MightyOhm

People said that it gets hot here.

I thought that I understood hot. “I’ve lived in hot places before”, I said to myself.

Sure, Sacramento gets pretty warm in the summer. Maybe one or two weeks of 100+ weather in August.

But never have I experienced anything like this.

In January, we had snow one week and 70 degree weather the next. By February it was in the 80s, March and April in the mid-90s. By May, we had our first 100 degree day, and I suspect that it has only dipped below 100 briefly a couple times since.

The house AC has been running constantly, I’m scared to open the power bill every month, the lawn is dead (we’ve had just over 4 inches of rain so far this year), and I pretty much hide indoors anytime before midnight.

I guess the good thing is that unlike last August, when we first moved to Austin, the temps have been dipping down into the 70s at night. I remember when we first moved here, it was 100+ during the day and 95 at night.

That was rough.

Amusingly, when it’s this hot for this long, you do sort of get used to it. Kylie and I have gone out a few times lately and said to each other “wow, it’s nice out tonight”, then checked the weather:

95 degrees.

This Friday, March 11th, Austin’s Dorkbot chapter is holding a science fair in conjunction with Ignite Austin for SXSW Interactive.

I’ll be demoing my Wifi Radio project and showing off various other projects.  There is a list of presenters here.

General Admission is $10 ($0 for SXSW badge holders), but if you RSVP right now on Dorkbot Austin’s Facebook page there might be some free passes left.

Last night, I dusted off my Wifi Radio project and gave a 15 minute presentation about it at Austin Dorkbot 27: Electric Boogaloo.

Dorks who want to download the slides can do so here: Jeff_Keyzer-Wifi Radio Project

I had a particularly challenging evening because the hastily assembled wireless network in the ACTlab refused to hand out an IP address to the radio.  After wrongly suspecting that the 802.11n network was causing problems (my home network is b/g), I discovered that if I set a static IP and default gateway, I could get a stable connection to the router.   That process of discovery took something like an hour of tweaking settings, trying to remember iwlist arguments, how to set up routes, etc.

In the end I got it all working and gave a very successful demo of the radio.   Whew!

“Scare the hell out of your secretary.  Get her a computer.”

Very un-PC (no, the other PC) 1960s 1970s ad by San Antonio-based Computer Terminal Corporation.  Spotted at the Goodwill Computer Museum in Austin, TX.

Best viewed large.

Last week I had a chance to visit the Goodwill Computer Museum, conveniently located (for me) here in Austin, Texas.

The museum is a small part of the Goodwill Computer Works, a computer and electronics recycling center operated by Goodwill.  The site accepts donations of both computer and non computer-related items, like clothes and household items.   To enter the museum, you first pass through the computer store.  Here you can buy used computers as well as cables, wall warts, keyboards, flat panel displays, wireless routers,  graphics cards, and even some software.  I’ve even seen some small pieces of surplus electronic equipment there, as well as some vintage computers, so I’ll be adding this store to the surplus wiki.

There is a lot of interesting stuff on display.  Along one wall, there is an assortment of TRS-80 machines, a Model 100, and some home video game consoles, including an Atari Super Pong and a Magnavox Odyssey.

The luggable TRS-80 PT-210 includes a built-in acoustic coupler!

Apple is well-represented as well.  There’s an Apple Lisa 2 on display.  Retail price in 1984: $10,000!

Standing tall near the entrance is a Data General Nova system.  Flickr user P^2 Paul points out that “Tracy Kidder wrote a great book about DG, the Nova, and the development of the Eclipse.  The Soul of a New Machine.”

I love the crinkle finish on this Dynabyte DB8/4.  I can’t find much information about this machine online, except this post about a DB8/1 that has a Z-80 CPU and an S-100 bus.

The Osborne 1, released in 1981, was designed by Lee Felsenstein.  I’ve had the pleasure of chatting with Lee on a couple occasions.  He has a lot of interesting stories and is still designing electronics.

What would a computer museum in Austin be without a shrine to Michael Dell?  Here’s a PC’s Limited Turbo PC (there’s one of these at the Smithsonian!)  PC’s Limited eventually became… you guessed it, Dell.

There’s a painstakingly-restored PDP 8/S (apparently ‘S’ unofficially stands for ‘Slow’) in one corner of the main exhibit area.

I was happy to see this Heathkit oscilloscope.  I had a far-uglier Heathkit ‘scope when I was in high school.  Mine had tubes inside.  I’m guessing this one does, too.

In 2007, Jon Stanley constructed a relay computer named RC-2.  It is on display here, and I got to see a preview of RC-3 in the back room!

Computer Terminal Corporation (later Datapoint) was based in San Antonio and made the Datapoint 2200 shown on the desk.  I’m pretty sure the rest of this equipment is CTC, but I’m not sure exactly what models are shown.

To see more of the museum, check out the photoset on flickr.