dreams

So I go to the TRW swap meet, on the last Saturday of the month, it goes 7-11:30 am, but you better leave early as the sun will burn you, still feel my neck peeling skin, not something I should subject myself too, skin cancer is definitely a risk for me, my dad got it. But there are so many booths and the offerings and prices are very compelling. I don't think the vendors get much for their efforts, but the space the gain by selling out. I was on the look for a DS3 router with a HSSI card, but I guess T1 is about the best that I could do at this venue. Instead I bought things I didn't need, that end up stealling time from me like a passwd protected 1 GigB USB thumb drive, $7 and a SouthWing SH315, which won't work with the laptops for Skype, the reason I bought it, but might with the N95, not too confortable to wear, thouhg, $15, anyone want it? So there goes my dream of buying a DS3 router for cheap for the new office. And who knows if these laptops have bluetooth, they both seem to have a symbol on the, but I can't find support for it.
I was rather intregued by some older technology, like the telegraph. When you think about the simplicity of running one strand of cable, perhaps grounding the other and managing to send a signal between towns, this must have been quite a revolution in the 1800s. Seems that smoke signals and even the internet are now considered to be telegraph, or the long-distance transmission of written messages without physical transport of letters. But I think of it being that key with morse code, which could easily be done with smoke or light as well, but the key to the left works with electricity. I almost felt like buying a key, it is just such a simple signal generator. I wonder if someone could actually transmit ASCII binary on it at some slow baud rate? Might be a Defcon challenge.

I was really impressed with the great condition of this 1957 record cutting machine with a radio and a mic. So you could cut your record off the air, AM radio or from a live band, kind of amazing technology. I have to say that the sound quality of the recordings was first rate, perhaps better then some current technology, wonder if I can hear the limits of digital and transistors. It had a quality I haven't heard in a while. Not a bad deal for $250, but alas, what would I do with this?