Oh the smell.

The other day I powered up an old telly of the analogue kind and connected
it to an old home computer for a friend. The hot components now covered in
dust gave off a very nice smell, well it triggered memories of times gone
long ago of hot valves etc, even though these were semiconductors except for
the tube of course. Remarkable according to the person watching all worked
very well considering none of it had been on for ten years.
The ony issue was the tuning in which was due to dodgy pots in the varicap
circuit, soone sorted with some squirt and moving up and down a bit.

Bouyed by this success for a ZX Spectrum, which I have now put a new
keyboard membrane in, yes they are still made, we tried an Atari and even
the bloomin 5.25 drive works. Hyper slow to load anything but appparently
the cart games still work too.

They obviously used better capacitors in those days....
Sniff sniff.

Brian
--
Brian Gaff....Note, this account does not accept Bcc: email.
graphics are great, but the blind can't hear them
Email:
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ __________

On Mon, 27 Oct 2014 16:02:35 -0000
"Brian Gaff" wrote:

The other day I powered up an old telly of the analogue kind and
connected it to an old home computer for a friend. The hot components
now covered in dust gave off a very nice smell, well it triggered
memories of times gone long ago of hot valves etc, even though these
were semiconductors except for the tube of course. Remarkable
according to the person watching all worked very well considering
none of it had been on for ten years. The ony issue was the tuning in
which was due to dodgy pots in the varicap circuit, soone sorted with
some squirt and moving up and down a bit.

Bouyed by this success for a ZX Spectrum, which I have now put a new
keyboard membrane in, yes they are still made, we tried an Atari and
even the bloomin 5.25 drive works. Hyper slow to load anything but
appparently the cart games still work too.

They obviously used better capacitors in those days....
Sniff sniff.

Brian

You haven't lived until you buy a used valve TV from an Indian family.

--
Davey.

Davey wrote:

You haven't lived until you buy a used valve TV from an Indian family.


Those spices are very strong aren't they? Recently I encountered a
freshly laundered hospital sheet that had a faint whiff of curry.

Bill

On 27/10/2014 16:02, Brian Gaff wrote:
The other day I powered up an old telly of the analogue kind and connected
it to an old home computer for a friend. The hot components now covered in
dust gave off a very nice smell, well it triggered memories of times gone
long ago of hot valves etc, even though these were semiconductors except for
the tube of course. Remarkable according to the person watching all worked
very well considering none of it had been on for ten years.
The ony issue was the tuning in which was due to dodgy pots in the varicap
circuit, soone sorted with some squirt and moving up and down a bit.

Bouyed by this success for a ZX Spectrum, which I have now put a new
keyboard membrane in, yes they are still made, we tried an Atari and even
the bloomin 5.25 drive works. Hyper slow to load anything but appparently
the cart games still work too.

They obviously used better capacitors in those days....
Sniff sniff.

Brian




like turning on an electric fire for the first time since last winter -
of course what you're smelling is burning human skin mostly.... yuk.

--
Gareth.
That fly.... Is your magic wand.

In article ,
the dog from that film you saw wrote:

of course what you're smelling is burning human skin mostly

And you're never more than 6 feet from a rat.

-- Richard

No not into Indian stale cooking smells. this is really high quality English
muck.
Brian

--
From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active
"Davey" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 27 Oct 2014 16:02:35 -0000
"Brian Gaff" wrote:

The other day I powered up an old telly of the analogue kind and
connected it to an old home computer for a friend. The hot components
now covered in dust gave off a very nice smell, well it triggered
memories of times gone long ago of hot valves etc, even though these
were semiconductors except for the tube of course. Remarkable
according to the person watching all worked very well considering
none of it had been on for ten years. The ony issue was the tuning in
which was due to dodgy pots in the varicap circuit, soone sorted with
some squirt and moving up and down a bit.

Bouyed by this success for a ZX Spectrum, which I have now put a new
keyboard membrane in, yes they are still made, we tried an Atari and
even the bloomin 5.25 drive works. Hyper slow to load anything but
appparently the cart games still work too.

They obviously used better capacitors in those days....
Sniff sniff.

Brian

You haven't lived until you buy a used valve TV from an Indian family.

--
Davey.

Ah, maybe they use recycled water from the dishwasher for the washing
machine?
Brian

--
From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active
"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...
Davey wrote:

You haven't lived until you buy a used valve TV from an Indian family.


Those spices are very strong aren't they? Recently I encountered a freshly
laundered hospital sheet that had a faint whiff of curry.

Bill

Now you just had to spoil it. No its not the same smell as electric fires.
They are well burnt smells, these are more subtle smells in my view.
However nothing is quite as good as a valve radio with old fashioned
capacitors. Unfortunately these are very rare now as those waxy caps tend to
absorb moisture and get replaced with more modern types.


Edge lit dials and wonderfully smooth tuning.


Brian

--
From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active
"the dog from that film you saw" wrote in
message ...
On 27/10/2014 16:02, Brian Gaff wrote:
The other day I powered up an old telly of the analogue kind and
connected
it to an old home computer for a friend. The hot components now covered
in
dust gave off a very nice smell, well it triggered memories of times gone
long ago of hot valves etc, even though these were semiconductors except
for
the tube of course. Remarkable according to the person watching all
worked
very well considering none of it had been on for ten years.
The ony issue was the tuning in which was due to dodgy pots in the
varicap
circuit, soone sorted with some squirt and moving up and down a bit.

Bouyed by this success for a ZX Spectrum, which I have now put a new
keyboard membrane in, yes they are still made, we tried an Atari and even
the bloomin 5.25 drive works. Hyper slow to load anything but appparently
the cart games still work too.

They obviously used better capacitors in those days....
Sniff sniff.

Brian




like turning on an electric fire for the first time since last winter - of
course what you're smelling is burning human skin mostly.... yuk.

--
Gareth.
That fly.... Is your magic wand.

Thereby hangs a tail.
I may have possibly told this one on here before.
When we first moved here in 1956, my now late father brought with us a back
projection TV. It was one of the ways to get a bigger picture.
He reversed the polarity of the scan coil windings and projected the
picture on a wall. The set itself was now installed inside a table, at
ground level, with just bits of hardboard to stop electrocution, but of
course you needed a hole for the light box to protrude.
One day in the following summer, we had the back door open and the family
were watching Liberace on the wall, and there was this patter of tiny feet
and a blur went past and into the telly through the lightbox hole. Rats
appear to be good jumpers.
My dad said, not to worry it would probably die from either the x rays or
the high voltages.
My Mother was not convinced at all and decided to retreat to the front
room instead.
Anyway, after a short while it all went quiet, but when my dad tapped on
the hardboard, the rat could be heard shuffling about.
Reluctantly we decided to try to see if we could either induce it to
electrocute itself or flee by poking a broomstick into the works of the
telly. Eventually this made it flee the way it had got in with my dad
chasing after it with a broom.

How it survived we will never no, but one problem was that it had crapped
inside the telly so all the chassis had to be carefully unplugged and
removed and the mess cleaned up. Of course when it was put back it had a
fault, so the rest of the day was spent prodding and poking to find the
intermittent culprit, in this case a dry joint in and octal plug.

So, yes, rats are always around, but hopefully not anywhere near the back
door these days.
Brian

--
From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active
"Richard Tobin" wrote in message
...
In article ,
the dog from that film you saw wrote:

of course what you're smelling is burning human skin mostly

And you're never more than 6 feet from a rat.

-- Richard

Bill Wright wrote:

Davey wrote:

You haven't lived until you buy a used valve TV from an Indian family.


Those spices are very strong aren't they? Recently I encountered a
freshly laundered hospital sheet that had a faint whiff of curry.

Bill

Just think of what it does to resident microbes!

Alan

--
Mageia 4 for x86_64, Kernel: 3.14.18-desktop-3.mga4
KDE version 4.11.4 on an AMD Phenom II X4 Black edition.