David L. Farquhar on technology old and new, computer security, and more
Windup toy trains were popular at the dawn of the 20th century, when electricity was a luxury. But they remained on the market well into the 1960s as a cheaper and simpler option for young kids who liked trains. They retain a small but devoted following today because of their inherent challenges compared to electric-powered toy trains.
Sometimes you’ll hear someone refer to the common wire when discussing electrical wiring. Not everyone is born knowing this stuff, but no one wants to sound uninformed, either. So what is the common wire in electrical wiring, which wire is the common wire, and what does it mean?
The common wire is normally the white wire, at least in the United States, and is often called the neutral wire. It’s also called common because all circuits in the house typically have the white wires tied together, which means every circuit has that wire in common.
When it comes to the Sega Genesis power supply, there’s one important thing to remember. You can use a Genesis power supply in a Nintendo NES, but the reverse is not true. The NES isn’t picky about its power, but the Genesis needs 9 volts DC and the right polarity.
The original Genesis power supply connector is the same size as a Nintendo NES, but the Genesis requires 9 volts DC, center negative, and 1 amp, though 1.2 amps is better. A non-Sega adapter is fine to use as long as it meets these specs, but using AC or the wrong polarity will damage the game console.
The distinction between Super VGA and XGA matters more when you’re talking projectors than when you’re talking monitors. In the 90s, we didn’t talk about XGA much. XGA was a semi-proprietary IBM thing, available for high-end PS/2s, while SVGA was the open standard.
On projectors, XGA means a 1024×768 display, while SuperVGA or SVGA means an 800×600 display. Vintage CRT monitors didn’t make that distinction since CRTs don’t operate at fixed resolutions. While LCD monitors care about the difference, they automatically negotiate the resolution with your computer so they hide the distinction.
It’s not terribly uncommon for a VIC-20 to display colors badly, or just downright wrong. Most people attribute this to the nature of the machine. But it’s possible to adjust the color to get something closer to what screenshots in vintage magazines suggest the VIC-20’s display really looked like. Here’s how to fix a VIC-20 displaying the wrong colors.
The VIC-20 never had great color rendition to begin with, but as the components age, the color can drift even further. The VIC-20 has two potentiometers on its motherboard that you can use to adjust the color.
In 2014, Classic Toy Trains columnist Lou Palumbo wrote an opinion piece titled “Flyer Guys Are Different.” A lot of American Flyer fans took offense at the characterization. There are differences in Lionel vs American Flyer fans, but understanding why the two are different tends to lead to greater understanding than worrying about how they’re different, or what the specific differences are.
Marketers divide consumers into different groups, and the people who favor American Flyer tend to fall into a different group than the people who favor Lionel. That doesn’t make one better than the other, but it does mean they have different values from one another.
CompTIA positions A+ as a precursor to Security+, but it’s not necessary to have both certifications. It can be helpful, but whether you need one or both depends on what you want to specialize in. And that’s really what it comes down to in A+ vs Security+: area of specialty.
A+ is a certification that covers computer hardware and operating systems, intended for technicians and system administrators. Security+ is an entry-level security certification, and the overlap between the two may not be obvious.
Typically we associate game cartridges with consoles, but for a time in the 1980s, computer software, especially games, were also distributed on cartridge. Here’s why computer game cartridges fell out of fashion.
Computer game cartridges were convenient because they loaded quickly, but their high cost of production led publishers to prefer disk or tape. There was also some concern that repeatedly removing cartridges would wear out an expensive computer.
In 1982, Atari could do no wrong. Its 2600 game console outsold its most successful competitor 10 to 1. But its followup, the Atari 5200, flopped. Here’s why the Atari 5200 failed.
Atari had all of the ingredients it needed for success, but it didn’t put them together. This opened the door for other companies, including Nintendo.
I had an interesting question the other day. What should you do if a ground wire comes off your light fixture while you’re installing it? You have several options.
If you can’t return the fixture, you can reattach the wire a couple of different ways. Or you can ground the fixture without that wire. But if all that fails, the ground wire is a safety feature and the light fixture will work properly without it.