Pass the Pepto, or Bringing Up the Past

So, my iMac 400dv died last weekend, taking with it twenty gigabytes worth of music. All that time spent ripping my CD collection over the years was for nought, and the backups I'd made are nowhere to be found.

*sigh*

Ah well, back to square one. This time however, when I re-rip my collection, I'm going to encode my tunes into an open format such as OGG Vorbis.

--

Until I set my Linux box back up and start ripping my music again, I'll have to listen to (gasp) actual CDs!

Of course, I haven't owned an honest-to-God CD player in years, so I dug my trusty ol' CDTV out from the depths of the lab and set it up in my living room.

Damn, I've missed this machine! I've forgotten how much better original CDs sound compared to your average digital music file.

While setting the CDTV up, I noticed a number of floppy disks at the bottom of the box... as the CDTV has been in storage for the last, er, decade... naturally I had no idea what was on the disks.

As it turns out, the disks (thirty-six in total) contained nothing but text files of my writing, some dating back to 1992!

I read through a few disks worth of material, and just about pissed myself laughing...

With that in mind, while I'm in the process of ripping my CDs, I'll be going through these text files, converting them from Textcraft format to a more contemporary format, and posting some of the better ones here under the label "Vintage CJ", starting 10/19/09.

Have a great weekend, folks!

Comments

  1. Yes the CD,S are way ahead of the sound we get from Computers and MP,3 s Have never lost my CDS nor my player as it is preferred in the house and on my sound system . Mp3 ok for out side in the car or while biking in the bush.

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  2. i got an old XT. What would you recommend to attach as an external hardrive.

    I have a parallel port availble. IEEE486 port.

    This is a proprietary unit ( its an OTYDR ). Not sure if I can access the OS to map a drive.

    Its that or a RAMCARD

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  3. The IEEE486 is an odd standard (bus control) usually used in scientific measurement applications. Parallel ports usually use the IEEE 1284 standard (standard since '97).

    If you're serious, I will certainly try to help. If you're yanking my chain...

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  4. I'm serious

    I have a Laser Precison OTDR, probably based on the first Compaq portable PC's

    I have no drive on it but the OS must reside somewhere, so i am assuming , since I can store test results to an internal CMOS.

    On *bootup*, it defaults to the corporation sc4reen where it shows it passing internal tests on the hardware. You never see the OS.

    When sqave results, I have the option of going to the RAMCARD, or the internal CMOS.


    I have another unit ( same manufacturer ) which has an External MASS Storage Unit...basically 2 - 3.5" drives. This hooks into the Motherboard. Its all quite amazing how much circuitry was involved.

    I would simply like to have an external hardrive hook to the back of the unit , not sure how I redirect from command line, perhaps, use the RAMCard port or I may be able to connect ot a connector on the motherboard.

    It would be sweet if a hardrive was available that had a Ram Card adaptor, just plug in and use the same command line.


    I'm open to suggestions

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  5. Many apologies for the mistrust, Mr. N, too many people have been yanking my chain lately...

    This sounds like an interesting challenge!

    I will have a look around this weekend to see if I have anything left in The Lab that might fit the bill (tossed a bunch of stuff a couple of weeks ago).

    If not, I'll find out what I can and hopefully steer you in the right direction - it'll be easier now that I have internet at home again.

    Shoot me your email address and I'll be in touch this weekend.

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  6. you can reach me at

    maschine@shaw.ca

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