let's take a break from computers and electronics, and go on a trip! a trip to San Jose. this is one of the rare little spots that's not overdeveloped. you can easily see the East Bay hills.
it's starting to feel a bit like the wild west.
railroad tracks and buzzards. if you look very carefully in the background, you can see the airship hangars at Moffett Field.
dirt roads and signal-free railroad crossings. this is definitely the wild west.
oh look, a house! we've arrived at the Bay Area's only ghost town, called Drawbridge. in the background you can see the Tesla factory.
a couple more houses in Drawbridge, behind the railroad trestle. there are no roads leading to the town; in the old days, you'd take the train.
i printed a new panel insert that has two BNC sockets on it (the original probes would have had captive cables)
the tricky part is that this oscilloscope has a 333K ohm input impedance instead of 1M like umm every other scope on the planet. fortunately someone designed a little conversion circuit...
in honor of Sim Wong Hoo, here's a quick historical review of the Sound Blaster! 🧵
but first we have to go back to their first sound card, the Creative Music System from 1987. (image credit: Bratgoul on Wikipedia)
this card has some special "CMS-301" chips. if you peel back the sticker, they have had their top marks removed. they're actually SAA1099 synthesizer chips made by Philips. Creative wrote music composition software for musicians on the PC.