Thread by @gravislizard

I recently received a Sony EVO-9700 Hi8 tape editing deck, which is a pretty cool device in relatively good condition - looks like this

I was ripping a tape for a friend and the tracking started drifting real bad. I looked for a tracking control but no dice. This isn't surprising - manual tracking was basically an artifact of the VHS era and was replaced by full-auto tracking systems in the 90s

All the same, there might have been a hidden one in the guts, so I looked up a service manual. Found the EVO-9800, probably similar enough. Searched for "tracking"

in short: you don't need a manual tracking control because the computer can do it perfectly.

note that this is not unreasonable, and I'm not convinced that I'd be able to fix this situation if I did have a manual tracking control

book goes on to say: oh uh, thing is, if you try to calibrate the tape path, the auto tracking system will fight you because it doesn't know you're trying to make gross adjustments

"so here's the Diagnostic Harness"

i ADORE a Diagnostic Harness. when you have a system that's meant to be black-boxed, but it's misbehaving, so it's trussed up in a spiderweb of thick cables to some arcane unit with dozens of controls that override its autonomic functions. it's like robot body horror.

the deck is desperately trying to correct what it sees as a terrible malfunction, and the loudspeaker crackles, "no, EVO-9800, you will not adjust the tracking. you will leave the tracking at position zero. you will not adjust the tracking."

the harness is always spiked down on a bunch of anonymous pin headers that nobody is supposed to know about, hidden inside the cowling, secret backdoors into the machine

it always makes me think about Heathkits HERO-1, an "educational robot" they sold in the early 80s - something sparkfun people would assemble in an afternoon for $50 now

it had a 6808 CPU, a couple sensors (visible light, ultrasound rangefinder), motorized wheels, articulated arm with gripper and a voice synthesizer, and you could program it via the keypad on top, though it was pretty arcane

what i always liked was the programming pendant, which gave you direct access to all of Hero-1's motor controls. you could simply drive it around, wirelessly, bypassing all of its intelligence.

most serious robots have a "programming pendant" like this, a single-purpose portable computer with dedicated buttons for all kinds of tasks. the kind of thing that you don't see for most of the robots lifetime

i am fascinated with the aura of power and command that these things have. looking at them, you think of control and authority. rightly so, of course, but it's still such a strange sensation

mass effect voice: assuming direct control

blog.robotiq.com/bid/29774/The-… in closing, by jove i want to use this mother fucker right here

postscript: yes, i AM calling out all the robot fetishists reading this. if you haven't gotten art of your character umbilicaled to their Teaching Pendant what are you even doing

the implications of "teaching pendant" are immensely powerful here, also. not controlling. *teaching*