Savel brain dump in English!

Another exotic and useless hardware in my collection: CD Disk changer PIONEER DRM-624X.

It connects to computer via SCSI bus. It is external device, with SCSI-1 connector. Connected it to computer, started windows. Nice WindowsXP logo, lots of noise from disk changer and nothing… After waiting about 5 minutes I removed the cartridge. Now windows started. Selected 6 random CDs and populated cartridge.

Lots of CDROM devices in my windows. Click on one, some noise from changer, and I can see the CD contents.

Yeap, it is working, but how slow… It is only 4x speed CD drive. CD change takes about 5 seconds and much more windows recognises the CD. I thing, that lenses were not cleaned last 10 years But there is a big problem using this device in windows. If user in any program press file requester and selects “My Computer”, it jumps to big problem. OS ask for volume names of all 6 CDs. And it is impossible to read all CDs at once in CD changer…
Still not prepared Linux computer for testing, But I think, it must work without any great problems, only it is interesting thing about mounting volumes.
Now I am wondering, what to do with this stuff? Sell for 6$, adapt for some use or just simply throw it away to trash where I found it.

I have lots of SCSI board (Adaptec AHA-2940 ant AHA-2940UW) ant 2 Hardware RAID controllers. I even have SCSI disk boxes, but I don’t have UW external 68 pin cable. Raid controllers are DPT PM3224 and PM3334UW, so called SmartRAID Card III and SmartRAID Card IV. Windows 2K didn’t have drivers and I didn’t find any working in internet. But when I inserted card in Win98 it didn’t even asked for drivers. also, it seams that Linux works with it without any problems. But, again, I don’t have cable…

Today (in fact, already in yesterday) was Monday. Such a manic time. Some power lines were placed in Česka workplace- business is growing. Some problems with MS windows HE. It just want you to enter some network password. And you can enter anything- good or bad, but it refuses to work. Or print in network printer. That damn Windows Home Edition is neutered XP Professional. Today sold old Pentium 1 for few bucks, took some SCSI drive bays, but my buyer didn’t came. After work I looked how my horse graze in spring grass.

What a wonderful device I found in pile of trash- color wax printer. To print, this printer uses melted wax.

It is very quick printer, the quality must be interesting. The print is waterproof.

The printer I found was almost without wax… It could be quite cool, but the wax ink stick (2 pcs.) in Lithuania is … 547LTL. As I need all 3 colors- 1641Lt. It is 3 minimal salary… This is “Lithuanian” price. Somehow in Germany, the price is much lower. The same shit is about 105.61€. But it is too many. If I didn’t find anything useful I fill that damn printer with plaster… Maybe I’ll buy few sticks of ink in eBay. Black is only 3USD. And color set is only about 30..60USD.

I placed few bids today…

So, I acquired old dusty HP6200c color scanner. Or, speaking in English: colour scanner. It was half working and driving me crazy. But I managed to fix it. So if you have old HP scanner, read this:

1. Main problem- not old lamp, but special calibration line on the glass. Maybe the time, maybe storing conditions made the white color look yellow. So scanner hardware detects lamp failure, and here goes never-ending “warming lamp” message. I turned over the glass, and the detector can see quite new white line. The only small problem, that now scanner didn’t calibrate the color of the glass. But who cares. I could be possible to draw new calibration line…

2. SCSI problems with AHA-2940 form Adaptec. Sometimes, the SCSI ID is lost. The problem is sold reprogramming new ID. Just look HP manuals. It is very simple- unplug cable, turn on the scanner and count flashes. 1 flash = id0, 2 flashes = id1, … 8 flashes = id7. Then release the button. The scanner must quickly flash selected id.

3. Settings in windows’ control panel are ignored. So if you want to turn of the lamp, of just set quick start, you must start small program from original HP software. It is called “hplamp.exe”. Just start it, go to control panel, select desired lamp type. The “hplamp.exe” software will store your settings in scanner NVRAM. Now you can delete this program from your windows start-up.

4. ADF device is not hot plug. You can freeze your windows XP by plugging it.

5. As every old device, you must clean it. Just disassemble it. ADF cleaning is very simple- just clean all rubber rolls with windows glass cleaner. Also, I recommend to use some oil in scanner. After it, the noise during scanning is about 50% less. Notice that detector is moving not very straight- you can adjust it by moving small plastic filler, but it is unnecessary. I think scanner has some software to compensate this missalignment. Just look how this scanner is scanning 1200dpi…

HP5P is better than HP6200C.

That’s all, folks. (c)2005 by Savel.

At first there was nothing. When, the idea was born.