No scaled grips for me

[Dave Johnson29]

After all the help I got adding those scales to the 1911 grip drawing, my laser just burns them as one flat item.

I tired a bunch of different settings and speeds. Still the same.

I thought the dot density might have given a 3D effect, but the printer driver just has the laser full on.

Ahhh well, it is a 1992 model laser running under DOS 6.22 and win3.1 some things are just not meant to be.

p.s. Pardon the dust on the glass window, I didn't see it until I got inside.

[Doug Griffith]

It may be possible to run multiple different files in succession to achieve different burn levels. Just don't move the piece and register each file to the same location.

Cheers,
Doug

[Doug Griffith]

Ahhh well, it is a 1992 model laser running under DOS 6.22 and win3.1 some things are just not meant to be.

I've got a CNC that runs on DOS and I needed to reload it a while back. I went to a computer store (Frys) to buy it and all I got was blank stares. The salesmen didn't even know what DOS was! I then went to a specialty shop and they just gave it to me. Hmmm. Must be getting old.

Cheers,
Doug

[Dave Johnson29]

I've got a CNC that runs on DOS and I needed to reload it a while back.

Hi Doug, I know what you mean. I still have Borland Pascal 7 for programming for DOS. What's that make me??

[Dave Johnson29]

It may be possible to run multiple different files in succession to achieve different burn levels.

Thanks Doug,

I will give that a try when I get some more time to spend on it.

[Dan Hintz]

I'm keeping my disks of DOS 6.22 in a vacuum-sealed case for safe-keeping

[Dave Johnson29]

Well I am making some progress.

I exported the grips as a BMP in 16-Bit grayscale.

I converted to B&W with a Stucki conversion as it gave more white areas.

I saved it as a BMP then imported it back into Corel.

I have to mess with the power settings a little but I am on my way.

Thanks to all who helped.

[John Noell]

I still have Borland Pascal 7 for programming for DOS. What's that make me??

Almost a Delphi Oracle.

(Non-coders might not know that Delphi is what Borland's Pascal became.)

[John W. Love]

ok, this is gonna give away my age, but I learned BASIC, PASCAL,COBAL and FORTRAN when I was in college. The only time it could have possibly come into use in recent ages was right before Y2K when everyone was running around like Chicken Little thinking the world was gonna end. Unfortunately for me, by the time it was needed again I had forgotten all those computer languages. And by the way, DOS was the greatest thing since sliced bread when it came out. Now it is just simply a term to make the techie kids's eyes glaze over when you mention it.

My first personal computer was a Timex Sinclair that you hooked to your tv for a monitor and a cassette recorder for your hard drive. Later on I really broke out and got a commodore 128 that I was able to upgrade the memory on it to 1 megabyte. yep, you heard me right! I was THE DUDE back in the day lol. Now days I have trouble figuring out how to program the microwave to not burn popcorn.

[Bill Cunningham]

Hi Doug, I know what you mean. I still have Borland Pascal 7 for programming for DOS. What's that make me??

I have a copy of Borland 'C' for dos someplace, but it's probably on 5 1/4" disks, and those drives are getting rarer..
It's still up on the shelf with the original K&R explaining the language..

[Dan Hintz]

John,

Don't feel too bad... I had a Sinclair myself, along with the thermal printer, 16kB expansion pack, and cassette tape interface for loading programs. Eventually I picked up a Spectrum, which was nothing more than a color version of the Sinclair. I took basic in middle school summer class, but by that time in my "career" I was practically teaching the teacher. Took Pascal in high school, never used it again. Took Fortran in college, used it once to transform a mainframe program written by my boss to this "new" language C (it was starting to become popular by then due to companies like Borland), never used it again. Now I just write in either C/C++ or assembly, nothing in between.

[Dave Johnson29]

Don't feel too bad... I had a Sinclair myself, along with the thermal printer,

Ha! You young whipper snappers. I built my first computer when the Z80 was not even a twinkle in Zilog's eyes. I programmed it with 8 push buttons on the front panel.

My first real over the counter computer was a Tandy model I with 4K of memory, all uppercase output and a cassette tape recorder.

I later bought the expansion interface for the Tandy which gave me a whopping 16K and 5-1/4" single sided 160K floppy drive. The printer was an old 300-baud teletype that I converted.

That floppy soon led to a Micro-something (Microtek I think) hard drive with an unbelievable 5Meg and it was a steal at $3,000 and it came in a box about 18" square and 8" high. By that time I was programming in BASIC and selling programs to Betamax video rental stores. Now I have in my pocket a retractable USB plugged 8G Flash drive that I paid 19-bucks for. Progress! Love it.

Hands up who understands all the wording in this posting. LOL

[Pete Simmons]

Built my own Z-80 based computer back in the early 70's. I remember the Z-80 chip was $350 when I started. I waited as I built and finally bought one for $50. I bet they are around $1 now.

Massive 16K of memory. Used a cassette deck for a tape drive. I had BASIC running on it. My kids played Lunar Lander. All graphics were based on moving text around. Built a custom interface to an IBM Selectric typewriter. Go ahead and ask me about tilt and rotate of the ball at one time I knew to much about that.

Interface was all in machine language. I was always (and still am) amazed at the number of instructions you could perform between things like a small movement of the print ball.

Power supply could also be used for a welder if needed!

[Dan Hintz]

Now now, DJ, I didn't say my first computer was the Sinclair, just that I owned one at one time My "first" one was like yours... 8 switches to set the bits, a momentary toggle to load the byte and increment the address lines, etc. Can't remember the processor offhand... maybe a 6052, maybe a Z80, don't remember what was popular at the time. Took me an hour or more to load a single program of a few kB, and God forbid I should lose power, hit the toggle too soon, make a mistake in the bit switches, etc. Now I get cranky having to wait two minutes for a few GigaByte OS to load automatically when I flip the power switch.

Things sure have come a long way...

[Dave Johnson29]

Power supply could also be used for a welder if needed!

You win Pete, I had forgotten about those honking great things. Keep a small house warm on a Winters day.

Dan: Sorry for my hasty reply.

Compared to those Bit selection switches, when I was using punch cards, I used to think how lucky I was that I could just get another card and re-punch. The fore-runner to cut and paste.

[EDIT]
Actually I think my first computer used an 8080 or maybe an 8008
[/EDIT]

Ahhhh, back to reality and returning hijacked thread to normal service. Sorry Mods, an old man got carried away down memory lane. (pun intended)