On 22/07/2022 09:14, Brian Gaff wrote:
> We never knew back then that we were living through an all too short golden
> period of TV dx.

Indeed.

Bill

In message <jk00q9FqtroU1@mid.individual.net>, williamwright
<wrightsaerials@f2s.com> writes
>On 22/07/2022 09:14, Brian Gaff wrote:
>> We never knew back then that we were living through an all too short golden
>> period of TV dx.
>
>Indeed.
>
I think that the period from around 1950 to 1980 was a golden age for
all sorts of electronic hobbies. Loads of war surplus gear and a vast
quantity of components that you could work with. And you could also
really understand how things worked. These days, you can't get the bits
any more, or it's all done for you (or at least just modules that you
can connect together), or you simply can't do it any more.
--
Ian

On 22/07/2022 21:33, Ian Jackson wrote:
> In message <jk00q9FqtroU1@mid.individual.net>, williamwright
> <wrightsaerials@f2s.com> writes
>> On 22/07/2022 09:14, Brian Gaff wrote:
>>> We never knew back then that we were living through an all too short golden
>>> period of TV dx.
>>
>> Indeed.
>>
> I think that the period from around 1950 to 1980 was a golden age for
> all sorts of electronic hobbies. Loads of war surplus gear and a vast
> quantity of components that you could work with. And you could also
> really understand how things worked. These days, you can't get the bits
> any more, or it's all done for you (or at least just modules that you
> can connect together), or you simply can't do it any more.

+1

As a teenager I was often browsing around the electronic surplus shops
in Tottenham Court Road and Lisle Street in London. I guess other big
cities had shops of that sort too.

--

Jeff

Jeff Layman <Jeff@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> On 22/07/2022 21:33, Ian Jackson wrote:
>> In message <jk00q9FqtroU1@mid.individual.net>, williamwright
>> <wrightsaerials@f2s.com> writes
>>> On 22/07/2022 09:14, Brian Gaff wrote:
>>>> We never knew back then that we were living through an all too short golden
>>>> period of TV dx.
>>>
>>> Indeed.
>>>
>> I think that the period from around 1950 to 1980 was a golden age for
>> all sorts of electronic hobbies. Loads of war surplus gear and a vast
>> quantity of components that you could work with. And you could also
>> really understand how things worked. These days, you can't get the bits
>> any more, or it's all done for you (or at least just modules that you
>> can connect together), or you simply can't do it any more.
>
> +1
>
> As a teenager I was often browsing around the electronic surplus shops
> in Tottenham Court Road and Lisle Street in London. I guess other big
> cities had shops of that sort too.
>

That’s just nostalgia. There’s now a semi infinite range of electronic bits
and bobs you can get from China via the likes of eBay. As to bemoaning
modules, presumably you’d also dislike ICs because they hide all those
hundreds of thousands of transistors. You can buy a Raspberry Pi Pico for
£6 and get right into the nuts and bolts of bare metal programming, drive
the i/o lines with I2C, SPI etc and hook up all sorts of external
peripheral chips. CAD packages have never been more accessible, with very
competent suites being free. PCBs can be manufactured for next to nothing
and returned within a week or two. You can buy a USB software radio stick
for peanuts and get into software defined radio.

On 23/07/2022 08:40, Jeff Layman wrote:
> As a teenager I was often browsing around the electronic surplus shops
> in Tottenham Court Road and Lisle Street in London. I guess other big
> cities had shops of that sort too.

That's your excuse for being in Lisle Street :-)

In article <tbgamv$3ogo2$1@dont-email.me>,
MB <MB@nospam.net> wrote:
> On 23/07/2022 08:40, Jeff Layman wrote:
> > As a teenager I was often browsing around the electronic surplus shops
> > in Tottenham Court Road and Lisle Street in London. I guess other big
> > cities had shops of that sort too.

> That's your excuse for being in Lisle Street :-)

what other reason could there be?

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England - sent from my RISC OS 4té
"I'd rather die of exhaustion than die of boredom" Thomas Carlyle

On Sat, 23 Jul 2022 09:47:15 +0100, charles wrote:

> what other reason could there be?

Was that tongue in cheek? If not, it was reputed to be an area of loose
morals and even looser underwear! I never noticed these things as I was
more interested in the junk.

--
TOJ

On 23/07/2022 10:35, The Other John wrote:
> Was that tongue in cheek? If not, it was reputed to be an area of loose
> morals and even looser underwear! I never noticed these things as I was
> more interested in the junk.

It was after all in Soho I seem to remember.

On Sat, 23 Jul 2022 10:45:50 +0100, MB wrote:

> It was after all in Soho I seem to remember.

I thought Soho ended at Shaftesbury Avenue and Lisle Street is south of
that.

--
TOJ

That is a whole other subject of course. The advent of surface mount
components put all the joy out of electronics. OK so I lost my sight just
around those times, but the shock of taking the top off a cd player and
finding a tiny pcb and a little switch mode psu inside and no adjustments
for the mechanical bits, was just too much.
Brian

--

--:
This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...
briang1@blueyonder.co.uk
Blind user, so no pictures please
Note this Signature is meaningless.!
"Ian Jackson" <ianREMOVETHISjackson@g3ohx.co.uk> wrote in message
news:cw50EYHNmw2iFwD4@brattleho.plus.com...
> In message <jk00q9FqtroU1@mid.individual.net>, williamwright
> <wrightsaerials@f2s.com> writes
>>On 22/07/2022 09:14, Brian Gaff wrote:
>>> We never knew back then that we were living through an all too short
>>> golden
>>> period of TV dx.
>>
>>Indeed.
>>
> I think that the period from around 1950 to 1980 was a golden age for all
> sorts of electronic hobbies. Loads of war surplus gear and a vast quantity
> of components that you could work with. And you could also really
> understand how things worked. These days, you can't get the bits any more,
> or it's all done for you (or at least just modules that you can connect
> together), or you simply can't do it any more.
> --
> Ian

Yes but did they also have all those ladies propositioning you as well an a
lot of Chinese!

Yup, well, I guess front 1966 to mid 80s I was old enough to go to such
shops for electronic parts, but because my father worked for a TV company we
would get all sorts of things to play with, so modifying TVs to get 819
lines and having to have a completely separate if and tuner for the sound
was quite achievable, even intercarrier sound offsets could be done by a
second IF with a tunable oscillator to pretend to be the vision carrier for
the other IF. I think the weirdest experiences toward the end of the 50s
was getting weak audio signals at the low end of band 1 from Australia, as
they used like we did, AM sound down at around 41.5 ish MHz. Had to be a
good sunspot year though and you would have no chance if they did it now due
to the noise generated by our modern gear.
Brian

--

--:
This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...
briang1@blueyonder.co.uk
Blind user, so no pictures please
Note this Signature is meaningless.!
"Jeff Layman" <Jeff@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
news:tbg8l1$3o1ha$1@dont-email.me...
> On 22/07/2022 21:33, Ian Jackson wrote:
>> In message <jk00q9FqtroU1@mid.individual.net>, williamwright
>> <wrightsaerials@f2s.com> writes
>>> On 22/07/2022 09:14, Brian Gaff wrote:
>>>> We never knew back then that we were living through an all too short
>>>> golden
>>>> period of TV dx.
>>>
>>> Indeed.
>>>
>> I think that the period from around 1950 to 1980 was a golden age for
>> all sorts of electronic hobbies. Loads of war surplus gear and a vast
>> quantity of components that you could work with. And you could also
>> really understand how things worked. These days, you can't get the bits
>> any more, or it's all done for you (or at least just modules that you
>> can connect together), or you simply can't do it any more.
>
> +1
>
> As a teenager I was often browsing around the electronic surplus shops in
> Tottenham Court Road and Lisle Street in London. I guess other big cities
> had shops of that sort too.
>
> --
>
> Jeff

With respect that is hardly the same is it? The low level understanding of
how things worked was the thing back then. Now for all the items you
mention, you are relying on other peoples designs and merely putting them
together. If for example they decide to put a monitoring chip into your Pi
and then monitor what you are doing you would have no idea at all.
Brian

--

--:
This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...
briang1@blueyonder.co.uk
Blind user, so no pictures please
Note this Signature is meaningless.!
"Tweed" <usenet.tweed@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:tbgafi$3ofh9$1@dont-email.me...
> Jeff Layman <Jeff@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> On 22/07/2022 21:33, Ian Jackson wrote:
>>> In message <jk00q9FqtroU1@mid.individual.net>, williamwright
>>> <wrightsaerials@f2s.com> writes
>>>> On 22/07/2022 09:14, Brian Gaff wrote:
>>>>> We never knew back then that we were living through an all too short
>>>>> golden
>>>>> period of TV dx.
>>>>
>>>> Indeed.
>>>>
>>> I think that the period from around 1950 to 1980 was a golden age for
>>> all sorts of electronic hobbies. Loads of war surplus gear and a vast
>>> quantity of components that you could work with. And you could also
>>> really understand how things worked. These days, you can't get the bits
>>> any more, or it's all done for you (or at least just modules that you
>>> can connect together), or you simply can't do it any more.
>>
>> +1
>>
>> As a teenager I was often browsing around the electronic surplus shops
>> in Tottenham Court Road and Lisle Street in London. I guess other big
>> cities had shops of that sort too.
>>
>
> That's just nostalgia. There's now a semi infinite range of electronic
> bits
> and bobs you can get from China via the likes of eBay. As to bemoaning
> modules, presumably you'd also dislike ICs because they hide all those
> hundreds of thousands of transistors. You can buy a Raspberry Pi Pico for
> �6 and get right into the nuts and bolts of bare metal programming, drive
> the i/o lines with I2C, SPI etc and hook up all sorts of external
> peripheral chips. CAD packages have never been more accessible, with very
> competent suites being free. PCBs can be manufactured for next to nothing
> and returned within a week or two. You can buy a USB software radio stick
> for peanuts and get into software defined radio.
>

I already cracked that joke in this thread and previously, don't be silly we
liked to rummage in drawers but only looking for rare components.
Brian

--

--:
This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...
briang1@blueyonder.co.uk
Blind user, so no pictures please
Note this Signature is meaningless.!
"MB" <MB@nospam.net> wrote in message news:tbgamv$3ogo2$1@dont-email.me...
> On 23/07/2022 08:40, Jeff Layman wrote:
>> As a teenager I was often browsing around the electronic surplus shops
>> in Tottenham Court Road and Lisle Street in London. I guess other big
>> cities had shops of that sort too.
>
> That's your excuse for being in Lisle Street :-)

Gw Smith, Laskys, yes the original, and in other streets Proops of course
for all their novelties.
We used to have in Kingston a shop called Southern Surplus, and the floor
was rotting but it was piled high with gear from the forces, redundant stock
and returns etc, much fun to be had.
Brian

--

--:
This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...
briang1@blueyonder.co.uk
Blind user, so no pictures please
Note this Signature is meaningless.!
"charles" <charles@candehope.me.uk> wrote in message
news:5a0c6c578fcharles@candehope.me.uk...
> In article <tbgamv$3ogo2$1@dont-email.me>,
> MB <MB@nospam.net> wrote:
>> On 23/07/2022 08:40, Jeff Layman wrote:
>> > As a teenager I was often browsing around the electronic surplus shops
>> > in Tottenham Court Road and Lisle Street in London. I guess other big
>> > cities had shops of that sort too.
>
>> That's your excuse for being in Lisle Street :-)
>
> what other reason could there be?
>
> --
> from KT24 in Surrey, England - sent from my RISC OS 4t�
> "I'd rather die of exhaustion than die of boredom" Thomas Carlyle

I managed to get an old Antex insulator there, and modified it for phased
crossed dipoles with a phasing harness and 50 ohm stub, and then cut some
ally tubing got from London Metal Warehouses when you could just walk in
measure and pay for it.
Brian

--

--:
This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...
briang1@blueyonder.co.uk
Blind user, so no pictures please
Note this Signature is meaningless.!
"The Other John" <nomail@here.org> wrote in message
news:tbgfcn$3pkbc$1@dont-email.me...
> On Sat, 23 Jul 2022 09:47:15 +0100, charles wrote:
>
>> what other reason could there be?
>
> Was that tongue in cheek? If not, it was reputed to be an area of loose
> morals and even looser underwear! I never noticed these things as I was
> more interested in the junk.
>
> --
> TOJ

Just around the corner of course was Denmark Street where Dick James Music
used to have his office where all the aspiring young stars sent their
acetates. Loads were found when they cleared it out some years ago.
Cilla, the Beatles, seems such a short time ago, and the quality was crap,
now demos are either sent via email or sold off as very polished tracks
directly by the artists.
Brian

--

--:
This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...
briang1@blueyonder.co.uk
Blind user, so no pictures please
Note this Signature is meaningless.!
"MB" <MB@nospam.net> wrote in message news:tbgg0d$3pr11$1@dont-email.me...
> On 23/07/2022 10:35, The Other John wrote:
>> Was that tongue in cheek? If not, it was reputed to be an area of loose
>> morals and even looser underwear! I never noticed these things as I was
>> more interested in the junk.
>
> It was after all in Soho I seem to remember.
>

That is probably the modern gentrification definition.
There war so many jokes at the time though. Brian

--

--:
This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...
briang1@blueyonder.co.uk
Blind user, so no pictures please
Note this Signature is meaningless.!
"The Other John" <nomail@here.org> wrote in message
news:tbggqt$3q17b$1@dont-email.me...
> On Sat, 23 Jul 2022 10:45:50 +0100, MB wrote:
>
>> It was after all in Soho I seem to remember.
>
> I thought Soho ended at Shaftesbury Avenue and Lisle Street is south of
> that.
>
> --
> TOJ

On 23/07/2022 09:11, Tweed wrote:
> Jeff Layman <Jeff@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> On 22/07/2022 21:33, Ian Jackson wrote:
>>> In message <jk00q9FqtroU1@mid.individual.net>, williamwright
>>> <wrightsaerials@f2s.com> writes
>>>> On 22/07/2022 09:14, Brian Gaff wrote:
>>>>> We never knew back then that we were living through an all too short golden
>>>>> period of TV dx.
>>>>
>>>> Indeed.
>>>>
>>> I think that the period from around 1950 to 1980 was a golden age for
>>> all sorts of electronic hobbies. Loads of war surplus gear and a vast
>>> quantity of components that you could work with. And you could also
>>> really understand how things worked. These days, you can't get the bits
>>> any more, or it's all done for you (or at least just modules that you
>>> can connect together), or you simply can't do it any more.
>>
>> +1
>>
>> As a teenager I was often browsing around the electronic surplus shops
>> in Tottenham Court Road and Lisle Street in London. I guess other big
>> cities had shops of that sort too.
>>
>
> That’s just nostalgia. There’s now a semi infinite range of electronic bits
> and bobs you can get from China via the likes of eBay. As to bemoaning
> modules, presumably you’d also dislike ICs because they hide all those
> hundreds of thousands of transistors. You can buy a Raspberry Pi Pico for
> £6 and get right into the nuts and bolts of bare metal programming, drive
> the i/o lines with I2C, SPI etc and hook up all sorts of external
> peripheral chips. CAD packages have never been more accessible, with very
> competent suites being free. PCBs can be manufactured for next to nothing
> and returned within a week or two. You can buy a USB software radio stick
> for peanuts and get into software defined radio.

Remember that at the time (early 60s) transistor devices were in their
infancy, so may things were still made with valves. There was still a
lot of ex-WW2 electronic equipment around, and much of it was available
for very little money. It was fun to try to get old equipment working,
but I failed miserably with a USAF VHF radio - a BC-624 (this would have
helped at the time:
<http://www.radiomanual.info/schemi/Surplus_NATO/SCR-522A_SCR-542A_user_AN16-40SCR522-2_1944.pdf>.
But even that doesn't have the circuit diagram.). I also tried to get an
old Cossor 3339 oscilloscope working, but could not get it to scan.
Today, you'd get a module, often with unmarked or anonymised ICs, or
buried under a blob of epoxy resin. What fun is there buying from eBay,
other than you not knowing exactly what you might be getting from a
Chinglish description?

In the Electronics Surplus shops you could look at and pick up all sorts
of equipment that you had no idea of what it was or what it did, and
often the shop owner didn't either. It was a journey of discovery, and
/you/ did the thinking, not someone else doing it for you with a
ready-made kit.

--

Jeff

Jeff Layman <Jeff@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> On 23/07/2022 09:11, Tweed wrote:
>> Jeff Layman <Jeff@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>> On 22/07/2022 21:33, Ian Jackson wrote:
>>>> In message <jk00q9FqtroU1@mid.individual.net>, williamwright
>>>> <wrightsaerials@f2s.com> writes
>>>>> On 22/07/2022 09:14, Brian Gaff wrote:
>>>>>> We never knew back then that we were living through an all too short golden
>>>>>> period of TV dx.
>>>>>
>>>>> Indeed.
>>>>>
>>>> I think that the period from around 1950 to 1980 was a golden age for
>>>> all sorts of electronic hobbies. Loads of war surplus gear and a vast
>>>> quantity of components that you could work with. And you could also
>>>> really understand how things worked. These days, you can't get the bits
>>>> any more, or it's all done for you (or at least just modules that you
>>>> can connect together), or you simply can't do it any more.
>>>
>>> +1
>>>
>>> As a teenager I was often browsing around the electronic surplus shops
>>> in Tottenham Court Road and Lisle Street in London. I guess other big
>>> cities had shops of that sort too.
>>>
>>
>> That’s just nostalgia. There’s now a semi infinite range of electronic bits
>> and bobs you can get from China via the likes of eBay. As to bemoaning
>> modules, presumably you’d also dislike ICs because they hide all those
>> hundreds of thousands of transistors. You can buy a Raspberry Pi Pico for
>> £6 and get right into the nuts and bolts of bare metal programming, drive
>> the i/o lines with I2C, SPI etc and hook up all sorts of external
>> peripheral chips. CAD packages have never been more accessible, with very
>> competent suites being free. PCBs can be manufactured for next to nothing
>> and returned within a week or two. You can buy a USB software radio stick
>> for peanuts and get into software defined radio.
>
> Remember that at the time (early 60s) transistor devices were in their
> infancy, so may things were still made with valves. There was still a
> lot of ex-WW2 electronic equipment around, and much of it was available
> for very little money. It was fun to try to get old equipment working,
> but I failed miserably with a USAF VHF radio - a BC-624 (this would have
> helped at the time:
> <http://www.radiomanual.info/schemi/Surplus_NATO/SCR-522A_SCR-542A_user_AN16-40SCR522-2_1944.pdf>.
>
> But even that doesn't have the circuit diagram.). I also tried to get an
> old Cossor 3339 oscilloscope working, but could not get it to scan.
> Today, you'd get a module, often with unmarked or anonymised ICs, or
> buried under a blob of epoxy resin. What fun is there buying from eBay,
> other than you not knowing exactly what you might be getting from a
> Chinglish description?
>
> In the Electronics Surplus shops you could look at and pick up all sorts
> of equipment that you had no idea of what it was or what it did, and
> often the shop owner didn't either. It was a journey of discovery, and
> /you/ did the thinking, not someone else doing it for you with a
> ready-made kit.
>

There a lot of room for thinking, there’s endless small developer kits with
microcontrollers and even FPGAs if you really want to exercise the brain
cells. The world has moved on.

The Other John <nomail@here.org> wrote:

> On Sat, 23 Jul 2022 09:47:15 +0100, charles wrote:
>
> > what other reason could there be?
>
> Was that tongue in cheek? If not, it was reputed to be an area of loose
> morals and even looser underwear! I never noticed these things as I was
> more interested in the junk.

"French Lessons, fourth floor; ring and walk up".

--
^Ï^ My pet rock Gordon just is.

~ Slava Ukraini ~

On 23/07/2022 12:45, Brian Gaff wrote:
>
> Just around the corner of course was Denmark Street

Which IIRC had a musical instrument shop where I got a zither repaired.

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

On Sat, 23 Jul 2022 12:51:51 -0000 (UTC), Tweed
<usenet.tweed@gmail.com> wrote:

>> But even that doesn't have the circuit diagram.). I also tried to get an
>> old Cossor 3339 oscilloscope working, but could not get it to scan.
>> Today, you'd get a module, often with unmarked or anonymised ICs, or
>> buried under a blob of epoxy resin. What fun is there buying from eBay,
>> other than you not knowing exactly what you might be getting from a
>> Chinglish description?
>>
>> In the Electronics Surplus shops you could look at and pick up all sorts
>> of equipment that you had no idea of what it was or what it did, and
>> often the shop owner didn't either. It was a journey of discovery, and
>> /you/ did the thinking, not someone else doing it for you with a
>> ready-made kit.
>>
>
>There a lot of room for thinking, there’s endless small developer kits with
>microcontrollers and even FPGAs if you really want to exercise the brain
>cells. The world has moved on.

Not quite all of it. Somebody must be designing those blob circuits,
so there's probably about a dozen people in the entire world somewhere
who still know how stuff actually works. Goodness knows how the next
generation of youngsters are going to learn it though.

Rod.

In article <tbg8l1$3o1ha$1@dont-email.me>, Jeff Layman
<Jeff@invalid.invalid> wrote:

> As a teenager I was often browsing around the electronic surplus shops
> in Tottenham Court Road and Lisle Street in London. I guess other big
> cities had shops of that sort too.

We had a local trader wih three shops. One mainly sold radios and hi-fi of
the period. The other two sold electronics of all kinds. Usually had a
table outside with carboard boxes/trays of assorted loose components.
Valves to resistors, etc.

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scots_Guide/intro/electron.htm
biog http://jcgl.orpheusweb.co.uk/history/ups_and_downs.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

Roderick Stewart <rjfs@escapetime.myzen.co.uk> wrote:
> On Sat, 23 Jul 2022 12:51:51 -0000 (UTC), Tweed
> <usenet.tweed@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>> But even that doesn't have the circuit diagram.). I also tried to get an
>>> old Cossor 3339 oscilloscope working, but could not get it to scan.
>>> Today, you'd get a module, often with unmarked or anonymised ICs, or
>>> buried under a blob of epoxy resin. What fun is there buying from eBay,
>>> other than you not knowing exactly what you might be getting from a
>>> Chinglish description?
>>>
>>> In the Electronics Surplus shops you could look at and pick up all sorts
>>> of equipment that you had no idea of what it was or what it did, and
>>> often the shop owner didn't either. It was a journey of discovery, and
>>> /you/ did the thinking, not someone else doing it for you with a
>>> ready-made kit.
>>>
>>
>> There a lot of room for thinking, there’s endless small developer kits with
>> microcontrollers and even FPGAs if you really want to exercise the brain
>> cells. The world has moved on.
>
> Not quite all of it. Somebody must be designing those blob circuits,
> so there's probably about a dozen people in the entire world somewhere
> who still know how stuff actually works. Goodness knows how the next
> generation of youngsters are going to learn it though.
>
> Rod.
>

It is reputed that no one person knows in fine detail how a modern Intel
microprocessor works. However, there’s lots of fields where no one person
knows how something works in detail.

The problem with getting old is that you know how difficult everything is,
so it is very hard to get motivated to learn new stuff. Happily the
youngsters aren’t weighed down with this knowledge and thus take easily to
new things.

The real issue is not the inability of the young to learn engineering, but
rather the pathetic pay rates for electronic engineers and the poor long
term career prospects if you want to remain in the technical side rather
than migrating to flying a desk in management. Dyson was attempting to
justify his outsourcing to the Far East on the grounds he couldn’t recruit
decent engineers in the UK. Having looked at the salaries he was offering
in their job adverts it was hardly surprising he couldn’t recruit.

In message <tbj1nq$gm4k$1@dont-email.me>, Tweed <usenet.tweed@gmail.com>
writes

>
>It is reputed that no one person knows in fine detail how a modern Intel
>microprocessor works. However, there’s lots of fields where no one person
>knows how something works in detail.

I recall having to contact my works parent company about problems I
having getting one of their products to work. The reply was "The guy who
designed it is dead, and the guy who might possibly have some idea has
left town".
>

>

--
Ian