a kit but i haven't used it for years
and years and years i thought this would
be perfect
for mounting the lap the model 100 right
here
and as you as you saw earlier how i had
the display and all but
the wires just make it unus did they
just make it unusable it's
it's just not it's just not a viable
solution
in my old church we used to have a we
have
a microphone for phone stand and instead
of the
[Music]
microphone stand
on top that that you screw on on top of
that you have a
good deal we have um um
one of those plastic thingy only i think
it is
and they use it to have uh the lyrics
for the song or uh yeah and then it
would work great as a podium for sure
you know
you can put your you could put whatever
book or document or whatever you wanted
for reference
right there at 45 but you need like the
proper stand and everything to me
yeah and and and it was the four screw
holes and
that maybe if you think of the uh oh
yeah okay
is that how it works you know yeah with
a podium as well you use just four screw
holes to hold it in place
yeah but i've never seen one uh that is
uh not screwed into uh
a mounting that you put on something
okay
okay yeah it worked there worked really
well in the car
um or in the vehicle but i wouldn't i
wouldn't use it now
um and of course there's
you know the way i've set this up was
purely as a mock-up to see if it was
gonna work for me
it's just not going to it's just not
going to work so
but i i suspected that already but what
i did not suspect
was what i did not realize was that the
wiring was going to be such a hassle
yeah
i can mount all the devices nicely if i
didn't have to wire them up it would be
great i wouldn't
use any space at all and it would be
wonderful but
it it just isn't gonna work and you
very quickly you
yeah yeah you soon realize that people
who designed this thing
really thought it through because this
is a
this thing just stand alone it feels
quite bulky now compared to
compared to you know 2020 model
you know but there's been nothing like
this since
there's been the 102 which is a later
version of this
there was the 200 which is a version
that has the full-size keyboard but it
has the display that folds up
and that was the precursor to the proper
laptops and you didn't
realize in in those days uh things were
often still made to last a few
um ten years
oh yes this was this was made to last
many many years there is no doubt about
and it was if you wanted to
uh and have the skills you could open it
up and
switch broken things um broken parts out
for new ones i've done it i've already
done it because
this thing has a a three volt
memory battery that it its sole
job is to keep the memory alive while
you're switching out double a batteries
out of the out of the unit because it
runs on four double a batteries
so normally six volts
one question that i have that um yeah
and and i'm uh
watching uh louis rossmann's channel and
quite often and in um the last year he
has been uh
touring i'm sorry i did not catch that
name what was the name
louie i don't know that i don't know who
he is yeah he
is yeah yeah he uh fixes um apple
products
oh yes you posted a video in the uh in
the chat
yeah yeah okay yeah yeah okay that's
where i've heard that name
yeah and he has a channel where he uh
show people he has been doing it for
10 or 12 years but um
if you have a problem with an apple
product this is how you
figure out what is wrong with it and
this is how you
fix it fix it and then in the last
year and a half two years he has been
touring the u.s
attending um um public meetings about
uh uh right to repair acts in um
yeah and one of the things he always
mentions in the in when he is talking to
public hearings is um in the old days
uh things often if you open up the back
of your old tv
or if you open up your older yeah
it has a it had on uh schematics on the
back
that's true yeah absolutely yeah yeah
yeah that
thing you have there does it have a
schematic if you open it up
no if i open it up but
um there are a docu there are books you
can buy
and i bought one that has
a schematic
[Applause]
[Laughter]
nice yeah wow and that is a manufactured
supplied um no it's it's third party
it's third party yeah yeah yeah
so yeah i'm i'm trying to fold it up and
of course
this is like a sectional in the airplane
you can't fold it up to make it
to make it fit for a lot more money so
schematics is from an era where
the manufacturers didn't mind people
either sharing schematics or making
their own and
sharing them yeah and i would like to
i would like to figure out how to
transcribe that schematic
um to electronic format to include it in
a in a tech document
scan it and like a picture of it they
put a pdf oh
i could scan it but if i if i do that
it'll be
way too small i'll lose a lot of a lot
of resolutions
i could i could do that too um i like
that it's all on one sheet and i haven't
figured out
quite how to do that yet um
i would love to be able to uh to record
it as
one sheet you know one one large
schematic
and there are programs that i started
g-scheme is one of them but i think
it relied on some old packages i don't
think you can get g-steam anymore i
don't you wanted to record it
as one large schematic but what were you
gonna do with it
i'll eventually include it as part of
the documentation for that
why not just take a high-resolution
photograph of it
and uh i need to do it yeah i could do
i had hoped to go ahead peter
motor manufactured that's why i make
vessel more radios are
it could some of them are very big like
that they
um they do enforce and they show the top
off and then they do
the better modules well that's easy to
easier to do with a radio because you
have various sections right you've got
the
uh you've got all of what brought to
them
yeah yeah yeah can you imagine can you
imagine trying to
repair a recent
um a recent radio even a ham radio these
days i mean it's crazy
i was gonna say it's it's surface
mounted parts and all kinds of stuff
like that
it's almost impossible
and today you have a manufacturer so
apple is a
very good example of this but they're
they're not alone
but they they are the biggest um where
they actually uh
get out of their way they are falling
over themselves
in inventing ways to stop people from
repairing it
then the latest example is they did the
used iphone 12. um someone
made a 15 minute long video where he
demonstrated uh what happened if you uh
he he bought two identical
iphones already on a black one i think
and he
moved the uh main board from one
phone to the other and probably wouldn't
start with it
yes it started but you had to plug in
plug-in the charger in order to start it
and the camera didn't work and then um
a lot of things didn't work because it
it complained that it was um
uh it was uh the throat battery or
it was fraud something or another
and then he moved only the cameras and
it was the same thing so um
each little module each little module
has its own serial number and must be
recorded with that motherboard
so the motherboard will only work with
those units with
that camera with that serial number
um uh what they used to do in the old
days was
in england uk circle was work service
development
and uh i we used to mark these groups
with red uh
retail stuff to stop the busy people
damn but the other one they use is like
a screw
it's like a stars because you need a
special like a special screwdriver for
it
and don't top people uh have temperature
and things yeah but these days but peter
these days this company's like i fix it
that will just
you know i'll show you all the screw
bits you need to uh i know
i know yeah but uh
i i i don't i've had problems with my
wife's uh up already already
and that's all problem where where where
the battery went and uh
uh they wrecked their basic almost
well the biggest biggest problem and i
don't want to bash on apple but
the problem i have with their parts with
their things is that
you put something in there you'll never
get it back out again
um i put i put pdfs in there i put
ebooks in there
i can't get them back out for love no
money so you better keep a copy of them
anyway so all right
and this is um
this is a few good examples of
the importance of uh whatnot is and
owning
good products that you actually can
tinker it
and also in when you put
something in and the importance of
having a
free and open source software so that
that you know how they work and or at
the very least
some way of not or at the very least not
disabling the device when you replace a
a piece with this with this unit
this is a 1980s this is the 18
this is a this is a 1980s or 1990s model
unit and it has a
3 volt nicad battery inside it that
keeps the memory alive
it's also got a whole bunch of
capacitors in there too and
people who service these on a regular
basis recommend
that you replace the caps and you
absolutely replace the little nycad
battery that goes inside there
and so i opened this one up and had a
look inside and sure enough
the nike battery had started to leak and
it was it was
it hadn't reached the motherboard yet so
i was very very lucky
but it certainly had started to leak so
yep so i'm very glad that i fixed that i
also have the same thing for the model
102
but i messed up the keyboard um
the keyboard connection for it and i've
broken it so i have to figure out how to
fix that
all right one one last round for
everybody and then we've got to finish
this because um
we're running out of time so you go
first sir did you get your antenna fixed
up
your aerial yeah yeah yeah but uh uh
uh i wouldn't use them again uh for
obvious reason uh um
okay yeah because uh they're trying to
tell me if i put a little area up i do
better than the big one i got
and uh uh uh they put the element up and
i told him that the element won't
and anyway my cousin's wife's cousins
are on
wednesday they put the aerial up
for me two of them uh uh hopefully we're
getting the game on the tower again i've
also put a vert scrub so i've been
cementing
uh i mentioned a couple boats into the
garden uh
uh uh all last week so i dug a i
about four feet and then i banged the
bow in the other minute
i have to give the other folks a chance
okay okay okay i'll go okay
okay okay what you've been up to sir
just my usual working
you've been tinkering with anything
technical electronic anything like that
not this not this week when i get time i
want to set up a vpn
in a pie hall okay
other than that no are you looking to
use a vpn to get back into your house or
are you using to
use a vpn to reach out to
other places well i was thinking that i
could set it up so that i could use it
wherever i am that and pie hole if i use
a static ip address i think i can
um connect to that wherever i am and
then
pi hole and the vpn would both work oh
look who's signing in
yeah i know i know i just saw him show
i don't know across the party that's
um i don't see any video from you peter
you me and robbie
i mean robbie i'm so sorry it's always
peter that has problem with video
so uh uh while we're waiting for robbie
to
bring up some video there he is there he
is
robbie it's 25 minutes and i was just
about to shut us down and then you
showed up so now i've got to make it
longer it's all your fault
just so you know sorry i don't need to
take any time i just wanted to say hi
i want to show you something look at
what i was working on today
doesn't that look dirty source mass
oh nice and not only am i building an
open source nas but i needed to convert
one of my ssds to a full size 3.5 inch
bay
so i'm 3d printing yeah man
absolutely of course you are amazed
now are you using a are you using a uh
an sbc to drive that thing or are you
just um to drive the 3d printer
or are you just using an sd card or how
are you using a
oh a single board computer you can go
both
not a raspberry pi
an odroid is it uh it's actually a
cobalt device
nice that looks like a pretty powerful
device
yeah it's got it's got uh one two three
four five
uh sata headers it's got m.2
um it's built uh to be an open source
nas
so that's the box from it there's the uh
the branding oh no no i was talking
about the
3d printer robbie using the 3d printer
no the 3d printer has its own computer
it's it's got its own computer built in
really yeah so i'm just printing from an
sd card
oh okay if you want you can connect a
single board computer up to it like a
raspberry pi um
stick like octoprint on there or
something like that and then you can
uh then you don't have to keep swapping
sd cards in and out
i might do that eventually because i'd
like to make it so that i can remotely
uh print stuff and then come in to pick
it up kind of thing
but is there an advantage to that i
don't really know yet
so for now i just i just pull the sd
card out of the built-in computer
um i'm building what's called last line
backup it's a new software product that
i'm developing
last line backup is just like it sounds
um it is the last backup in
a redundant backup set and it is a
write-only backup
so it's it cannot be
um affected by ransomware or any other
kind
you mean read only backup don't you no
right on it
right only well then it can be impacted
by by nash
well it's it's a it's a bit of a
different infrastructure we don't need
to get into it at the end of the day
oh man oh man
next week it has multiple layers so it's
a write-only backup
and then that backup is locked once it's
written it cannot be rewritten over
okay so that's that's what the device is
for i'm sorry to do this guys but i got
to leave
right we're done in any case so
it's 30 minutes so thanks robbie good to
see you man
yeah you too see you yes no worries at
all all right well stay safe
and we will catch up again next week
next week
that'll be nice yeah i know it's cool
isn't it
that is cool yeah she's he's been
rocking that set for a few weeks but
you haven't been here to see it robbie
all right i'm out of here have a great
afternoon everyone
bye-bye