Don Lancaster's What's New?       2002 Archive Blog

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Closed out our blog page WHTNU02.SHTML and
started WHTNU03.SHTML. The earliest pages have
also now been autolinked.

We wholesaled out our remaining Tektronix 7912AD
inventory. One power supply remains and will go on
eBay shortly.

Picked up a nice quad surveillance video display
system. Please email me if you have any interest
along these lines.

Gernsback Publications has recently ceased publication
of Poptronix.

I expect a lot of trade journals to suddenly merge or
fold as well. The underlying model of paying an
outrageous ad price for leads that may or may not
happen six months in the future that may or may not
result in a sale no longer makes any sense.

I also see that industrial suppliers are at long last
starting to put their prices on their web sites. I'd
further suspect that those who do not will soon
become history.

Latest Blatant Opportunist #73 is Son of eBay Secrets.

Expanded the Blatant Opportunist and Auction Help
libraries.

Parting out an older Westinghouse motor drive. email
me if  you have any interest in the 1000 volt, 100 amp
dual Darlingtons, the current transformers, or the
three phase reactors.

Gathered together a bunch of our background patterns
used for knockouts on our eBay and Bargain Page
images. Besides their subtle textures, these can greatly
minimize JPEG edge artifacts.

This is more for your locals living within the greater
Bonita-Eden-Sanchez metropolitan area: Just picked
up a large pile of Sears/Craftsman gifts at half price.
Table saws, submersible pumps, yard vacuums, drills,
food processors, weed wackers, leaf blowers, etc...

Probably going to yard sale these at 3860 West First
Street in Thatcher. Call 428-4073 or you can email
don@tinaja.com or bee@tinaja.com

Speaking of which, I've pretty much decided that those
liquidation pallets are at best marginal and usually a
worthless scam. Went to the best of best possible pallet
auctions -- genuine Sears, no cherry picking, a total
inspection, doubly distressed. $175 pallets cost more
like $300 after time and U-Haul and such.

And held something like $1500 in list price merchandise,
of which around $450 could be realistically sold without
too much refurb. Bottom line: Waay too much risk for
too little return. I'll probably stick to my 30:1 buy sell
rule found in MYEBAYS.PDF.

Expanded our Offsite Links on the Guru's Lair home
page. Also added links to our Auction Help library page.

Latest GuruGram #12 is a PS Search & Replace Utility.

Found out a little more about our PIC Projects parts
we have up on eBay. These were intended for hot tub
controllers, with the main pc board doing things like
relay controlling the pump, heater, and blower. And
the small pc board being a three digit Fahrenheit
temperature display.

The original proto house just bought a lot of our
parts back for an improved design!

Just uploaded a temporary plot that shows exactly
why selling anything on eBay for less than $19.63
is utterly futile. And here is the Gonzo source code
if you want to play with it.

Have got lots and lots of Banner Automation parts.
Also Robohand guided cylinder thrusters. email me
with your needs. Or see the eBay offerings.

Just put ONE MILLION DOLLARS worth of Tektronix
gear up on eBay with an 0.99 cent opening and no reserve
for the lot.

Was really impressed with the dinners at Cottonwood
Canyon Ranch, which is also a Bed and Breakfast. The
four of us had the whole place to ourselves for $14 per
meal. Bring your own wine.

Go halfway out the Klondyke Road and hang right just
past the third cow.

( update: long closed. )

Upgraded and expanded our GuruGram #9 on Acrobat
Transparency using PostScript sent to Distiller. One
tiny detail remains that very much needs your help
as an Acrobat insider expert.

Just picked up some beautiful one axis linear robotic
hand actuators at an automation bankruptcy. Along
with lots of Truck sensors and cables and air cylinders
and Banner opto stuff. Please email me if you have
special interest in these items.

A caution on bidding on eBay Dutch Auction items:
If you bid on N-1 or fewer items, you may get them
for the opening price. But if you  bid on all N items,
you will have to pay your (usually) higher proxy
bid price! Thus, the LAST Dutch Auction item can
end up outrageously expensive.

Chances are the seller will have more in stock anyway
and will be glad to sell them all to you off eBay.

I was hoping by now to have a complete solution for
letting PostScript send commands to Distiller to
generate fully transparent PDF files. We looked at
most of the code in GuruGram #9 as PSTRANS.PDF.

Still needed is a way to cause PostScript via Distiller
to (a) cause a "/GS2 gs" to appear in the output data
stream and (b) to link a /GS2 object to a resource object.

Still need your help on getting PostScript to link to gs
resources by using Distiller. Please email me with your
thoughts on this.

Added new content and links to the Acrobat, Auction Help,
Bargain, and GuruGram library pages. PSTRANS.PDF

Latest GuruGram #11 is on Exploring the Acrobat 5 SDK.
Included is this Win32 Automatic Link Checker (!) plugin.

Over 2/3rds of our Tut LR2000T inventory is now
sold and outtahere. Remaining stock is on a "first
pay - first ship" basis and sells daily.

Current pricing is $23.87 each plus shipping or $319
plus shipping per case of fourteen. This is believed
to be way under original factory cost.

More details on our Bargain Pages or our eBay
offerings. All are still sealed in all their original
packaging.

Have been spending a lot of frustrating time trying
to get the Acrobat SDK plugins working. Please email
me if you have any expertise here.

Started updating our Bargain Pages and our Bargain
Tours.

Went to a pair of dot bomb bankruptcies, and came
away with the obvious "What were they thinking?"
NEITHER had a product that two college students
could not have knocked out in their dorm in their
spare time, yet both had hundreds of employees in
the most expensive "top floor" real estate in their
respective towns. With the most expensive ( and
obviously most uncomfortable) fixtures and furniture.

Pure madness.

A reminder that our web pages are best viewed from
Internet Explorer at 800 x 600 resolution with URL
underlining turned OFF.

Compulsive underliners are pretty much self limiting.
Eventually they grow so much hair on the palms of their
hands that they can no longer type.

Present Tut LR2000T inventory is between 50 and 88
cases, depending on expected sales in process. Price
is $297 per case of 14 plus shipping.

We understand this to be far less than original factory
cost. Well over half of our original truckload is now sold.

Expanded and improved our Auction Help page.

We now have a preliminary schematic the smaller of
our PIC Breadboards. We have these in huge quantities
at fifty cents each. Also on eBay.

We are shortly going to sharply raise the prices on
Tut LR2000T's as they are flying outta here. These
let you put Ethernet on top of an existing phone line
without voice interference. More details on our
Bargain Pages or our eBay offerings.

Street price is $1946 per case. Our current pricing is
$297 per case of fourteen plus shipping for 1-3 cases,
$279 per case plus shipping for 4 or more cases. UPS
hundredweight services kick in at 8 cases for even
additional savings. Much of our inventory has now
been sold. It is unlikely we will ever find any more at
these prices.

Picked up some nice Cat 5 patch panels. email me if
you want to get in ahead of the hoarders.

What appears to be a significant energy development
is found in Science magazine Vol 297 27 Sept 2002 as
Efficient Photochemical Water Splitting by a Chemically
Modified n-TiO2. Authors are Shahed Khan, Mofareh
Al-Shahry, and William B. Ingler Jr.

An 8X efficiency improvement is reported. This is not
yet quite useful, but is quite an achievement. I hope to
have some additional energy references shortly in a
new Blatant Opportunist column.

Added a Methane Hydrate section to our Hydrogen
Energy page. These are by far the largest alternate
energy resource. But no net energy recovery scheme
is yet known. They also have the potential for some
unmitigated environmental disasters.

Expanded and improved our Auction Help page.

Expanded and improved our Offsite Resources on
our Home Page.

MIT is claiming they eventually will be making nearly
all of their course materials online! They seem to be
off to a good start.

Visit them at http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html

eBay now allows fixed price sales on quantity items,
so we are going this route for our electronic components
and other items where a buyer is more likely to want to
immediately and for sure get their items, or where the
buyer wants to easily and quickly combine payment and
shipping of several items together.

Because eBay prohibits Dutch quantity sales under 99
cents, we're using a UNIT system. For instance, if the
listing shows 30 diodes per 99 cent unit, and you buy
three units, you get 90 diodes and pay $2.97 plus shipping.

You can normally buy any number of units you like from
one to as many as we have in stock. Large quantity prices
may be lower, depending on the item and its popularity.

BTW, all of our components are absolutely first rate
and top demand.

More details on our Bargain Pages and our eBay listings.

I was really impressed with Richard Hunter's new
World Without Secrets book. That covers everything
from Napster to Terrorism to Linux to RIAA stupidities
to dot-bombing and back again. And, to me, shows
profound insight.

Reach this title via our Book Access page.

Latest GuruGram 10 is on PostScript's Internaldict
& pdfmark  operators. There does not appear to be
very mich hidden in the way of undocumented
pdfmark operators. There are 46 in all.

Some of our Webtrends reports may have problems.
It seems inordinately difficult to make minor changes
in report formats. These should eventually get fixed.

Meanwhile, email me for the accurate stats.

Latest GuruGram #9 is a PostScript Transparency (!)
tutorial and demo. A few loose ends remain on this,
so I would very much welcome your ongoing input.

Note that this file DEMANDS Acrobat 5.0 or higher.

Latest GuruGram #8 is a Flate Compression viewer.

Just got a great heaping bunch of PIC related parts
from a board stuffing bankruptcy auction. Top brands,
top quality. Please email me with your needs, or check
into our ongoing eBay auction offerings.

If you have some special expertise with PDFMark
COS objects, please email me. I seem to have big
time problems getting new gs graphics states
properly linked and recognized.

I am now ne step away from a superb PostScript
transparency demo, but cannot find proper use
of the key commands.

Latest GuruGram #7 evaluates Overunity Battery
claims.

Added two more WebTrends reports that give the Daily
Referrals and the Monthly Referrals. These are also
now home page accessible.

Please note that the eBay and Referral reports will
have short counts on some data, because of referral
exclusions. Use ONLY the [ Referrers & Keywords
---> Top Referring URL's ] portions of these special
secondary reports.

Expanded the onsite resources selections on our
Home Page.

Just got a superbly rugged combination desk and relay
rack that the feds paid $135,000.00 for and never used.
email me for details or see our current eBay offerings.

A reminder about our outstanding bargains on HPNA
home phone network LR2000T adaptors.

In the latest perpetual motion fiasco on Slashdot, some
one inadvertently came up with the word "electrocity".

Which, somehow, seems elegantly fitting to the genre
as a whole.

Added some new links to our Home Page and our
Auction Help page.

The latest Blatant Opportunist #72 is on Fun With Stuff.

Getting some unusual items up on eBay. These do
include great heaping bunches of Staplex air quality
filter media, Some older Westinghouse 10 HP 
Variable frequency drives, some REALLY big
power utility fuses, and and around thirty dual mode
110v/12v spotlights.

email me if you want to get in ahead of the hoarders
on these.

Improved the access and use of GRABURLS.PSL
This Acrobat PostScript utility reads any .PDF file
and extracts all of the links onto a separate new
.HTML page.

As in this demo.

The new page can then be visually inspected,
saved to file, or else get automatically link
checked by W3C.

Added a few Hexapod books to our Book Access
pages. Improved and expanded our It's A Gas
hydrogen library.

Updated and expanded our Book-on-Demand Links
and Service Bureau listings.

Not sure exactly why our PDF files look worseunder
Acrobat 5, but I've been continuing testing.

The smoothing does in fact work, but it seems to
present a much trashier viewability at lower resolutions.

ZERO comments or response on the newsgroups so far.

I suspect Adobe had complaints about "too light a gray"
and "too fuzzy" in earlier Acrobats and changed their
smoothing algorithm just enough to throw away the baby
and drink the washwater.

Or possibly there was a conflict with old smoothing and
new LCD CoolType algorithms.

Naturally, Adobe blames my code. I challenge you to
prove this either way so I can fix it. I feel our files look
infinitely better in old Acrobat.

As near as I can tell, there is nothing particular to our
files that cause this, ( turning picojustify off is still bad ),
nor do I know of any workaround except to run at a
higher screen resolution.

Or use Acrobat 4 or an eBook viewer instead.

Again, the files look outstanding at full screen resolution
and 200 percent magnification.

Please tell me your thoughts on this.

Just made the amazing discovery that my Guru's Lair
includes a Blog ! Has had for nearly seven years now.
The url is, of course, secret.

Updated our Robotics Books listings.

Updated and greatly expanded our Hexapod Info.
These are a revolutionary new way of handling
everything from robotics to  machine tools to cranes
to vibration isolators to telescopes. The six axes are
in parallel rather than series for an unprecedented
simplicity and accuracy.

They are also sometimes called Stewart Platforms
or Parallel Link Manipulators.

The revisions and upgrades to our Book-on-Demand
and our Flutterwumper libraries should now be nearly
complete.

Please report any typo or link problems.

The new releases of Adobe Acrobat 5.0 and Acrobat Reader
5.0 have apparently made dramatic changes in viewability for
laptops and at higher resolutions. But they seem to have made
old and low resolution displays MUCH WORSE in the process.

Workarounds are to continue viewing our files with Acrobat 4 or
their eBook Reader. Or to increase your display resolution. Note
that running your display at its highest resolution and viewing our
PDF files at 200% magnification gives outstanding results.

BTW - Their eBook reader will aslo read you our files. In Sweedish
with a Swahili accent. Yumpin Yimmini.

If you know a way to get Acrobat 5 to do text smoothing that is
indistinguishable from earlier versions, please email me immediatley.

A reminder that we have great heaping bunches of Tut
LR-2000T HomePhone/LongRun/HomeRun/DSL adaptors
in stock. In original factory boxes at seven cents on the dollar.

Per our eBay Sales or Bargain Page.

These let you simultaneously run Internet or Ethernet over any
internal live or dead voice phone line you may have. WITHOUT
VOICE INTERFERENCE.

Up to 2000 feet range and up to 1 Megabit/Second. They are superb
for printer sharing or local Internet distribution without the need for
rewiring. When used in pairs, no MDU or software is needed!

Up to 25 units can be directly networked. More with hubs or routers.

In fact, a few of these plus a router or hub can eliminate most of
an outrageously expensive MDU multiple dwelling unit front end
for apartments, trailer parks, dorms, industrial parks, and such.

( tech docs no longer available? )

But note that these do NOT let you simultaneously receive 56K
Internet and voice over a single telco phone number. Somewhere
on premises, a SEPARATE Internet source has to be provided from
a different phone number, DSL, T1, wireless, satellite, or wherever.

There are 14 units per 25 pound case. EVEN number of cases have
lower per-case shipping charges than odd, and average around $9
per case to nearby Western states. EIGHT or more cases allow UPS
Hundredweight services which are significantly less.

Immediate availability.
Optional Z-Blocker filters separately available here and here.

Added some BOD Book-on-Demand publishing titles to our
Book Access Page.

Expanded and improved our Auction Help and our
Third Party libraries.

Expanded and improved our Resource Bin and our
Consultant Network libraries.

Expanded and improved our Tinaja Questing and our
Webmastering libraries.

Expanded and improved our It's a Gas hydrogen library.

Thanks to some very much appreciated peer review, several minor
adjustments have been made to ENERGFUN.PDF.

Updated my biography page. More detail is found here, and the
funny parts are found here.

Found the "missing" and "lost" early Resbin columns and uploaded
them as RESBAR01.PDF and RESBAR02.PDF. As with the other archives,
these are in an older format that awaits your Sponsorship to upgrade to
our current presentation standards.

Completed the major upgrade and expansion of our Acrobat PDF library.
Please report any link or typo problems.

Revised and improved our Acrobat book list.

SVG or Scalable Vector Graphics are the next big thing for
the web. Here are some books and newly uploaded links.

Finished up the PostScript Library upgrade. Please report any
link or typo problems.

New improvements to Adobe's Illustrator 9 and Acrobat 5 have
dramatically improved their ability to do transparancy. Which
largely obsoletes some of my earlier PostScript Transparency
"Gee Whiz" demos. See Adobe Ap Note 5407 for current info.

I'll try to work up some demos sometime. Meanwhile, our image
oriented tools in our Bitmap Manipulation Library do remain
eminently useful.

Many thanks for your overwhelmingly positive response to
ENERGFUN.PDF

Latest Blatant Opportunist #71 is on Energy Fundamentals.

There's some glitches with our .PS to .PSL conversions.
If you are having trouble finding a .PS file on our website,
try using .PSL instead.

These should eventually straighten out.

Oops. An apalling number of our files seem to have
an incorrect email address for us. Use don@tinaja.com
if you have problems .

Also should have gotten all our area codes changed to
(928) by now. Undoubtedly, a few (520)'s are still
kicking around.

Voice phone is (928) 428-4073.

I'd like to buy a used or distress copy of Acrobat
Capture 2.1 with reasonable copy count life left.

Please email me with your offer.

Sorry for the temporary absence of FLUTOOLS.PS
It is temporarily back. We are going to the .PSL trailer
for all our PostScript utilities so they come up in Word
rather than something unexpected.

PSL as in "PostScript-Lancaster".

Added some new offsite links to our home page. That
Convert Me is particularly handy. It does instant
conversion tables and calcs.

Expanded our Hydrogen Energy library page.

The $5 gyro may finally be here. Using nothing but a
bubble of air! See the http://www.memsic.com website.
More on this whenever.

Expanded our Auction Help library page.

Expanded our new GuruGram library page.

Updated and added some new links to our home page.

Our ISP is still having Webtrends problems. NONE
of the current info is accurate. email me for the
correct stats.

Continuing to add to the new PostScript-as-Language
library upgrade. About thirty tutorials and utilities
remain to be linked.

The old library page may still be found here for a
few days.

Adobe's PDF Reference Manual has gotten harder
to find on their website, but the above link works
just fine.

Added a new automatic tracking Acrobat url Link
Generator to our GuruGram and other libraries.

Added a major new GuruGram library page. Continuation
of our Tech Musings columns should appear here, along
with lots of other technical ap notes.

Uploaded a new Galley Slave tutorial on the many
advantages of PDF Acrobat gallery photo tours.

I'm really impressed with those new Airtech oscillating
room fans. A total reengineering based on a Savinous
Rotor like vertical tower. Weight at the bottom, narrow
diameter, remote control, better air flow, breeze mode,
seperate oscillator driver, etc... Walmart.

Added a new Shipping section to our Auction Help
page. Among the other additions is FreightPro who
seem to offer much lower costs than traditional
trucking firms. At least around here. I'm about to
try them and will report back one way or another.

Link here for the absolute latest in state-of-the-art
Trebuchet Design.

Don't know if I mentioned this a while back, but next
time you watch the Wizard of Oz vid, turn the sound
down and replace it with the Pink Floyd Dark Side
of the Moon CD, synchronizing the first clock tick to
the third Lion's Roar.

Being under the affluence of a Coconut Anchovy
Pizza heightens the bizarre coincidences dramatically.
Which you simply will not believe.

My favorite "gee whiz" real science demo: It is called
a "Christmas Tree" and gets used by the fire service to
scare the shit out of probies.

Basically a controlled twenty foot diameter propane
fireball that does a pretty good imitation of Dante's
Inferno. All you ( and four others on your coordinated
attack ) have to do is walk thru it and turn off the valve.

And when the drill is over? The most beautiful and
most fractally ragged ICE CRYSTALS (!) you'd
never expect to see!

Found some nice web video info and tech tutorial links
to help you use the superbTut LR2000T's we have on
eBay and on our bargain pages.

( Tut tech docs no longer available? )

These let you run Ethernet and Internet over existing
phone lines without interference and are immediately
available in large quantities.

Got a pair of superb HP 8640B signal generators
up on eBay. Also a pair of Pitney Bowes postal
scales for a tiny fraction of their usual cost.

Not too sure what I am going to do with the Tech
Musings series. Probably go to individual subject
"ap note" format such as this one. Possibly adding
a new shell and a new series name.

Monumental time and effort went into the magazine
print specific versions of these columns. But web
delivery is better as single topic, flexible on-demand
schedule, shorter landscape presentation, and direct
links rather than reprinting ink listings or Names and
Numbers tables. My time can be better spent doing
research and  content, rather than meeting a strict
print dominated format.

Sponsors and partners welcomed here.

Expanded and added new links to our Auction Help
library page.

Our ISP may have fixed the WebTrends reports.

On special request, he also added some special
daily and monthly eBay reports. These ( adapted
for your own use) can be incredibly useful to find
out who is responding when to your eBay offers,
who is stealing your photos, or who is backlinking
to your site how.

You can also do these yourself at zero cost by letting
PostScript read your log files. We can give you
custom assistance here.

Uploaded some partial specs and schematics on the
Tektronix 7912AD power supplies HERE #1, HERE #2,
HERE #3, HERE #4 and HERE #5.

We have around thirty of these left and they make jim
dandy general purpose lab supplies. Details on our eBay
and Bargain pages.

Any and all other 7912AD parts remain available as
do full systems. Full systems are FOB only as these
are a bear to pack and we want you to preview your
selections. You can email me with your needs.

We're working with our ISP to correct the WebTrends
reporting bugs. Any obvious response dropoffs are
artifacts. We are just under 2000 unique visitors
per day and six million hits per year at present.

More at http://www.tinaja.com/advt01.shtml

We are also working on adapting WebTrends to an
eBay popularity reporter. Meanwhile, our older
logfile tools remain available on our PostScript
library page.

Have some superb tinfoil hat liners up on eBay.

Place the liners on the OUTSIDE to prevent them
from activating your implants. Place the liners on
the INSIDE of the tinfoil to stop them from reading
your brainwaves.

KDKB justre moved their Helium Hilarityr link. For
those of you not in on this, you can tell dirty jokes on
the air if you make it an art form. And "Gila Bend",
while not exactly the toniest of AZ Yuppy enclaves,
is a universal substitute for the all of those usual
blond/aggie/redneck/lawyer/trailertrash joke targets.

They do make up for it with an aggressive computer
donation program to the Gila Bend public schools.
I've updated our homepage link.

Finally fixed the 404 access bug in HACK59.PDF.
If you really want to get to Hack 53, it isstill in
HACKAR3.PDF in raw format.

Got a nice new collection of Marconi BUPS Building
Entrance Protectors and have just put them up on eBay.

A reminder on some of our newer stuff: Case Against
Patents is newly uploaded as an ebook. MARCIA.PDF
is the worst of Marcia Swampfelder, AUCTSCNE is the
latest Blatant Opportunist on the live auction scene and
secrets on how to become a crooked auctioneer, and
BASIS.PDF and supporting utility IMTABLE.PSL
and checkplot IMTABLE.PDF give you potent new
tools for use with image interpolation.

Your participation as banner advertisers, sponsors, or
research associates is needed for additional content of
this caliber.

Simplified and improved our bargain page Guided Tour.

Just got more of the LR2000T's. These are by far
the best bargain we ever offered. Absolutely mint.

Once again, these let you run internet or ethernet
on top of an  existing voice phone line to 2000 feet
without interference.

Started an upgrade and overhaul of our Bargain Pages. Our
most stunning bargain buy appears here.

At one time, a privitized military surplus venture
went by the names of Levy-Latham, Surplus Bid, or
Government Liquidation. Apparently only the
http://www.govliquidation.com website url remains valid.

I have tried to correct this in several locations on our
website. Not all links can or will be updated, though.

One of the GL good guys left Tucson, and New Mexico
listings seem to have vanished totally. It also looks like
many more of their offerings will be live Internet,
rather than sealed bid.

It looks like your best bid strategy may be to bid
ONCE precisely twenty minutes from the auction end.
Earlier reveals intent, while later trips a series of
extensions. Staying tightly focused on items you
really want also seems to pay off.

More on auction strategy in AUCTSCNE.PDF. More
on auction resources in general on our Auction Help
page. And custom auction help assistance is available
through our InfoPack service.

Just had an ISP independently verify our LR2000T's
can run 537K from a T1 line over a stock live voice
phone line without interference! With ZERO front end,
hardware, or software beyond a pair of these LongRun
adaptors and a phone line or other wire pair.

We have huge quantities of these absolutely mint units.
Normal list price is believed to be $279 each. Our price
is $29 each, $49 per pair, or $295 per case of FOURTEEN
plus shipping.

Or around SEVEN cents on the dollar. INCLUDES the
warranty, docs, cables, wall wart, all original packaging.

Once again, these let you run internet or ethernet
anyplace you have an existing voice phone line.
Range is up to 2000 feet . Perfect for dorms, apartments,
motels, trailer parks, etc... Or anytime you do not want to
rewire a building.

email me if you want to grab any of these.

We are unlikely to get any more of these whenever our
current stock ( from a recent telecom bankruptcy) runs out.

Picked up some very nice Allen-Bradley SLC100
Programmable  Logic Controller demo boxes.
These include the processor unit, pocket programmer,
student/trainee I/O switches, pushbuttons, indicators,
full docs, plus a beautiful heavy duty molded case.

We have five remaining. email me if you want some
of these.

Got a pair of Scantron automatic test/data scoring
machines at a recent auction. One standalone, one
computer interface style.

Please email me for further details.

Latest Blatant Opportunist #70 is on Learning how
to become a crooked auctioneer.

Just put a Sunset T3 up for eBay auction. This is THE
telecom test instrument to own. Besides all the regular
phone tests, this handheld does things to T1 and T3
lines that aren't even in the Kuma Sutra.

Fully loaded options include B,C,D,E,F,K,L,M, and R.

( sorry, instantly sold out )

We are working on putting the Case Against Patents
up as an  ebook and hope to fully link it shortly.

Sponsors and Partners are needed when and if the
entire Lancaster Library is ultimately to be made web
accessible.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to be able to shove Ethernet
or always-on  internet access over existing phone lines
without any interference to simultaneous voice calls?
Or, say, half a mile of barbed wire fence?

Among obvious other things, this saves rewiring existing
buildings to make them network or Internet comptaible.
Such as apartments, dorms, hotels, motels, trailer parks,
shops, etc...

A solution exists in the form of the TUT Systems
LR2000T adaptor.

Which converts Ethernet into the 1 Megabit per
second formats known as LongRun or HomeRun.
But the nearly $300 list price PER END of these
systems has been something of a downer.

We just made a spectacular purchase at a major
telecom bankruptcy and can now offer brand new,
factory sealed LR2000T's with docs, cables, wall
wart, and warranty cards for under ten cents on
the dollar in quantity.

Some more details are found on our current eBay
offerings, or you can go directly to the TUT Website
for full technical specs. ( TUT not presently active? )

Instant delivery samples are $29 each or $49 per
pair plus shipping. You can email me for full details
and your quantity needs.

Revised and added to our Auction Help library page.

Uploaded The Worst of Marcia Swampfelder classics.

By the way, Marcia's Godzilla versus the Night Nurses
cross- genre classic was pulled from its international
theatrical premiere because of the Tapioca Pudding 
Institute restraining order. The movie will now go
straight to distribution in 8-track format.

Expanded our Blatant Opportunist and Fonts &
Images library shelves.

eBay, in their infinite wisdom, apparently decided
to X-rate my mint nuclear circular slide rules in mid
auction. Sorry if this has caused you problems.

The future listings will use "kiss your onager goodbye".

Got a bunch of nice antenna or lab cables in 20 and
40 foot lengths. email me if you have any interest
in these.

Uploaded a demo table lookup generator for cubic
spline image interpolation plus a check plot.

Uploaded a short but heavy new paper of mine on
Using Cubic Splines for Image Interpolation. This is
apparently the "best" way to resize or distort any
|image or bitmap.

Unless you want to go to intensive content-specific
solutions. Consulting services available.

Expanded and improved our Bezier Cubic Spline
library shelf.

Also some premium grade fully shielded flat ribbon
cables that are rugged enough to take traffic.
Again, please email me with your specific needs.

The Popular Electronics Marcia Swampfelder columns
are supposed to be on their way to me and should
shortly see daylight again. Many thanks to Duke
McMullen for his gracious help on this.

Still desperately need my April columns from various
issues of Modern Electronics. 1981 time frame. Please
check your attic or garage for me.

More on Marcia is found here.

We've got great heaping bunches of classic premium
linear power supplies in stock in all sorts of popular
voltage and  current ranges. Most as new or near
new. email me with your specific needs.

Started expanding our Fonts & Bitmap Manipulation
library.

Have a real nice Tektronix 2213 in stock at $179
plus shipping. This is a perfect personal, student,
or light research 65 MHz dual trace analog scope.
It has been upgraded to the 2213A CRT and
checked. Very nice, but less docs or probes.

First email or call to (928) 428-4073 takes it.

Found a great paper on image resampling here.

The "local blend" version (the one with the broken
thermometer on the label) of the El Fumarole Salsa
de Mucho Calliente has been banned in all civilized
nations of the world and even parts of Texas.

Naturally, when El Fumarole goes out to hunt, the
Habanaros and Scotch Bonnets have to stay on the
porch.

Some possible substitutes appear here.

Got some classic Fischer Scientific melting point
apparatus units in that need repairs but should make
decent collectibles. email me if  you have any
interest in these four devices.

Restored the ultimate hacker food Hostess Twinkies
Szechwan Style) to its former glory.

Please do not try and consume this intravenously.

The major upgrade and overhaul of our Archival
Reprints library page is now almost complete.

Another item I need your help on: I cannot find any
copy on the Apple IIGS review story I did for
Computer Shopper, probably sometime in 1986 or
1987. Please email me a copy.

Started uploading archives of the earliest Ask The
Guru I and Ask The Guru II columns from Computer
Shopper.

Added some more links to our Auction Help library
page.

The replacement for Auction Advisory seems utterly
useless to me. Also unable to find a pig in a dishpan.
The problem is that they are waiting for auction
companies to come to them, rather than aggressively
seeking out any and all possible auction info.

By following the examples in our Arizona section, you
can easily create an effective listing of nearly all your
local auctions. These are based upon (1) auction
companies, (2) searching newspapers under "auction",
(3) Link farms, and (4) notification services.

Or, we can do it for you on a custom basis. I would like
to expand the AZ and NM info nationally, but funding
would be required.

A reminder that we have ultra rare Tektronix ultra
speed 7912A/D digitizers available in quantity.

email me for details.

Expanded the files on our Cubic Spline library page.

Added some more partial true antialiased fonts to our
fonts & bitmap manipulation library. Here's a demo of
how good these fonts look when copied and pasted into
Paint. Full Consulting Services are available.

Latest Blatant Opportunist column #68 is on Emerging
Technical Opportunities VII.

Uploaded an Archive of our early Blatant Opportunist
files 1-5. These will get improved and upgraded as
Banner Advertisers permit.

YOUR HELP NEEDED: I just found out our local
library threw away all their older microfiche files. I
would dearly like to include my Marcia Swampfelder
April Fool issues in our upcoming web page revisions.

I need to know which issues these were with the page
numbers. They were most likely April 71 and 72 and 73
Popular Electronics and April 74 and/or 75 Modern
Electronics. I suspect the latter will be extremely hard
to find.

Better yet, page copies or PDF text conversions.
email me your help. Many Thanks.

Did a tutorial plot of a Magic Sinewave Spectrum.
You can also download the Sourcecode. More on
Magic Sinewaves in our Development Proposal.

Added some SVG titles to our Book Access pages.
SVG, or scalable vector graphics, is the next big
thing on the web as it internalizes a variation of
Adobe's Acrobat and PostScript.

Added some new files to our Math Stuff library.

A reminder that we have great heaping bunches of
Tektronix 7912AD's in stock, along with any and all
parts. These digitize a 5 nanosecond interval at 700
MHz into 9 bits, for an amazing 100 GIGAsamples
per second. Among other tricks, they let you "convert
your television set into a large screen oscilloscope".

Really. Their double ended scan conversion CRT's
also make a rare and extremely unusual collectible.

Some are now on eBay. You can email me for details
as well.

Improved our Gonzo curvetracing Utility and Demo.
Entry tedium has been greatly eased by letting the
code "guess" at all of your intermediate point angles.

Simply enter a "999" for any intermediate point angle
and an intelligent guess will be made for you. Note
that the initial entry and final exit angles are still
required. Guesses can be edited.

The guess strategy is to try and draw a circle through
the nearest three points. The slope of the mid point is
then used as a guess.

Uploaded a PostScript utility that lets you draw a circle
through three points and its Demo. A side effect of
this code will be most useful in improving our gonzo
curvetracing routines.

Uploaded the classic PostScript Startup Secrets and
PostScript Speedup Secrets reprints. I've left them
pretty much as they originally were for historical
accuracy.

Updating and colorization awaits your Partnering or
your Banner Advertiser funding.

Updated and improved the Perspective NLT transform
and Demo. This one does an Architect's 2-point
perspective with lettering.

Updated and improved the Starwars NLT transform
and Demo.

Uploaded a new PostScript Fern to Image utility and
Demo.

This one is handy anytime you want to reduce an
intensely calculated display into a fast printing, low
resource image. File sizes can be much shorter.

Updated and improved the Tuna Can transform and
Demo.

Added a new Font Path Grabber utility to our PostScript
Library page.

Improved and uploaded our classic PostScript Insider
Secrets.

I pretty much left the content as is for its historical
accuracy. Note that we normally run PostScript these
days using Distiller as a host based PS interpreter,
that font paths are now unlocked and easily handled
with nonlinear transforms, and that Distiller itself
does excellent pseudo-compiling. Email me for futher
info on updates and improvements.

Updated our Auction Help page and added some new
links.

Added dozens of the PostScript Beginner Projects
sourcecode and demo files to our ongoing upgrade
of the PostScript Library page.

Check out the self-knotting rope!

Uploaded the original PostScript Beginner Projects.
Companion files should follow shortly. The new
PostScript Library page is over half completed and
should finish up in the next few days.

Uploaded a preliminary rework of the original PostScript
Show and Tell. While this may seem tame by today's
standards, it was sheer heresy at the time that one person
could -gulp- mix text and graphics at the same time on the
same page!

Did a major upgrade and rework to the Hardware
Hacker main library page.

Also some updates and additions to the Tech Musings
library page.

Uploaded the Hardware Hacker IV archive. Note that
these are in an older format and have not been updated
to current standards. Full updating requires partnering.

Finished the Math Stuff library page revisions.

Have just added some more Arizona and New Mexico
live auction info and resources to our Auction Help
page. We also have a new service where we can
create your own personalized custom local live auction
HTML page for you. At our standard InfoPack rate.

Pending sponsorship, we would also be happy to put
together a definitive national live auction directory.

Sigh. Auction Advisory seems to have dot bombed.
Or at least the folks they sold out to don't have the
faintest clue.

Duh - You have to go out and LOOK for auctions,
not wait till they decide to come to you. Especially
since most auctioneers remain web clueless.

But many newspapers now have online classified
auction listings. I've added a few key resources to
our Auction Help library page.

Our completely revised and updated Math Stuff
Library page is now close enough that we can call it
a work in progress.

The old Math page temporarily remains available here.

Certain web images that open in a new window may
not allow direct printing. Possible workarounds are to
try and right click your mouse. In IE, you can then
"save picture as". In NetScape, you can "save image
as". Other browsers also may let you mail the image
to yourself. The new file can often then be printed.

By the way, one version of the PostScript fractal fern
appears as Bonus Supplement 2A of the PostScript
Secrets columns.

I've also placed some Fractal Fern Sourcecode here
and a Fractal Fern PDF file here.

You may want to play with the number of samples and
the linewidth for other effects or faster or slower calc
or display times. You also may want to convert to an
image if you are going to print or otherwise distribute
your results.

Note that the fern uses only 28 data points, giving
around a 30,000:1 lossless compression. Which
approaches fair to middlin even.

Uploaded all of my PostScript Secrets columns as an
ezine archive.

This older content is presented as a historical archive
and has ~not~ been updated. Nor is it quite up to our
current display standards.

Note in particular that our area code is now (928)
and that PostScript code today is normally run using
Distiller, instead of printer based.

Note also that some of the earlier fancier tricks
happened ~before~ unlocked font paths became
available. email me for the latest info.

These will shortly be added to our PostScript library
page, which is currently way overdue for updating.

Added some new links to our Auction Help library
page.

Picked up some nice General Radio gear. Including
a 1320B oscillator, a rare 1557A vibration analyzer,
a 1952 filter, and a classic 1601A VHF bridge in
excellent condition.

email me if you have any interest in these.

Our absolutely mint GR Strobe Knobs remain
available in quanity on our Bargain Pages.

Latest Blatant Opportunist #67 is on Step-by-step
Image Prep. Sample Bitmaps and Sourcecode are
also newly available.

This sourcecode shows you how to add multiple JPEG
images to your PostScript files before Distilling them.

You can dramatically improve the legibility of all
our PDF files by switching your display to maximum
resolution and viewing at 200% magnification. You
can also use Adobe's eBook Reader to have these
files read to you in Sweedish.

Yumpin Yimminy.

Latest Blatant Opportunist #65 is on test equipment
refurb, especially for eBay resale. Links have been
added to our Blatant Opportunist and Auction Help
library pages.

Seems the Post Office discovered eBay. Bids seem
outrageously high. About to add more of their links
to our Auction Help page.

We are about to scrap out a Micro Control M12
memory test system for the racks, casters, and
power supplies. Please email me IMMEDIATELY
if you have any interest in this $300,000.00 system.

Improved our recent Fourier Checkplot .

Just got a Micro Control M12 memory test and burnin
system. For which your tax dollars paid $293,000.00
email me if you are interested in picking this up at a
bargain price.

Uploaded a Fourier Checkplot for our Magic Sinewaves.
Additional details are found here.

Added some extended harmonic analysis to our "best"
Magic Sinewave. This (longer and slower) code clearly
shows how the unwanted energy is driven WAAAAY
up in frequency, and verifies that an actual pulse train
can be built up with a slowly converging harmonic sum.
Use this file only for spectral analysis.

Got the differential delta Magic Sinewave Calculators
working.

These should approach the ability to zero out the first
ONE THOUSAND harmonics of a digitally synthesized
sinewave. The current high count ready-to-use calculator
is 348 pulses per cycle or 87 pulses per quadrant. Thus
zeroing ALL harmonics to the 348th.

"Soft" limits imposed by Java Script capacity and
available memory are likely to present the next barrier.
But 2000 zeroed harmonics seems a plausible goal.

Crossing palm with silver if you want to see it reached.

Note that the Dutch quantities offered in our eBay
Auctions are usually to meet a posting price point.
Very often, we will have dozens or hundreds more
units in stock than described. So ask.

Yes, we are always happy to combine lots to give
you the lowest possible shipping costs. email us
for any and all help.

Started a 2002 What's New. Archived the 2001
What's New.

Added the latest and best of our JavaScript "N"
calculators to our Magic Sinewave library page.
CD ROMs containing thousands of useful plots,
sequences, and generation sourcecode can now
be made available to Magic Sinewave partners
and associates.

Here's an interesting Product Liability Notice.

Proved the feasibility of partial differential Magic
Sinewave calculators. These are ~much~ faster.
More significantly, their key calculation time only
goes up with the square of the number of pulses
rather than the cube, meaning that as many as several
thousand harmonics can now be forced close to zero.

Preliminary calculators and autogeneration code is
currently available to our Magic Sinewave partners
and associates.

Found an interesting web sit of electronic logos useful
to help identify strange chips. Still could use your help
on identifying this chip. These fiber optic transceivers
look super interesting.

( logo site down? )

You can easily build your own gas chromatograph or
similar lab instruments with these TSD temperature
sensitive detectors that double as precision mass
flowmeters. Listed along with our other current eBay
offerings. Two remain available.

Verified an important marketing lesson: Our surplus
recorder pen motors refused to sell at any price, but
we quickly sold out of our laser light show galvo kits. 

Uploaded MSCAL172Q.shtml, a Magic Sinewave that
zeros out its first 172 even and odd harmonics. Code
( while still suboptimal ) is much faster, especially for
Delta Friendly options. The "floating point display shift"
hassle is also now gone with a new formatter.

The amazing thing is that my PostScript program writer
sourcecode  that generates the JavaScript calculator
routines builds the entire highly custom 700K file error
free in a mere three seconds!

Sourcecode is available to Magic Sinewave Partners
& Associates.

Linked Arcata Pet's Imageviewer32 in the Auction
Help library. This is my favorite image processing
package. It does Photoshop essentials far faster,
simpler, and cheaper. Free full featured trial.

Added a Parabola From Three Points math routine to
the Cubic Spline, PostScript, and Math library pages.

Bee just picked up a bunch of professional medical books and is
offering these on eBay. Let her know your needs.

Added a link to the US Post Office auctions to our
Auction Help page.

This is basically urban lore, though. To participate,
you have to own an eighteen wheeler and live in Atlanta.
Sales would appear to be quite competitive and almost
certainly favor long term insiders.

I cannot believe that all of the USPO mistakes and
leftovers nationwide can be offered in a single short
auction every few months. Nor that they would be
reshipped zillions of miles.

There would appear to be all sorts of new uses for
Magic Sinewaves that have their first one or two
thousand harmonics zeroed out. These would still
be more efficient than PWM, have no possibilities
of audio whine, would allow extreme speed ranges,
and might permit harmonic trapping rather than
low pass filtering.

The current versions of the JavaScript calculators
take too long to use above 200 zeroed harmonics.
New methods that involve partial differential
evaluation are under active development. They
should be much faster.

These await your funding.

Updated the mil surplus info on our Auction Help
page.

Basically, all DRMO auctions are now privatized,
except for term sales and hazmat. Most are handled
by one firm going by the three names of Levy-Latham,
Surplus Bid, or Government Liquidation.

                                 ( earlier material appears here. ) 

Or you can return to our home page. Or use your back arrow. Or...

You can click here to...
Ask a Technical Question.	Pick up Surplus Bargains.
Download our Free eBooks.	Request a Lecture.
Explore Magic Sinewaves	Schedule a Canal Tour.
Find out what a Tinaja is.	Send an email to Don.
Get a Lancaster Classics USB.	Solve a Research Problem.
Hang with Marcia Swampfelder.	Study our Recommended Books.
Learn Patent Alternatives.	Take a Gila Valley Dayhike.
Look into Energy Efficiency.	Visit the Marbelous Pancakes.
Master Bezier Cubic Splines.	Watch a PostScript Video.
View our Classic Reprints.	Get a Hanging Canals USB.