Here I list the (many?) very dumb thing I have done. Actually started after the Boat GPS fiasco of Spring 2019… I added the PC-XT Unformatted Floppy incident of 1988???.
Also: TIL learned that typing “—” at BOL will make a nice line across the screen. Actually, anything more than three dashes makes a line.
1988?-??-?? – spent 6+ hours, from ~10pm to 4am, troubleshooting a problem writing (to a 5.25″ 360KB floppy disk) a due-in-the-morning assignment for a SSFC class. Around 3:45am, with every part out of the PC-XT clone (still have reciept, I think???), I decided to “format” the floppy disk. Fixed. I was working with an unformatted box of disks. Forgot to format them.
This was:
- before easily removed floppy drives. Back in those days, there was a bracket that held the floppy drive(s), usually a 5.25″ 360KB and perhaps a 3.5″ 720KB floppy disk (although it was actually in a rigid shell with a sliding protector over the access slot); this bracket was usually held in by 4 screws on the bottom of the case.
- inexpensive floppy disks. Easily 30$C for a box of 10, name brands but just “normal” disks. Upwards of 100$C for high-quality versions.
- Pre-formatted floppy disks. Yes, at the price we payed, you had to format the disks before you could use it.
2019-05-26 – destroyed, perhaps permanently, our original GPS (Garmin Nuvi 255W) when I wired it directly to the 12V system in the 18′ boat. Thought I was clever by wiring direct instead of using the cigarette adapter supply.
Contra? I was smart enough NOT to plug in our current (~2019) car GPS, a Garmin ???? into the boat. Oddly, since it was the one differential test I didn’t do. Obviously by luck, not by smart.
2019-06-03 – made same mistake, blew up Garmin Nuvi GPS… the one we got for $20 on Kijiji. Finally dawned on m… by eliminating the lighter adapter, I also eliminated the 12V -> 5V conversion.
