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Make a 3/16 scale Marx ore car

Dave Farquhar Toy trains March 28, 2017August 1, 20171940s, american flyer, lionel, marx, NYC, Spare Parts

Marx fans often complain Marx didn’t make quite enough variety in its 3/16 scale line. Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to get a bit more variety out of it by making a 3/16 scale Marx ore car. And you can do it all with original Marx parts.

Dave Farquhar

David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.

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Attach Marx lighted accessories and hide wiring in one step

Dave Farquhar Toy trains April 22, 2016November 26, 2018home depot, marx, network cables, Spare Parts, tin

A frequent question I read is how to attach tin accessories, such as Marx light posts and light towers, to a layout in a semi-permanent but reversible manner. I have found a way to do this, and as a bonus, it also makes it easy to hide the wires that are feeding the lights and makes the wiring simpler.

Dave Farquhar

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Selling Tyco trains

Dave Farquhar model railroading April 18, 2016October 10, 20171950s, 1960s, 1980s, american flyer, christmas, collectibles, HO, ho scale, lionel, marx, o gauge, old trains, recycling, Spare Parts, Star Wars

I got an inquiry last week about selling Tyco trains. As a child of the 70s and 80s, I certainly remember Tyco, and in recent years Tyco has gained a bit of a following.

If you’re looking to sell some Tyco gear, you certainly can do it, but you have to keep your expectations realistic. You’ll probably be able to sell it, but don’t expect to get rich off it.

Dave Farquhar

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Bombshell: Ballmer steps down from Microsoft

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized August 24, 2013March 25, 20251980s, 1990s, Bill Gates, Digital Research, IBM, office 2007, Spare Parts, Steve Ballmer, vista, windows 8, Windows Vista

I’m sure you’ve heard by now that Steve Ballmer is retiring. It’s time. If anything, I agree with the people who say he would have been better off retiring years ago. But I really didn’t expect it. In spite of the immense pressure to step aside, at least in public he never gave any indication of having any intention of doing so. Read more

Dave Farquhar

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Lionel in the non-hobby media

Dave Farquhar Toy trains July 17, 2013November 25, 20181990s, Korea, lionel, lionel train, Louis Marx, marx, New Jersey, Quaker Oats, Richard Kughn, Spare Parts

Cnet took a field trip to the official Lionel repair facility and wrote a feature story about it. It’s nice to see the attention outside of the hobby press, since it’s frequently news to people that Lionel is still around in any form. Read more

Dave Farquhar

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Hot-rod Cyanogenmod 7.2

Dave Farquhar Android, Hardware November 15, 2012January 5, 2013android, cyanogenmod, nexus, Nook Color, overclocking, Play Store, profiles, Spare Parts, visual effects, windows 7

Whatever you do, don’t call this post Optimizing Android 2.3 for Games, Graphics and Multimedia. I’ll kick your… nevermind.

But of course the first thing I wanted after I installed Cyanogenmod 7.2–which is based on Android 2.3.7–on my Nook Color was to make it run smoother and faster. What else would I want? So here’s some stuff I did, since adding three CPU cores obviously isn’t an option.

Dave Farquhar

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I hope BYOD 2.0 goes better than BYOD 1.0 did

Dave Farquhar Hardware June 26, 20121990s, android, best buy, dell, IBM, malware, micron, Spare Parts, trenches

BYOD is “bring your own device.” It’s the hot new trend in IT, except it’s nothing new. But it was bound to happen, I guess. Companies are tired of buying computer equipment, so they want employees to provide it. And counterculture, nonconformist workers are (I guess) tired of using boring corporate computer equipment. (And here I am, a strong advocate of buying off-lease corporate computers for home use.)

So, since companies don’t want to buy computers, and employees don’t want to use company computers, what’s the problem?

How’s about I tell you a story? Read more

Dave Farquhar

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Why do European trains look so much better than U.S. trains?

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized January 24, 2012January 26, 20121950s, Kansas City, KCS, New York, New York Central, Pennsylvania Railroad, Spare Parts, Union Pacific

I guess there’s something floating around Facebook right now comparing sleek, elegant European trains against clunker, junky trains that roam the rails in the United States. I haven’t seen it yet, but I’ve already had some questions about it.

There was a time when U.S. trains were pretty bleak to look at, but that time isn’t now.

Dave Farquhar

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WordPress may be coming soon. I hope.

Dave Farquhar General September 28, 2010October 1, 2010PHP, Spare Parts

I’m experimenting with WordPress. I have it up and running on a system built from spare parts, but importing from this archaic blogging platform that nobody uses (and for good reason) is less than obvious. A filter exists but isn’t officially blessed, so you can’t just go grab it like you can for a common blog platform like Movable Type or Greymatter.I’m going to look at it all again when I’m less tired. It may be possible to just take the importer and turn it into a standalone program that just slurps the database over and puts it into WordPress format. It’s probably been eight years since I did any PHP coding at all. But I have everything to gain from the move.

As far as I can tell, this server and this software have been running for 8 years. That’s a good run, but it’s too long. It’s time to modernize. Time to use modern software, running on a system that was built in this century.

Dave Farquhar

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Leave your DIY PCs at home

Dave Farquhar Hardware July 22, 2004September 28, 2021amd, DIY, IBM, intel, Spare Parts

This is a response to the eWeek editorial Bring DIY Systems to Work. Nice theory. Unfortunately, lab theory and the real world don’t always mesh.

I like building PCs. I built my first PC in early 1994, back when everything was on a separate card and you had to set interrupts and DMA channels using jumpers and DIP switches and in most cases you had to tell the BIOS exactly what size drive was in it–it wouldn’t detect anything for you. I built my main PC at home myself. I built my secondary and tertiary PCs at home myself too. And my girlfriend’s PC, and my mom’s PC, and my sister’s PC.

Get the idea?

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net

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