Things that I forget in time ...

Best Aplifier for AKG K-1000 Headphones

2010-11-26T11:04:00.000-08:00

I have seen lots of information, perfect match stories and many suggestions about this topic and I have gone through most possible combinations. The most interesting combinations for me were:

1- Pass Aleph designs because of the detailed mids and good bass tonality
2- Pioneer SA-810 because of the soft and warm tonality while keeping the atackness and reality at a great level
3- The Fisher KX-90 Control Amplifier for the laid back mid and highs and nice tonality

However, before naming the best amplifier, I must tell you how I came accross to a AKG K-1000 at the first place. I am a vintage calculator or computer collector. For this reason, one has to wake up early and head to the flea market before every other hunter does. All the stands at the flea market has to be scanned with great attention to all the items which are there to be sold. Like many calculators, computers, I have came across to my many high-end equipment for a fraction of their sales price. It was a great Sunday morning in June 2002, I have bought my two AKG K-1000s for 2.5Euro from a Turkish flea market, which was held in Istanbul, Kadikoy. Both of them had the label "Engineering Sample" on them and the lead wires were intentionally broken for preventing them to make sound. Such things are easy to repair if you have the right tools and skills. Without the circuit in the cans, the sound was very special from the first note. Those cans were not like the ones in mass production. For example, the plastic material which was holding the magnet in its' place was made of 4 sections. They didn't have a serial number, instead, on both sides there were the shiny K 1000 logo. Yet again, the sound was amazing. So, time passed by, my teenage years ended and money became one of the key issues in my life, therefore I had to part with them one by one. However, in the mean time, I could be able to listen a lot of amplifiers with them, Conrad Johnsons, Rotels, Luxman, Bryston, Yamaha, Jadis, Mal Valve, McIntosh and others.

Now that the things have changed, I could be able to lay my hands on another pair with a 030xx serial number. I was very glad to find out that the sound quality of the Engineering samples and these headphones were exactly the same. I assume this has to do with the serial number being low. Anyway, I hooked them up to my Radford STA 25 Series III amplifier, which I also found at a flea market for less than 10Euros and the search was over at the first note.

The best was so far Radford STA-25 Series 3 (speaker terminals at 16Ohm position) where everything sit into their places so nicely that sound becomes a part of the reality that you are in.

For those who are interested:
Pioneer SA-810: Acquired for 0(zero) Euro
The Fisher KX-90 Control Amplifier: Acquired for 20 Euro in working order from the same flea market in Turkey, Istanbul

Linux, What kind of a lie is that!?

2007-05-29T14:49:00.000-07:00

Okay, maybe these guys are working their ass off to bring out an alternative operating system. But, I don't believe that nobody can do anything for free and nobody can do anything "good" for free!

Linux sux in countless ways. don't make any Linux user fool you using centences starting with ...
"You can do that with Linux ...."
"It is free ..."
"It is legal ..."
"This is done much easier with linux ..."
"It is faster ..."
"It is safer ..."

It is in fact a fucking premature OS with lots of bugs and stupid mistakes.

First thing first! You are downloading a patch for your display adapter. When it is compleated, it requires a restart. You do it and boom, your visual contact with your Linux is gone! New versions of Windows never lets such a stupid mistake to happen. If it happens, it securely guides you back where everything was fine before, but with linux you have to be a Computer Engineer to put everything right again! You have to compile somethings, you have to enter line commands with switches and many other booring stuff like surfing the net from another computer to learn how to put things back in order.

Secondly, you are upgrading your stupid linux because the OS has informed you that there are updates to be donloaded. Okay, this isn't something new, or wrong. People make mistakes, and stupid people do more mistakes therefore patches happen. Anyway, bang goes your electricity or someone pulles your AC plug thinking it belongs to the coffee machine! You turn your computer on again and decide to continue your download, like every decent computer user would do! No, no no, not with linux! Because it was distrupted abruptly it refuses to continue, however it suggests you some line commands. You decide to try your chances because not being able to upgrade your system is not a good thing. You open the terminal and enter those commands, but this time it says you have to have administrator privilages to run those commands, but you log on to the system using root privillages. Hello!?

Don't worry, when they solve those stupid problems they will not be publishing that operating system for free anymore. They use you as a part of their team to develop and improve their systems. They earn money over you. You find those stupid mistakes they have made and try to solve your problems by asking and sharing them with others over the net. They collect those and make their code better. And finally when such mistakes are minimized, bang! They put a price tag on it and it is not for free anymore. Do you know what is pissing me off, they don't even say "thank you!".

OpenGL problem with MatLAB

2007-04-18T10:42:00.000-07:00

I had this problem long before and at the time nobody could understand what the problem was but now many people are aware that it is MatLAB which ruins the OpenGL settings.

The thing is, if you are still playing games on your PC and if those games require OpenGL you may face difficulties if you are also using MatLAB on that very computer of yours. MatLAB interfere with OpenGL code and makes the games give nonsense errors. You can not originate the problem since they don't have any connection with display. If you have such trouble, just hit Ctrl-Alt-Del and check wether any Matlab.exe is running. Although you are not using MatLab at that time, Matlab.exe can be in running processes list and that is your enemy! Force it to shut down and play your game in peace!

How to install WinNT on (logical) Secondary drive

2007-04-18T10:32:00.000-07:00

If you are reading this, you are aware of the fact that Windows NT only lets you install it on the primary active partition. If you are using two HDD, then it is simple. Just remove the first HDD and it should install without any problems on the second drive which is now primary. Okay, what if the second HDD, on which you are trying to install WinNT is not a physical drive but a logical one? The solution is again simple. Just restart your computer and enter BIOS settings. From the BIOS settings go to the Boot Up Sequence menu and select a drive letter which does not belong to your primary partition like, "D, CDRom, A". Although so such drive exists, BIOS and OS thinks that the logical drive (partition) is now primary. You know what to do next...

Libretto 110CT XP Display Resolution

2007-04-18T10:06:00.000-07:00

So you have managed to install Windows XP on your beloved Libretto 110CT, congratulations! But, although Windows XP has recognized your display driver precisely, the resolution is not correct. When the resolution is 800x600, you use virtual desktop which is extremely annoying! You want to switch back to your old 800x480 resolution and live happily ever after...

That is an extremely simple task to do. First right click on an empty area on your desktop and click on properties. From the window appeared click on Settings tab and then click on Advanced. From the window appeared select the Adapter tab and click on List All Modes... button right below. You are going to see your 800x480 screen resolution waiting for you to pick it. Please be informed that all of your settings which you have changed concerning desktop has been reset. You have to alter them again.

Casio PB-2000C and ROM Cards

2007-04-18T00:45:00.000-07:00

This is by far the best pocket computer ever manufactured. The only setback is, it is slow. However, this doesn't mask the good points of this device in any possible way.

PB-2000C comes with C interpreter known as K&R C. K and R stands for the first letters of the names who in fact invented the C programming language. This version of C may lack some of the exciting points of ANSI C but it is tremendously more exciting to use the very first C on such a pocket computer.

Besides C there are some other programming languages available for PB-2000C and one of them is BASIC. The BASIC version on PB-2000C is different then the one which available on its' close relative PB-1000. The main difference is that there are no commands like TIME$ or DATE$. Besides some commands like LINE is different as DRAW. BASIC ROM is a little faster than C.

There is another ROM which is CASL for which I will add information later.

The most exciting ROM among all is PASCAL ROM. This is developed by Hans Larsson which by all means humiliated Casio engineers. This ROM gives you wings over PB-2000C and you have the power to code things which is not possible with any other ROM module. Better memory management, faster programs and many additional functions make this ROM shine brighter.

HP 200LX and Memory

2007-04-18T00:36:00.000-07:00

HP 200LX is a 80186 based pocket computer which has MS-DOS 5.0 readily installed. This MS-DOS 5.0 is not complete and needs the original disks to be completed. However, this doesn't concern the memory issues which I am going to discuss here.

In order to use your favorite Dos software on 200LX you need more space than it offers to you by default. The maximum standard memory you can find on these computers is 4MB. The DOS takes away 640KB and you are left with the rest. No compiler like Turbo C++ can fit in that space so you need a solution.

At this point CF cards come to the rescue. 200LX has a standard PCMCIA slot. Since CF cards can be used with PCMCIA adapters, it is easy to connect them to the PCMCIA slot of 200LX. However, it can support up to 128MB and these CF cards can rarely be found these days. I have used Kingston 128MB CF card and I know that it is very slow, specially when you enter DIR command for the first time. Therefore a SUNDISK or a CF card which has 64KB memory can be more suitable.

How to install XP using a 40GB HDD on Libretto 110CT

2007-04-18T00:03:00.000-07:00

The problem with 110CT is that it doesn't recognize HDD over 8GB. You get around this obstacle by first installing windows XP on that 40GB drive on another computer. When you leave the HDD format as FAT32 and then install that HDD on 110CT, you can start with your installation on 110CT by using a boot disc which is generated by any MS OS starting from Windows 95. You should install Windows XP on Libretto again and the easiest way to do that is to copy Windows XP CD on that 40GB HDD while it was still connected to the other computer. You boot your Libretto from FDD and switch to HDD and start the installation by entering SETUP from the command line. This way, you will not need to deal with EZBios or similar software to make your Libretto recognize your large capacity drive.