What a summer! Hot or hotter than usual and then a dry spell for a while and then too much rain for some areas. Living in Auburn, IN gives us some protection from the storms since we are the right distance and direction from Lake Michigan to be in the area too far from the storms that the lake generate and too near from the lake for the other storms to really affect us with the extreme rain (or snow) fall that others get. And since all our power comes in from other areas we do get an occasional power losses mostly caused by excessive loads during the really hot weather. That really affects those that have a sump pump. We don’t have a basement so no worry about that.
Masakos my wife was watching TV one day and she tried to change from her soap to QVC (a shopping station on cable) by way of the FLASH button and it didn’t change stations. She tried the up and Down button and while the screen flashed as it did for the FLASH button it didn’t change stations. So of course I was called to the rescue and I checked the other TV and it worked properly so I made an immediate conclusion that the AAA batteries in the remote were weak. However ! with the original batteries it would get the proper station if you punched in the station number. I tried another set of batteries and still the same and I tested the batteries and still good so now what? Either the TV or the remote was bad. I took the remote and went to the local store where we bought the TV and the remote tested good (it put out an infrared beam) and a set of the same make (Zenith) was on in the display so I found that remote was working for sure.
The service man suggested that maybe the power outage had done it. Why wouldn’t it show up right after the outage? So back home I read the manual and did a from scratch start up. Which was to have the TV find out which channels had a program. While I was at it I reset the clock that showed on the screen when you changed stations. After that the remote operated correctly. Nowhere in the manual does it mention what to do in case of a power down situation. In my eyes that TV had a case of loss of short time memory or a case of Alzheimer’s disease. What connection to the T/S computers; Just pointing out there is so much that isn’t manuals covered in the manuals.
The May issue of NUTS and VOLTS magazine in Tech Forumn department of the magazine was the request for informatiom. I have an old Z88 made in Scotland that works. It has new AA batteries. “How do I connect it to my IBM 486 or my PowerMac 7200?, and with what cables in order to download notes of ASCII type. Do I need software and where can I get it? David McGuire.” I sent in information about the cables and software that Frank Davis had for sale and NUTS and VOLTS magazine printed my reply in the June issue. They stated that the first reply printed in the answer column of that department would get a check of $25. My wife laughed “oh yeah!” The check arrived on August 15th. Now what will I buy with it?
When I checked the price of dishwashers at Sears I drifted over to the computer section TV/Internet deal. A poor man’s way of going on line. This one had a printer port and a hard drive but no floppy drive. Complete with printers keyboard and interface it ran about $400 new and only required to pay the $20 monthly fee to go on line. I was thinking of hooking one up to my AMDEK COLOR-I monitor of which I have two. But then I remembered that I could probably buy an IBM compatible used computer for less than that and have the ability to do so much more. But then I would have to relearn how to use a computer. And I still have the Z88 to Conquer. I have lived this long without being on line so I can live some more.
I do have a Z88 and a modem for the Z88 so I could go that route to go on line. BUT! just how does one do it?
Can someone give me a step by step guide as to how to do it?
External battery case for the Z88 — I wanted to have a way to keep a Z88 alive for extended periods of time and the internal AA batteries don’t last long. By that I mean if the Z88 is in a hanging file folder for half a year at a time. I could use alkaline batteries but then they do expire given enough time. I thought of rechargeable batteries the first choice is NICAD BUT! the NICAD have a tendency to discharge while sitting on the shelf. The literature states that a NICAD will self discharge in about a month. So they are out. But I have had good results with RAYOVAC RENEWALS in the three quartz clocks we have. They each use one AA battery and I swap them out and recharge them periodically and have for several years.
So I collected the necessary parts and the ‘D’ sized batteries. I managed to find the batteries on sale so that helped so were the coupons that I redeemed to even get more discount. I have 6 batteries in series to power the Z88. O.K. I know that the total theoretical voltage of 6 batteries is 9.9 volts. So I put seven 1N4007 diodes (why 1N4007 diodes that was what was in the diode bulk package at Radio Shack) in series with the power and have a DIP switch across each so that I can short out the diode if want a higher voltage. I also found out that with no load on the circuit that I get a higher voltage than what I expected. I did not charge the batteries before I tested the battery box that built. The batteries in series give 9.42 volts. I tested the computer in the sleep mode (turned off) and with it powered up. I used a digital multimeter. The following charts gives the values that I got and the action of the Z88.
No Load 6.94 | No Load 7.28 | No Load 7.29 Sleep 3.54 | Sleep 5.82 | Sleep 5.95 Z88 ON | Z88 ON 3.98 | Z88 ON 3.95 Doesn't Power Up | Gives BAT low | Gives BAT low No Load 7.62 | No Load 7.97 | No Load 8.31 Sleep 6.34 | Sleep 7.08 | Sleep 7.56 Z88 ON 4.87 | Z88 ON 5.63 | Z88 ON 6.30 Gives BAT low | Gives BAT low | Full operation
According to some literature that I received from RAYOVAC the RENEWAL batteries give more recharge cycles if they aren’t discharged too deeply. One place mentions that they shouldn’t be discharged below 1.3 volts or a total of (6 X 1.3) 7.8 volts. I will try to aim for a total of 8.4 or 1.4 per battery to be sure. Even so they should give a long life compared to AA batteries. 0/0