Computers

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Mic testing

xrayspx - Thu, 02/26/2026 - 1:24am
Music: 


I need to check this off-site so I'm posting it here so I can go click it somewhere else. I can't tell how the fans sound because I am constantly surrounded by it and can't tell if there's "more" noise. If you listen to it and have thoughts, I dunno I guess email me.

I think the microphones here are at least the same volume. I also remember one of the reasons I ordered the Yeti Blue instead of the GX was because the GX cut out everything under 60hz. So now I think I need a low pass filter to do the same thing on the Blue. I'll just make a notch filter that matches the GX capabilities. That should allow me to switch between them with no change to the sound of the GX at all.

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End-To-End Workflow

xrayspx - Wed, 02/25/2026 - 2:29am
Music: 

Iggy Pop - Undefeated



* Note, the "Static" on the little display I'm using for my OBS monitor I think is due to the DP to HDMI converter dingus going into the 30 foot HDMI cable to that monitor. I don't care it since it's all very temporary.

One more final sanity test and I think I'm good. Just today Natalie grabbed a Logitech Yeti Blue from Staples for $65. I had ordered one a couple of weeks ago and it didn't work, and then they got hard to find and I figured out they look like they're discontinuing them and so the natural scramble is underway.

I wound up caving and just buying the replacement model but even though i'd never heard sound through the "old" one I knew I liked it better. Gain control is a knob, not an infinite scroll wheel. Monitor headphone output, much sturdier.

Money wasn't a concern in my original decision. I looked at the specs for these two side by side and the old model was better on paper and I saw the price dumping so I really just wanted it for its features. I'm glad I wasn't crazy and the first one really wouldn't have worked!

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Modems and Not Modems

xrayspx - Fri, 02/13/2026 - 12:01am
Music: 

The Psychedelic Furs - Heartbreak Beat

I'm wondering if I shouldn't have a bench power supply for this, but I have a couple of USRobotics modems and the power supplies are way different, like I think one is 19V something. I guess I just have to try them both on the smaller one and hope for the best? Neither one has any external indicator of what voltage they want even though the courier has a full printed summary of all the AT commands and detailed DIP switch settings. All of which is helpful, but how the fuck many Juice do you want coming in this hole right here? Center positive, presumably?

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Enough of the fuckin Endless Bummer

xrayspx - Thu, 02/12/2026 - 4:18pm
Music: 

The Clash - Guns of Brixton

*This was an email that I was writing, and just stopped and basically pasted in here and embedded videos in, so it's not super well formatted or anything.

This was probably the best explanation of core memory that actually made me understand it.

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Awesome Little Lamp

xrayspx - Sun, 02/08/2026 - 5:33pm
Music: 

For years this little woodgrain and brass gooseneck lamp has been on a side table in my living room. I just liberated it.

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A Quick Office Tour

xrayspx - Thu, 02/05/2026 - 1:21am
Music: 

Catherine Wheel - Pain

I made a quick tour video for an audience of about four. Here's a brief look at the basic stuff in my office, much of which I will do better quality videos about soon. Maybe like a monthly VAST/SPACE meeting? I dunno.

Enjoy the 1992 aesthetic. Pretend it's a VHS-C tape or something you found at Goodwill.

Update: I didn't notice the screensaver during the whole desk part until uploading just now and it's my favorite thing ever.


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I'm Always Freezing Now

xrayspx - Mon, 02/02/2026 - 12:05am
Music: 

These two thermostats are 12 feet from each other. From my desk I have direct line of sight to both of them through a permanently open doorway. It's noticeably colder outside my office.

Because aside from all my other stuff I now have that Pentium 120Mhz sitting running XScreensaver 24x7 for the last 3 days. Not archiving floppies day and night. Just being a Nice Warm Cube in my office.

It's super fuckin' dry though too huh.

I'm gonna take my two layers of flannel pajama pants and zipped to the top hoodie and wool socks and go hide under my 3 comforters and two fuzzy blankets.

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Archiving Workflow

xrayspx - Fri, 01/30/2026 - 1:21am
Music: 

Sinéad O’Connor - Jerusalem
(AKA the nice lady who was right about near every goddamn thing)

I'm running this setup to backup some Atari ST 720K floppy disks I have. I'm interested in backups of BBS newsletters and general BBS/Early-Internet ephemera from the '80s and '90s and I'm finding cases where at a glance I can't find that specific copy of like STReport or whatever on the Archive. Also anything fun related to the specific Atari club we were all members of since this is likely the only copy of any of that.

I'm very happy with the roll-away desk surface on top of this rack:

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Floppies

xrayspx - Tue, 01/27/2026 - 6:38pm
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I have a lot of floppies that I need to start imaging and archiving and it's going to mean feeding this USB floppy drive constantly. I have an Atari SF314 external floppy drive with (at least) a broken switch, so I decided to gut it and managed to shim my USB drive in nice and snugly. The Atari drive is safely stored with my other projects to get that switch repaired.

This is 73% more enjoyable than getting disks in and out of this flimsy little USB drive that skitters around on the desk!

I did take the Atari drive apart to try and add the floppy bezel and/or parallelogram eject button, but the bezel doesn't fit with the new drive, and the button requires the bezel to stay put. I decided to stop before I break some 40 year old plastic tab.


Well looks like that USB drive won't read double density disks anyway. Whatever, still looks cool I'm not even mad.

I might actually have to use a Packard Bell 486 with Redhat 4 or Windows 95 for this.

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Luxury Storage

xrayspx - Mon, 01/19/2026 - 12:10am
Music: 

R.E.M. - Talk About The Passion

My friend happened to give us a 4 drawer grey parts bin so I decided to build some shelves and an easier to reach space for all the day-to-day rack screws and fasteners, Velcro, dinguses and connectors and whatever.

I'm transitioning my mindset from a fully-stocked laptop bag ready to go with all my stuff to that of a more stationary workbench because I will rarely have to just "get up, grab my bag and go" like I could have to do now. I can even just reach that TI calculator and do the calculation faster than I can go to the KDE menu and launch kcalc on the rare occasions I need it.

The answer is absolutely almost never "zip ties or twist ties". That's why the top two drawers are just Velcro.

This on the other hand is just over the top wasteful storage hubris:

Unfortunately the drawers are exactly too shallow to have the cover with handy glued-in map on the iFixit kit, but luckily it sticks to the side just fine. You know iFixit has PDFs that print out to exactly fit inside this screwdriver kit, right?

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