Meet the new Tinker Different board at our first livestream event for 2023!

[Branchus]

This weekend the new Tinker Different board will be broadcasting a livestream introduction, then a tour of some of the fantastic and ingenious projects posted on the Tinker Different Forum, followed by a Q&A session. It's going to be a lot of fun and we invite you to join us and be part of the chat.

We will be going live on YouTube this Saturday evening at 7pm (Eastern). Click here to find the time in your part of the world.

If you have a question for the board about anything to do with Tinker Different, please reply to this thread. We'll attempt to answer as many as we can during the stream.

Be sure to visit the link below and press the "Notify me" button so that you don't miss it.
https://youtube.com/live/y9w8sOvTW54

We hope to see you there!

 

[eric]

Just a bump - live in 26 hours from now.

 

[retr01]

Use Timer Plus.

Countdown to LIVE!

 

[retr01]

And...it is 13 minutes to go...!

 

[Mu0n]

Ugh, I wrote a huge comment on the YouTube video but it got eaten up because I dared to put a twitter account tag in it. It needs to be fished out and approved by the person managing the TD YouTube account. Dunno who that is specifically.

 

[JDW]

Ugh, I wrote a huge comment on the YouTube video but it got eaten up because I dared to put a twitter account tag in it. It needs to be fished out and approved by the person managing the TD YouTube account. Dunno who that is specifically.

I am not in charge of that, so I am unsure what happened. I do know from experience with my own YouTube channel that YouTube is infuriating when it comes to deleting comments from people who post links to anything, despite the fact I have taken great care to allow ALL COMMENTS under my videos. I have grown so upset by that I have spoken to YouTube about it multiple times, but they have little to say and nothing at all to do to remedy the situation.

Another thing that frustrates me on YouTube is the fact it doesn't force all YouTube account owners to have some basic contact info in the About tab on their YouTube channel page. Everyone needs to have that, even people without videos. There are times when I need to get in touch with people, and YouTube often makes it impossible.

If your comment can be resurrected by the person in charge of the TD YT account, that would be great, but my gut feeling is it may not be due to the silly way YT handles these things.

 

[Branchus]

Ugh, I wrote a huge comment on the YouTube video but it got eaten up because I dared to put a twitter account tag in it. It needs to be fished out and approved by the person managing the TD YouTube account. Dunno who that is specifically.

I checked Mu0n, your comment isn’t there. Not in “held for review”, not in published. As far as YouTube is concerned, it doesn’t exist.

 

[3lectr1c]

Another thing that frustrates me on YouTube is the fact it doesn't force all YouTube account owners to have some basic contact info in the About tab on their YouTube channel page. Everyone needs to have that, even people without videos. There are times when I need to get in touch with people, and YouTube often makes it impossible.

If someone has not put any info there, there's a solid chance that they simply don't want to be contacted. I don't have any email set for my channel in that way for that specific reason, it opens me up to a bunch of spam and other garbage.

 

[JDW]

If someone has not put any info there, there's a solid chance that they simply don't want to be contacted. I don't have any email set for my channel in that way for that specific reason, it opens me up to a bunch of spam and other garbage.

Actually, I have over 6,000 subscribers and a lot of videos, but I hardly get any SPAM at all via the About tab button. Seriously. In fact, most of what I get is an email every month or so from PCBWay or similar who wants me to sponsor their company on my videos (which I've not agreed to yet). So when considering only that, the "risk" to add an email is tiny, especially for people with no videos or major exposure like I have.

Another thing to consider is that anyone can create a GMAIL or similar email address. Throw-away email address, if you like. Not only that, but setting up an alias email is one easy way to add contact info at zero risk. If SPAM comes in, you kill the alias. And if you happen to be someone who isn't like me and does get a lot of SPAM via an About tab contact button, it's drop dead easy to delete the email entirely.

But the benefits of having it are huge, especially for Giveaways or similar situations where you are participating in something where you ultimately need to be contacted. It could be you might miss a YouTube notification of a reply, but if someone emails you, you are less likely to miss that.

So there really doesn't need to be a better way for people to contact each other on YouTube, and that should be done in a way that keeps SPAM away and helps people remain anonymous if that's what they want. My complaint about YouTube is that they don't assist us in accomplishing that goal at all.

 

[JDW]

As far as YouTube is concerned, it doesn’t exist.

I get hit with that a lot, actually. I get an email notification of a reply, and then I go to YouTube and find it is missing. Sometimes if I can contact the person who submitted the reply, they will tell me that they did not delete it. But they assure me they did in fact submit the reply.

What's happening is YouTube stupidly deletes some replies automatically for reasons I can't figure out. And people who submit the replies thing I deleted them sometimes, which is not true. YouTube is deleting them even though I have settings setup to allow All Comments. I've written YouTube about this, but they've done nothing to investigate or otherwise address it. It doesn't happen often, but it is frustrating when it does. In the end, the only comments by those people who ultimate get through are ones without any URLs at all. It's a crying shame because sometimes I want people to give me a URL to something.

 

[3lectr1c]

The big issue with comment link stuff is that they just can’t make everyone happy… People complained for years about the comment bots that promote scams in every big youtuber’s comment section, calling on YouTube to get better filtering that catches them, then others complain that it’s too strict. It’s just a difficult situation all around.

Re: Contact,
It’s good to hear that the spam is less than I would have thought. I’ve got 1000 subscribers currently, main thing is I just don’t see a reason to set one up. I have a contact page on my website with links to forums where I can get PMs. There’s really just not much private conversation that needs to happen, at least, nothing that I’m personally interested in. Comments work fine, but that’s just for me.

 

[eric]

Someone requested links to all the threads we discussed:

• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/recreateing-the-apple-techstep.1434
• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads...-series-rc-network-t-filters-replacement.1044
• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/egret-reverse-engineering-reproduction.1156/
• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/recreating-macintosh-portable-hybrid-module.899/
• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/breaking-the-36mb-ram-limit-on-the-lciii.1344/
• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/reimplementing-the-mac-ses-bbu.1139/
• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/fs-interware-booster-30-l33f-clones-lc-ii-32mhz-accelerator.1407
• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/reverse-engineer-the-spectre-gcr.1425/
• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/reverse-engineering-the-lc-ii-logicboard.419/
• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/reverse-engineering-the-macintosh-lc-iii-logicboard.35/
• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/reverse-engineering-the-macintosh-iicx-logicboard.905/
• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/smc-vram-512kb-60ns-for-68040-overclocking-is-ready.1288/
• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/power-macintosh-7200-7300-7500-7600-power-button.142/
• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/platinum-pla-for-macs-and-apple-s.561/
• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/powerbook-1xx-series-battery-case.833/
• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/68040-heatsink-clip.1094/
• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/floppy-gears.130/
• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/sata-in-an-old-world-pci-power-mac-impossibru.1494/
• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/retro-vintage-component-suppliers-list.772/
• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/connect-adc-monitor-to-hdmi-source.494/
• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads...isa-card-as-drop-in-replacement-for-gus.2457/
• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/disk-jockey-a-disk-image-file-maker-for-your-retro-stuff.1039/

 

[Branchus]

Someone requested links to all the threads we discussed:

• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/recreateing-the-apple-techstep.1434
• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads...-series-rc-network-t-filters-replacement.1044
• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/egret-reverse-engineering-reproduction.1156/
• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/recreating-macintosh-portable-hybrid-module.899/
• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/breaking-the-36mb-ram-limit-on-the-lciii.1344/
• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/reimplementing-the-mac-ses-bbu.1139/
• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/fs-interware-booster-30-l33f-clones-lc-ii-32mhz-accelerator.1407
• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/reverse-engineer-the-spectre-gcr.1425/
• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/reverse-engineering-the-lc-ii-logicboard.419/
• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/reverse-engineering-the-macintosh-lc-iii-logicboard.35/
• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/reverse-engineering-the-macintosh-iicx-logicboard.905/
• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/smc-vram-512kb-60ns-for-68040-overclocking-is-ready.1288/
• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/power-macintosh-7200-7300-7500-7600-power-button.142/
• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/platinum-pla-for-macs-and-apple-s.561/
• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/powerbook-1xx-series-battery-case.833/
• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/68040-heatsink-clip.1094/
• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/floppy-gears.130/
• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/sata-in-an-old-world-pci-power-mac-impossibru.1494/
• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/retro-vintage-component-suppliers-list.772/
• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/connect-adc-monitor-to-hdmi-source.494/
• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads...isa-card-as-drop-in-replacement-for-gus.2457/
• https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/disk-jockey-a-disk-image-file-maker-for-your-retro-stuff.1039/

These can also be found in the video description.

 

[Mu0n]

I checked Mu0n, your comment isn’t there. Not in “held for review”, not in published. As far as YouTube is concerned, it doesn’t exist.

I appreciate you checking that out.
I retyped it as best I could, with a horrible feeling that I left out a juicy morsel that is now lost to the sands of time.



Here's the comment in question:
About the PicoGUS (since I made that thread), some clarifications:
1) This is Ian Scott's project (ianpolpo on the bird site) not mine - I was merely following the assembly guide he put out to recreate this at home. I had the PCBs fabricated, the BOM ordered from an electronics suppliers and soldered the whole thing myself. I did not design or adapt the design AT ALL.
2) It doesn't use a sound font system, it's more a drop-in firmware system to make the pico behave like different sound solutions of the PC early days. Ideally done in an open air bench setup rather than a closed PC case if you want to fiddle between them.
3) The modes (each with 1 firmware) that are possible at the time of writing this are: GUS, adlib, tandy 3-voice, Game Blaster/CMS and midi MPU401 output. There's no "basic sound blaster mode" but if you wanted that, you would use GUS mode which can mix in sound effects like the sound blaster.
4) The main attraction here is to be able to play tracker music by having 32-bit quality sound samples for your .mod, .s3m, .xm, .it files as well as what was used in some games (notably Epic MegaGames which used tracker music generously) instead of being limited by 8-bit with the original sound blaster or 16 bit with the SB16.