LAN interface driver catch-22

The PHB got a new box, and wants to replace the server with it. This is
what my other questions about Slack 11 and drivers and stuff were about.
I finally got to the point where I can read the instructions on installing
the LAN drivers, and I got a real kick out of step 4, Installation:

"It is recommended to download the lastest version of the driver from the
SysKonnect web site www.syskonnecct.com. For details on Installation
Instructions for sk98lin Driver, please refer to the README.txt file."

Huh? How can I download the latest driver, when I don't have a LAN yet?

(not to worry - I'll muddle through somehow - just thought that was cute,
kinda like noticing Engrish - this is like noticing Ignoramian. ;-) )

Cheers!
Rich

 

Allegedly some VCRs came with instructions - on tape!

 

On Wed, 18 Oct 2006 01:23:07 +0000, Rich Grise wrote:

-----------

thats why I always have a trusty old 3com 3c905...wait..*blows dust* yep
that's the one

 

Rich,

That's (still) very common. I remember my days at DEC where you needed an
"All in one" account to ask for an "All in one" account. Not to mention the
ISP helpdesks that say to look at their website while you're complaining to
have no connection. Happened to me last week again.

petrus bitbyter

 

The local electric company, Progress Energy, has a TV commercial
where they ask you to report your power outages on their website. Do I
need to say any more?


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

 

Just as all the telephone companies list a 1-800 number for you to
report your telephone is not working

Cheers

PeteS

 

PeteS wrote :

Or the good old error message from the BIOS:

Keyboard Error or No Keyboard Present
Press F1 to continue, DEL to enter setup

 

Snort

I'd forgotten that, but I do now remember it well (it was easy to get
that message, as I recall).

Thanks for the reminder of stupidity and what we dealt with

Cheers

PeteS

 

I was just musing this morning about earthquakes. We don't have
earthquakes here in hell... it'd put out the fires and Arizona would
be cooler ;-)

...Jim Thompson

 

I had an intermittent hum, or no dial tone with hum on my phone when
I lived way out in the country. The phone company would use their
computerized test system when I could finally call them, and tell me
there was nothing wrong. Finally, I had a very weak dial tone, and the
loudest hum so far and managed to get the service desk. The woman could
barely hear me over the hum, yet she asked, What seems to be the nature
of your problem? Can you speak up, I can't hear you for the hum!
Finally they sent someone out. There was a mile of buried cable that
was damaged from the pedestal to my house. The line card had several bad
ports, the line back to the CO was leaking to ground, and the card for
that pair was bad at the CO. All this, after two months of being told
there were no problems.


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

 

Did you ever wonder why there are fuses for the keyboard port on PC
motherboards? I had a keyboard cable catch on fire on one of the first
XTs I sold, years ago. IBM had the power connector just inches from the
keyboard connector, and tied directly to the +5 VDC rail. The AT boards
had fuses. I wonder how many keyboard cables burnt, or motherboards
died from a bad keyboard or cable?


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

 

For 9 years I'd been complaining to the phone company about the
noise on my line, and the loss of DSL signal. For 9 years they
told me there was either no problem or the line was TNF (tecnically
not feasible). I had a T1 installed finally and when testing
for it, they found a fault 30-35 feet from the box on my house.
Lo and behold, that is where the junction box was. They sent a
crew out to dig up and repair said junction box. I arrived home
in the middle of this and asked the quy what he found. He lifted
on of the bundles of wires and showed me all the broken wires
and insulation cracked and missing. Then he picked up the main
splice (encased in gelled sealent) and squeezed. The water ran
like squeezing a wash cloth in the shower. Yep, nothing wrong
with those lines.

Needless to say, my neighbors are much happier now that their
phone lines work.

 

Its amazing what they can find, when they want to.

I know I've told this before, but when I was working as a broadcast
engineer at a Christian TV station I had five WATS lines quit about 15
minutes before the start of a 10 day Telethon. I call AT&T long lines
and got a woman with a bad attitude. I explained the problem, and that
we needed those lines fix, as soon as possible. She started screaming
that every #$%^ call she got was an emergency, that it was Friday
afternoon, and we should consider ourselves lucky if they were repaired
by the following Friday because at least one of the ten lines was
working.

I pointed out the $1,000 deposit per line we had to pay up front, and
their written guarantee of resolving problems in under 24 hours. She
screamed, "I don't give a damn about your problem! I have real
customers with bigger problems! What do you want me to do, pull someone
off another job for you?" I sighed and told her, "I don't care what you
do, but I would hate to have to start our telethon by telling our
members that AT&T long lines refuses to honor their contract because we
are a Christian TV station. A lot of local business owners are
members." Boy, did her attitude change! She whispered, You wouldn't do
that to us, would you? I said, "I'd hate to have to." and hung up.

The first truck rolled in seven minutes later. Trucks kept rolling
in, including the district field supervisor. They found a bad line card
in the equipment room for the complex, and all five numbers were on that
card.

It was working before the telethon started. All the telephone guys
were laughing like crazy, and told me the woman was afraid they would
fire her, and everyone else in her department if they didn't keep us
happy. The supervisor told me, "They don't understand what the word
emergency means. Thanks for lighting a fire under them!" ;-)


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

 

At the old house I went for two years like that. Then they sent a
tech out who, by happenstance, had worked for me at Dickson
Electronics. I showed him my measurements and he found the _flooded_
underground vault within two hours.

...Jim Thompson

 

Jim Thompson wrote :

My signature comes from a time when I was working in a factory producing
high-end loudspeakers. One of the sub-woofers had a amplifier with this
warning printed at the outside and I felt it somehow described Usenet so
I made it my signature.

 

Michael A. Terrell wrote :

Is that why IBM changed the protocol so that I couldn't use my wonderful
½ton XT keyboard when I bought a 486?

 

Yeah, they rely way too much on automated test equipment nowadays...

Back when I worked in the CO, the call would come in, and I would put
the test setup on the cable pair, and could usually tell whether the
problem was in the main cable, feeder, or drop just from the meter
readings! Of course, it didn't hurt that I could then talk to the line
guys (who had their breaks down in our break room!) what was going on,
and have the line fixed within the hour...

Amazing what you can read with a voltmeter and a 50V source of battery!

Charlie

 

I _knew_ it had to be water... anytime it rained my "line lights"
would start to glimmer. And I could measure the drop with my DVM.

But they didn't do squat until the tech I knew showed up.

...Jim Thompson

 

No, they had already used up their stock of obsolete word processing
keyboards, and moved onto other in-house surplus. ;-)


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

 

Michael A. Terrell wrote :

IIRC the ole heavyweight keyboard is still somewhere in the basement and
I just found out that the Linux 2.6.* kernel comes with a XT keyboard
driver. So maybe there's still hope, all I need to find a way to connect
the keyboard to the parallel port.