Tomorrow, it’s a drive to Miami. That’s where these “For Sale” signs are finally beginning to crop up. I admit I don’t feel too sad when I see foreclosures happening in Coral Gables. It’s like, gee, it’s going to be tough to live without a swimming pool. Ermaghart, no gazebo. Next, they’ll be reduced to cutting their own lawns.
The restaurant computer has some weird glitch I can’ troubleshoot on the phone. MS operating systems are capable on an infinite variety of undocumented screwups. Between coffee at the bakery and rainstorms, I’ll spend time trying to duplicate the problem. I won’t see JP, he is painting his brother’s office at Mercy [Hospital].Between computer sessions, I built a working circuit of the type used by computers to add binary numbers. I’ll be splitting the blog away from electronics where the detail gets too difficult to follow for entertainment. But I was ever so proud of this circuit in the sense that it forced me to tie three topics together sol they’d stay still long enough for me to really get it.
Locally, you don’t need the newspapers to figure out how the economy is performing. You need only look at the amount of traffic down Biscayne Boulevard. I watched it a few minutes in anticipation of my scooter trip mańana and that’s a grim picture. Then I hear later in the day the majority of my bingo people, who work at the same place, were laid off four days this week. Even in my best days, I could not pay my rent with one day’s wages.
Here’s a photo of a cat family that has taken over one of the foreclosed spots near Alaine’s. Technically, this photo is from tomorrow. I wanted to show how these feral cats have a nine-bedroom ensuite and other people don’t. Then again, these cats never lied to me. I’m lounging in my Florida room without a care in the world. The calls from the old band are arriving regularly right on this first weekend in a month I won’t be able to rehearse. The scooter is acting up, which reveals even when treated fine, these vehicles begin to show their age around 8,000 miles. It’s minor things, but taken as a whole, the scooter needs an overhaul. The left brake doesn’t operate the tail light. The alternator isn’t charging the battery, which on its own is dies overnight. The cheap chrome paint is peeling and the foot lever on the kick starter has a broken spring. If I get a second vehicle, this scooter will be relegated to around town and grocery trips. My estimate is this and any subsequent trip to Miami will take 1% off the remaining life of this scooter.
I won this week’s Lexulous (Scrabble) game with a 111 point lead. Hooray for “puritan”, “kvell”, “yoga”, and “murther”.
ADDENDUM
We have now constructed a working adder circuit. This is the basic “computer” circuit discussed very recently that exists by the hundreds of thousands in a computer core. Ah, but didn’t you hear the computer has millions? Yes, but they said transistors where I said circuits. I now know that each circuit may have more than one transistor, the one built here has three.
What I’ve done is take diagrams that are normally taught in seclusion and brought them together from theory through to a working model. If you look at this picture, you will see three items (the table, the logic diagram, and the schematic). Trust me, all three represent the same thing and if you are clever you can follow the general layout—they are about in the same positions in all three drawings.
If you examine the breadboard, it is you can handily pick out the two AND transistors jumpered together on the right (red LED light), and the NOT transistor on the left (yellow LED light). The reading on this transistor shows that A and B are both 1/on/High/True and the “carry light” is on to show it is a zero because that’s as high as this circuit can count.
This is a working circuit. If my computer can ever finish rendering the files, I’ll post the video. That hardest part of the circuit to grasp is how the NOT gate turns the light on when power is removed, but as you’ll see, it not only works, I did it.
Strange it is to be in the same situation as the first computer people: this circuit cost around $13 to construct. History always makes better sense when you relive it. Extrapolating, there isn’t enough time or space or money to construct the most primitive computer, even if that were the point here. Nosiree, that would be an undertaking on a governmental scale.
Then again, I did get this far, and I truly 1,000% understand what every piece does and why, and I’m thinking . . .
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