This Old Amp
On Monday, via FreeCycle, I acquired three rolls of thermal cash register printer paper. Well, they're just the ends of rolls, but there's plenty enough on them for testing the printer that I got way back in February. It's a Citizen CBM1000, with a serial interface (25-pin D-connector).
Tuesday evening is Dorkbot hack evening, and I took the printer along. I rigged up a USB-to-serial gadget to use with the Compaq Presario 3000 that I fixed previously (broken USB socket). All went well, and we were able to demo the little printer making text, graphics and barcodes. I've done a bit more to the code now, so that it exercises more of the printer's functions, and so that it prints a correct JAN-13 EAN barcode for a can of Heinz Curried Beans, 200g size.
I'd been playing with a Yamaha DD-5 electronic drum machine that someone from Dorkbot had picked up in a car boot sale. It has four rubber drum pads that I resorted to striking with wooden spoons. With it rigged up to the hi-fi amplifier, it sounded OK and certainly generated the various rhythms that it has built-in. Strangely, it has only a MIDI-out socket and no MIDI-in. But the drum synth was only passing through, on its way to another Dorkboteer on Tuesday evening. On its way back, was a much more interesting piece of electronic music gear.
I picked up a very fine old amplifier from the Dorkbot hack space, to take over to the Uni for someone there to mess about with. He's interested in using a real, electromechanical reverb spring instead of the modern digital reverb units; the old amp has such a reverb spring. So I now have it set up in the lab, belting out 1980s synth-pop, in mono, from a CD player (most of my CDs are 1980s music of some sort). The amp is an HH MA100, which is a ten-input mixer/amplifier. The inputs are in five pairs with individual level and tone controls for each pair, plus a reverb button. Then there's a master volume, "presence" control, master reverb control and on/off switch. Inside the amplifier, it's all cable-laced wiring looms, which was a surprise until I found the date codes on some of the parts. This amp was made in 1974! And it still works perfectly, with not even scratchy pots. But the best feature, though a little beaten-up, is the front panel. It's a perspex panel (you can still buy replacements) which lights up all the way along with a gentle greenish-blue light. It has an electroluminescent panel behind the control knobs (the pot shafts pass through holes in it) which just makes it all look superb.
Later, I'll play "Love Will Tear Us Apart" by Joy Division, and I'll be instantaneously zonked back to a Westfield College disco in 1984...
Tuesday evening is Dorkbot hack evening, and I took the printer along. I rigged up a USB-to-serial gadget to use with the Compaq Presario 3000 that I fixed previously (broken USB socket). All went well, and we were able to demo the little printer making text, graphics and barcodes. I've done a bit more to the code now, so that it exercises more of the printer's functions, and so that it prints a correct JAN-13 EAN barcode for a can of Heinz Curried Beans, 200g size.
I'd been playing with a Yamaha DD-5 electronic drum machine that someone from Dorkbot had picked up in a car boot sale. It has four rubber drum pads that I resorted to striking with wooden spoons. With it rigged up to the hi-fi amplifier, it sounded OK and certainly generated the various rhythms that it has built-in. Strangely, it has only a MIDI-out socket and no MIDI-in. But the drum synth was only passing through, on its way to another Dorkboteer on Tuesday evening. On its way back, was a much more interesting piece of electronic music gear.
I picked up a very fine old amplifier from the Dorkbot hack space, to take over to the Uni for someone there to mess about with. He's interested in using a real, electromechanical reverb spring instead of the modern digital reverb units; the old amp has such a reverb spring. So I now have it set up in the lab, belting out 1980s synth-pop, in mono, from a CD player (most of my CDs are 1980s music of some sort). The amp is an HH MA100, which is a ten-input mixer/amplifier. The inputs are in five pairs with individual level and tone controls for each pair, plus a reverb button. Then there's a master volume, "presence" control, master reverb control and on/off switch. Inside the amplifier, it's all cable-laced wiring looms, which was a surprise until I found the date codes on some of the parts. This amp was made in 1974! And it still works perfectly, with not even scratchy pots. But the best feature, though a little beaten-up, is the front panel. It's a perspex panel (you can still buy replacements) which lights up all the way along with a gentle greenish-blue light. It has an electroluminescent panel behind the control knobs (the pot shafts pass through holes in it) which just makes it all look superb.
Later, I'll play "Love Will Tear Us Apart" by Joy Division, and I'll be instantaneously zonked back to a Westfield College disco in 1984...