Hobbies hobby

Wind generator

2008-01-25T17:10:00.000-08:00

I made one or two when I was 10 or so. It was simple, I used a electric generator for bike light power purposes and made a propeller of plywood. But I didn´t know how to rectify the current so the analog meter that I connected also went down to the left and it was audible. It also made a sound and it was doing that with a rate equal to the wind power. I just miss those days, yes I do.. . ......

I thought about it this evening since my mid son, aged 11 talked about the subject. He wanted to do a wind generator. I bought a pc fan 3 or 4 years ago with him at a place, but we have never used it. So, what do you think, that I should go on with this and do a wind generator. I guess so. And by the time you read this, I should have made another post about it telling that it was made. It needs some planning, paper and pen, and doing it.

Vintage Tv Game maniacs...

2007-10-23T11:32:00.000-07:00

So I made some search in the internet space and first, I found a guy talking about
collecting Tv/game-switches, have a look .... on this at www.vintagecomputing.com.

This one is actually blue, the earliest were dark.

I suggest you go here to see! Doesn´t it look so much funnier than all pc games today?! :-) Of course, I knew you´d agree.

So the question is, and this is a total mystery. Why don´t all computers come equipped with these games. They take virtually zero cpu power.
I guess this has to be a vacant niche in the game industry today. How cool it would be, a 1970s tv games revival.

Electronics, technology, physics..

2007-10-23T10:47:00.000-07:00

That sounded advanced didn´t it? However I think that was bigger interests until some two decades ago.

Kids today are interested in games and dvd. And those who were kids and even 20 years ago are still interested in games. But I am 42 so I haven´t that early contact with computers and games. Around 1977 or so, the tv-tennis-games was quite popular. I didn´t have such a toy myself. I will try to find a picture to show, for you who maybe not know what I´m talking about.

I just wrote a little about that here.

Anyway, not all kids liked to build aircraft models, experiment with electronic kits
or play with electrical trains. I guess only boys did.

I found one dedicated guy´s blog, it was quite interesting to read, take a look
here.

By the way, I have a web place, toy-trains.net but I haven´t done anything with it yet.

But anyway... kids don´t seem to be as intested in this these times. To appreciate reading books about old aircraft or british trains in the 19th century.

I just have to show this beauty

You find it at a Scottish Government news page,

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/News-Extras/200.

Good old hifi stereo audio in the 1970s!

2007-10-22T06:52:00.000-07:00

I have wondered, if some of you remember, back in te 70´s the stereo equipment
should have speakers with a decent size that did provide a good sound.
Somewhere since the early 90s or late 80s, speakers got more plastic, smaller and smaller and today there are few people who have even decent stereos nor speakers. Smaller speakers are common today and indeed the quality and sound is not as good as decades ago.

Back then I guess people listened to music more dedicatedly than nowadays. You had to pay for music then. Of course you could listen at the radio but among those who had, few could afford good tape recorders or cassette decks that recorded with good quality though most people, as today, didn´t care very much.
So in those days, most speakers were infact better than today and though tape recorders had (and always have, more or less) some flutter, a rounded frequency range and some distortion, I think the overall sound was better.

So today, cd (since 25 years soon!) and mp3 have no distortion and a full frequency range. But small and poor speakers.

There is an exception for mp3, those using 128k. Can´t understand that, must be >160k in order to sound ok.

I read in a magazine that 2 channel stereo is on the way back as reported from an audio/home stereo exhibition. For a decade or so, dolby prologic etc has been the thing.

Two free mp3 downloads with well produced music

2007-10-22T06:20:00.000-07:00

Yes free and still not any garbage either. You can download two tracks
on the page below that are well produced and with a wider style.

Here they are:
www.download-free-mp3-music.com

I think they are competent though it´s not my musical style, just parts of it.
But in a technical view, it stands out as it says on the page. And the info tells that there is a low frequency range on the recordings and yes, it gets really low.

And how to hear those low frequencies?! Either you have good headphones or speakers or just an old pair of speakers since many speakers in modern stereos are kind of smaller. Care to read on? So, unless you see it above, lets get back to the stereo sound of the 70s!

Early fascination for electronics

2007-10-21T17:22:00.000-07:00

Well, it has to be something!

I may have been 4 or maybe only 3 and a half, not sure. Anyway I remember one time I looked into a wardrobe in my home and there was a circuit board! I had this... fascinated feeling, I saw the components, these small resistors, capacitors and so on. I understood that something happened in them. I was fascinated.
It took years until I began myself with simple electronics in a real way. First when I was about ten. I bought a kit by Philips to build different circuits. And I did and had some fun with it. I still have it but I think at least one original transistor is missing.

A few years later I started to solder electronics. I soldered some multivibrators with leds. Later I made simple circuit boards. One was an homebuilt FM-transmitter which was quite funny. Illegal of course but now a long time ago. A while after that I became interested in cb-radio and in what I found out, the possibility to talk abroad, with people in other countries, more about that in another blog.

My biggest advance in electronics was in school, I was 19. Everyone was supposed to do a project in one of the topic classes (probably wrong english...) and I thought about building a digital delay for audio. I was interested in music and actually, by that time I bought my first synthesizer.

I will try to add some pictures of the results back then, in 1985 a bit later on.

All these hobbies and the little electrical train.

2007-10-21T15:14:00.000-07:00

I welcome myself now since this is my first posting.

I have one hobby. To have hobbies. No, just joking!
Well, I have had several hobbies since I was a kid. I think I won´t tell about all of them now, but maybe writing here can make me sort up among my interests a little because I think I have more of them than I have spare time to do it.

I remember when I was 4 years old somewhere between 1969-70, how I wished to find an electrical train in the grocery store bag when my father would come home every time. And how I remember it.
I looked into it every time when he came, to find there was no train. Memory is real close. How could I stay on that hope for so many times?

When I was 10, I bought a little electrical train by Minitrix. It was a complete box with 2 wagons and some rail, and I liked it. I enjoyed watching that little mechanics. I will try to find a picture of it to show you.

I found this on a danish site by someone who wrote he had been also 9-10 but he was slightly over 10 years after me!

My set looked very similar to this one, my transformer was green and I think I had only 2 wagons and not that thing as here in the middle of the box..

Unfortunately, I had (and have) a cousin who wanted to trade with me. He wanted my train for something else. And I just did it. I can´t remember thinking what I wanted myself, if I actually wanted to keep my train. I should have kept it. I had to wait several years before I got the things he offered me, and those were in worse shape than I had expected.

I think if I´d had a little more self respect back then, I would have kept it. I can still feel, or rather feel the "retroactive" regrets now. Anyway.... some years back I bought several trains, actually many at an auction. Very cheap. In three scales, N, like the minitrix above, and the standard HO and then some trains in a scale size inbetween.
Even though I have two sons, now aged 5 and 11, I have not mounted any model railway. These train that I bought have been placed in a pair of boxes for several years.
Shouldn´t be so, so I will try to do something with it. And having these trains have not felt even close to the feeling I had when I bought my train when I was 10 which was a new train, and only mine. Well, I´m not 10 but for my sons.

We can appreciate things more even if they are simpler or less. Instead of buying and buying in the "progress" of a hobby, maybe we should take a break sometimes so that we can better appreciate what we have later on too.