[FX.php List] [OFF-TOPIC] A bug discovery in OS X Server and OS X
10.4 installers
Bob Patin
bob at patin.com
Tue May 22 20:39:44 MDT 2007
That reminds me of the early days of analog music synthesizers, Dale.
I've been a studio musician all my life, and started using
synthesizers back in the 70s when I first got my hands on a Minimoog
when I was about 14 years old. I bought my first Moog synth in 1974,
then another in 1978; the 2nd was the fabled Minimoog, which is still
considered a wonderful device.
Back in those days, to make the pitches on the synth, there was a
long metal rod under the keyboard, that stretched from one end of the
keyboard to the other; each key had a small gold-plated wire that
would touch the rod in a different spot, thus creating the voltage
that was fed in to a voltage-controlled oscillator.
So anyway, when the Mini warmed up, it would *usually* start staying
in tune, but the same voodoo science applied with this thing;
sometimes it would just start drifting out of tune, which is why the
Mini had a built-in A-440 switch for tuning it up between songs
(which I used to do all the time). Digital oscillators weren't
invented yet, or at least weren't in music synthesizers, and it was
well-known among keyboard players that heat would play all sorts of
tricks on the tuning of a synthesizer.
These days I've sold off most of my synths and use plug-ins on a
laptop (little software emulations that are amazingly close to the
original synths, including the Minimoog, which I sold a couple of
years ago). Guitar players still use tube amps for guitars because
they sound so good, and I can fondly recall hitting the top of my
amps to get the tubes to quiet down...
I had a friend today call me about installing Vista on his XP Pro
machine; I talked to him at 3, when he was trying to figure out how
to install Vista without having to initialize his drive... he finally
nuked the drive and started installing Vista. After a half-dozen
tries, none of which completed, he gave up and decided to put XP back
on the machine. I just spoke to him at 9 and XP had apparently locked
up in its install too.. :) As a Mac guy, I was gracious and didn't
laugh (into the phone at least), but I knew I'd be telling the
story... :)
Bob
On May 22, 2007, at 9:27 PM, Dale Bengston wrote:
> Well, I'm going to say I'm as crazy, or at very least as voodoo-
> cursed as Bob. (See other post in this thread.)
>
> Back in the early 80s when I was a student hourly at the University
> of Wisconsin, at a research center that did work for non-vocal
> disabled people, we had a balky voice synthesizer. Now, the quality
> of voice synthesis in that era was pretty bad. This thing cost
> about $600 and sounded like the Cylons from the original Battlestar
> Galactica.
>
> After a couple hours of use, it would start to skip and stutter. I
> called the manufacturer's phone number and got some engineer at the
> small company that made the thing. He told me this story: when the
> synthesizer got warm, due to different rates of expansion, some of
> the components on the circuit board would get loose. All I had to
> do was unplug it, pick it up, hold it upside down, and slam it on
> the table and everything reseat itself.
>
> Naturally, I didn't believe him. I was only 20 years old, but I
> wasn't going to fall for that one. After while, he (mostly)
> convinced me, and I figured I could always claim the "I don't know
> what happened" defense if it broke. So I put down the phone and
> slammed the thing on the table as directed. Then I plugged the
> synthesizer back in, and it worked.
>
> After that, fixing the voice synthesizer became something of a
> parlor trick around the office. The synthesizer would start to cut
> out and break up, and I (or someone I'd freaked out previously with
> the trick) would pick the thing up and slam it on the table. It
> worked every time. I was at that job for three years after that and
> the synthesizer was still going strong when I left. It would
> probably still work if you didn't mind digging up an Apple II and
> sounding like a Cylon.
>
> Dale
>
> On May 22, 2007, at 9:08 PM, Jon Montgomery wrote:
>
>> On 5/22/07 7:23 PM, "John May" <jmaymailing at pointinspace.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Never tried that specific combination.
>>>
>>> I do know there was a screwy install issue with OS X server on
>>> the old G4 Xserves where the install disc wouldn't boot if there
>>> was more than 512MB ram installed. Gotta love that black magic...
>>>
>>> - John
>>
>> My dad was a radio tech for the state police. Not long ago a
>> retired state trooper told me a story about my dad and this
>> trooper’s radio. My dad had evidently “fixed” it several times in
>> a week or two. He would put it back in the car and the next day
>> the trooper would have to come back in and tell him it didn’t
>> work. Finally dad took the radio out of the car, now mind you
>> this was just before printed circuits took over so this thing had
>> vacuum tubes in it. He looked at it sitting there for a long
>> time. Picked it up and slammed it down on the work bench. Then
>> he said, “You have got to get a new radio. This one is broken.”
>>
>> Now Bob, that is NOT my suggestion with your Mac. That radio
>> didn’t cost over 2 grand, but the reference that John made above
>> to that “black magic” was around in the 60’s as well.
>>
>> Hope this brings a smile.
>>
>> Jon Montgomery
>> --
>> Jon Montgomery
>> Email igsmasupport at igsmasouth.org
>> Email vicepresident at onecliq.net
>> Email jwmontgomery at dqud300.perry.k12.il.us
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