Toshiba TV29C90 problem; Image fades to black...

[CJT]

tempus fugit wrote:

We're talking about a capacitor between the chassis and one side
of the line, right?


I havent reopened the chassis, but it seems to be connected between the
ground of the speaker and the chassis.

OK, that's something totally different.

something is shorted somehwere else. Oh, and I checked the voltage

between

the record player chassis and the scope chassis - 120VAC

Reversing the plug in the wall socket should change that (but don't
count on it).


Reversing the plug did correct that. Is this a design shortcoming (if so,
there's gotta be a safer way to set that up) or should I be looking for a
fault somewhere?

That's normal for a "hot chassis" device. But such a device won't have
a power transformer, and I thought you said this one did. Could you be
confusing an output transformer with a power transformer?

If you are (and I suspect you are) then you are such a newbie that you
had better stop now and enlist the help of somebody who knows what
they're doing before you kill yourself. No kidding. I don't want to
have anything more to do with this pursuit.

tempus may fugit, but not for the dead

You really need to be careful with this device. I can't stress that
enough. Death is not to be trifled with.


I am being very careful, not to worry, but I appreciate your concern and
helpful advice (including those on personal safety).

Thanks again


Thanks


"CJT" <abujlehc@prodigy.net> wrote in message
news:43665638.5000307@prodigy.net...


CJT wrote:



tempus fugit wrote:



Tried the turining around the plug trick, but it made no difference. I
also
disconnected the phono plug that connects the tone arm to the amp

unit,

which also made no difference.

Here is something curious though. I accidentally touched my scope
while my
hand was on the record player chassis and got a fairly good shock. The
scope
has a 3 prong AC plug (the record player doesn't). I should've
measured the
voltage difference between the sope chassis and the record player
chassis,
but I didn't think to. I'll have to do that. Perhaps he chassis is
live. I
didn't think this would be the case though, since there is a cap with

the


negative connected to the case, as well as a few other green wires.


That capacitor might be leaking or (worse) shorted. It can be a lethal
failure (I read just this week about a minister in Waco who was
electrocuted during a baptism when he grabbed a microphone that was
"hot."). Be careful.


Here's a cite to that story:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/10/31/national/main995829.shtml



Thanks


"Asimov" <Asimov@-removethis-bbs.juxtaposition.dynip.com> wrote in
message
news:MSGID_1=3a167=2f133.0_43612958@fidonet.org...
"tempus fugit" bravely wrote to "All" (27 Oct 05 11:17:42)
--- on the heady topic of "unit hums loudly regardless of volume"

tf> From: "tempus fugit" <toccata@no.spam.ciaccess.com
tf> Xref: core-easynews sci.electronics.repair:346437

tf> Hey all;

tf> I'm trying to repair an old tube portable record player. When it

is


tf> on, it hums really loud, regardless of the volume.

Have you tried turning the ac plug around?

Which way the plug is inserted matters with these. Let the record
player warm up, then insert the plug one way or the other, and then
paint a mark for which was the quietest way. One way: lots of hum, the
other: quiet hiss.

Those old tube units used to get B+ directly from the powerline (or
sometimes a voltage doubler) and used a large value resistor bypassed
by a 0.01uF to RF ground the tone arm shielding to neutral. The power
for the filaments often came from a secondary winding in the motor
coil. Don't use this type of record player near the bathtub. Lethal!

Another possibility is a broken wire at the cartridge.

A*s*i*m*o*v

... Just a little force field zap.




--
The e-mail address in our reply-to line is reversed in an attempt to
minimize spam. Our true address is of the form che...@prodigy.net.




--
The e-mail address in our reply-to line is reversed in an attempt to
minimize spam. Our true address is of the form che...@prodigy.net.

--
The e-mail address in our reply-to line is reversed in an attempt to
minimize spam. Our true address is of the form che...@prodigy.net.

 

[Ken Weitzel]

Hi...

Sorry for the top posting; but the rest is getting a bit
convulted with a confusing mixture

Just wondering... has tempus or any of the rest of you other
old timers considered the possibility that it might be a dc
"choke" speaker?

Take care.

Ken



CJT wrote:

tempus fugit wrote:

We're talking about a capacitor between the chassis and one side
of the line, right?



I havent reopened the chassis, but it seems to be connected between the
ground of the speaker and the chassis.


OK, that's something totally different.



something is shorted somehwere else. Oh, and I checked the voltage


between

the record player chassis and the scope chassis - 120VAC


Reversing the plug in the wall socket should change that (but don't
count on it).



Reversing the plug did correct that. Is this a design shortcoming (if so,
there's gotta be a safer way to set that up) or should I be looking for a
fault somewhere?


That's normal for a "hot chassis" device. But such a device won't have
a power transformer, and I thought you said this one did. Could you be
confusing an output transformer with a power transformer?

If you are (and I suspect you are) then you are such a newbie that you
had better stop now and enlist the help of somebody who knows what
they're doing before you kill yourself. No kidding. I don't want to
have anything more to do with this pursuit.

tempus may fugit, but not for the dead



You really need to be careful with this device. I can't stress that
enough. Death is not to be trifled with.



I am being very careful, not to worry, but I appreciate your concern and
helpful advice (including those on personal safety).

Thanks again


Thanks


"CJT" <abujlehc@prodigy.net> wrote in message
news:43665638.5000307@prodigy.net...


CJT wrote:



tempus fugit wrote:



Tried the turining around the plug trick, but it made no
difference. I
also
disconnected the phono plug that connects the tone arm to the amp


unit,

which also made no difference.

Here is something curious though. I accidentally touched my scope
while my
hand was on the record player chassis and got a fairly good
shock. The
scope
has a 3 prong AC plug (the record player doesn't). I should've
measured the
voltage difference between the sope chassis and the record player
chassis,
but I didn't think to. I'll have to do that. Perhaps he chassis is
live. I
didn't think this would be the case though, since there is a cap
with


the


negative connected to the case, as well as a few other green wires.


That capacitor might be leaking or (worse) shorted. It can be a
lethal
failure (I read just this week about a minister in Waco who was
electrocuted during a baptism when he grabbed a microphone that was
"hot."). Be careful.


Here's a cite to that story:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/10/31/national/main995829.shtml



Thanks


"Asimov" <Asimov@-removethis-bbs.juxtaposition.dynip.com> wrote in
message
news:MSGID_1=3a167=2f133.0_43612958@fidonet.org...
"tempus fugit" bravely wrote to "All" (27 Oct 05 11:17:42)
--- on the heady topic of "unit hums loudly regardless of volume"

tf> From: "tempus fugit" <toccata@no.spam.ciaccess.com
tf> Xref: core-easynews sci.electronics.repair:346437

tf> Hey all;

tf> I'm trying to repair an old tube portable record player. When it


is


tf> on, it hums really loud, regardless of the volume.

Have you tried turning the ac plug around?

Which way the plug is inserted matters with these. Let the record
player warm up, then insert the plug one way or the other, and then
paint a mark for which was the quietest way. One way: lots of
hum, the
other: quiet hiss.

Those old tube units used to get B+ directly from the powerline (or
sometimes a voltage doubler) and used a large value resistor
bypassed
by a 0.01uF to RF ground the tone arm shielding to neutral. The
power
for the filaments often came from a secondary winding in the motor
coil. Don't use this type of record player near the bathtub. Lethal!

Another possibility is a broken wire at the cartridge.

A*s*i*m*o*v

... Just a little force field zap.




--
The e-mail address in our reply-to line is reversed in an attempt to
minimize spam. Our true address is of the form che...@prodigy.net.





--
The e-mail address in our reply-to line is reversed in an attempt to
minimize spam. Our true address is of the form che...@prodigy.net.

 

[CJT]

Ken Weitzel wrote:

Hi...

Sorry for the top posting; but the rest is getting a bit
convulted with a confusing mixture

Just wondering... has tempus or any of the rest of you other
old timers considered the possibility that it might be a dc
"choke" speaker?

That's an interesting possibility I hadn't thought of.
I haven't seen one of those in quite a few years. Did
they even make portables before PM speakers became the norm?

Take care.

Ken



CJT wrote:

tempus fugit wrote:

We're talking about a capacitor between the chassis and one side
of the line, right?




I havent reopened the chassis, but it seems to be connected between the
ground of the speaker and the chassis.



OK, that's something totally different.



something is shorted somehwere else. Oh, and I checked the voltage



between

the record player chassis and the scope chassis - 120VAC



Reversing the plug in the wall socket should change that (but don't
count on it).




Reversing the plug did correct that. Is this a design shortcoming (if
so,
there's gotta be a safer way to set that up) or should I be looking
for a
fault somewhere?


That's normal for a "hot chassis" device. But such a device won't have
a power transformer, and I thought you said this one did. Could you be
confusing an output transformer with a power transformer?

If you are (and I suspect you are) then you are such a newbie that you
had better stop now and enlist the help of somebody who knows what
they're doing before you kill yourself. No kidding. I don't want to
have anything more to do with this pursuit.

tempus may fugit, but not for the dead



You really need to be careful with this device. I can't stress that
enough. Death is not to be trifled with.




I am being very careful, not to worry, but I appreciate your concern and
helpful advice (including those on personal safety).

Thanks again


Thanks


"CJT" <abujlehc@prodigy.net> wrote in message
news:43665638.5000307@prodigy.net...


CJT wrote:



tempus fugit wrote:



Tried the turining around the plug trick, but it made no
difference. I
also
disconnected the phono plug that connects the tone arm to the amp



unit,

which also made no difference.

Here is something curious though. I accidentally touched my scope
while my
hand was on the record player chassis and got a fairly good
shock. The
scope
has a 3 prong AC plug (the record player doesn't). I should've
measured the
voltage difference between the sope chassis and the record player
chassis,
but I didn't think to. I'll have to do that. Perhaps he chassis is
live. I
didn't think this would be the case though, since there is a cap
with



the


negative connected to the case, as well as a few other green wires.


That capacitor might be leaking or (worse) shorted. It can be a
lethal
failure (I read just this week about a minister in Waco who was
electrocuted during a baptism when he grabbed a microphone that was
"hot."). Be careful.


Here's a cite to that story:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/10/31/national/main995829.shtml



Thanks


"Asimov" <Asimov@-removethis-bbs.juxtaposition.dynip.com> wrote in
message
news:MSGID_1=3a167=2f133.0_43612958@fidonet.org...
"tempus fugit" bravely wrote to "All" (27 Oct 05 11:17:42)
--- on the heady topic of "unit hums loudly regardless of volume"

tf> From: "tempus fugit" <toccata@no.spam.ciaccess.com
tf> Xref: core-easynews sci.electronics.repair:346437

tf> Hey all;

tf> I'm trying to repair an old tube portable record player.
When it



is


tf> on, it hums really loud, regardless of the volume.

Have you tried turning the ac plug around?

Which way the plug is inserted matters with these. Let the record
player warm up, then insert the plug one way or the other, and then
paint a mark for which was the quietest way. One way: lots of
hum, the
other: quiet hiss.

Those old tube units used to get B+ directly from the powerline (or
sometimes a voltage doubler) and used a large value resistor
bypassed
by a 0.01uF to RF ground the tone arm shielding to neutral. The
power
for the filaments often came from a secondary winding in the motor
coil. Don't use this type of record player near the bathtub.
Lethal!

Another possibility is a broken wire at the cartridge.

A*s*i*m*o*v

... Just a little force field zap.




--
The e-mail address in our reply-to line is reversed in an attempt to
minimize spam. Our true address is of the form che...@prodigy.net.






--
The e-mail address in our reply-to line is reversed in an attempt to
minimize spam. Our true address is of the form che...@prodigy.net.

--
The e-mail address in our reply-to line is reversed in an attempt to
minimize spam. Our true address is of the form che...@prodigy.net.

 

[BillW50]

"John Doe" <jdoe@usenet.love.invalid> wrote in message news:Xns9701C504D5F55follydom@207.115.17.102...
Date: Wed, 02 Nov 2005 02:02:13 GMT

One year, Microsoft pumped $650 million into our judicial system.
That same system clearly settled that Microsoft holds monopoly
power over the desktop operating system market.

From the federal district court of the United States.

"Microsoft possesses monopoly power in the market for
Intel-compatible PC operating systems."

From the federal appeals court of the United States.

"... we uphold the District Court's finding of monopoly power in its
entirety."

There ain't no doubt about it.

"BillW50" <BillW50 aol.kom> wrote:

Oh please! I had lost faith in the system when victims mostly gets
screwed and the accused gets off lightly. And that doesn't count
either. The real truth is the one with the most bucks usually wins.
Did anything ever change with Microsoft, no not really after the
ruling.

And even if you believe in the system, do you believe the judge and
jury is going to understand anything about geeks and lines of code?
One in a thousand might, but that is the bright side of things.

It is as plain as day to me, that Microsoft appears as a monopoly
because Microsoft's competitors are whinny cry baby morons! They
can't program their way out of a wet paper bag! And because they are
so bad, they blame not themselves, but because Microsoft did it to
them. Judges and juries like hearing this. But they are totally
clueless when it comes right down to Microsoft competitors are
nothing more than just plain old clueless idiots. And that makes
Microsoft guilty? I think not!

Case in point. The court had ruled that McDonalds was at fault
because hot coffee was hot. Yes the coffee was at 190 degrees like
hot coffee should be. But the stupid lady was too dumb to know that
hot coffee was hot. So McDonalds had to pay like 3.5 million dollars
to this dumb ass lady. Yes I'm sorry she was a dumb ass, but I am
not sorry enough for dumb asses to give them 3.5 million dollars or
whatever it was. Now because of this, McDonalds now has a warning
that hot coffee is hot. Are you getting any of this now, John?

Maybe to solve Microsoft's so-called monopoly problem, maybe MS
should add a warning that its competitors are nothing but morons.
Yes that's the ticket. <grin>

____________________________________________
Bill (using a Toshiba 2595XDVD under Windows 2000)
-- written and edited within WordStar 5.0

 

[James Sweet]

Some prewar apartment houses in NYC used metal studs and lath which
ended up grounding the junction boxes, which had 2 prong receptacles in
them.

Hmm that's one of those interesting tidbits that just doesn't happen
where I live due to wood being used for probably 99% or more of all
residential construction.

 

[David Maynard]

John Doe wrote:

David Maynard <nospam private.net> wrote:


John Doe wrote:


David Maynard <nospam private.net> wrote:



John Doe wrote:



David Maynard <nospam private.net> wrote:

...



What I find fascinating is the espoused notion that Microsoft,
a handful of boys with absolutely nothing, no 'business
reputation', no history of development, no demonstrated DOS,
and nothing else in the field, somehow 'took advantage' of and
'screwed' poor old IBM. What in the world do these folks think
MS used to 'force' IBM into the deal?


Maybe your recollection is about the company Microsoft bought
DOS from.

No, my 'recollection' is about the subject at hand, namely the
original IBM/Microsoft deal for DOS and the folks claiming that
Microsoft screwed IBM by retaining the rights to sell it to
non-IBM computers.



As far as I know, the major problem IBM had with Microsoft was
when Microsoft prohibited IBM from including IBM's own Lotus
SmartSuite on IBM's computers. Microsoft used Windows to force
IBM's compliance.

At least they didn't try to get a reverse royalty payment on
every prior computer made like IBM did with their MCA license.

The one you brought up raising an interesting conundrum because
you have IBM wanting it both ways. They had a competing O.S. and
a competing office suite yet while they're trying to wipe MS off
the business scene they want their competitor to give them
preferred OEM status.

I'm not sure I'd be real happy about that either.


Microsoft refused to allow IBM a license to Windows, unless IBM
dropped its bundling of Lotus SmartSuite on IBM personal
computers.

The 'license' you speak of is an OEM discount agreement and, in
particular, the one IBM wanted was 'like Compaq'. I.E. preferred
OEM status


You mean the license to resell Windows.

No. The issue is whether you get the discount.

Of course IBM isn't going to
want to pay $50 more per computer than Compaq.

while
simultaneously competing with MS in the O.S.


There was no competition in the desktop operating system market.

IBM was competing with OS/2.

and business suite market.


Microsoft was able to prevent that by threatening no license to
resell Windows.

Anyone can buy retail and IBM considered it.


That may be true but irrelevant.

It's perfectly relevant because it shows the only issue is a matter of the
discount.

As I said, I'm not sure I'd like the idea either of giving my
competitor a discount on my products so they can make money on my
products that they then use to bolster their own competing
products they're trying to put me out of business with.


At the time, Windows was the required monopoly operating system.
There was no competition in the desktop operating system market.

IBM was competing with OS/2. And if they weren't then why the hell did they
keep trying to sell it?

But you're repeating yourself.


Do you understand that Microsoft holds monopoly power over the
Intel-based personal computer operating system market?

That's irrelevant to giving discounts to your competition.

 

[mark]

What about the 3 or 4 section electrolytic usually at 150 volts that comes
from the main rectifier usually being a tube.


"CJT" <abujlehc@prodigy.net> wrote in message
news:43683006.60005@prodigy.net...

Ken Weitzel wrote:


Hi...

Sorry for the top posting; but the rest is getting a bit
convulted with a confusing mixture

Just wondering... has tempus or any of the rest of you other
old timers considered the possibility that it might be a dc
"choke" speaker?

That's an interesting possibility I hadn't thought of.
I haven't seen one of those in quite a few years. Did
they even make portables before PM speakers became the norm?


Take care.

Ken



CJT wrote:

tempus fugit wrote:

We're talking about a capacitor between the chassis and one side
of the line, right?




I havent reopened the chassis, but it seems to be connected between the
ground of the speaker and the chassis.



OK, that's something totally different.



something is shorted somehwere else. Oh, and I checked the voltage



between

the record player chassis and the scope chassis - 120VAC



Reversing the plug in the wall socket should change that (but don't
count on it).




Reversing the plug did correct that. Is this a design shortcoming (if
so,
there's gotta be a safer way to set that up) or should I be looking for
a
fault somewhere?


That's normal for a "hot chassis" device. But such a device won't have
a power transformer, and I thought you said this one did. Could you be
confusing an output transformer with a power transformer?

If you are (and I suspect you are) then you are such a newbie that you
had better stop now and enlist the help of somebody who knows what
they're doing before you kill yourself. No kidding. I don't want to
have anything more to do with this pursuit.

tempus may fugit, but not for the dead



You really need to be careful with this device. I can't stress that
enough. Death is not to be trifled with.




I am being very careful, not to worry, but I appreciate your concern
and
helpful advice (including those on personal safety).

Thanks again


Thanks


"CJT" <abujlehc@prodigy.net> wrote in message
news:43665638.5000307@prodigy.net...


CJT wrote:



tempus fugit wrote:



Tried the turining around the plug trick, but it made no
difference. I
also
disconnected the phono plug that connects the tone arm to the amp



unit,

which also made no difference.

Here is something curious though. I accidentally touched my scope
while my
hand was on the record player chassis and got a fairly good shock.
The
scope
has a 3 prong AC plug (the record player doesn't). I should've
measured the
voltage difference between the sope chassis and the record player
chassis,
but I didn't think to. I'll have to do that. Perhaps he chassis is
live. I
didn't think this would be the case though, since there is a cap
with



the


negative connected to the case, as well as a few other green
wires.


That capacitor might be leaking or (worse) shorted. It can be a
lethal
failure (I read just this week about a minister in Waco who was
electrocuted during a baptism when he grabbed a microphone that was
"hot."). Be careful.


Here's a cite to that story:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/10/31/national/main995829.shtml



Thanks


"Asimov" <Asimov@-removethis-bbs.juxtaposition.dynip.com> wrote in
message
news:MSGID_1=3a167=2f133.0_43612958@fidonet.org...
"tempus fugit" bravely wrote to "All" (27 Oct 05 11:17:42)
--- on the heady topic of "unit hums loudly regardless of volume"

tf> From: "tempus fugit" <toccata@no.spam.ciaccess.com
tf> Xref: core-easynews sci.electronics.repair:346437

tf> Hey all;

tf> I'm trying to repair an old tube portable record player. When
it



is


tf> on, it hums really loud, regardless of the volume.

Have you tried turning the ac plug around?

Which way the plug is inserted matters with these. Let the record
player warm up, then insert the plug one way or the other, and
then
paint a mark for which was the quietest way. One way: lots of hum,
the
other: quiet hiss.

Those old tube units used to get B+ directly from the powerline
(or
sometimes a voltage doubler) and used a large value resistor
bypassed
by a 0.01uF to RF ground the tone arm shielding to neutral. The
power
for the filaments often came from a secondary winding in the motor
coil. Don't use this type of record player near the bathtub.
Lethal!

Another possibility is a broken wire at the cartridge.

A*s*i*m*o*v

... Just a little force field zap.




--
The e-mail address in our reply-to line is reversed in an attempt to
minimize spam. Our true address is of the form che...@prodigy.net.






--
The e-mail address in our reply-to line is reversed in an attempt to
minimize spam. Our true address is of the form che...@prodigy.net.










--
The e-mail address in our reply-to line is reversed in an attempt to
minimize spam. Our true address is of the form che...@prodigy.net.

 

[Mxsmanic]

John Doe writes:

Read the factual story about how Microsoft destroyed Netscape
Navigator. It's free and easy to access in many different places on
the Internet, including right here.

Read the stories about how Netscape destroyed itself. The company had
incompetent management from day one. Its Navigator succeeded only
because there were no competitors; as soon as there were, it failed.
It's a great case study in truly bad management.

That's because Microsoft owns the required operating system.

Microsoft didn't always own the operating system. Even so, it managed
to succeed. Others can do the same, but they must be at least as well
managed as Microsoft.

The fact that Microsoft holds monopoly power over the desktop
operating system market is a fact that has been well known to most
of us computer savvy users long before it was proven in federal
court.

That has nothing to do with applications. Borland hit the skids
because of poor management. Netscape failed because of poor
management, too. There are many examples.

That coming from Steve Ballmer's book?

It's something that an unbiased observer can scarcely ignore.

Even if that were true, the easy explanation would be because they
know nothing else.

It is true, and they don't want to know anything else.

What geeks fail to understand is that most people see computers as
appliances--something they must use to accomplish some other task.
Usually the task is much more interesting than the tool. They have no
emotional attachment to their computers, or to the software running on
their computers. They don't care about "choice," any more than they
care about the colors available for the agitators in their washing
machines. It doesn't matter to them. They use what's there, they get
the job done, and they live the rest of their life, the life they have
away from the computer. That's how the real world works.

Nobody "suffers" from the current arrangement except a handful of
geeks who hate Microsoft, and a handful of companies who are too
incompetent to compete with Microsoft and try to replace legitimate
competition with endless legal harassment.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

 

[David Maynard]

Mxsmanic wrote:

David Maynard writes:


I doubt they would agree with you on that


That's why they still have barely 5% of the market. They had a huge
head start and they blew it.

Perhaps but it's not unusual for the 'engineer', or geek type, who often
like to 'build the best', or so they believe, and then blame limited
acceptance on the 'stupidity' of the buyer, or a market conspiracy.

If they don't run the company then it's 'stupid management'.

But 'best' includes more than just the technical.

On the other hand, I'm not so sure it was Apple's closed box approach that
was so much the 'mistake', after all, they all were at that time, as it was
IBM's mishandling of the PC, which threw it open to a flood of clones,
along with Microsoft providing the missing link of a competent O.S..
Although, if Microsoft hadn't someone else surely would have because that
became too big a market to ignore.

But Apple might have fared much better if the market had remained
proprietary system vs proprietary system, as it had always been.

A market leader completely loosing control over their product simply hadn't
happened before.

True. And IBM did plenty to earn the wrath.


Most dominant market players eventually become partially corrupt,
mainly because people join the company who are greedier, more
ambitious, and less ethical as it grows larger. Eventually the
kind-hearted engineers are overruled by the marketroids and
salespeople, and the revolving door of upper management.

"Kind hearted engineers?" hehe Well, there certainly are some but there are
some real SOBs too

But I'm not quite as willing to blame it all on 'corruption' as I am on the
complexities of large hierarchical organizations populated by imperfect
human beings. You don't have to be 'corrupt' to screw up

On the other hand, a well established path to corporate doom is for the
entrepreneur who started it to try running the whole she-bang as it grows
beyond the ability of any one person to manage.

Do you remember their MCA bus licensing plan for clone makers?


All I recall of the MCA bus was that it went nowhere.


You not only
had to pay a license for every machine sold using it (fair enough) but you
were required to retro pay a license fee for every clone you had already
made since the PC came out.

They out licensed themselves because with a plan that ridiculous no one
took it so MCA was shut out instead of the other way around.


They made a mistake that is often one of the first symptoms of a
company in decline: they depended too much on their brand, and not
enough on their products.

While there was certainly some of that involved I think it's more complicated.

From what I understand IBM held the BIOS proprietary and expected that to
'protect' the PC from copies but Award reverse engineered it and that was
all she wrote. So, from IBM's perspective, all the prior PCs were
technically a 'violation' of their proprietary rights.

There are some serious flaws in that logic but I can see IBM convincing
themselves of it.

Does makes one wonder, though, why they didn't simply 'upgrade' the BIOS to
the 'new and improved' V2.0 with new proprietary code, and stop issuing
source, once they realized it had been breached but, who knows? Sure seems
simple enough.

But after IBM's debacle with issuing BIOS source one can surely see why
Microsoft doesn't do it.

Major market players eventually get lazy
and greedy and think that just stamping their well-established brand
on garbage or overpriced goods will make them sell. It often works
for a short time, but then people wise up, and the game is over. This
often happens after the best engineers have left or have been pushed
aside by the marketroids and salesmen and MBAs.

Again, I think it's more fundamental. I mean, a 'soaring success' is often
started by a 'great idea' but markets change, products mature, competitors
move in, so where does the next 'great idea' come from? It isn't as if
they're a dime a dozen, you know

You can see it
happening right now at Hewlett-Packard. The leading edge of the
phenomenon has started to appear at Microsoft.

What, in particular, do you have in mind?

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

 

[Mxsmanic]

John Doe writes:

Maybe, but the argument was Microsoft's business versus other
software publishers business.

Microsoft does almost all its business in operating systems and its
Office suite. It has very little competition in both domains. It
does not and cannot compete in any of the other thousands of
application domains for PCs in the world, and even if it tried, it
would be up against a lot of well-entrenched competition. The
concerns about monopoly are thus exaggerated and not always well
placed.

Microsoft will eventually self-destruct. The golden age of the
company in terms of development was over a decade ago. Revenue trails
development by some years but it is notable that the stock price of
Microsoft is no longer on the rise. The company is increasingly
concerned with maintaining the revenue stream and making money
generally, and less and less concerned with actually doing business in
the computer industry. All companies go through this, especially
after their founders retire or after an IPO, and it is their eventual
downfall.

So those who hate Microsoft need only be patient. Although it
probably won't help much, because people who need to hate other people
always manage to find new targets for their hate when the old ones
disappear.

You mean Microsoft bundles it with Windows.

Sometimes, yes. It's hard to make money on it as a separate product.
It's not a very good office-automation suite.

Unless you believe in communism, then you might understand that
monopolies can be bad for our economy.

Not necessarily. A lot of public utilities are run as regulated
monopolies, because that's the only practical way to provide certain
goods and services. In the case of computer operating systems, the
overwhelming dominance of one operating system provides
standardization and stability that hugely increases the number of
available applications and encourages development and innovation in
application systems, because it provides a very large, guaranteed
market for any application written to run with the majority operating
system. If there were five equally popular operating systems running
on PCs, there would essentially be five different universes of
applications as well, none of them completely adequate to address all
the needs of the entire market. A lot of people would have to have
multiple PCs just to run all the applications they might need.

Our system thrives on competition.

Some parts do, some parts don't. We don't have competition for the
military. We don't have competition for first-class mail. In any
given area there is virtually no competition for telephone service.

Sometimes monopolies serve society better. Usually they have to be
heavily regulated if they are turned over to private concerns in order
to prevent abuse, though.

That's not what programmers say.

Programmers don't always know what they are talking about.

I've heard different.

From whom? Not ordinary consumers.

You keep saying that and and then dodging the question about whether
those thousands of other programs are very meaningful profit wise.

They are extremely meaningful to the companies that produce them.

Without a single dominant platform for applications, many applications
would never see the light of day, because there simply would not be
enough of a market to recover their costs of development. The larger
the market, the easier it is to make money developing an application
for that market. You see far more applications for Windows, and far
more specialized and obscure applicatons for Windows, than you do for,
say, the Mac, precisely because of this phenomenon. A lot of unusual
applications that you can get for Windows will never exist on the Mac,
because the market for the Mac is too small to cover the cost of
developing (or even porting) the application.

I guess that stuff depends on your definition of "too successful".
I'm talking about Microsoft Corp., the owner of Windows, the
required monopoly operating system for personal computers.

Why just Microsoft? Lots of companies are just as successful as
Microsoft. What property do you propose to seize from them? Why
aren't you complaining about Intel, for example?

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

 

[Mxsmanic]

John Doe writes:

If you don't recognize/understand that Microsoft holds monopoly
power over the personal computer desktop operating system market,
then your arguments are probably meaningless to most people.

His arguments seem a lot more objective and less emotional than most
that one hears on USENET.

All large companies tend to commit certain abuses at some point in
their lifecycles, but contrary to widely held misconceptions, in the
greater scheme of things their abuses rarely make much of a dent in
their success or anyone else's failure. In order to do such things to
begin with, they need to have a dominant position, and if they have a
dominant position, doing bad things doesn't make it much more
dominant. And if they are poorly managed overall, they will go down
with or without abuses, as unethical practices alone will not save a
company that is fundamentally incompetently managed.

This has been proven again and again historically.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

 

[Mxsmanic]

John Doe writes:

So you are trying to say that you really do not understand Microsoft
holds monopoly power over the personal computer operating system
market?

He is demonstrating that he understands how the market really works.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

 

[Mxsmanic]

BillW50 writes:

So let's say you or I had a business and all of our competitors were
nothing but morons! And it was nothing for us to outsmart them even
in our sleep. Some would call us a monopoly, now wouldn't they? Of
course they would.

Yes, and that's what many companies competiting with Microsoft try to
do. They can't compete in business, so they try to attack in the
courtroom.

But the truth is our competitors were just too stupid to compete.
This is exactly what Microsoft have found themselves in. And it
isn't their fault that their competitors are just morons. They just
are thanks to the likes of Harvard and the Harvard want to be's.

Yes. Of course, sooner or later, someone smarter will come along, and
then Microsoft will start its downward slide. That could be tomorrow,
or forty years from now. Some people talk about Google, but I'm not
convinced that Google is any kind of threat right now. Two different
businesses.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

 

[Mxsmanic]

John Doe writes:

One year, Microsoft pumped $650 million into our judicial system.
That same system clearly settled that Microsoft holds monopoly
power over the desktop operating system market.

From the federal district court of the United States.

"Microsoft possesses monopoly power in the market for
Intel-compatible PC operating systems."

From the federal appeals court of the United States.

"... we uphold the District Court's finding of monopoly power in its
entirety."

There ain't no doubt about it.

Repeating something over and over doesn't make it so.

Court decisions don't establish reality, and they are independent of
market and business forces.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

 

[Mxsmanic]

John Doe writes:

There is no easy answer. Here is a short course.
http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f3800/msjudgex.htm

Summarize the salient points. You must have developed your opinion
based on something; describe what it was.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

 

[Mxsmanic]

John Doe writes:

That's hardly current technology.

If you're going to talk about making computers more accessible, you're
going to have to offer solutions that don't require the latest,
fastest, most expensive hardware available. A lot of people are
running machines much slower than 400 MHz, and they cannot afford to
buy new hardware. What do you suggest for them?

Maybe I should say a medium to high end current store-bought
computer.

Why can't people use the computers they already have?

It probably also depends on whether the system is loaded
with many of the common bundled programs like Microsoft office and
Norton Utilities.

Not really. Most of these aren't running unless the user starts them.

These are my specs, all homemade.
... MSI K7N2 Delta2-LSR mainboard
... Athlon XP 3000+
... PC 3200, 1 GB RAM
... Western Digital Raptor 37 GB 10,000 rpm HDD
... external Creative Labs USB Live sound box

Bigger and faster than 99.99% of all computers in the world. Hardly
representative.

The default voice, the only voice Microsoft currently provides is
called Mary. There are lots of better voices.

The only voice I see is Sam.

With enough experience, you begin to realize that what Microsoft
says is oftentimes mostly hype. That's a good example.

What built-in text-to-speech function is available on Linux? What
about the Mac? What about OS/2?

Try using it.

I did. Works well enough to get by. If someone wants a deluxe
system, he can go out and buy one (after all, according to you, he can
afford a top-of-the-line PC).

Because it's not programmed to do so.

Programming it to do so would be prohibitively expensive.

Microsoft has met serious resistance at the server operating system
market. One of the factors is probably that CEOs are typically more
intelligent than an average personal computer user and they don't
want Microsoft limiting their server operating system quality.

No, the real reason is that Microsoft servers are technically somewhat
inferior to UNIX servers for most purposes. It has nothing to do with
intelligence or product quality. Windows servers are of excellent
quality, but they are more poorly suited to server roles than the
simpler UNIX and Linux operating systems are, in most cases. Also,
Windows is much more expensive, which makes a difference especially
when one is purchasing thousands of licenses at a time.

Only if he (or she) wants to live in a closet without being able to
run the vast majority of personal computer software.

So what do you suggest? Should application developers be prohibited
from writing software for Windows and forced to develop software for
the current underdog operating systems?

At one point, Apple Computer almost went out of business simply
because Microsoft temporarily decided to discontinue making Office
for the Mac.

Apple should have gone out of business long ago, based on its
incompetence alone. It clings to life because it has a very loyal
customer base.

It's a long story.

Summarize it, then.

Bill Gates Jr. has more money than he or 10 generations could spend
in a lifetime.

Not true. I could spend it all in a year. But he gives a lot of his
money away.

All of the millions Bill Gates has given to women and
race-based charities hasn't put a dance in his tens of billions in
personal wealth.

He has given away billions, not millions, and it has made a dent.

I'm not saying they aren't doing anything about it, I am saying that
they are not very concerned.

They are more concerned than they need to be. They could just ignore
it.

Microsoft used to publish a systemwide
macro recorder called Macro Recorder. It came with Windows 3.11.
According to Microsoft, one of its uses was to help the disabled.
Unfortunately, Macro Recorder went out the back door.

There are serious security issues with such a facility, and I doubt
that it was used very much, even by the disabled.

The lack of
built-in scripting and speech are two areas where Microsoft clearly
proves to me that Microsoft is not really interested in enabling
users.

Scripting is a vector for viruses. System-wide scripting would be a
security nightmare.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

 

[David Maynard]

Mxsmanic wrote:

John Doe writes:


I think most people aren't interested because, like you, they are
frustrated with the current technology.


No, most people aren't interested because they aren't geeks, period.
They have lives outside of computers. They care no more about their
computers than they care about their telephones or toasters. They use
computers to accomplish some specific task, and then they are done.
Their are neither frustrated nor pleased by computers--they are
indifferent.


Given your frustration with the current technology.


I'm not frustrated with current technology. It all seems to work very
well.


Because it will provide access to disabled people and in the future
easier access to everyone.


Non-disabled people don't need easier access. Who should pay for
special accommodation of the disabled, and how much should they pay,
and which disabled people should get which proportion of the money?


There is great demand for it. The only problem is that people are
turned off by the current technology.


Nobody is clamoring for speech recognition. Most people don't use
computers that much and don't care. They are no more interested in
speech for their PC than they are in speech for their DVD players.


Microsoft has done many things at a net loss, like when trying to
steal market share.


Which things?


That's the norm. Microsoft could include high-quality speech if it
were truly interested in innovation. But it's not. You can blame it
on the fact that Microsoft must please its shareholders, nonetheless
it's true.


Microsoft already provides more accommodation of the disabled than any
other OS publisher. How much more do you want it to do?


But not within personal computing.


Within personal computing as well. But there are many types of
disabilities, and they all deserve consideration, in proportion to the
number of people afflicted with them. It's a question of balance.

For example, money spent to accommodate wheelchairs exceeds all other
expenditures on most other, more common disabilities combined, which
is a great example of enormous _imbalance_. I don't advocate that for
computers or for anything else.


I agree with that principle. But Microsoft trumpets the idea that
it's a compassionate, forward-looking high-technology company. Given
the lack of interest in speech, I don't believe it.


Uh, Microsoft is more interested in these things than any other major
software publisher.


I'm doing it right with only a USB microphone and speakers.


So you are doing it with special hardware, namely, a USB microphone
and speakers.


I am intimately familiar with the big antitrust trial. Microsoft
illegally destroyed Netscape's Navigator Internet browser business.
That is a fact and that was 17% of Netscape's revenue.


Netscape crashed and burned all on its own. It did that so quickly
that it's hard to imagine anything that Microsoft could have done that
would have significantly accelerated the crash.


Microsoft owns the monopoly operating system and office
applications. That's easy living.


Do you think so? Try it.


Just don't believe it when Microsoft tries to sell a compassionate,
forward-looking business.


I don't believe any company that makes such a claim. Microsoft is no
worse than anyone else, however.


Microsoft is the company that produces the monopoly operating system
and that is where speech belongs.


Because you say so?

I'm really enjoying your messages because it's so refreshing to hear
rational sanity on USENET.

 

[Mxsmanic]

David Maynard writes:

Perhaps but it's not unusual for the 'engineer', or geek type, who often
like to 'build the best', or so they believe, and then blame limited
acceptance on the 'stupidity' of the buyer, or a market conspiracy.

The engineer is probably right, in a sense, but that won't pay the
bills. Apple has come up with many interesting innovations, but it is
rather blind in its belief that its ideas are the _best_ ideas, and
it's also very obstinate in not backing down on its principles. I
suppose that's commendable, in a way, but it doesn't bring in
business. If I truly believed Apple to be the best, I might invest in
it, but although Apple is distinctive, I'm not at all convinced that
it's the best, so paying a price premium for it (and spending eternity
under Apple's thumb for both the hardware and the OS) isn't justified.

On the other hand, I'm not so sure it was Apple's closed box approach that
was so much the 'mistake', after all, they all were at that time, as it was
IBM's mishandling of the PC, which threw it open to a flood of clones,
along with Microsoft providing the missing link of a competent O.S..
Although, if Microsoft hadn't someone else surely would have because that
became too big a market to ignore.

But Apple might have fared much better if the market had remained
proprietary system vs proprietary system, as it had always been.

As I recall, I skipped Apple just because it was far too expensive. I
liked the concepts and the look and feel and so on, but not enough to
pay such a severe price premium. Also, at work we used PCs from the
beginning for everything except secretarial workstations, because they
could easily be customized to work with our mainframes, whereas with
Macs, there was either the Apple way or the highway.

But I'm not quite as willing to blame it all on 'corruption' as I am on the
complexities of large hierarchical organizations populated by imperfect
human beings. You don't have to be 'corrupt' to screw up

Point taken. I guess it's easy to find ten smart people, but much
more difficult to find 40,000 smart people. Eventually, you get a lot
of stupid people in the company.

On the other hand, a well established path to corporate doom is for the
entrepreneur who started it to try running the whole she-bang as it grows
beyond the ability of any one person to manage.

Yes, but conversely, the beginning of the end for many companies is
marked by the departure of the founder(s). Disney, Hewlett-Packard,
Microsoft, IBM ... the list goes on and on. Notice that Microsoft has
changed since Bill Gates left.

But after IBM's debacle with issuing BIOS source one can surely see why
Microsoft doesn't do it.

IBM had a history of publishing source, which was the norm at one time
for mainframes. Microsoft never had any exposure to that.

Again, I think it's more fundamental. I mean, a 'soaring success' is often
started by a 'great idea' but markets change, products mature, competitors
move in, so where does the next 'great idea' come from? It isn't as if
they're a dime a dozen, you know

If the first great idea was pure luck, that's true. But if it was the
product of a really smart group of people, they should be able to come
up with other great ideas.

What, in particular, do you have in mind?

Since Bill Gates assumed a background role, Microsoft has shown
distinctly less innovation and much more bottom-line-style management.
Steve Ballmer is a businessman rather than a geek, but he has no prior
experience, and now he's in charge of a multi-zillion dollar company.
Inevitably, mistakes are made, and eventually too many mistakes will
be made and the company will being its downward slide. Like so many
big companies, Microsoft will commit suicide; it won't be killed by
the competition.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

 

[Jasen Betts]

["Followup-To:" header set to sci.electronics.basics.]
On 2005-11-01, Mxsmanic <mxsmanic@gmail.com> wrote:

David Maynard writes:

Never could have happened. Apple is too obsessed with everything being
'their way' to live with someone else's perceived design flaws.

That is my impression, also. Worse yet, the "Apple way" isn't
necessarily the best way from a technical standpoint--it's just
Apple's way. If everything they did was unquestionably superior to
everyone else's way of doing things, they might have something, but
that's not the case. And even if it were, most people don't care much
about computers, and given a choice between a $500 machine that gets
the job done and a $1500 machine that is "technically superior,"
they'll buy the $500 machine.

Or they'll buy a $1500 "PC" that's probably technically superior to the apple.

Apple do use quality parts in their machines, but quality PC parts, and
complete systems, are available too.

What I find fascinating is the espoused notion that Microsoft, a handful of
boys with absolutely nothing, no 'business reputation', no history of
development, no demonstrated DOS, and nothing else in the field, somehow
'took advantage' of and 'screwed' poor old IBM.

Most of the peole saying this can't remember anything earlier than
about 1992 or so. At the time that Microsoft was dealing with IBM, of
course, _Microsoft_ was the underdog, and IBM was the Great Satan. In
those days, it was fashionable for angry young men to hate IBM and
root for Microsoft.

??? back in 92 I was dissapointed by the lack of quality in microsoft
products proactically everything they did seemed incomplete.

In 93 when the first "distribution" of linux came out I scored a copy of a
friend ("Soft Landing System" - 20 5.25" floppies) and installed it on my
4 meg 25Mhz 386DX

I could compile the kernel, format a floppy, play tetris for terminals,
and download stuff using kermit (or a modified version of DSZRZ) all at
once.


Bye.
Jasen

 

[JW]

On Wed, 02 Nov 2005 04:20:17 +0545 "Kadaitcha Man"
<nospam@fuck-off-and-die.com> wrote in Message id:
<227c621146e946189db0982ebd6093c1@news.admin.surfeited.peasant>:

JW, <none@dev.nul>, the stingless, humped garfish, and employee responsible
for removing stones from the fields before planting, pussyfooted:
On Sat, 29 Oct 2005 03:21:57 +0545 "Kadaitcha Man"
nospam@fuck-off-and-die.com> wrote in Message id:
f1495c35d1d84cae961c776b0dedef1a@rec.arts.hairy.pie>:

DBLEXPOSURE, <celstuff@hotmail.com>, the panic-stricken, frumpish
geezer, and keeper of the pantry, ejected:
Nice cross post .


Troll...

Noooooo? Where? Run away!!!!!

Nice k0ok-out, replying to the same post twice with different ideas.

I'm curious; how is it you can type a full sentence with that boner
tipping up Mom's keyboard?

Boner? Me? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA!

I have no dick.

Your sister breathes a sigh of relief.