Folks,

C51:

Congratulations on sorting out your BoB. It is so nice to welcome you back my friend. I've never before been told that my reports were intelligent. I appreciate that.

As for the Dieppe raid, the program might be correct. According to a book I read years ago titled "Green Beach" the true purpose was to steal a secret German RADAR vacuum tube(valve). They were successful in doing that according to that book. Perhaps they were also after code books?

We've all read that the raid was planned as a limited test for the invasion of Europe and having failed it slowed down the planning for D-Day. This purpose never rang true to me. I hope whatever the reason for the raid it was worth it. A lot of boys were killed or captured, and as you know, a great many were brave young Canucks.

Chaps,

I'm in a state of great expectation, awaiting delivery of a 22" TFT monitor in a few hours. Just how much this installation will test my limited knowledge of all things PC remains to be discovered.

Speaking of discovery...NASA has announced that the historic site of Curiosity's landing will henceforth be known as Bradbury Landing in honour of that great science fiction writer who died a couple of months ago. Perhaps H.G.Wells would have been equally appropriate but he wasn't American and had no association with NASA.
Those first pictures of the vehicle's manoeuvring tracks are fascinating and we can only look forward with great interest to what will follow.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19342994

Folks,

Dux:

Come, come my dear fellow. I have little doubt that you will be up to the task. However, once you are up to it I am not entirely certain that you will know how to cope with it....

"Curiosity" has kindled new interest in the NASA space program over here. I wish that Jules Verne, HG Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs could have seen it. Considering their great talent for predicting the future; perhaps they did?

There was a lengthy program featuring photographs and charts including discussion and a Q&A by the NASA folks who managed to pull off this miracle of space exploration shown on CSPAN night before last. It was fascinating. There is much more info on the NASA website. Just getting the equipment from earth to land safely on Mars was a previously unimaginable triumph in itself. Of course if the Rover had not responded to signals from Earth and began roving it would all have been for naught.

The Rover will move only a few meters at first but later perhaps up to a 100 meters in a day. What if they find evidence of Methane? Who knows what they may find when they are able to drill into and sample bed rock that dates back billions of years? Our own planet is in trouble. Some of it self-inflicted. There is much that needs to be done here that will be costly. Landing on Mars and exploring a part of it is a triumph of science and technology to be sure. However in this time of economic collapse and austerity, perhaps the greatest triumph of all is that the program to explore another planet has survived at all.

JRT,

I worked it out with my cardboard Star Trek slide rule that Curiosity does about 8 feet per minute. Would you agree with that? Obviously, the last thing they need is speed.

I have connected up my new monitor and am generally very pleased with. Bags of extra room on the PC station. Very clear and wide with superb panoramic skies in Rof. Also the higher definition makes cockpit detail much clearer and I can more readily refer to the altimeter and speed gauges etc., in gloomy conditions. Just some adjustment to brightness required. Just above entry level price but still very nice to behold!

Folks,

Dux:

That is excellent news. I wondered if your wider view of the sky would greatly enhance situational awareness. Have you tried it with BoB?

Slide rules? OK I remember using one of those in school. I have one packed up somewhere. They must be devilish hard to find these days now that scientific calculators are so cheap. Coincidentally, my steam powered abacus gives a similar reading for speed.

I understand the soil in the crater is sandy and the wheels don't penetrate very far. Each tread on each wheel has a different design. This information can be used in determining orientation plus other things. Like those photos of the first footprints of man on the surface of the moon, photos of the tread marks of the rover upon an alien planet are thought provoking.

The panoramic view of the crater shown on TV brought an immediate comparison of real and imagined Martian vistas described in fiction. I strained hard to pick out a domed city sitting on the horizon. It was easy to find oneself transported like John Carter to that hostile place. The exploration of Mars that began years ago and continues today is an exciting, fact finding preamble to what is yet to come. I wonder how long it will be before a man might stand on the red planet and not a machine made by man. Will we live o see it? Not even tomorrow is promised you know and only time and patience will tell.

Good Day lads,

congrats on the new monitor Dux, we knew you would master the setup. That should make a considerable improvement to the overall experience, I am impressed just imagining it.

The Mars Curiosity is a wonder, but not having followed the history of the device I am interested in how it is controlled. I imagine some highly educated people are being well paid to manipulate it around on a computer screen using a joystick and a keyboard. Hmmm... what does that remind me of?...

Thanks Chaps,

Right now I'm trying to bring my old PC up to scratch with my recently retired monitor so I can give away. It looks like PSU trouble because it won't power up to the monitor. Although the PSU fan is working that isn't any guarantee that it's OK. The cheaper PSUs only last about 2-3 years I'm told. It's dated 8/08 which would make it nearly three years old when I got the new rig.

The monitor comes on green for about five seconds then clicks to continuous, intermittent yellow.

The PSU is the cheapest option at about £10 but as the friendly computer shop chap just told me - "It could be anything!"

Folks,

Dux:

Commendable my friend. In my unfortunate experience the power supply begins making quite a racket before it quits. The computer really should be working unless it is given to someone who needs parts or is able to repair it. There must be ways of testing the PSU. Putting in a power supply that you know works would be one way your technician might do that without much cost. Computers are relatively inexpensive now and old ones worth very little. It would be unreasonable to put much money into the old thing.

C51 generously donated his old car to a worthy soul when they bought a new van. He did that "as is" and though it needed work, being "free" it was a bargain. There may be a website where you can offer free items to people in your area. That is what C51 did. The problem then would be choosing which of many applicants to choose. Was the computer showing any signs of failing when you upgraded to another system? Can you be sure the monitor is OK? Is it a different monitor than was attached to the computer before? Maybe the wrong driver is loaded? Of course if it won't boot up at all there is no way to do anything about that. I'm no computer geek. Perhaps someone on another forum might be of help? If you haven't already run a search of your monitor symptoms.

Good luck.

Chaps,

JRT,

The monitor was working yesterday just before I disconnected, laughing like a drain. My PSU is spinning as silent as the grave, which is what worries me. It might be the hard drive or the m/board. It might be something else.

It might be the beer I spilled as I watched in wonderment as Tal Wilkenfeld played her bass solo in Cause We've Ended as Lovers at Ronnie Scott's....I dunno...

Anyway, I won't spend much time on it. Don't have to.

Chaps.

It isn't the PSU or the monitor. The hard drive is 7 years old plus 1 year inactive, so that is next in line to test.