Bet you can't Name that connector...

From: Don Maslin <donm_at_cts.com>
Date: Wed Aug 29 16:41:34 2001

On Wed, 29 Aug 2001, Fred Cisin (XenoSoft) wrote:

> > > > No, that makes it biased in your favour. It is trivial to find cards that
> > > > nobody else will guess.... In at least one game of this type (having to
> > > > guess something set by another person), the rules are worded so that it
> > > > is in the interests of the setter to pick said thing (the machine
> > > > configuration in this case) so that 1 or 2 people guess it correctly, but
> > > > no so easy that everyone gets it.
>
> Rather than assemble a machine with my weirdest cards, (which WOULD be an
> unfair challenge), I described a machine that was in daily use in my
> office (until I closed the office a year ago). That way, I thought that I
> DID make it such that a few people could guess them. But so far, you seem
> to be the only one. Some of that stuff will be available at VCF, if
> anybody is interested.
>
>
> > > Look, Fred can HAVE 300 5.25" floppies even if he loses! I mean, who the
>
> On Wed, 29 Aug 2001, Tony Duell wrote:
> > Sure, but a contest that nobody can possibly win is not much fun IMHO.
>
> There's still the possibility of proportional distribution. Since you're
> the only one who has even tried, we can split the disks. You've already
> won a significant portion of them. IF anybody ever actually comes through
> with them!
>
> To improve the odds slightly:
> a major hint (relating to more than one card):
> there has never been a parallel (centronics style) printer connected to
> the machine, although there could have been. Since that gives away that a
> female DB25 is, indeed, a parallel port, then based on what you already
> know about the machine, what IS connected there?
>
>
> > > hell really WANTS 300 5.25" floppies anyway!?
> > Err, since 5.25" floppies are not easy to find any more, and since most
> > of use on thls list have at least one machine that uses them, then I
> > would guess many people here could use them.
> > I bought 3 plastic carrier bags full of bulk-erased RX50 disks a few
> > years back and I am darn glad I did. 80 cylinder 5.25" disks are
> > particularly hard to find now.
>
> I'm surprised at the level of problems that you have had with using 360K
> (300 Oerstedt) diskettes as 720K (300 Oerstedt) disks, particularly since
> a number of manufacturers freely acknowledge that they are chemically the
> same, and differ only in testing requirements (If there were NO flaws,
> they are the same). Could they really be that close to the edge of
> testing specs?
>
> --
> Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin_at_xenosoft.com
>

Not in my experience. I have used generic 5.25" DSDD disks
interchangeably for 360/390 and 720 with only the exceptional problem.
And that problem was as commonly found making a 360/390 recording as
a 720.
                                                 - don
Received on Wed Aug 29 2001 - 16:41:34 BST