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The Weekend Thread (Fri-Sun)

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Reply 101 of 146, by SirNickity

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For those that aren't already aware of it, Creative released an add-on card that was meant to "upgrade" a Sound Blaster 16 to an AWE32. IIRC, it was only released through OEM channels to allow PCs with onboard SB16 chipsets to ship with an AWE32 option. It's just the EMU8K, sample ROM, and RAM slots on an ISA card. It has a blank slot bracket, but there are footprints for an SPDIF jack and I think a line-out jack. They aren't populated and I'm not 100% sure whether all the necessary components are installed to make them work if you added the physical jacks. As it ships, the only I/O is an 8-pin header -- standard 0.1" 2x4 male pins -- in the middle of the card. It's an exercise for the systems integrator to work out how that connects to the existing audio device.

In my case, I had a retail SB16 with a Wave Blaster header on it. Of course, one of the things that header does is accept line-level audio from the synth card, so I figured it might be possible to use that as an auxiliary input from the Goldfinch card. So, I got the pin-out for the Goldfinch connector, and the WB header, and made an adapter cable with a 2x4 connector on one side, and a 2x13 on the other.

On the Goldfinch side, you have audio out L and R, a missing pin for an orientation key, and the rest is ground. Unfortunately, the pins don't line up exactly on the WB header, and you have to make sure to steer clear of the PSU pins on the WB side as well, so it requires a little funny business on one end to get all the signals where they need to go. I have a diagram on my workbench at home I can post if it would be helpful, along with a picture of the completed cable.

Alternatively, you can just use female-to-female header jumper wires to connect the L and R pins, and just rely on the system ground. That's what I did to test it, and it worked fine. I just wanted something a little more tidy.

Reply 102 of 146, by badmojo

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Very interesting thanks! I've connected a GoldFinch to a soundcard's CD audio in, that was easy enough, but then of course you can't connect your CD-ROM to the sound card. What I ended up doing was soldering a 3.5 audio jack into the GoldFinch (pads supplied, so the hardest part is making a neat hole in the bracket), and then I can simply connect it directly to my mixer.

Handy cards those and they can obviously work stand alone or with non-Creative sound cards so you can get AWE + sound fonts + fave sound card going very easily.

Life? Don't talk to me about life.

Reply 103 of 146, by SirNickity

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Yeah, they are absolutely the hidden gem of 90s audio cards, IMO. If they had sold those in the retail channel, I bet they would have printed money for Creative. Anyway, sorry for derailing the thread. 😀

Reply 104 of 146, by bjwil1991

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Another weekend:

Friday (after I get off of work): going to McDonald's to surprise someone, wait for my package to come in the mail, diagnose every car on my driveway with my tablet with the new Bluetooth OBD2 scanning tool (BlueDriver), and the movies (possibly).
Saturday: eating, thrifting all day, movies (possibly), and other stuff.
Sunday: laundry day and other stuff.

Discord: https://discord.gg/U5dJw7x
Systems from the Compaq Portable 1 to Ryzen 9 5950X
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/retropcuser

Reply 105 of 146, by brostenen

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This weekend we have had my children to stay. And most of the time, we have just been talking, eating, watching BBC produced nature documentaery and watching a couple of movies on Netflix. Ordered pizza online for delivery and so on. Then we have had my girfriends parents dog to stay between friday and saturday. And I have mixed a bottle of "Death ketchup". That is standard tomato ketchup, mixed with lots of hot chilli sauce/paste and then lots of sweet chilli sauce. Labeled it with skull's and cross-bones, just for the sake of fun.

Friday:
Serving coffee and cake for my childrens mother, as she was dropping the kids off. Pizza for dinner, and then watching movie with the children.

Saturday:
Took the dog for a morning walk and my children and girlfriend came along, serving nuggets for lunch, my son helped me install a harddrive in a Thinkpad R52 laptop. Serving hotdog for dinner, and put my son to bed. Watching Supernatural season 12 with my girfriend.

Sunday:
The kids will be picked up by their mother, and I will give her a bottle of death ketchup. I do not know what I will de with the rest of the sunday.

Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....

My blog: http://to9xct.blogspot.dk
My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/brostenen

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Reply 107 of 146, by bjwil1991

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Friday: bingo night
Saturday: bowling, thrifting, and some laundry
Sunday: rest of the laundry

Discord: https://discord.gg/U5dJw7x
Systems from the Compaq Portable 1 to Ryzen 9 5950X
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/retropcuser

Reply 108 of 146, by brostenen

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oeuvre wrote:

death ketchup?

Normal standard good quality tomato ketchup (the kind that are less sour than heinz and with more subtile spices to the taste). Then mixed with a genereous amount of sweet chilli sauce (aprox 10 percent) and then tons of some sort of really hot and slightly salty chilli sauce. Like tabasco yet a bit more salty. You end up with a strong, and equally salty, sour and sweet ketchup. Perfect for good quality sausages or in burgers. If you warm a baguette and cut it in half, make a hole down in the middle, fill it up with death ketchup and slam a sausage into the hole, then you get a nice hot dog.

Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....

My blog: http://to9xct.blogspot.dk
My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/brostenen

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Reply 109 of 146, by brostenen

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The children have easter holliday/break from school. And so we have them this weekend and to tuesday.

Friday:
Children were dropped off by their mother, and I served lunch for them all, including my childrens half big sister. (Oldest, another father that are a total duchebag and nobody likes him). So I still look at her as my daughter.

Saturday:
Road trip with my girlfriend, my children and my girlfriends parents. We drove halfway across the country, to visit my parents. Took a long walk in the forest/woods at my parents place. Right down to the ocean and then back to have coffee and then back home again.

Sunday:
Going to spend the day at the television, watching childrens movies with my children, and tons of popcorn. Doing nothing but eating, watching movies and just talking about what comes to our minds.

Monday:
The plan is to take a long walk with food packed and then stop to eat wereever we end up. Going to walk were we just please and just following the nose.

Tuesday:
Will be getting visitors, a single mother and her 3 and a half month old baby. Later that day, I will be dropping off my children at their mothers place.

Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....

My blog: http://to9xct.blogspot.dk
My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/brostenen

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Reply 110 of 146, by bjwil1991

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Friday: replacing the board and battery in my Nexus 7 2012 tablet (8GB isn't enough storage), Good Friday service.
Saturday: figuring out why my front left wheel is making a scraping noise.
Sunday: Easter Sunday, batting cages, and laundry day.

Discord: https://discord.gg/U5dJw7x
Systems from the Compaq Portable 1 to Ryzen 9 5950X
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/retropcuser

Reply 111 of 146, by bjwil1991

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Friday: getting pop at Meijer (11 for the price of 10), taking my dog to the vet for up-to-date shots, and Bingo night.
Saturday: getting a new wheel hub and tie rod end installed on the Uplander, last day of bowling, thrifting-ish, and bleeding the air out of my radiator.
Sunday: laundry day

Discord: https://discord.gg/U5dJw7x
Systems from the Compaq Portable 1 to Ryzen 9 5950X
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/retropcuser

Reply 112 of 146, by henryVK

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Friday: going to a outdoor gear store after work to pick up some shirts for vacation
Saturday: turning the compost pile, hopefully have some more compost to fertilize plants, plant some seedlings (borage, larkspur), pack for vacay
Sunday: vacate to Croatia for a week with the in-laws from 'Murica, little villa on the island of Korčula (aka "Black Corfu") in the Adriatic

Reply 113 of 146, by keenmaster486

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Friday (today): all-day school, practice some worship music with friends, a big worship event on campus (unrelated to the one I'm practicing for), then CRASH cause I'm tired as all get-out today
Saturday: Work - on a special secret project 😎
Sunday: Church, chill. Preferably do NOTHING, or maybe some cleaning, or just goof around with various projects I've had going.

World's foremost 486 enjoyer.

Reply 114 of 146, by wiretap

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Ok, this post is longer than I wanted, but here it is.

Today turned out to be interesting.. been looking for a new car for at least 6 months and didn't see a whole lot that I liked. I currently have a 2008 Evo X (tuned to ~400hp) that I have been daily driving for the past 122k miles. (literally zero problems with it ever) I gave up looking for something that matches it for the price. It's just not possible in a new vehicle. I wanted to stay under $31k. I'd have to spend over $42k if I wanted something to come close enough. I highly contemplated a Subaru STI, but my brother and parents owned recent model years and both had terrible engine problems -- which was appropriately recalled. I didn't want to deal with that potential issue.

Anyhow, I drove up to the car dealership I used to work at just after I got out of high school.. they carry Honda, Hyundai, Toyota, Kia, VW and a few other brands. I thought the Kia Stinger AWD would be a good option -- then I found it only came in an automatic.. lame.

I ventured over to the Hyundai lot because I thought a Veloster R-spec would be a decent daily commuter car. I previously owned a 2006 GTI hatchback purchased new and loved it. (despite having tons of problems and I sold it within 2 years of owning it) Well, they didn't have any Veloster R-specs outside, so I went into the showroom. It turns out they had a Veloster N with the performance package. I didn't even know it was released in the US because I saw an article on the i30N last year and they weren't sure it was coming to the US. I asked to test drive it, but they wouldn't let me.. I was like "well, I guess you guys don't want to sell cars?". I got up and started to leave.

The sales lady was flagging me down as I went out the door and told me to come back so she could talk with the manager -- I waited 10 minutes and they finally agreed to let me test drive it, 🤣. I'm 33 years old, but look 22 years old. Maybe they thought I couldn't afford it and just wanted to roast the tires or something. Anyhow, the test drive went well. I have a soft spot for hatchbacks.

Things I liked:
- Styling I love -- but my wife hates it 🤣. Black is my favorite color out of the 4 choices on this car.
- 3rd door makes it really convenient to get in the back, although it does look slightly odd. I have a 2 year old, so yea, kinda need it.
- Handling was superb -- in Sport+ mode, the shocks get adjusted to a very stiff setting. I like to feel the road, even if it means feeling the lane marker paint lines and every pebble
- The exhaust crackle between gear shifts is epic -- you can also quiet the exhaust down with a setting on the infotainment system
- 6-speed manual trans. The clutch felt very grippy, not bad at all. Engagement required very little travel off the floor - less than I'm used to, but that's fine and I can adapt.
- Gauge cluster and infotainment - cool shift lights, infotainment is pretty smooth and you can adjust every setting of the car's performance on it. Also has Android Auto support.
- 100k mile powertrain warranty -- essential as a daily commuter car

Things I didn't like:
- Power of the engine. I'm used to about 400hp, so it felt a little sluggish to me. It has builds boost quick, but it needs a tune to maintain higher boost at higher RPM's. You can feel it taper off too much
- Not AWD. I guess the limited slip differential makes it a little better to stomach, but every vehicle I currently own is AWD or full-time 4WD (Evo X, Mercedes GLA, Hummer H1)
- The rims don't look that great. Yea, they are 19", but the silver accent lines ruin it. If they were all black it would be slightly better.
- The seats are sub-par compared to how I'm used to primarily driving in Recaro's
- No sunroof, not even an option for it. I feel all hatchbacks should have a sunroof
- Seatbelts and several control buttons are powder blue to match the Hyundai N theme -- they look out of place in the primarily black and red car
- Big "H" logo on the grill. It is too predominant.

But anyhow, I ended up purchasing it, and under MSRP! The cons really don't outweigh what I like about the car. I plan on fixing a few things I don't like. Maybe some different rims, tune it to be above 300hp instead of 275hp, tint the windows, get a different grill insert, and I'll deal with the rest by keeping my Evo X.. haha. My wife doesn't want me to sell it anyway. I'll probably use it in the winter for snow under 6" since it does great, and I'll use the Hummer for snow above 6" and of course the apocalypse.

Here it is:
06mRHOGh.jpg

My Github
Circuit Board Repair Manuals

Reply 115 of 146, by brostenen

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Friday I cleaned the house.
Saturday I cleaned the house.
Sunday I played some Commodore64 games.

Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....

My blog: http://to9xct.blogspot.dk
My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/brostenen

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Reply 116 of 146, by SpectriaForce

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wiretap wrote:
The sales lady was flagging me down as I went out the door and told me to come back so she could talk with the manager -- I wait […]
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The sales lady was flagging me down as I went out the door and told me to come back so she could talk with the manager -- I waited 10 minutes and they finally agreed to let me test drive it, 🤣. I'm 33 years old, but look 22 years old. Maybe they thought I couldn't afford it and just wanted to roast the tires or something. Anyhow, the test drive went well. I have a soft spot for hatchbacks.

Here it is:
06mRHOGh.jpg

Nice car, but it's a hatchback and it has a manual transmission; that's so not-American 😊 It's a very European car.

In my country this car but with 5 doors instead of 3 (it's called the i30 2.0 T-GDI N1 Performance), with all taxes, costs € 51,797, so almost nobody buys it / can afford it 😵

Btw, what a stupid salesperson. The car is probably insured, so why not let seriously interested people drive in it?

I hope that you like it!

Reply 118 of 146, by gdjacobs

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Nice car. I can imagine it roaring off into the sunset until it's disappeared from sight -- a faint scent of kimchi and a memory the only thing left in the wake of it's tail pipes.

All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder

Reply 119 of 146, by bjwil1991

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Friday: packing up for the camping trip
Saturday: something
Sunday: Mother's Day

Discord: https://discord.gg/U5dJw7x
Systems from the Compaq Portable 1 to Ryzen 9 5950X
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/retropcuser