Drums? Of cable

[JohnW2]

Yea, the effort+time involved in burning a CD/DVD make up for that though.

Sure, by the reason for my 'tears' is that, even with 1/2 GB sticks, it's a bit like using an articulated lorry to deliver a 'postcard'!

You should just get a bulk order of 1/2GB memory sticks from china for about £1 each then it's less painful.

I've sort-of done that, albeit not direct from China, but have then sometimes experienced reliability problems (I recently got a batch of "Kingston" ones, some of which have given me some problems, with packaging that looks like genuine Kingston, but is largely in Chinese, with a reference to www.kingston.com/cn - does anyone know whether that is a genuine part of the Kingston empire??).

Kind Regards, John

 

[Iggifer]

Well, the website is a legit Kingston one, whether or not they're actually made by Kingston is another matter. If it looks legit, but they're poor quality, they could be the old 'failed QA' or 'were produced on the sly without the bosses finding out, and no QA done'

 

[JohnW2]

Well, the website is a legit Kingston one, whether or not they're actually made by Kingston is another matter. If it looks legit, but they're poor quality, they could be the old 'failed QA' or 'were produced on the sly without the bosses finding out, and no QA done'

Both the devices and the packaging 'look' legit, give or take the mainly Chinese text (which, for all I know, might say 'Seconds', or worse!) - but who knows?!

To be fair, it might just be 'one of those things'. If I recall correctly, it was a batch of 40 that I bought, of which I've so far used about half. All of the ones I've used appeared to be fine (and to verify etc. satisfactorily) when I transferred files onto them but, in a couple of cases, the recipients have reported some problems of accessibility (I'm meant to be getting them back, so that I can determine whether they still work for me, but that hasn't happened yet). I have to say that they were pretty cheap compared with what they 'should' have cost (at least, as one-offs), so maybe I got 'what I paid for'

Kind Regards, John

 

[SimonH2]

You'd struggle to pull t+e from a box! Small flex or singles might work but drums/reels are the only way for anything bigger than CAT6.

It's all relative. T&E (of any size) would in fact pull just as well from a box - provided it was the right size of reeling inside. The main issue with T&E being that it has sides and so would show the twists that result (unless it was 'reverse twisted' to negate that). As pointed out, some very large submarine cables are "pulled from a box" - it's just that the "box" is a very large tank in the ship.

Prysmian put their T+E on a drum in a box and the box lasts about 5m

That's something different altogether - yes, "reel in box" is carp.

I don't know, but how boring is digital compared to proper film. I remember when I was younger at a small cinema and the film breaking in the projector, you don't get that sort of excitement now!

On the other hand, you get some modern problems. At our small local (one of the old "proper" cinemas) there is a film club - they show some old and classic films around once or twice a month. I remember taking SWMBO to see their screening of Cinema Paradiso and they couldn't get the DVD player and projector to agree on the format - with the result that the film got the top and bottom chopped off. The issue with that being, the subtitles were in the bit chopped off unless there was enough text to need 2 lines in which case we could see the first line. Got the jist of the film though !

Quite, and the absence of the 'flammability' issue must make for much less potential excitement for the projectionists!

The days if nitrate film (cf Cinema Paradiso mentioned above - there's a key bit of the plot there where the film goes up in flames) stock are long long gone. Modern film really isn't that flammable.
It's interesting if you ever see bits of TV about things like the national archives (or whatever they are called). They have small rooms with concrete walls and plastic ceilings holding lots of water - the idea being that if a reel of nitrate goes up, the concrete won't burn and the heat willl release a load of water from the ceiling to quench it.

 

[bernardgreen]

Back in the 1970's I knew one of the GPO engineers who had been involved with type approval of the amplifiers used in repeaters for trans-oceanic cables. The quality assurance testing of components was very stringent. I recall that for each transistor used the whole production batch it had been taken from had to pass the tests. The cable would still function if a few of the repeaters failed. The first repeaters ( before the transistor was invented ) used miniature thermionic valves ( vacuum tubes ).

The design required any failure mode to allow signals to pass through the defective repeater as well as enabling the amplifier to abtract its power from the single conductor of the cable.

 

[SimonH2]

That rather makes sense when the bit of kit isn't something you can just send a man out in a van to repair !
They can replace repeaters, but they have to go out, drop a (high tech) grappling hook to fish up the cable, cutting the cable and dropping one end back on the seabed in the process. Then they can reel in the other end till they reach the broken device. They can replace the device, splice in a new longer bit of cable, go back and fish for the end they left behind, join the ends up, and finally drop a big loop back onto the seabed (making it easier for wayward ships to get it with their anchors).
The cable is now longer, and has been completely out of service while they are doing it. Yes, I think it's a good idea to do everything you can to make the stuff reliable and tolerate faults.

Incidentally, the very first transatlantic cable did get to send a few messages before it failed - including (IIRC) one cancelling the return of troops from Canada to the UK as they were needed elsewhere (and thus saving weeks of voyage back here only to be sent back out again). But the message rate was measured in symbols/minute - so something like one character per minute maximum. At the time, there was no understanding of transmission lines - and the assumption was they they just needed to "use more power". As it was, they were using something like a kV at one end, and getting a barely visible deflection on a galvanometer at the other.
But when they turned the voltage up too far, they had an insulation breakdown, and no method back then to locate the fault or repair it.
One theory is that the initial laying attempt was abandoned, and most of the cable was laid up on a dockside for a year before they tried again. In the heat of the sun, the gutta percha insulation may have softened, allowing the centre conductor to move so it was no longer central - thus reducing the effective thickness of the insulation.
Not long afterwards, IIRC it was Heaviside who came up with the theory (and equations) relating to transmission lines - this allowing the speed to increase to symbols/second.

Interestingly, at a talk I went to on this not long ago, the presenter put up a slide showing a history of sub-sea cables and the companies that put them in - along with a bit of "and X was absorbed into Y, and Y was taken over by Z, ...". That first cable can be traced through to what was until recently called Cable and Wireless (though those of us with the "experience" of dealing with them prefer Clueless and Witless) - they are now part of Vodamoan (oops, Vodafone).

 

[cjard]

And the problem with working "to" standards is that the applicant often fails to appreciate that they are the level of minimal acceptance, meaning the project is invariably built "down" to them.

"Any fool can make a building that stands up. It takes an engineer to make a building that only just stands up"..

 

[cjard]

(though those of us with the "experience" of dealing with them prefer Clueless and Witless)

Back in 2000/2001 ish, in the USA, they were having a bit of a tech bubble bursting moment and entire floors of offices stood empty. The remaining employees called them Unable and Hireless