Dear Ed,
I had a little trouble with the “INFLATION” – 1K program as printed in the September issue of SYNCHRO-SETTE.
In order to get it to display as shown on page 7, I changed the program as follows:
170 PRINT ,, I$;" THAT COST ";C;
TAB 31;" IN 1982, WILL COST "
;F;TAB 31;"IN ";Y;"."The program now runs without any problems. I am a new subscriber – would you please send info on the Mindware plain-paper printer?
J.F. Lapunzina – Brooklyn, NY
Dear Joe,
Thanks for the correction. We don’t know if Mindware will ever have their printer available through mail-order. They have told us that there is an undeterminable delay due to not being able to be okayed by the FCC.
Rumor has it that Mindware is getting out of the mail-order business anyway and investigating selling their products through retail outlets.
The specs on the 119.95 MW-100 printer are:
- uses 1 3/4″ adding machine paper – uses a standard typewriter ribbon cartridge – impact, not thermal – buss connector sandwiches between computer & RAMpack – prints 16 characters per line.
The last spec is interesting in that if a screen or program listing is to be printed from a 32 character format, the left side can be printed and then the right side, and the two pasted together.
Ed.
Dear Ed,
I cannot load the OCT82 tape sent. I have had trouble in the past with the MRX3 oxide tape when I wished to load my peograms. My guess is that the tape head on my machine and this tape do not agree.
Please reconsider the manufacturer of the tapes you use for duplication. Most tapes have dropouts. Perhaps Maxell UDXL II does not because of stringent quality control.
M. Herscovitch – Montpelier, VT
Dear Monty,
Of all the tapes we tested, the MRX3 by Memorex had the best quality control standards. We have had less than one half of one percent defective tapes. There are other tapes that are of even better quality but the price would be prohibitive unless the subscriber would wish to pay some dollars extra for each tape sent.
Cost and stringent quality control aside, many people have found that less expensive tapes outperform the so called top-of-the-line tapes almost every time. This is not a random phenomenon.
The computer, by design, requires input of high frquency sound pulses. Lower frequency pulses interfere with the computer’s capability to accept the high pulses by distorting them.
Top of the line tapes are receptive to sound reproduction at all frequency levels and as a result can accept mid-range and low level sounds at a higher volume level than some of the cheaper tapes, even thought the high frequency sound reproduction of the top line tape may be superior.
The MRX3 tape has the unique characteristic of having exceptional high frequency absorbption with very little mid-range to low frequency absorbption. True, drop-outs can occur. This is usually because of lack of the metallic oxide in the tape itself but can be caused by other factors, such as the recording equipment itself, particularly when the heads pick up a magnetic field. We are constantly de-magnetizing the recording heads of our equipment.
The tapes we used previously had an almost 30% defect rate and we checked each one individually. This may be why they seemed to be superior to some subscribers compared to the MRX3. It is now impossible to do this kind of checking because of our subscription rate.
Ed.
Dear Ed,
Is your name really Ed? Did the Old Professor ever moonlight as a bartenter in Walla Walla, Washington? He looks like the guy that slipped me a mickey there one night when I was shanghied to the Orient.
Seriously though, I bought my TS-1000 last month and have returned it to be traded two times because of the same problem. The screen would all of a sudden white out and the keyboard was unresponsive. It seems improbable that three machines would all have the same problem. Is there something I could be doing wrong or does Timex have a problem with quality control?
Tex Shula – Dallas, TX
Dear Tex,
Of course my name isn’t Ed. Ed is short for editor. I come from Loisiana but who wants to be called Louise?
I asked the old Professor if he was ever in Washington and he says he was indeed and remembers you that night at the bar. He was paid enough money for slipping you the mickey to buy his first computer and that’s how he got started. He told me to thank you for helping his new career begin.
The quality control problem you mention is probably no more severe than with any other manufacturer. I have heard stories about quality control problems with every popular micro. To have three bad ones in a row, however, is more than one would or should expect. From what you told me, unless your house electrical service continuously experiences power surges, I don’t think it’s anything that could be caused by the user. It could have been just a bad batch of computers from the store you got them from.
Ed.