Tech retiree looking for an interesting project

Welcome aboard! Your history almost exactly matches mine.

Posted by: @sj_h1

Welcome aboard! Your history almost exactly matches mine.

 

Cool - did you spend any time working at IBM? 

@peterpoggi No, Texas Instruments. Did punch card programming an IBM main frame

Posted by: @sj_h1

@peterpoggi No, Texas Instruments. Did punch card programming an IBM main frame

Yep, me too - first IBM mainframe was an IBM 360/65. Oh the good old days. LOL   Now there's more computing power in my iPhone. 

Have you applied Arduino to your model railroad? I want to do something more than a RC car going forward, back and turning.  I'm thinking more along the lines of a laser death ray that will allow me to take over the world! Or maybe something in-between.. 🙂  

@peterpoggi My railroad is long gone. I used to keep it going because my dad was really into it.

Never too late to start a new layout. Even a shelf type can offer lots of enjoyment.

Im currently building my dream layout, using Arduino NANO with RS485, CMRI and JMRI for signal system.

Now here's the twist ... If I am not trying to sell it hard to you it cant be a Con ? Am I right? ... You ask me .. I have spent my whole life chasing diamond drill rigs over the Australian continent.

I am not pretending that the project I am diddling around with has any merit what soever... In fact if it did I might even be motivated to invest on it a little...

Kindest

M

@kk4ej That sounds pretty interesting - any pictures? 

@peterpoggi The 65 was a great piece of hardware. I was an IBM CE in-depth trained on the 65. I started Jan 66 first trained on 1401 then moved up to 360/65 before moving into Software CE because they had too many guys trained on the ultra-reliable 65. This all happened in Hamilton Ontario Canada. Before that I got introduced to computers in 1959 and dabbled a little until IBM. 911 pretty well put me out of business since as a Canadian without a degree I couldn't cross the border to work but I did manage a little remote work until retiring to the cabin on the lake in 2004. Working remote from there was a challenge at 56K baud (one of the last T bar Bell exchanges, still not digital AFAIK) but I did still get the odd consulting gig for a few more years. Then I switched to house renovating before hitting the road whereI am now.

Posted by: @mark-bolton

Dear PeterPoggi  (@peterpoggi)

 

Here is a a harebrained project that is so full of twists and is . so niche..

 

In the Western Australian Gold Fields the topography is a limitless peneplain with no relief. Whose Geology is only from any movement of liquids in our regololith , given a mile from here your elevation might be one inch ... and has been for nigh on a million years... The Western Australian Goldfields are am asymtotic stitch about from the sort of gold that was found in the Klondike or in Victorian Orogenic Deposits. In The Klondike they looked for flakes over the course of months. And al flowing directly from hard rock deposits upstream.

 

The Capacity of Gold deposits to build up as a sort of slow (very) deposition in unbelievable stable typologies  just though gentle switches in ground water electrochmistry. But given the time scales involved it is the only way to describe.is is ..as a recomposuiton from a Placer expresion of mineralisation to a really counterintuitive  an  expresion of an Ore reserve.

 

The Gold Isn't found where it first blew out of the ground in association with other hydrothermals to dig it's self into a mountain side under the rubruck of Mothers LOde.

I guess I'm a bit confused - are you suggesting a device that could detect and/or trap gold flakes in a stream? There used to be active gold mines in my area, about 90 years ago. No longer operating because they no longer yielded enough to make it worth while. 

Posted by: @ronalex4203

@peterpoggi The 65 was a great piece of hardware. I was an IBM CE in-depth trained on the 65. I started Jan 66 first trained on 1401 then moved up to 360/65 before moving into Software CE because they had too many guys trained on the ultra-reliable 65. This all happened in Hamilton Ontario Canada. Before that I got introduced to computers in 1959 and dabbled a little until IBM. 911 pretty well put me out of business since as a Canadian without a degree I couldn't cross the border to work but I did manage a little remote work until retiring to the cabin on the lake in 2004. Working remote from there was a challenge at 56K baud (one of the last T bar Bell exchanges, still not digital AFAIK) but I did still get the odd consulting gig for a few more years. Then I switched to house renovating before hitting the road whereI am now.

You've got some years on me. In 1959 I was only 5 🙂  My first exposure was in 72 at a community college BASIC programming class. I knew then I was hooked.  Then got into COBOL, PL/1, CICS DB/DC, VBA. Now that I'm retired from that I'm a volunteer EMT/FF for the county. I'm hoping Arduino & Raspberry Pi will keep my brain hydrated. 

Greetings and welcome!

Now this is an interesting thread, I enjoyed the train ride from IBM to the Western Australian Gold Fields and back.

@spudger I know what you mean - I'm experiencing motion sickness also