My first computer

Some time ago one of the younger folks (I think he was 17 at the time) at our game night said something like "Oh that reminds me of an old computer game."
I replied "I think your idea of an old computer game and my idea of an old computer game are not on the same scale."

To which he replied that the game in question was about 10 years old. I fired back "Oh, okay, well my first computer had 16 kilobytes of RAM and we saved programs to an audio tape drive..."

At that point one of the 20somethings in the group decided to chime in "I'm going to call shenanigans on that one." but here it is, my TI99/4A

The conversation left me thinking about my good old TI, this was my first computer, we got it around 1982, I'd have been about 6. This was a time when having a computer was kind of a big deal. The TI was already on borrowed time, it was discontinued in 1984, and as we didn't have a whole lot of money we didn't have a ton of accessories for it but it still holds a place in my heart. The TI was a big force in my life, it helped me to learn to read and do math, to learn how to type and a lot about how computers worked. When he brought it home my dad declared "This will take the boy through college." Actually it didn't even get the boy into high school. In junior high we got an Atari 130XE, an Atari mostly because my friend Nate had one. That computer was on borrowed time too but thats a story for another day.

Anyhow my favorite game of all time is "Tunnels of Doom: Quest for the King" which was basically the first RPG, a party of up to 4 adventurers descends into a dungeon to save the king and his orb of power. Actually what I didn't know at the time was that while the basic game came with "Quest for the King" and "Pennies and Prizes" there were other adventures that could be played with that one cartridge. The game actually came in 2 parts, the cartridge and, in our case, a cassette, that had the adventures. There was a disk based version too but we didn't have a disk drive to use that. I remember vividly the 200 seconds it took the load the cassette, forever at the time, even as an adult waiting for the cassette to do its thing is agonizing, there was to be a better way.

Well there is, look at the picture of the TI again, notice the thing on top? Thats a Raspberry PI, if you're not familiar the Raspberry PI is a credit card sized computer originally intended to get kids interested in computers, this one is connected to:

The conflagration hanging off the side of the computer is commonly called a sidecar, TI used this mostly for the speech synthesizer, in this particular sidecar is a 32K RAM expander (more than twice the original RAM) and a TIPI. The TIPI (pronounced tip-ee) is really more like a TI-PI and connects the TI to the Raspberry PI. This allows for all sorts of new things but mostly I bought it to have the PI act like a disk drive for the TI allowing me to load Tunnels Of Doom nearly instantly and easily save my games in progress, a 10 level dungeon takes many hours of play.

Overall this project has been tremendously fun although its also quite frustrating, I'm not a computer developer by any stretch of the imagination and the TIPI has stretched my skills to the limit, often I've told people "I'm not really sure I'm smart enough to have this thing..." which isn't far from the truth. I've really just scratched the surface of what its capable of but I'm having fun.


Oh and as a side note I've probably paid more for the TIPI, 32K RAM expansion and PI than my dad did for the computer in the first place...

Rental cars

I was all set to tell you all about the rental car I had last week in LA, I had a picture and everything and then I suddenly realized I didn't ever tell you about the rental car I had in June and frankly that one was a much bigger deal so lets drift back in time shall we?

Before today I guess I'd never really thought of this blog as a kind of online diary but in a way thats what it is. Somewhere deep down I hope that people are kind of interested in what I do and the way I write.

So anyway back in June I got sent to LA which isn't that unusual, what is unusual is that I finally realized that because my company rents so many cars I get to be Executive Class with National Car rental. National's system is really cool, you roll into the rental place and just pick out a car, your status determines which area you get to pick from and Executive Class gets you about the coolest cars they have. Thats a good thing, when I was out in February I was faced with a sea of white and grey Camrys. Now don't get me wrong the Camry is a good car but exciting it isn't. That time I ended up with a lime green Kia Soul which believe it or not is actually a really good car, I quite enjoyed it.

There I was, presented again with a line of boring Camrys and this time no lime green Kia to save me. I asked the attendant if they had a Fiat, I've always wanted to try a Fiat. He told me they didn't but that because I was Executive Class I could pick from the Executive Class section which included a BUNCH of Dodge Challengers. I'm not normally one for muscle cars but the Challenger is a nice looking car so I snagged a white one. They only had white and black and if you've ever been to southern California in the summer you know you want the white one.

Driving up the 5 highway to Burbank the Challenger was a disappointment. Don't get me wrong it had power and its comfortable but the windows are small and the big C pillar means the rear visibility sucks so its a tough car to drive in heavy traffic. Being that the highway ride wasn't real fun I knew I needed to find someplace to take the car that would be fun so Sunday I headed north east where I knew there were hills and hopefully fun roads. A friend had suggested the Angeles Crest highway through the Angeles National Forest which is where I headed.

The signs are great, right out of Jellystone Park. For a driver this place is AMAZING, the roads are twisty and you spend a good hour climbing up away from LA. I stopped at one of the first turnouts for pictures:

I was all excited about the view here but frankly this is at only maybe 2000 feet above sea level, the high point is Dawson Saddle at 7,903 feet which is by far the highest I've ever been in a car.

This is the view out on the other side of Dawson saddle looking out toward what I think is Lake Los Angeles in the distance, certainly I don't see any other dry lakes on the map.

Looking back up the road:

Dawson saddle is actually out of sight on the right. These big canyons are amazing and just ring with the roar of motorcycles.

The Challenger was very fun on these twisty roads, it wasn't really hampered by being a 6 cylinder engine since that little mill puts out lots of power, the problem was that it was geared very high and as such didn't have much in the bottom end, I bet my Jetta is quicker off the line but once you wind it up to 4500 rpm it starts to really take off. I kept the shifter in 2 and entered turns at maybe 35mph so I could scream out of them at 50 or 55mph.

Challenger gets a well deserved rest after Dawson Saddle.

The suspension and steering on the Challenger are very good, light but precise with just a hint of understeer when pushed. I didn't go too hard since it had hard rental car tires and I was worried about losing traction and sliding off a cliff.

If there was anything I was disappointed about it was the sound. The Chrysler engineers have done a very good job making the car very quiet and from inside the engine note is almost totally muffled. With the windows down (you'd better have the windows down on this ride!) when I was near a cliff wall I could get just a bit of exhaust noise reflected back on me. I'd guess the people behind me or on the other side of the canyon were getting my sound which made me a little sad.

The worst part of the trip is the return, I was to tired to turn around and run the 60+ miles back through the forest. Its draining working so hard in every turn with your adrenaline pumping. When I do it again I'll take a co-driver so we can trade off and drive it in both directions. 

There are some good views of the high desert scenery. California is in a serious drought and the farmers are starting to give up in some of the driest places. I saw trees that were dead and real honest to goodness tumbleweeds.

You should never take pictures while driving but I couldn't pass up these rocks sticking out of the ground like the cars at the Cadillac Ranch.

Driving back is mostly super slab highway but I did spot a sign for "Route 66 Historic Segment" which of course I had to check out.

Theres nothing really that special about the physical aspect of RT66, its just road but driving down this little stretch out of the big hills I could imagine folks headed west during the dust bowl looking for a better life in the promised land of California where as Woody Guthrie explained they would find they didn't have the "do-re-mi" and they'd better go back to beautiful Texas. A freight train was lumbering in the other direction blowing its lonesome whistle as it climbed the grade. I was glad I was headed back to my hotel in Burbank and my modern lifestyle. To celebrate I had dinner at Hooters with a nice cold beer and hot chicken wings then went to bed early to dream of the Challenger's roar.

Jetta to the doctor again

After all the excitement with the Jetta a couple weeks ago I hoped we'd be in for some quiet time. Not so. All the monkeying around with the turbo oil line apparently unsettled the three way coolant pipe that lives under it causing a pretty severe coolant leak. This had me paranoid because at first I couldn't figure out where the coolant was going, just that it disappeared. I was super relieved when I realized it was dripping from the three way pipe.

Next big problem, its way too cold and snowy for me to wrestle this one in the driveway so its back to Keith at KMH motors in Lowell which is a solid 45 miles from here. Will we make it? Actually I'm going to stack the deck on this one, I ordered a tow dolly from Uhaul, we'll tow the car to Lowell and have a day out. Angie needs to buy new sneakers so we'll go up to Nashua and shop, then have lunch in our favorite Pho restaurant. Keith says he can replace the 3 way pipe and reseal the IP in one day. The IP leaking is probably what caused the issue in the first place, it drips diesel fuel onto the 3 way pipe which ruins the rubber hose. I'm not entirely sure the IP is leaking now but I want to maximize the shop time, if theres any sign its leaking or might leak in the near future I want it fixed now. In for a penny, in for a pound...

Concern abated?

Its been just over a month and this blog has gotten just over 1000 views. Thats a large multiple of what I was getting in the past (around 1000 a year) so apparently my plea has helped at least a little.

Anyway last week was deer camp. We didn't shoot any deer although with some good snow Monday/Tuesday I was able to spend some time tracking a couple around the farm. At one point I wasn't far behind one but never could catch up. I spent the week hunting with my friend Mike, we saw:
1 rabbit. Well 1 rabbit in the wild, there was another hanging around camp but I don't shoot our "tame" rabbits.

4 partridge. We never really had the chance to shoot. Mike probably could have gotten a shot at one of them but it would have been questionable so he was probably right not to.

A couple squirrels. Mike managed to shoot one. Red squirrels are a bit of a menace so this is more pest removal than anything else.

And the deer I hit with the truck. Yeah, hit it with the passenger side front bumper. It broke the lower plastic surround on the headlight and knocked out the fog light which I never did find. I couldn't find the deer either so apparently it didn't die.

Overall it was a fun week at camp, it was fairly cold, in the high 20s during the day most of the week and in the teens at night. Our new insulation worked out perfectly, we still had snow on the roof after 3 or 4 days even with Eric getting it up to 85 degrees inside. We do need to put in a better supply of wood, although our consumption has been cut about in half we still burned maybe 1/8 cord during the week and while we had plenty of wood if we'd tried to stay a few more days we'd have had to use some stuff that was pretty wet. My Mark 2 wood rack (which I forgot to get a finished picture of) worked out great, its exactly the right size. In the spring I'll build another one, we really do need two piles, one for dry wood and one for drying.

RUST!

I'll admit I got a little taken in on this car, its pretty much rust free from the top of the rockers up but pretty heavily rusted from the rockers down but only about 4 inches wide, the bottom of the car is actually pretty good.

To start I took the wire wheel on my angle grinder and ground off some surface rust. I started at the front of the car on the driver's side working from the rocker up so just above the really bad part.

Once I ground off the rust back to clean metal I brushed on some POR15. I'm using their gas tank sealer because I had some. I like using the gas tank sealer because its very thin and brush strokes are pretty well hidden.

So then I'm left with a choice, the surface rust is stabilized and while there aren't any holes underneath I know that there will be holes soon and since winter is on its way this problem will become very bad by next year and that will ensure this is a three year car, maybe even just a two year car. So after a lot of debate and some poorly considered fiberglass I went to the hardware store and bought some new cutting wheels. So with my new cutting wheels I sliced out a 4" x 12" segment from the front of the car and welded in a piece of old computer case. I like working with old computer cases because the metal is very dense, this is because we'd like to have computer cases be non-magnetic. This is actually some of my better welding, I wish I'd gotten a picture. Its a LOUSY place to weld, I jacked up the car and got a stand under it but I still had to lie on my back and weld up, the outside wasn't bad but the inside was a drag. Once that was done I ground down the welds and wire brushed the whole thing before brushing on more POR15. In a couple places I filled in little holes with fiberglass and more POR15. It would have been very hard to weld behind the front fender and I didn't want to go through pulling the fender. Maybe next spring I'll have a chance.

So anyway I figure this side of the car needs 2 more feet of 4" wide on this side and if this side needs it I'd bet the other side needs it too. Thats probably going to use up this whole computer, fortunately we just replaced our microwave and I'm told old microwaves make good repair metal too.

Cold starts

People who drive gas powered cars made in the last 20 years generally don't pay any attention to temperature. Those of us with older diesels (23 and 25!) do, at ~10F my 240D will get a little ornery at -10F it'd be difficult and at -20F it won't start without help. With the magic of the block heater it'll start no problem at all temps.
Anyway if you take a look at Youtube there are tons of coldstart videos. The interesting thing I find in those is that they're mostly from metric countries (not the US basically) so you get "Coldstart, 10C" or "Coldstart -10C".
This winter will be the 6th in which I've driven a diesel car, so 3 winters each the 240D and the 190D plus one winter screwing around with my 300TD. The 190D has a more modern engine and starts WAY easier than the 240D but either way I figure I've got a masters degree in diesel engine cold starts. Let me start by saying -10C isn't cold... Thats 14F which isn't even the beginning of cold. Cold starts at -10F, real cold starts at 0F and bitterly cold starts at -10F. Here in central MA we can expect one or two mornings a winter at -20F which is the start of take your breath away cold. The guys in the extreme north scoff at all this of course.
Anyway what follows here is what you need to know to start your old diesel Mercedes in the cold. This should basically apply to other makes too but I dunno...

#1. Throw that starting fluid away and smack yourself for even suggesting it. The MB is an indirect injection diesel with glowplugs, you use that crap you'll crack a prechamber and the engine is toast.

#2. If your battery is older than 3 years its automatically suspect, if its older than 5 you need to replace it. Don't kid yourself into thinking you can get "just one more year" out of it, you can't. I spent one miserable winter where the 240D wouldn't start even at 15F because the battery was bad. It finally failed completely and I was amazed when a new battery fixed a host of issues. If the battery is older than the toddler next door it needs replacing.

#3. Synthetic oil is your friend, Mobil 1 5w40 is best followed by 0w40. I'm not a huge fan of the 0w40 as my cars both clattered a bit more with it, I don't think it hurt anything but still... 15w50 will do in a pinch if its all you can get. 15w50 will still flow better than conventional 15w40 at cold temps but the other two choices will flow better still. Put a bottle of conventional 15w40 oil in the freezer and you'll see it turns into honey. How well is that honey lubricating your engine when its cold out? If you've got a block heater you can get away with conventional oil but remember you might want to travel somewhere that plugging in isn't an option...

#4. Glow plugs. Marshall used to chide me for my suggesting to change the glowplugs before they failed. He said that glowplugs would go 100,000 miles without being changed. I contend that when glowplugs fail its always at the least opportune time. If you've ever change glowplugs outside at -10F (I have!) you know what I mean.

#5. Water is the enemy. It'll condense into your fuel tank then freeze and you're in trouble. It'll also give a place for algae to live. Treat your fuel tank with a water remover at least once in the fall. I use isopropyl alcohol at 2x the recommended strength once in October sometime. Then I run a bottle of Diesel Kleen (from PowerService) in Novemeber sometime. I use a whole bottle of Diesel Kleen in about 1/4 tank of fuel which is probably 10x the recommended concentration but I never have water or gelling issues.

#6. Make sure you've got winter fuel. When I first got my 190D it had been sitting for months and had summer fuel in it. It would start but wouldn't go in any gear but first. I put a full bottle of Diesel Kleen in and ran it. That car has a fuel thermostat that heats the fuel so after 20 minutes or so I could drive fine. I drove until the tank was mostly empty and refilled.

-The actual cold start -
So its -10F out and you need to start your car. Lets say you don't have anywhere to plug it in either. When I was driving the 240D that was how things went most of the time for me as we lived in an apartment...
Okay get in the car, turn off all electrical loads. You made sure to turn off the wipers last night right? Make sure the heater fan is off too. We're going to need every amp available. Key on, the glowplug light should come on. Wait the 20 seconds or so until the light goes out and then wait 10 seconds more. Cycle the key back to off and then on, wait the 20 seconds again and then again 10 seconds more.
You're only going to get one shot at this, if the car doesn't start you're in the hurt...
Pump the throttle (gas pedal) to the floor 3 times, then hold it all the way down, FULL THROTTLE!
Okay key to start, the engine cranks, HOLD THE KEY ON START. Yeah I know, your dad told you to only crank for a couple seconds, he told you you'd ruin the starter otherwise because it'd overheat. Hey, its -10F, its not going to overheat. If you stop cranking now the car will be harder to start than if you don't and it will thus put more wear on the starter, crank until it starts. This is what momma benz says to do and thus the best thing for your car... Except maybe for my alternate start method, more on that later.

Within 20 seconds you should start to hear encouraging noises. If your battery starts to die at this point it needs replacing, even if the car does start. The battery should be able to crank for a good minute at this temp without dying. The encouraging noises should get more and more consistant (pop.....pop, pop......pop, pop,pop.....pop,pop,pop,pop...etc) don't give up yet keep at it until the car is actually running. Once the encouraging noises are mostly constant release the key and ease back on the throttle. On these older cars when its real cold out if you come off throttle too fast at this point lots of times they'll die, so ease back on the throttle, keep it at high idle for maybe a minute. You've used up a lot of what your battery had to offer, if the car dies now you might have a hard time restarting. My 240D has a high idle knob for situations like this, it'll keep the idle above what it normally would be. I've never had it working enough to try it. I've bought all the parts so I hope to try it out this winter.

So your car is running, take off eh? DON'T hang around waiting for it to warm up. All cars warm up best (most quickly, most evenly) by driving around. That isn't to say romp on it and merge with freeway traffic right away, drive easy for a mile or two and you'll be all set.

-Curt's alternate diesel Mercedes starting proceedure-
So the above didn't work, or you've got bad glow plugs or a bad battery or heavy oil or your block heater croaked or its -20F and your 240D won't start no matter what, what now? I had this a lot that year the battery in my 240D wasn't any good.
Start your pickup truck, its a gasser right? It always starts, no worries. Why do you drive a diesel then? Well economy of course.
Go wake up your wife, you'll need help for this. Get out the strap and connect the pickup to the car.
Let your wife drive the pickup, give her CLEAR instructions on where to go and how fast to drive. Don't make her guess about anything and remember not to yell at her.
Your car is manual trans right? So she doesn't have to pull you very fast so lets say 25mph. A fullsize pickup is better at this but any truck (or car) will do a smaller vehicle may have traction problems so your tower may have to go faster, you'll need to experiment.

So at 25mph you put the car in 2nd gear (maybe 3rd, experiment) and ease out the clutch. Don't just dump the clutch or the tow vehicle may lose traction... Ease out the clutch and you should hear the engine cranking over. You may need to let it crank over for awhile (especially at -20F) before it'll fire. Careful with the throttle here, you don't want to smack into your tow vehicle! Once the car is running and everybody's stopped get out and take the strap off. Put the strap in your car with you, you might need it later...
Thank your wife, appologize for yelling at her, bring her something nice that evening.

-Curt