hello
this is category 5 tv coffee break
uh for sunday 6th of december
2020. i'm bp 9. hello
and to my left
i have doug and then if it shows up if
it
shows up the same then that's peter down
down
down there so we'll see
how that works out uh let's see
um not much on my plate today got a
couple of things to talk about
got some hardware to talk about um peter
maybe you can help me with that but
we'll talk
we'll talk about that good yeah yeah
yeah so we'll we'll have a chat about
that
my hardware skills are not strong
um my software skills are far stronger
than my hardware skills and so
i'm having some trouble with that trying
to figure out what's going on with it
um so doug last week you didn't get to
talk about your handy-dandy new
raspberry pi
so let's talk about that what you
mentioned last week
that it was a you would you would
bathroom
okay you mentioned last week you were
using that
as an uh entertainment machine what what
what are your plans for the raspberry pi
well um i was i have a roku like i said
and the having the res
um yeah having the raspberry pi or any
other computer as an entertainment
center allows me to do things that i
can't do
with the roku um like watch facebook
oh i don't do facebook i want facebook
videos on my tv i can't do that
with the rope there's no facebook app
anymore on roku there used to be oh okay
okay
actually something i've had for a couple
of years uh i have set it up as a
an entertainment center before but i
think i need to get a fan for it so it
doesn't overheat
um raspberry pies are notorious for
overheating without
rods some kind of external so i used uh
i used go ahead doesn't even have a heat
sink
oh well that would that would do it for
sure i used
a raspberry pi for um uh
uh for retro games it's called retropie
yes but that kit came with heat sinks
because
you have to know that the um even
running games
it would be uh it would be pretty pretty
well taxed it would be a pretty
uh uh uh heavily used
machine so uh so yeah
so apart from plex or is it plex you're
planning to run i just assume plex i'm
sure that's not right
um what what you're planning to run
i was wondering um
plex can be run in roku
flex doesn't have a browser built in
either as far as i know
you can you can log into your plex
instance
with um
[Music]
with uh your browser um
if you just log in to a specific port i
forget what that port is
um i may have it on my browser let me
check
stand by while i check real quick
click clicks i don't see it offhand
but um
okay i'll see if i can find it later and
put it on discord or something
but uh whether you're running it on a
synology box or whether you're running
it on your local machine it doesn't
matter um
you can easily
just log into it literally from your
from any pc on on your network
now if you get what's called the
so-called plex
pass apparently you can then
um log into it even from outside your
network
i have not done that uh i do not
intend to i do not intend to do that so
i think i mentioned last week that so
far
there's nothing about the plex pass that
encourages me to do that
so i'm happy to just leave it the way it
is for right now right
right but it works fine just by itself
you know the free download you just
install it on your
either synology box or your or your
desktop machine but of course if you put
it on a desktop machine it's going to be
running all the time
because uh um because the
the desktop machine has to be um
uh uh has to be running so it's always
contacted
it's always contactable
yeah that's really uh that's really all
i've it's really all i've got about plex
except that
i enjoy it it works really well for me
there are other folks
who um who like there's another
software package out there does
something like plex i forget what it is
and they they like they like it but so
far
i like plex it works really well it's
identified all the
all the media that i have without too
much problem
um it seems to work pretty well for me
so yeah
i'm gonna buy a case that has a built-in
fan
and oh okay after i get that maybe i can
look into plex and see what's going on
there well i've got
a few raspberry pies around here one of
them um
has a has what's called a hat on it it's
it's a
circuit board that plugs into the to the
main board
and if it's running 24 7. it doesn't
have a heat it might have a heat sink
let me check
is that a server um
yeah uh i plan to put gopher on it
i'm gonna put i'm gonna put gopher on it
as my plan
gopher is an old old oh boy we're going
back in time now
it's an old text only uh web
not not even web-based internet based
protocol
um that
precedes the world wide web this thing
you know gopher used to be the way to
get
uh to get information on the web and you
yep you would see pages if you've heard
of archie and veronica
those are search engines for gopher okay
um
they're all they're all related um
gopher is text only uh you can download
binary images
so pictures or executables or whatever
it is you
or zip files or whatever it is you want
you're fairly restricted on what you can
do and that's one of the things that are
that's one of the things that the web
beat uh gopher on is that with with
gopher
you're very restricted on what what you
can show
um but with with world wide web of
course
you can format the the the page you can
format the file any way you want
and it will show up any way you want but
uh
being more complicated also means that
there's more
more room for uh for back doors and
holes to get in and
do damage to your system so gopher is
text only
there are gui type um
clients for it but uh but gopher is
effectively text only so it was it's
been a while since i messed with it i
ended up downloading the original
uh source the source code from the
original gopher server
at university of minnesota where they
built it where they invented that that
um protocol
and it has the it has the client and the
server
turns out um i think it was canoe
turns out they did um they did something
else with
uh with with gopher and and
made some improvements to the protocol
yeah but those improvements don't work
with the original server
but if you build your code according
your page according to the original
server
then it works with the new server as
well so that's what i've ended up doing
so do you plan to do any programming
with it
doug um i'm not much of a programmer
i've never been able to get into it
my uh my math skills are not that good
so my programming skills are not that
good
oh i don't think you need i don't think
you need math skills
for programming but you need a
logical thought process i think that's
that's where the math comes in math is
all logic
okay okay and then um i took
i went to our local community college
for computer
um i forget what they called it but it
was for computer systems in any way
okay computer information systems okay
and um
[Music]
and um did i do that i'm sorry no i
didn't
i did that one word so okay got it
i got into programming and um
the instructor who had a phd in
mathematics
told me that math and programming are a
one-to-one relationship in terms of
ability
i don't agree uh my math skills are not
strong either
one so i can't say
[Laughter]
i would say that a logical a logical
process thought process would be far
more
helpful to you than than math now i will
say
that my math did improve you know
plugging
numbers into equations and building
equations
um is something you do in programming
all the time that's all variables are
you but you build a formula
in in a program with variables and then
you plug values into the variables and
you see what comes out the other end
yeah that's programming isn't that
much that's not what he was talking
about
i got a new elementary algebra without
any problem okay i got into
intermediate algebra and i started
having issues okay
then i hit college level algebra and it
was like a brick wall
yeah yeah calculus was a brick wall for
me too
that was it for me as well i couldn't no
as far as psychology is concerned i can
do psychology all day long
oh god that's scary
but um math and and
programming don't work for me science i
can do okay
okay you know i got it i went to nursing
school and i got an a
in anatomy and physiology that was a
full semester of that
wow wow nice
biology and things like that i'm good
with but
programming and math not so much
okay so good luck with
your with your raspberry pi i i hope you
do get into some programming because you
willing
i do anyway but then i'm a programmer so
um it's it's good fun it's surprising
how str how good the desktop experience
is on a raspberry pi um
i the pine book pro for instance is just
a souped-up raspberry pi
and i forget constantly forget when i'm
playing with that
with that pine book pro that it's an sbc
it's similar to the raspberry pi it's
just a
a it's just a bit stronger that's all
you use the emmc on the prime book pro
or
sd card it has an emmc
built in but i can boot off an sd card
if i choose to do that
the um the uh
by default uh i will boot off the emmc
and what i did almost as soon as i got
it was i
uh i reprogrammed the emmc with a new
image with uh with a different distro a
different
linux distro on it in particular i
wanted to
use uh the desktop environment xfce
which i use on every other every other
desktop that i have
so
right then let's talk about
uh i think i was saying that my
programming skills i feel good about my
programming skills but my hardware
skills not so much
and this is my current
my current uh problem
this is a circuit board
out of one of my garage door openers
and oh yeah you can see but let me see
if i can point it out
here it is there
i think you might be able to see that
the resistor
that's right there something burned out
yeah
yep you can see the scorch marks around
it so
i think i'll be doing some component
level repairs on this because
this board is so old that it just can't
you just can't find
any replacement boards this is surface
mounted
no no they're all they're all just read
them
i have no i'll i would have no trouble
at all ripping all of these components
out
and putting new in place but i have to
identify what the components are
here's my problem i don't know if this
will come up on the camera or not
but where my finger is over here
you can see some resistors right there
and they're a beige colored the body of
the resistor is beige colored
three of them yeah uh there's two of
them actually there's a diode above it
there's capacitor
near my finger and then and then down
here
there's what i think is a whole bunch
more resistors
but they're all green the body the body
is all green my question is
i've read somewhere that if they're
green like that
they're actually inductors not resistors
and i don't know if that's true or not
because i've never seen such as
i've never seen such a circuit that is
um
that has got so many inductors on it
uh so i'm curious it's out of a garage
door opener
these relays are switching um these
relays are switching
110 volts to drive the uh to drive the
motor
that runs the um that runs the
um runs the the
garage door up and down to open it and
close it but it's such an old garage
door opener it's like 20 or 30 years old
well 20 years old anyway that the um
that the circuit board is just not made
anymore
so i'm stuck with doing uh component
level repairs
this big old 2 watt resistor
has got scorch marks around it you can
see that
yeah um these two
resistors down here next to the relay
again i
don't know if you can see it very well
because the relays are getting in the
way of the light
but you can probably see scorch marks
around
them as well yeah are right there
and uh anyway yep so
we've got someone trying to join a fella
by the name of ian sutter but he's not
i've given him the okay to him to come
in but he hasn't
he's not showing up i don't know it
shows
it shows joining so i don't know where i
don't know where he is
maybe he'll maybe he'll show up we'll
see what happens
at any rate um yep so
peter what do you know about resistors
versus inductors and am i right about
the whole
beige colored thing versus the uh
it's very difficult but why i would do
it is to lift
uh what the the big one i would lift the
end up
and take one end off and put a
multimeter across there and check it
yeah
yeah yeah i would do that i would do the
same
that's that's going to be my next thing
the problem is of course if
if the if the board has in fact
or if the component is in fact scorched
then
it's going to be a dead short it's not
going to be the right resistance
no it'd be a rule it might be it might
be
20 more 30 percent more 40 right
because it's got caulked uh it's very
difficult to uh actually regret
uh because i look at the green ones
again because i wanna have a look at the
green ones again
i ain't got me white glasses and while
you're looking at those i'll say hello
to
uh uh he shows up as ian
ian sutter on on his label hello good to
see you
yeah sorry it's been so long it's just
the sunday
schedule almost conflicts with a
religious meeting that i have
so i'm sorry i'm sorry about that
somebody somebody else i think it was
sober requested that
um that we uh changed the timing of the
uh
of the meeting and i'm open to doing
that but he never suggested any other
time slot so um
yeah that's what i thought too peter i
thought they were resistors as well
what do you do that one end up exactly
on the multimeter
you don't have to read the kind of goat
do you i do yep
sure
i'm going to check every single
component both the capacitors and
resistors and the transients
yep yep yep
what i'm worried about is those ics
because i'm concerned that
the ics could you tell me the black
troop was what the number of the
algorithm
the number on what the black eye the
black one
next to the ic yeah the next to the uh
well i can't find a i can't find a data
sheet on it but it is uh well in fact
i've got notes on it it's going to be
easier for me to
open it up i'll be able to
identify yeah i i did not have any luck
finding uh um
finding the um but will i go back a long
time
[Laughter]
okay um again good good
afternoon oh good morning afternoon
wherever it is in your um
in your part of the world feel free to
jump in and make some comments while we
uh
while we play with these um component
lists and stuff
all right how's it okay if i tell a
story then let's do yeah absolutely
absolutely what's going on in your world
well a friend of mine gave me a
pentium 3 windows 2000 computer
and he wanted me to wipe the hard drive
on it
an old ide hard drive oh yeah an old ide
hard drive
yeah it was it was really kind of
frustrating at first because it turns
out the dvd drive had
completely gone to put another word
so i couldn't it won't boot off an sd
card will it
nope
usb drive
oh what um
doug said it won't boot off the thumb
drive either that's what i mean by a usb
drive oh yeah a little bit yeah usb
drive
they replaced the dvd cd drive and then
try again
yeah just replace that again hold on a
very good edit
peter peter let him talk with you he's
in the middle of his story
yeah well that's exactly what i did i
actually by pure coincidence
happened to have a a spare ide dvd drive
lying around
my great uncle had given me a while ago
so i thought you know what i'll try that
and it didn't work at first because i
didn't realize that ide drives have the
you know the master slave pins on the
back i was going to ask if you
if you set that up correctly so it was
such a slave at first and i'm saying
like why isn't this working and then i
looked it up i was like oh there's these
pins on the back with a jumper so i just
pulled the jumper out and put it in the
right spot
and then it worked booted right into the
to the drivewiping software
of course this was after i had spent
hours trying to figure out why the
original dvd drive wasn't working
and booting into a writing a so what i
had done was i took a
i took the ribbon cable out of the
floppy disk inside that computer and
moved it to a computer i knew i could
boot from
and that also had a floppy disk drive in
it
and i i wrote i happen to have two spare
floppy disks lying around too
so i wrote a boot floppy image to the
floppy disk
yeah and that worked too yeah yeah
unfortunately because the dvd drive was
broken that did nothing
so yeah um these days even on that old
vintage style machine
you could probably boot um
a live linux image off the cd-rom
and just do dd yeah
and it should it should wipe out that
drive when you do that
yeah i did try that but the problem is
modern linux doesn't run on a pentium 3
very well
oh okay well i have old i have old old
uh versions of linux that i'm sure would
run just fine
oh yeah that would run just fine
is that is that a floppy disk set no cd
rom
[Music]
i do have the uh i do have the floppy
version of os2 warp but unfortunately
i can't make it i can't make it to
install because
the disks the floppies are no longer
readable so ah
yeah let's see so
uh peter the uh that 16 pin that's a 16
pin dip
um i see is part number
y for yankee 267
85b for bravo it's a mikrel or microelle
part
mike india charlie romeo echo lima
yeah that's petrol that's vegeta
yeah i figured it would be i can't find
a data sheet for it or anything like
that
so i do not have you have you tried to
put in the
the uh data sheet and the number into
google
i have i have all like
all i get is sites in china that say we
can sell these to you but we don't have
a data sheet for them
so so i have no idea what the chip
does maybe you could go into uh
amazon or or youtube and get 110 volt uh
i assume it's all it does it's our radio
they cause a
a uv one there's another board there's
another board in the opener
that is the radio receiver
well no this is not the receiver this is
the board that controls the opening of
the door
opening and closing of the door the
other board
that connects to this board that other
board is the radio receiver
and that radio receiver is what um
is what triggers this board to open the
uh
to open the now i'm i'm actually quite
open to just
tossing this board and uh and installing
like a arduino or something to actually
drive the thing
put some put some that that was probably
that's what i could not tell you
probably the only way i'm going to get
the garage door opener to work again if
i can't do component level repairs on
this i'll be i'll be done
i think
well luckily this thing just luckily
this thing just cooked some components
and that's the end of it so okay it was
black
the thing was black when i told you i'm
not surprised i'm not surprised
yeah if you thought about updates you
don't like it
all right boys and girls um stormy i'm
sorry that you came in late but
uh we've we've been uh we've been going
25 minutes now and that's about as long
as robbie likes the uh
coffee break file to be so
we're about ready to shut it down again
i'm so sorry about that but uh
you know they don't name your mother
makes me laugh
what's going on you know that's a name
that makes me laugh
what bp9 no no again within
and and uh rather german well
well there's an african country down in
the written
arabia that's got a guy named andy
he was a politician and he named his
adolf hitler
and added african name and he got
annoyed i said we weren't doing
i said we weren't doing politics in this
thing right no
no i've already told you that peter
at the time okay all right
we're we're done have a good evening
everybody or a good afternoon all
and uh i will see you uh next week
all right i'll i don't know if i'll be
able to be on here much earlier next
week either okay
let's see if i can get it well if you're
open to i mean i'm open to changing the
uh schedule around so
uh you know you've got a better
suggestion for timing
and we checked with seoul because he
suggested it in the first place
[Laughter]
all right everybody take care oh wait a
minute let me do the wave over here all
right then
take care see you later
[Music]
you