Zel's Fleet Blog - BX, Jag XJ-S, Sinclair C5, Mercedes 208D & 230TE, AC Model 70.

[mickthemaverick]

Do you mean random with a record so it doesn't repeat until all 142 have been played Zel, but still allowing you to pick any one you want from normal input?

[Zelandeth]

Do you mean random with a record so it doesn't repeat until all 142 have been played Zel, but still allowing you to pick any one you want from normal input?

Don't see a need for anything fancy, just spin the wheel roulette style and see where it lands (it already spins like a wheel). Probably have it do that if you pressed both flipper buttons at once to save a requirement for an extra button. Don't imagine it would be too hard to code that functionality in.

Someone learned something about the structural integrity of empty cardboard boxes this afternoon.



Then I found my calling in life. Knew I had to be good for something. Apparently I make a good pillow.



He was snoring quite impressively when I took this photo.

[Zelandeth]

It might be the beginning of the end for my website. Pretty much to the day that Google introduced their AI overview nonsense my traffic dropped off a cliff. This has been even more hurt by the fact that they are now also dropping pages from the index system simply because they haven't changed recently...because you know factual information on 40 year old computers and such changes so much over time...

I honestly don't know why anyone uses it given that every time I've looked at said AI overview the information given was blatantly wrong. Not just thin on facts or slightly off the mark, just outright wrong. I didn't think the pin out for a 6502 processor was a particularly difficult thing to get right...

The simple fact of the matter is that while I enjoy writing for it on the rare occasions I get the opportunity, for the sake of one or two visitors a day that I'm now seeing it simply isn't worth the costs of the domain registration and the power usage. When it was 20-40 a day with the odd spike into triple digits it felt worthwhile, even though those are laughably small numbers in the grand scheme of things. For single digits though, there's just absolutely no point. I imagine there are a lot of content creators in the same boat so a lot of information is just going to disappear.

Bit of a shame given it's been running in some way shape or form since 2002 (or 1998 if you include the *very* first iteration - it was created as a project for a computing class). I'd been thinking about writing up the pinball project properly as well as it's been quite interesting putting that together and figuring out ways around some of the challenges on the way. However what's the point of spending probably several tens of hours writing a page up, putting all the necessary references together etc, if nobody will ever see it?

[CitroJim]

Amen to all of that Zel You know my views on AI only too well...

I fear, if your website goes, an awful lot of hugely valuable archive material will be lost and that would be a shame...

The *only* vaguely good thing about AI is the massive amount of heat generated by a new datacentre in MK - one just up the road from you - is going to be used to keep MK Hospital warm... The reason the city's arterial roads are being dug up: to install the necessary infrastructure for this to happen.

I offer no comment on the overall economy of all of this... To determine that is well above my pay grade...

[Zelandeth]

Amen to all of that Zel You know my views on AI only too well...

I fear, if your website goes, an awful lot of hugely valuable archive material will be lost and that would be a shame...

The *only* vaguely good thing about AI is the massive amount of heat generated by a new datacentre in MK - one just up the road from you - is going to be used to keep MK Hospital warm... The reason the city's arterial roads are being dug up: to install the necessary infrastructure for this to happen.

I offer no comment on the overall economy of all of this... To determine that is well above my pay grade...

Don't get me started on the disorganised mess that set of works is... absolutely zero reason that needs to run down the middle of the road. Guess it's good the heat is being used for something but here's an idea...how about we just don't use all that energy that we really don't need to be in the first place. Plus I have about as much faith in any community heating project in the UK working as in my ability to keep my garage organised.

I did actually get a brief chance to play some pinball today and can confirm that the chimes work properly and do make EM tables so much better. The fact that they're NOT perfect I think is part of it. Especially if there's mad activity going on (like if the ball is bouncing around like mad between the pop bumpers) in that the chimes will miss the odd event because there's a physical limit on how fast they can work as there needs to be some time for the plungers to return to the rest position. That's a small detail which helps make it feel more real.

That time constraint was actually one of the limitations of EM tables in that they can and do drop points - once something has started the score motor running, the table literally cannot detect any further score events until it has rotated far enough to actually finish recording the last one. So there is very much a "speed limit" on how quickly they can record events.

If someone is curious I can actually try to explain a simplified version of how the logic is handled on a lot of EM tables as it's really quite fascinating. Especially when you realise all the things it's having to keep tabs (actual points scored, how many credits you have, how many players are involved, who's up at any given time, keeping track of bonus ladders, the match feature at the end of a game, and probably things I've forgotten) on just using relay logic!

[CitroJim]

Don't get me started on the disorganised mess that set of works is... absolutely zero reason that needs to run down the middle of the road.

Yes, and in retrospect it was a good job Erin decided she wanted to be born in the early hours of Sunday morning. Her dad (and mum) told me of the hair-raising drive to hospital as Erin was desperate to join the fun. Had her dad not been able to drive like someone who plays racing cars with Red Bull then Erin would have been born in an Audi!!! It would only have taken one delay at those road works...

If someone is curious I can actually try to explain a simplified version of how the logic is handled on a lot of EM tables as it's really quite fascinating. Especially when you realise all the things it's having to keep tabs (actual points scored, how many credits you have, how many players are involved, who's up at any given time, keeping track of bonus ladders, the match feature at the end of a game, and probably things I've forgotten) on just using relay logic!

Yes please!

[myglaren]

I wonder if that has happened to this website

An American spin-off from "The Straight Dope" that was very active but activity has declined considerably until recently there were only really four contributors, me being, one with only one or two posts a week and the others about the same.

[mickthemaverick]

I believe you said Green with Silver forks Zel?

https://www.i-bidder.com/en-gb/auction- ... 86011ea80f

[Zelandeth]

If someone is curious I can actually try to explain a simplified version of how the logic is handled on a lot of EM tables as it's really quite fascinating. Especially when you realise all the things it's having to keep tabs (actual points scored, how many credits you have, how many players are involved, who's up at any given time, keeping track of bonus ladders, the match feature at the end of a game, and probably things I've forgotten) on just using relay logic!

Yes please!

I'll see what I can do. It might be a little while though as it'll take a while to write out and there's no way I've the patience to do that when I'm not at an actual computer...especially as I'll absolutely want the schematic open on the screen in front of me when I'm writing it to make sure I'm not speaking complete nonsense. I won't be picking a massively complex table...Some of the last of the line of the EM era where they had really crammed them full had schematics that were about eight feet long.

I'll probably go with Aztec as it's a relatively conventional table, I know the gameplay reasonably well and because the schematics are readily available. You can take a look there if you want to whet your appetite Jim! I think that probably 90% of the projects that end up shoved at the back of peoples garages or parted out end up that way because folks have tried to fix faults on them without first making any effort to understand the sequence of operation - and that way you're only going to end up chasing your tail. Or folks trying to do a "quick fix" when what's actually usually the quickest way to get one up and running (reliably) is to go through the table end to end, clean every single switch and relay contact, visibly inspect the same to make sure that nothing is obviously physically broken or obviously grossly out of adjustment and make sure that any stepper units are moving freely and not gummed up with 60 year old grease. I'd say that probably will get eight out of ten tables up and running again absolutely fine.

-- -- --

I've got a grump today. It's a minor thing in the grand scheme of everything, but nevertheless has bugged me an irrational amount as it just feels symptomatic of the fact that attention to detail seems to increasingly be becoming extinct.

The BBC a year or two back made the entirety of Doctor Who available on iPlayer. As someone who grew up on a diet of sci-fi this is something which pleases me, and I'll enjoy revisiting a few things I remember from when I was a kid. My other half has never seen any of the older series either so I'd like to introduce them to the madness at some point. That's not the grump - the grump is in the fine detail of the actual video stream that's provided.

As you would expect, everything from the original 1963-1996 run was presented in a 4:3 aspect ratio. However the video stream very conspicuously ISN'T. It's a 16:9 stream with huge black pillars at either side of the actual video content. Which from a storage and bandwidth perspective just seems daft. Also means that I couldn't just stream the video directly to any period correct display device as I'd end up with it squished in the middle of the screen. The BBC logo is also positioned relative to the overall frame rather than the actual video content.

That latter fact is even more annoying on the 2005-22 run because on the last few series there the video (which is presented in a 720p stream by that point) doesn't *quite* fill the screen vertically - there's a 30 or so pixel gap at the top and bottom so the logo is hanging awkwardly half off the top edge of the video content - snapshot of the top left of a video being played back below (chose something completely nondescript so as to prevent any copyright issues).

Aside from just looking messy and unprofessional to me it irks me all the more because I can't fix that with a quick and dirty crop operation like I could with the earlier ones (as the logo was completely clear of the video content there), so I just need to put up with it.

It's a tiny detail...but C'mon guys, you're the BBC! You Can Do Better...I've spent some time messing with a video mixer (all analogue at that, which dates it a bit...) and if I'd let that output into the wild I'd personally have been ashamed of myself for doing such a shoddy job.

[Hell Razor5543]

This might interest you, Zel, especially the #convertable' Invacar;

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/cars/news/the ... 1d55&ei=12

[Zelandeth]

This might interest you, Zel, especially the #convertable' Invacar;

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/cars/news/the ... 1d55&ei=12

Don't get me started on that article, which I've seen doing the rounds in various forms. The amount of utter tosh and probably AI farmed "fact" in there boils my p**s.

Don't get me wrong - they are utterly unsuitable as a solution on the roads of today and a huge amount of the shortcomings mentioned are entirely valid. However things like the government choosing to end the scheme and replace it with Motability - no, Motability came first, and was instrumental in *allowing* the invalid carriage scheme to be wound down.

The reason the scheme was canned wasn't safely. Yes it was a factor, but the reason plain and simple was money. The scheme cost a small fortune to run, and with the catchment having been almost completely taken over by the Motability scheme meaning an ever dwindling number of users (a couple of hundred, mostly those who simply couldn't have a normal car suitability adapted - when the plug was finally pulled) meant that keeping a nationwide maintenance and repair network and complete set of spares on hand at a moment's notice made absolutely no sense.

Yes they're laughably unsafe compared to a modern car. I stand by my belief though that no more so than anything like a Reliant Robin or a Mini. Honestly I reckon probably better than a Mini simply because you are physically further away from all sides of the vehicle with a seatbelt that's securely fastened to some pretty serious metalwork rather than tinfoil.

Does this stop people putting absurdly powerful engines in Minis and the like? Of course it doesn't. Which would I rather take my chances in? A 200+ bhp nitrous equipped Mini or an Invacar? I'll take the Invacar please.

The simple fact of the matter is that if you're hit by a modern car at much above walking pace it's going to most likely be game over in either of them. Honestly that's probably the same in any small car right up until we started to see things like the original Mercedes A Series, the original Smart and the likes of the Peugeot 107 where safety standards usually seen only in bigger cars started to become the norm.

There is no reason that a modern incarnation of the Invacar couldn't be designed, produced and from a purely practical perspective work well. However, it would cost a bloody fortune to develop and build the things - remember that the original list price of the Invacar/AC Model 70 was considerably higher than that of a Mini - never mind all the admin and background infrastructure you'd need to back it up. Also there's the fact that social views have changed a LOT since the Invacar was introduced. They had a huuuuge social stigma even back then, which absolutely wouldn't be tolerated today. The simple reality of cars these days means that these would just have to be a LOT more expensive than the Model 70 was - it would have to be bigger, have at least for seats etc...oh, I've basically just described a Dacia Sandero or similar haven't I? So why bother?!? Especially when keeping in mind that the technology available to make adaptations to cars for those with physical problems has come on leaps and bounds in the last 40 years.

Let's also not forget that this is a whole new pot of money that the idiots would have to snap their fingers and make materialise out of somewhere. At the moment the money going to Motability (in many cases - especially where the higher value cars everyone likes to go on about, with a substantial up front top up out the pocket of whoever the car is leased to) is an existing component of the benefit system. A user can chose to either pocket that money and sort their own wheels or have one leased from Motability.

At the end of the day it's just a huge lease hire scheme, and honestly in my view offers very good value for what it does. The problem with claimants who really shouldn't have cars is far more to do with how utterly broken the assessment and award process is than the fault of Motability. The benefits system is a mess and has been for as long as I've been aware of it's existence - but deciding to reinvent the invalid carriage absolutely isn't going to help sort that problem!

Oh. Pretty much all of the fully closed body invalid carriages had at least some form of heating too. They got that wrong as well.

I'd in some ways love to see a similarly small (maybe two seater though) city focused car using modern technology being produced though...oh...wait...they made the Smart. Fact is with how huge everything has become these days a tiny car isn't ever going to be a big seller. Especially when the required equipment list to tick the basic safety features boxes alone would make it just pointlessly expensive. You're never going to get around the problem of being able to hide four of them in a BMW X5's blind spot though, that's just a reality of the road in 2025. Small cars are basically dead. I say that as someone who daily drives something which absolutely qualifies as a very small car, and has done north of 4000 miles in an Invacar!

I guess given the source of the brainwave it's to be expected really! Something they know will make headlines and grab attention but has no hope of (hopefully) ever going anywhere in the real world.

[CitroJim]

It's a tiny detail...but C'mon guys, you're the BBC! You Can Do Better...I've spent some time messing with a video mixer (all analogue at that, which dates it a bit...) and if I'd let that output into the wild I'd personally have been ashamed of myself for doing such a shoddy job.

Yes, that would niggle me too Zel!

I'll be having a look at the pinball stuff soon. Appetite is suitably whetted

[Zelandeth]

Should also have added in my last post that I didn't mean to jump down your throat regarding the Invacar stuff - reading it back it comes across far more like that than I intended. I do appreciate you thinking of me when you saw it.

-- -- --

Was having a random thought after a post on another forum this afternoon regarding the concept of a "it really DOES do everything" car and if I could pick one.

After a surprisingly large amount of thought I came to the conclusion that I had driven what for me would be the best candidate I can think of - and indeed even tried to import it at the time. It was this beastie I did a bunch of miles both behind the wheel of and as a passenger back in 2014 when we were visiting family in Michigan.





A 1998 Chevrolet Astro.

The equivalent over here would be a Transit Torneo. They're both van shaped...that's about where the similarities end to be honest though. Which becomes very apparent as soon as you open the door.



No park bench seats here, there's more padding on there than your average sofa. Only car I can think of which presents the same level of seat squidge would be my Renault 25.

First row of seats in the back are similarly well trimmed.



Rearmost seats are still more comfortable than most front seats made in the last 20 years.



With both rows of seats in place - unlike most 7 seaters - you still have a decent amount of cargo space. Plenty for everyday use or a couple of dogs to travel in.



Either or both of those rear seats rows can be removed in a couple of minutes.

Obviously it's extremely versatile. However it achieves that without the need to feel in the slightest utilitarian. On the contrary, while there's none of the hallmark items like the lashings of false wood or carbon fibre which seem to be needed for perceived luxury, it is honestly such a comfortable thing to travel in. Huge squishy armchairs, soft long travel suspension, 70 profile tyres, finger light controls, I'll take that over anything coming out of Germany today thanks. The longest run I probably did was five hours or so, including dealing with rush hour Detroit traffic and concrete slab construction roads as are the norm in that area. It felt like I'd been on the go for about half an hour.

Performance is another area where there's a bit of a void between this and anything made this side of the Atlantic. Over here that would probably have a diesel engine of somewhere around 2 litres, maaaaybe 2.3 at a stretch. This instead makes do with a 4.6 litre petrol V6. I don't think the actual headline power figure is all that spectacular, but it's got torque for days. It barely needs to come off idle in normal driving, but if you do put your foot down it will stand on its back end and take off down the road unfeasibly rapidly. In the case of this one which I'm pretty sure had shed some of the baffles from the exhaust, making an absurd angry V6 howl. The fact that it's such a torque monster meant that it wasn't actually horrifically bad on fuel either as the engine barely had to come off idle until you're on the motorway.

This was one which I really was sad to hand the keys back for. To the extent that I did actually look into the possibility of getting it imported at the time but I just couldn't find a way to do it in a way that I could afford (we had just bought a house!).

While it doesn't look as swanky as the Volvo, it does absolutely everything it does, as well and in even greater comfort and with even more space to play with.

I have had a look at these a few times since, but all of the ones I've found in the UK are either day vans which don't have any of the versatility that really makes this shine or panel vans. Nobody really bothered to import these "standard" ones in any numbers. I did find ONE a few years back - though it had been partly dismantled for a camper conversion which stopped once they found a bunch of rust, and then half the bits that had been removed were lost, suffice to say I walked away from that.

It's entirely a thought exercise, but if I did find one of these in as good shape as that one was I'd definitely be seeing if I could get hold of it. That condition is a challenge in itself as well given these are vehicles which tended to live hard lives.

So ends a random thought experiment that started earlier this evening.

[CitroJim]

That certainly is a well thought out vehicle. Bit bulky for the UK perhaps?

A good European version might be an early C4 Picasso. It will tick most, if not all, of the boxes the Chevvy does...

You know me, I'm a great fan of proper MPVs I mourn the fact that none are really sensibly available these days

[furriegurrie]

I’ve got a Renault Grand Espace initiale V6 automatic from early 2004 which does all these things too. Great van without actually feeling or looking like a van.