Toshiba TV29C90 problem; Image fades to black...

[David Maynard]

Mxsmanic wrote:

David Maynard writes:


Well, pencil and paper 'does the job' too but a text processor does it
better, and a WYSIWYG word processor does it even better, depending on how
one defines 'better'.


Yes, but those major leaps in functionality are mostly history now.

Until the next one.

These days, the improvements usually involve multicolored transparent
menus, or larger and fancier 3-D icons, or other bells and whistles
that consume hardware and software resources but contribute nothing to
the basic purpose of the computer, for the average user.

I remember people who said a desktop itself didn't contribute anything to
the "basic purpose of the computer" either but it's a heck of a
productivity improvement.

'Bells and whistles" are often more useful than the cynic realizes. For
example, they let you know when the train is coming and to get off the track

Well, some people still have no computer at all and I'm building a tube
amplifier. Neither says much about the state of the broader market, or
people in general, as they're fringe/niche situations.


The broader market (and especially the worldwide market) is only
slightly beyond DOS today.

You're either in a different world than I or you mean something more
cryptic than I'm able to decipher.

You're assuming there just isn't anything 'left to do' that can matter and
I'm not willing to make that assumption.


There may be plenty left to do; the problem is that nobody is doing
it.

Oh, come on. You're not seriously going to try telling me that you know
what 'everybody' is doing in software, are you?

Software companies tend to content themselves with adding useless
bells and whistles--software bloat--to their products with each
upgrade, because adding truly new features and functionality requires
a lot of expensive development and involves taking serious risks. The
idea is to milk existing business for all the money one can, so
companies are unwilling to take risks with novelty. The bigger the
company, the more true this becomes.

Depends on how one defines "truly new." Is Microsoft trying to invent the
'truly new' neural network emulator? Probably not. But that doesn't mean
there's nothing 'useful' left to do with the 'old style' desktop operating
system approach.

You're losing track of the issue here, which was whether an O.S. 'upgrade'
can offer a significant enough improvement to warrant the 'upgrade', not
whether every last soul on the planet uses it. And I was pointing out that
the O.S. changes needed to take advantage of 32 bit technology, vs 16 bit
technology, was a significant enough performance increase.


Maybe. So what next?

I don't know as it isn't my job to develop the next operating system. I'm
busy building the 'next generation' tube amplifier, remember

To justify an upgrade, I need something truly
interesting, and I just don't see that happening. The last upgrade I
found _interesting_ was from Windows 3.x to Windows NT (I never
bothered with Windows 95 and its ilk).

You and I have different standards then because I only need the new to be
'enough' more useful whether it's "truly interesting" or not and I wouldn't
go back to NT (assuming you mean NT4) because I find the new 'bells and
whistles' worth it.

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

 

[Jasen Betts]

["Followup-To:" header set to sci.electronics.basics.]
On 2005-11-02, DBLEXPOSURE <celstuff@hotmail.com> wrote:

Good point!

Have you ever noticed how MS bashers can usually remember every DOS command
and claim to still prefer it over a GUI, How ironic is that? Perhaps they
are just pissed because MS came up with a GUI that allows normal people to
use a computer?

And then there is the occasional MAC Guy who just feels left out and is
pissed at everybody. Ever noticed how these guys are usually left handed..


Before anyone gets pissed, is all in jest


BTW, Mr. Gates gives more money to charity each year than most of you will
earn in a lifetime... I suppose some of you will consider that to be tax
evasion....


I'm still not sure why my freaking clock runs slow...... lol....


Good day...







"Mxsmanic" <mxsmanic@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:u88im195941fm8f4tbl8cjq9tnib11prvi@4ax.com...
PWY writes:

I have followed this thread from the beggining waiting for the subject of
Bill Gates' money to be introduced, as these fanatical Microsoft bashers
always seem to reach that point in their arguments.

A great many of them are burning with envy of Gates' wealth, and this
is what motivates them to bash Microsoft.

Some people cannot accept the possibility that anyone might do
something better than they can, and so they insist on believing that
anyone who appears to be doing better has "cheated" somehow. Many
people can't accept the fact that Bill Gates became rich by
intelligently managing a computer software company, because they
cannot imagine how anyone could be smarter than themselves.

Most of the other reasons for Microsoft-bashing run along the same
lines. For example, some people find fault with Microsoft simply
because Microsoft would not hire them.

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

--

Bye.
Jasen

 

[clifto]

Mxsmanic wrote:

David Maynard writes:
Except for spammers that routinely post years, even decades, into the past.

What's the advantage of doing so? And why can't servers simply reject
anything that is obviously far in the past?

Most MUAs sort by date ascending. That puts their spam right at the top
of the list.

--
If John McCain gets the 2008 Republican Presidential nomination,
my vote for President will be a write-in for Jiang Zemin.

 

[Mxsmanic]

David Maynard writes:

Until the next one.

As technologies mature, breakthroughs come less and less frequently.

I remember people who said a desktop itself didn't contribute anything to
the "basic purpose of the computer" either but it's a heck of a
productivity improvement.

It depends on what is meant by desktop. Graphic user interfaces
contributed to productivity in some ways, by extending the usefulness
of the computer beyond plain text, and by making multitasking
environments easier to manage.

You're either in a different world than I or you mean something more
cryptic than I'm able to decipher.

You're probably only looking at a handful of developed economies. The
entire world is much further behind. Even in developed countries,
there are large institutional users of computers that are still
struggling with 16-bit Windows. And Windows 9x is still very common.
Where I work, everyone is still on Windows 9x.

Oh, come on. You're not seriously going to try telling me that you know
what 'everybody' is doing in software, are you?

I don't have to know. It's a general principle, applicable to
software like anything else. Why risk billions on a new software
product that may or may not succeed, when you can make almost as much
by adding a few "features" to an existing produce with virtually no
risk and very low cost and then charge for upgrades?

Depends on how one defines "truly new." Is Microsoft trying to invent the
'truly new' neural network emulator? Probably not. But that doesn't mean
there's nothing 'useful' left to do with the 'old style' desktop operating
system approach.

I suppose there are some people who look forward to things like
aggressive, and intrusive DRM, or filesystems that are designed to be
continually searched and indexed, but I do not, and I don't think the
majority of people care.

You and I have different standards then because I only need the new to be
'enough' more useful whether it's "truly interesting" or not and I wouldn't
go back to NT (assuming you mean NT4) because I find the new 'bells and
whistles' worth it.

Yes, I mean NT 4. Of course, XP looks uncannily like NT, especially
if you peek behind the superficial user interface.

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

 

[Stan Blazejewski]

On Fri, 18 Nov 2005 21:50:12 -0600, David Maynard <nospam@private.net> wrote:

Mxsmanic wrote:

David Maynard writes:


Well, pencil and paper 'does the job' too but a text processor does it
better, and a WYSIWYG word processor does it even better, depending on how
one defines 'better'.

Sorta reminds me of the old joke .....

NASA spent millions on designing a ball point pen that would work in zero
gravity (or up side down in gravity).
The Russians use a pencil!

--

Australia isn't "down under", it's "off to one side"!

stanblaz@netspace.net.au
www.cobracat.com (home of the Australian Cobra Catamaran)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cobra-cat/

 

[David Maynard]

Stan Blazejewski wrote:

On Fri, 18 Nov 2005 21:50:12 -0600, David Maynard <nospam@private.net> wrote:


Mxsmanic wrote:


David Maynard writes:



Well, pencil and paper 'does the job' too but a text processor does it
better, and a WYSIWYG word processor does it even better, depending on how
one defines 'better'.


Sorta reminds me of the old joke .....

NASA spent millions on designing a ball point pen that would work in zero
gravity (or up side down in gravity).
The Russians use a pencil!

Yes, I sometimes play with that one for the obvious lesson that more
complex isn't necessarily better but it's just as important to tell, as
Paul Harvey says, "the rest of the story."

Fact is, both NASA and Russia used pencils in the beginning and both, yes
both, ended up using pens because, you see, as 'obvious' as the pencil's
advantages are the lead tended to sometimes break and float around in the
0G environment creating a hazard to humans and electronics alike and
pencils burn real well, both the wood and the 'lead' (which is really
carbon), in an oxygen enriched atmosphere. Put simply, they ain't safe and
it was after the Apollo 1 fire that NASA decided to seek a writing
instrument that would not burn.

Fisher did all the development, ate the 1 million development cost, and
sold the pens to NASA for $2.95 each, the first 400 going to NASA in 1967,
and the Russians ended up using the same Fisher pen.

But lead pencils were used on all Mercury and Gemini space flights prior to
1968.

So the 'obvious' isn't always such a great idea after all

Australia isn't "down under", it's "off to one side"!

stanblaz@netspace.net.au
www.cobracat.com (home of the Australian Cobra Catamaran)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cobra-cat/

 

[Fred Abse]

On Sun, 13 Nov 2005 21:44:31 -0600, David Maynard wrote:

Mxsmanic wrote:

Michael A. Terrell writes:


Anthony Fremont wrote:

IBM completely killed off Honeywell and Burroughs with good marketing
skills, not better hardware. The competition lay in salesmanship and
brainwashing, not making better stuff or even trying to be cost
competitive.


IBM killed off Burroughs? What are you talking about? Burroughs
merged with Sperry in 1986 and still operate under their new name,
Unisys.


IBM didn't kill off Honeywell, either. Honeywell bought GE's computer
division, then Bull SA (the French computer company) bought Honewell's
computer division. Today it survives as Bull SA (the unfortunate name
of the company comes from Fredrik Bull, the Norwegian founder of a
company that ultimately evolved to Bull SA today).


Well, that's a lot of Bull

I'm still waiting for Bull and Siemens to set up a joint AI venture


--
"Electricity is of two kinds, positive and negative. The difference
is, I presume, that one comes a little more expensive, but is more
durable; the other is a cheaper thing, but the moths get into it."
(Stephen Leacock)

 

[David Maynard]

Mxsmanic wrote:

David Maynard writes:


Until the next one.


As technologies mature, breakthroughs come less and less frequently.


I remember people who said a desktop itself didn't contribute anything to
the "basic purpose of the computer" either but it's a heck of a
productivity improvement.


It depends on what is meant by desktop. Graphic user interfaces
contributed to productivity in some ways, by extending the usefulness
of the computer beyond plain text, and by making multitasking
environments easier to manage.

And that was the point, along with the summary of the general principle you
snipped out, that "'Bells and whistles" are often more useful than the
cynic realizes."

You're either in a different world than I or you mean something more
cryptic than I'm able to decipher.


You're probably only looking at a handful of developed economies. The
entire world is much further behind.

Which has, for all practical purposes, nothing to do with the matter of
whether companies do 'new things', or just add 'fluff', as people who do
not use the things are not in the market.

Even in developed countries,
there are large institutional users of computers that are still
struggling with 16-bit Windows.

And I can find folks in "large institutions' that don't use computers at
all. You're overstating another fragment.

And Windows 9x is still very common.
Where I work, everyone is still on Windows 9x.

Yes, and I suspected that by "DOS" you meant to include anything even
remotely connected to it. Not exactly cricket as the GUI *was* the (second
half) of the 'big idea' that made Microsoft what it is (and began the gist
of this thread section)

Oh, come on. You're not seriously going to try telling me that you know
what 'everybody' is doing in software, are you?


I don't have to know. It's a general principle, applicable to
software like anything else. Why risk billions on a new software
product that may or may not succeed, when you can make almost as much
by adding a few "features" to an existing produce with virtually no
risk and very low cost and then charge for upgrades?

Sounds logical except it isn't a "general principle" and companies
introduce new products all the time. Some succeed, like Apple's IPOD, and
some don't. And it's pretty much the same with startups except you don't
pay no mind to failed startups and they don't have anything else to sustain
them when they do. Not to mention that most startups are the 'new company'
equivalent to your 'modify existing product' approach, making something
akin to what exists with some new 'bells and whistles' added: their 'better
version' of it.

Plus, it's becoming increasingly clear that you don't consider anything
that even remotely resembles the existing product to be anything more than
a 'bell and whistle' upgrade while I have stated that a sufficient
performance improvement is my criteria. E.g. If the topic were cars it
seems that nothing short of magnetic levitation would satisfy your need for
"truly interesting" while I would consider a hybrid significant enough.
Hell, I might even consider "rides like a car but has the payload capacity
of a truck" sufficient enough because it fills a useful functional criteria
regardless of not being "truly interesting."

Depends on how one defines "truly new." Is Microsoft trying to invent the
'truly new' neural network emulator? Probably not. But that doesn't mean
there's nothing 'useful' left to do with the 'old style' desktop operating
system approach.


I suppose there are some people who look forward to things like
aggressive, and intrusive DRM, or filesystems that are designed to be
continually searched and indexed, but I do not, and I don't think the
majority of people care.

If that were the entire feature list I might agree with you, but it isn't.
Nor is the 'end user' the entire market.

Compared to NT4, a fully functional PnP alone is reason enough.

You and I have different standards then because I only need the new to be
'enough' more useful whether it's "truly interesting" or not and I wouldn't
go back to NT (assuming you mean NT4) because I find the new 'bells and
whistles' worth it.


Yes, I mean NT 4. Of course, XP looks uncannily like NT, especially
if you peek behind the superficial user interface.

Now, 'peaking behind the superficial user interface' really *is* something
the majority of people don't care about.

 

[Jasen Betts]

On 2005-11-19, David Maynard <nospam@private.net> wrote:

Mxsmanic wrote:

David Maynard writes:


Well, pencil and paper 'does the job' too but a text processor does it
better, and a WYSIWYG word processor does it even better, depending on how
one defines 'better'.


Yes, but those major leaps in functionality are mostly history now.

Until the next one.

These days, the improvements usually involve multicolored transparent
menus, or larger and fancier 3-D icons, or other bells and whistles
that consume hardware and software resources but contribute nothing to
the basic purpose of the computer, for the average user.

I remember people who said a desktop itself didn't contribute anything to
the "basic purpose of the computer" either but it's a heck of a
productivity improvement.

I find it lets me run 4 or 5 command-lines simultaneously.

this morning I resized 1000 jpeg images to approx 1200 and 120000 pixels,
while woring in the web site that will use them. there may be GUI tools capable
of doing that in less than a week, but I haven't seen them.

Bye.
Jasen

 

[David Maynard]

Jasen Betts wrote:

On 2005-11-19, David Maynard <nospam@private.net> wrote:

Mxsmanic wrote:


David Maynard writes:



Well, pencil and paper 'does the job' too but a text processor does it
better, and a WYSIWYG word processor does it even better, depending on how
one defines 'better'.


Yes, but those major leaps in functionality are mostly history now.

Until the next one.


These days, the improvements usually involve multicolored transparent
menus, or larger and fancier 3-D icons, or other bells and whistles
that consume hardware and software resources but contribute nothing to
the basic purpose of the computer, for the average user.

I remember people who said a desktop itself didn't contribute anything to
the "basic purpose of the computer" either but it's a heck of a
productivity improvement.


I find it lets me run 4 or 5 command-lines simultaneously.

this morning I resized 1000 jpeg images to approx 1200 and 120000 pixels,
while woring in the web site that will use them. there may be GUI tools capable
of doing that in less than a week, but I haven't seen them.

There may not be any but I never said a GUI was the ideal solution to
everything.

On the other hand, it would have been a real pain looking at that web site
at the same time on a text command line

Bye.
Jasen

 

[Fred Abse]

On Sat, 19 Nov 2005 19:16:18 -0600, David Maynard wrote:

<snip>

the GUI *was* the (second
half) of the 'big idea' that made Microsoft what it is

Invented at Xerox PARC

Introduced to the market by Apple

--
"Electricity is of two kinds, positive and negative. The difference
is, I presume, that one comes a little more expensive, but is more
durable; the other is a cheaper thing, but the moths get into it."
(Stephen Leacock)

 

[gpolitis@gmail.com]

<gpoli...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1115135104.184463.117960@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...

I have a Marantz SR-7000 receiver that, after a recent move to a new
home, will no longer turn on. When plugged in, the red Stand-by light
comes on, but neither pressing the power button on the unit or trying
to turn it on via the remote work. Does anybody have any ideas?

As I mentioned I moved recently, but my home theater equipment always
gets moved by hand and quite delicately at that, so I don't believe
anything happened in the move.

I appreceiate any input you folks may have as to what might cause this
and what to try...

Thanks in advance!

OK - not to bring this thread back from the dead, but guess what
happened?

After months of being too busy to get my receiver off to the repair
shop, the day finally came to bring it in, and just for giggles I tried
plugging it in once more to verify the issue still existed. Well, to
make a short story shorter, the receiver now works! I had tried it a
few times over the past few months with no change in behavior and now
all of a sudden (and for the past week or so) it works without issue...

I'm just curious if anybody has any ideas on what might cause this
behavior? I had previously checked all the fuses and they were fine,
but I was resigned to having to bring it in for service. I'm hoping
the 'self-repairing' of the receiver might yield a clue as to what the
issue was in the first place.

As usual - thanks in advance for any input-

 

[Jumpster Jiver]

gpolitis@gmail.com wrote:

gpoli...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1115135104.184463.117960@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...

I have a Marantz SR-7000 receiver that, after a recent move to a new
home, will no longer turn on. When plugged in, the red Stand-by light
comes on, but neither pressing the power button on the unit or trying
to turn it on via the remote work. Does anybody have any ideas?

As I mentioned I moved recently, but my home theater equipment always
gets moved by hand and quite delicately at that, so I don't believe
anything happened in the move.

I appreceiate any input you folks may have as to what might cause this
and what to try...

Thanks in advance!





OK - not to bring this thread back from the dead, but guess what
happened?

After months of being too busy to get my receiver off to the repair
shop, the day finally came to bring it in, and just for giggles I tried
plugging it in once more to verify the issue still existed. Well, to
make a short story shorter, the receiver now works! I had tried it a
few times over the past few months with no change in behavior and now
all of a sudden (and for the past week or so) it works without issue...

I'm just curious if anybody has any ideas on what might cause this
behavior? I had previously checked all the fuses and they were fine,
but I was resigned to having to bring it in for service. I'm hoping
the 'self-repairing' of the receiver might yield a clue as to what the
issue was in the first place.

As usual - thanks in advance for any input-

As delicately as you moved it, there may be a loose connection maybe

caused by a bad solder joint that caused the problem. Sitting around,
small temperature changes within your house or even through-the-floor
vibrations caused by walking by the unit may have caused a component to
reconnect. Without finding the cause and repairibg it, the problem
might come back when the unit is on, possibly burning out some
components. Or you may be lucky and never see the trouble again!

 

[Jumpster Jiver]

Matthew Long wrote:

My very reliable 28 inch Nicam Hitachi TV suddenly gave up last Thursday,
after 13 years without a problem. Well, it had one problem very common with
this model - C46TN permanently displayed. (This is how I know the model
number!) but after looking at Google, managed to press the right buttons to
remove it!

So, apart from that, it's been fine! Now when you switch it on, you get
sound, but no pictures. The screen stays black, apart from two white dashes
in the centre left of the screen for a few seconds. I think this is the
channel number being displayed (Although of course you can't read it!

If you press the Menu button, you used to get four coloured menu options.
Now when you press menu, you get four coloured horizontal lines across the
centre of the screen. It looks like the coloured menu logos have been
squashed into a single line.

I've since bought a new TV, but before I throw my old telly out, is it
possibly worth fixing? Anyone know what might possibly be wrong from the
symptoms I've described? Is it the tube? Dry solder joint?

The TV is in perfect condition, with not a single mark on it. It just seems
a shame to chuck it, although I realise that it's probably not worth
anything to anyone now.

Cheers,

Matthew Long

If the picture tube was ood before this problem occured - that is you
like the picture quality - then it is very much worth repair.
Sounds like you lost vertical deflection. Could be dry/cracked solder
joints, a few bad capacitors, a bad vertical output IC, a bad resistor
or diode, or some combination of these.

If you have a competent technician repair it, it should not be too
expensive.
If you are capable of this type of repair yourself, troubleshoot the
vertical section, and you should be watching TV really soon!
Good Luck.

 

[Plague Boy]

David Maynard wrote:

DevilsPGD wrote:

In message <11nnmgeb2r2ks00@corp.supernews.com> David Maynard
nospam@private.net> wrote:
snip
Hell if I know but I just got one dated 1969.



That's usually because the date header was missing completely, and some
system along the way assigned a header of Jan 1 1970 -0000, then
corrected for timezone shift.


Possible. But that doesn't explain the ones dated 2001.

They were sent through HAL.
"Dave? What are you doing, Dave?"

--
"Damn AOL. Then was the September of our discontent."-
Tim Haynes, c.o.l.s, 11-30-01

 

[David Maynard]

Plague Boy wrote:

David Maynard wrote:

DevilsPGD wrote:

In message <11nnmgeb2r2ks00@corp.supernews.com> David Maynard
nospam@private.net> wrote:

snip

Hell if I know but I just got one dated 1969.




That's usually because the date header was missing completely, and some
system along the way assigned a header of Jan 1 1970 -0000, then
corrected for timezone shift.


Possible. But that doesn't explain the ones dated 2001.


They were sent through HAL.
"Dave? What are you doing, Dave?"

Open the pod bay doors, HAL.

Ever notice that all the letters in HAL are just one off of IBM?
HAL
IBM

 

[Mxsmanic]

David Maynard writes:

Ever notice that all the letters in HAL are just one off of IBM?
HAL
IBM

About 35 years ago.

However, nobody has found a way to transform HAL into Microsoft, so
the conspiracy theories died out with the decline of IBM.

IBM provided a great deal of technical assistance in the making of the
film, though.

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

 

[David Maynard]

Mxsmanic wrote:

David Maynard writes:


Ever notice that all the letters in HAL are just one off of IBM?
HAL
IBM


About 35 years ago.

hehe. Yeah, me too.

However, nobody has found a way to transform HAL into Microsoft, so
the conspiracy theories died out with the decline of IBM.

So true.

I wonder if anyone tried playing it backwards to hear satanic sounds?

IBM provided a great deal of technical assistance in the making of the
film, though.

No wonder HAL went a bit loopy

 

[Mxsmanic]

David Maynard writes:

No wonder HAL went a bit loopy

IBM was a good company in its time. Like so many computer companies,
it first developed problems with marketing and management, and these
eventually contaminated engineering departments. It's depressing to
think how many major mistakes in managing computer companies have been
driven by marketing and sales decisions. As one of a trillion
examples, just look at Intel's marketing-driven decision to pursue
inferior microprocessor architectures just so that it could run chips
at faster clock speeds (thereby satisfying clueless marketroids with
higher and higher GHz numbers).

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

 

[Matthew Long]

"> If the picture tube was ood before this problem occured - that is you

like the picture quality - then it is very much worth repair.
Sounds like you lost vertical deflection. Could be dry/cracked solder
joints, a few bad capacitors, a bad vertical output IC, a bad resistor or
diode, or some combination of these.

If you have a competent technician repair it, it should not be too
expensive.
If you are capable of this type of repair yourself, troubleshoot the
vertical section, and you should be watching TV really soon!
Good Luck.

Hiya, thanks for your reply. I only have limited knowledge, and no equipment
to test it. I don't really know any decent technicians in our area. None
that I'd trust anyway! I know most would charge a fee just to look at it! I
have to be realistic, and think that I'd only get Ł50 - Ł60 if it was
working. It does seem a shame, but I think it might be going to the dump! My
new TV turns up tomorrow, so I need to make some space!

Matthew Long