Something Random

sedrosken

Florida Man
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Well, that's a bust. Not only does the onboard controller still corrupt data (in WDMA mode especially, but even in PIO mode with LBA enabled... sad times...) but NT 4 seems to just not like my SD card whatsoever. That's fine, it can be a drive bigot all it wants, I'll just keep using what works... i.e., Windows 98 SE. I now consider the matter closed... Not going to bother with 2000. If it can be "slow" on a machine 33MHz quicker with twice the RAM and MMX (referencing Chewy's PMMX rig) then I imagine I've got no hope at all.
 

Chewy509

Wotty wot wot.
Joined
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Gold Coast Hinterland, Australia
Oh the old days of having to tinker to make things work... Not as bad as having to set IRQ/DMA settings via jumpers on ISA cards and ensuring you had no conflicts... And then setting a whole stack of environment variables to let the various drivers/libraries know where the devices were. (Good'ole "BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 T3" to make DOS games know were the SoundBlaster 2.0 card was to play sound)... Oh, if you had a system old enough, where the BIOS wouldn't allow you to enter the HDD CHS values manually (Type 46/47), having to find a HDD with a type supported by the BIOS.

Then have the fun of goat sacrifice to ensure your SCSI controller and devices all worked correctly...

To quote John Woods:
SCSI is *NOT* magic. There are *fundamental technical reasons* why you have to sacrifice a young goat to your SCSI chain every now and then.
 

Stereodude

Not really a
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It's almost 2.5 years later and I still haven't used even half of my block. Too bad I can't do the same thing with my cell phone. Buy a block of minutes up front that don't expire and ditch the monthly bill. Of course Verizon wouldn't make any money from me, but I'd be okay with that.
My block is almost used up after around 5 years. Of course these are some really crazy unlimited deals going on right now.

Newshosting has $20.04 for a full year of unlimited and Thundernews has 18 months of full unlimited for $25.
 

Handruin

Administrator
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Looks like history was wrong again and the revolutionary war troops took over the airports. lol

D-tCks8UYAAet_x.jpg large.jpg
 

Handruin

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No definitely not. Were the airports launching the new revolutionary b1rd airplane? Every day there some new piece of information to marvel the country with.
 

snowhiker

Storage Freak Apprentice
Joined
Jul 5, 2007
Messages
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My block is almost used up after around 5 years. Of course these are some really crazy unlimited deals going on right now.

Newshosting has $20.04 for a full year of unlimited and Thundernews has 18 months of full unlimited for $25.

I used to have Newshosting 5-6 years ago. Always reliable and fast. It was $10/month for 15 gigs and 5 or 8 simulations connections or something like that. Retention was an unheard of 120-180 days or something. Now it's unlimited downloads/speeds, close to 4000 days, more connections, VPN and $1.67/month. Regular price $20/month, according to your posted link. Crazy discount.

Highwinds bought out Newshosting several years ago and are the parent company of many of the Usenet re-sellers.
 

sedrosken

Florida Man
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Messages
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Eglin AFB Area
Oh the old days of having to tinker to make things work... Not as bad as having to set IRQ/DMA settings via jumpers on ISA cards and ensuring you had no conflicts... And then setting a whole stack of environment variables to let the various drivers/libraries know where the devices were. (Good'ole "BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 T3" to make DOS games know were the SoundBlaster 2.0 card was to play sound)... Oh, if you had a system old enough, where the BIOS wouldn't allow you to enter the HDD CHS values manually (Type 46/47), having to find a HDD with a type supported by the BIOS.

I'm no stranger to IRQ/DMA troubles. It took me forever to finally get it just so for my Vibra16S to have IRQ5 and DMA1 to itself. Remember my USB2.0 card? It lies in a heap of unused parts because the damn thing wants three IRQs all to itself. Even disabling my primary onboard IDE channel and BOTH COM ports and the LPT port still didn't have it working without problems. So I ditched it for a USB1.1 card that made more modest demands. It's sharing IRQ3 with my NIC right now, but thankfully it seems to be playing nice. Who knows what'll happen if I try to get either card working under DOS mode...

Then have the fun of goat sacrifice to ensure your SCSI controller and devices all worked correctly...

It's funny you mention that, I'm actually finally in possession of an external SCSI drive to test my controller with. This'll be my first go-around with it, I'll be interested to find out how it goes. Along with a parallel ZIP drive to test that port... This'll be the first time I've ever messed with anything parallel either.
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
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Feb 1, 2003
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USA
Zip drives just sucked and parallel ones were super slow.
OMG, I'm nauseating just thinking about that era!
Much of it was spent on the SR prior to the MbF.
I was using an ISA modem and had no Ethernet yet.
 

sedrosken

Florida Man
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Nov 20, 2013
Messages
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Eglin AFB Area
Oh I'm prepared for stupid slow transfer rates on both accounts since my SCSI controller is only good for SCSI-1 and is ISA. I ran out of PCI slots... A half-baked idea I once had was to replace the Ultra66 with a SCSI controller on the PCI bus and then swap my SD to IDE adapter for a SCSI2SD. This lasted through my picking out a suitable controller cheap as chips on eBay, an Adaptec AHA-2930CU... the SCSI2SD couldn't be too expensive, right? The IDE adapter is literally less than a tenner! But oh... the SCSI2SD starts around 80 US dollars and only goes up from there. No thank you.
 

Handruin

Administrator
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Has anyone ever built a structure using T-slot aluminum like the components sold at 8020.net? I bought my projector screen and I'm looking to mount the fixed frame screen (which has it's own aluminum frame with mounting brackets) to a T-slot frame I plan to build. I know roughly what I want to do but the part I'm not yet sure about is mounting this frame to the ceiling joist. The frame I want to build will pivot on a hinge so that I can pull the entire screen and frame up to the ceiling to get behind it easy.

My plan was to buy a piece of 45mm T-slot aluminum and run it about 128" long in parallel with the ceiling joist. I don't quite know the best way to attach the T-slot to the wooden joist. I could drill through it and into the joist or find some way of using a traditional metal joist hanger that I'll rig to the T-slot. The weight of the screen and T-slot frame will likely be around 100lbs (the screen is about 80lbs with it's own frame) so I want to make sure it's secure when I pivot it on the hinges. When it's down, I will have supporting feet to hold the weight.

The screen dimensions are (150" diagonal):
Total width: 131.5"
Total height: 74.3"
Frame width: 0.4"
Frame Depth: 1.25"

Notes_190706_102235_36f_1.jpg
 

Stereodude

Not really a
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I haven't, but why hinges and a piece of T-slot? I'd use a hooks and eyelets and let it hang from a 2x4 across the joists (or similar). Plus you can level it easily after the fact by simply threading them in or out.
 

Handruin

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I don't want it to sway from a breeze when someone walks past it or from the subwoofers. Using the T-slot should be easy to level it also.
 

Handruin

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I did a few more mock-ups and I'm I'm ditching the idea of T-slot aluminum and I'm just going to build a wood frame and support for a fraction of the cost of the 80/20. I need it to open like a door on hinges so I can get behind it occasionally.
 

Stereodude

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I don't want it to sway from a breeze when someone walks past it or from the subwoofers. Using the T-slot should be easy to level it also.
You think it will swing from someone walking by or the subs? I wouldn't expect that, but I could be wrong.
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
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I cannot imagine the volume level needed for that would be a good idea.
 

Handruin

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You think it will swing from someone walking by or the subs? I wouldn't expect that, but I could be wrong.

I do have concerns it might sway from people walking by if it were hanging from a wire. The entryway to the room is right by the screen so there will be occasional foot traffic going by it. I bought the lumber to build a frame mount today and hopefully I can try to get it going this week.

I'm considering a pair of PSA V1811 ported subs that have the port facing forward which could influence the screen.
 

DrunkenBastard

Storage is cool
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Jan 21, 2002
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on the floor
Hi Doug, not sure what your room is like in terms of sub placement but I would suggest maximizing bang for buck with the tv36 series from PSA, they've been available as preorders for a few weeks now. Larger enclosure than the v3611 for deeper port tune and the ipals hsve very strong motors, extremely low distortion with these.

For the $2749 that two v1811s cost, another $250 could get a single TV36-ipal unit: https://www.powersoundaudio.com/products/TV36-IPAL
 

Handruin

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My plans so far are based on the following:
Room width: 12.6'
Room depth: 25.4'
Room height: 8'

I have 32" of depth behind the screen. My plan so far was to have all the speakers behind the screen in the order of:
Left | sub | center | sub | right

I know I'm still a noob with this stuff so please correct me where my info is wrong. The reading I've done suggested that using multiple subs offered a smoother bass response versus a single sub. I don't know how that argument compares to your suggestion of using a single TV36-ipal, which I realize has two 18" drivers in it. I could just about fit that monster behind my screen. I don't have a ton of space elsewhere for it which is why I was considering two of the V1811s.

I'm also considering pairing these subs with three of the Ascend Sierra-2 monitors for L/C/R. Reviews seems very positive on these speakers and I'd love to try using their RAAL ribbon for a nice wide horizontal dispersion in my theater.

This is a rough staging of speakers behind the hypothetical screen using two of my B&W CM9 towers and a storage bin to represent the V1811 dimension (depth and width). The cat box isn't part of the project. :) The walls will get painted a dark color and rugs will cover the hardwood floors.

20190715_210610.jpg
 

Stereodude

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Two subs may offer a smoother in room frequency response if they're placed in the right spots, but that's probably not on top of each other in the same spot.

If you want a home theater those aren't the first speakers that would pop on my list. You want probably something with more efficiency that can play loudly with less power.

Also, I hope you're planning to buy some acoustic panels and other acoustic treatments for the room.
 

Handruin

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They aren't going to be stacked on each other, they will be about 4' apart from each other.

I looked at diy sound group but I'm not really interested in building them. What example would you recommend?

Yes I plan to make and/or buy acoustic panels for the walls throughout the room and dampen corners and walls behind the screen.
 

Handruin

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The Emotiva T2s were originally top on my list but they only sell them in pairs. I probably should call and see if they'll sell me three for my mains and reconsider. Have you heard anything on what they might be replacing them with since they are on closeout sale?
 

Handruin

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They will sell me three T2s for the same price per speaker. I'm unsure if their Airmotiv E2 will be the right choice for side and back channels given their bipole/dipole setup. I may just try to wall mount their Airmotiv B1 bookshelf.
 

Stereodude

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They will sell me three T2s for the same price per speaker. I'm unsure if their Airmotiv E2 will be the right choice for side and back channels given their bipole/dipole setup. I may just try to wall mount their Airmotiv B1 bookshelf.
How large of a seating area do you want to cover? Just one row of seats? Are you going 7.1 or 5.1?
 

Stereodude

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I'm planning two rows of seating, three wide each. The back row will be on a riser. Each seat has a depth of about 42" and I'd expect 6.5' between each row.
How far from the side walls and rear wall are the seats? I'm guessing not that far from the sides given your 12.6' width.

I'm planning 7.4.2 for this. In case it matters I'm tentative on using the Monoprice Black Back Ceiling Speakers 8-inch 2-Way for the four Atmos in-ceiling speakers.
That's 7.2.4. You may want speakers you can angle unless they're ultrawide dispersion. I angled mine down at 45 degrees.

DSC03198_sm.jpg DSC03199_sm.jpg
 

Handruin

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They won't be that far from the sides, I'm guessing about 32" on each side of the seats. The rear wall will be a couple feet behind the last row.
 

Stereodude

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The E2 will probably give you a more uniform sound across the seating area than the B1, but may give you a less localized effect as well.
 

Handruin

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I was also considering getting two pair of the B1s and mount two on each side so each row gets the side channel. They will be on the same channel but have their own amplification.
 

Stereodude

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I was also considering getting two pair of the B1s and mount two on each side so each row gets the side channel. They will be on the same channel but have their own amplification.
In general I would be careful with that unless you're planning to add an additional processor to add delay to the more forward pair so the sound from the two pairs arrives time aligned at your ears.

I say put the speakers in the correct location for the row you plan to sit in and the people in the other row can deal with a less than ideal setup (they're not likely to notice).
 

Handruin

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Thanks for the feedback on the double side channels, makes sense. What speakers did you end up putting in your ceiling?
 

Handruin

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I've read positive reviews on those and a few YouTubers recommended those with the Elusive 1099.
 

Stereodude

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I have to say I'm pretty unimpressed with the FireTV Stick 4K. It's real slick from a UI and feature set standpoint, but it doesn't seem capable of playing back video at the proper frame rate without slight stutters from dropped/repeated frames. I mean that's only it's primary job. :poop:
 
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