Project TG-16 - Repair

The first step of this project is to repair the TG-16.  It was sold on eBay as "broken" mainly because the person did not have the power cord so they couldn't test it.  So at the worst this system may be so busted inside it's impossible to fix, or it may be as easy as buying a replacement power cord.  Older electronics like this tend to be very robust, so I'm leaning towards the latter.

Before I even think about trying to power up the system, I want to have a look at the circuit board, to look for any obvious signs of damage.  But immediately I ran into a problem.  The TG-16 uses security screws.  To open it up you need to order a "4.5mm security bit" easily found on eBay.  Although the technical name is "4.6 line head screw."  I ordered mine from ifixit.com.  After you open the case, you discover the circuit board has an RFI metal shield soldered onto both sides.  I used a lot of solder wick to get these metal plates off.

Having a look at the circuit board I saw no obvious signs of damage.  So I connected it up to my Elenco power supply and turned it on.  Success!  It works just fine.  So all I need is to buy a power supply.  If you read my post on power cords, you know you can use other power cords so long as you know what you're looking for, it doesn't have to be an original part.  The TG-16 is rated at 10.5 V at 730 mA, so I looked on eBay and found a 10 V at 1 A supply for a few bucks delivered.  Even though the volts is a little lower, because of the difference between regulated and unregulated it won't matter, and the fact the amps is higher helps as well.

Next time I will cover recapping the system.

Project TubroGrafx-16

Growing up I had a Sega Master System and a Sega Genesis.  I also had several friends with Nintendo's.  But there was another video game console from this era I've never played; heck, I've never even seen one in person - the NEC TurboGrafx-16.  This system failed to gain acceptance in the early 90s, and it quickly faded into history.  But I've always wanted to play one.  Recently I decided to try and find one, and eBay seemed an obvious place to start.  I quickly learned that because this system didn't sell well that means they are rare, which translates into higher prices.  On eBay it's not uncommon for a used system to sell for upwards of $80.  But with some patience I was eventually able to score a "broken" TG-16 with 2 games for only $20.

Just as I had "Project Genesis" where I repaired and modded a Sega Genesis, this is Project TG-16 where I repair and mod a TG-16.  The plan is to repair the TG-16, perform some preventative maintenance, after which I will add a number of mods to the system to improve upon the original design.  I'm going to add an audio/video mod, a power LED mod, and a reset button mod.  I will document each step along with way with pictures.

• Project TG-16 - Repair
• Project TG-16 - Recapping
• Project TG-16 - Modding
• Project TG-16 - Modding part 2

Cleaning TV/Monitor Screens

One thing that really bugs me is when people touch my monitor with their fingers.  You can point at the screen, but don't touch it.  But even if you don't touch the screen, eventually the screen will get dirty and need to be cleaned.  For starters, do not use household cleaners like Windex, they contain ammonia which is bad for electronics.  You can buy dedicated screen cleaners, but they charge a lot of money for a small bottle.  Instead make your own at home for really cheap.  All you need is 1) a spray bottle, 2) rubbing alcohol (the highest percentage you can find), and 3) distilled water.  Pour the water and rubbing alcohol into the spray bottle about 50/50.  For the water, do not use tap, filtered, or even bottled.  It needs to be distilled water.  Anything else will leave streaks.  If you don't have distilled water, pretty much every grocery store and drug store carries it, and it usually costs about $1 for a gallon.

To clean a screen you need a clean cotton T-shirt.  Lightly wad up part of the shirt, spray the cleaner onto the wadded part, then gently wipe the surface of the screen.  You may need to do this several times.  Do not spray directly onto the screen, it may run down and get into the electronics.  Also, do NOT use paper towels, newspaper, tissue, bath towels, etc.  These may feel soft to you and I, but they will leave fine scratches on the screen.  As it turns out a clean cotton T-shirt is one of the softest fabrics out there.  Finally, use very light pressure.  Firm pressure could damage the screen, especially LCD panels.

If you follow these steps you can clean your screen as good as the day you bought it, and with no streaks.

DSL filters

If you saw my recent Ooma posts you know I recently ditched my home phone and switched to VOIP.  Before the switch I had phone and DSL through AT&T, now I just have DSL through AT&T.  When you run DSL, they provide you a DSL filter for each phone jack.  These DSL filters come in different shapes and sizes, but often times they are a pigtail you plug into the wall.  On the other end of the pigtail are two female phone plugs, one for the DSL modem and one for your house phone.

Now that I no longer have a house phone, I only have DSL, the question is do I still need the DSL filter?  The answer is no.  The purpose of the DSL filter is to "filter out" the DSL frequencies from the standard voice frequencies.  Voice frequencies do not interfere with DSL communications, but without the filter you can hear a high-pitched squeal on the line.

About a year ago one of my DSL filters went bad and I had to replace it.  But being the nerd that I am, I took apart the old one.  I was surprised how simple it was inside.  There were just a few passive components (coils and capacitors) inside to filter out the unwanted frequencies.  It looked something like this.

I followed the traces on the circuit board.  The input line was immediately split.  One pair went straight to the DSL output jack, the other pair went through the passive components and then onto the output phone jack.  This is why I suspected the DSL filter is not necessary for DSL only (a.k.a. dry-loop DSL).

Of course the real test is, if I remove the filter does it still work.  So I removed my DSL filter and the Internet still works.  I'm a firm believer in simplify everything.  If you don't need it, get rid of it.  So if you're running DSL only without a standard phone line, you do not need the DSL filters.

Ooma

Last time I talked about switching our home phone from a standard landline to a VOIP (or Internet) phone through Ooma.  In short, I couldn't be happier with the switch.  The sound quality with Ooma is as good, if not better, than it use to be.  Before buying the Ooma I was a little hesitant, at work we have a VOIP system and whereas it works good, from time to time the call breaks up.  But so far with Ooma that hasn't happened.  Ooma's marketing dept. likes to boast about how they have gone to great lengths to ensure the best sound quality in the industry.  So far their claims appear to be true.

The Ooma Telo itself is a very cool looking device.  It clearly has a modern look to it that is pleasant.  The buttons use capacitance touch so they are not physical tactile buttons at all.  Just touch the light to activate the button.  My only complaint with the Ooma Telo is the LED lights.  All of the buttons are blue LEDs which are always on and very bright.  At night it lights up the room it's in.  You wouldn't want this in the same room where you sleep.  What Ooma needs to do is A) decrease the brightness of the LEDs and B) only activate the lights for the buttons when someone is using them.  I've seen TVs with capacitance touch lighting similar to this.  When you press the buttons they light up and stay lit for several seconds.  That's what Ooma should do.  The Ooma logo can remain lit 24/7 as that's an indicator if the Ooma is connected to the Internet.  But turn off the lights for the buttons.  Overall this is a fairly minor gripe for such a great product.

The last thing I'll talk about is configuring the Ooma in my network.  The Ooma itself is fairly flexible; you can place the device between your cable/DSL modem and your router/firewall and Ooma will automatically apply QoS to ensure the best sound quality.  Or you can put Ooma behind the firewall, which is what I chose to do.  Doing so means Ooma has to compete with everything else for bandwidth, so if you're downloading a large file on another computer it could interfere with call quality.  So I manually configured QoS on my router.

My router is a Linksys with the 3rd party Tomato firmware installed.  There are a lot of sites that talk about how to configure QoS for VOIP; prioritize these ports and protocols, etc.  But I decided to go the easy route.  First I found the MAC address of the Ooma.  Second I configured any and all traffic to/from that MAC address to have the highest priority.  So I don't bother isolating port ranges and protocols, I just do one classification for the Ooma device's MAC address.  So far this configuration is working great!

Bye bye landline. Hello VOIP!

Unlike most people I do not have (nor have I ever had) a cell phone, so a landline at home is my only phone.  However, I've noticed my home phone bill was slowly creeping up each month.  A recently bill was $31.93.  Now this may not sound like a lot, but you have to realize I haven't had a long distance carrier on my home phone for well over 10 years.  So $32 is for the absolutely basic local-only phone package with no additional features.

I started looking into other options and a friend recommended a phone system called Ooma.  Ooma is a VOIP (Voice Over IP) phone - or put simply an Internet phone.  They've been around since 2004 and have really become popular as of the last several years.  The way Ooma works is you buy the Ooma Telo for a one-time fee of $200.  After that all you pay is the federally-mandated monthly taxes which are about $3.50 (they vary depending on where you live).  So for a few bucks a month you get a phone with free unlimited local and long distance calling plus features like caller-Id and voicemail.  Ooma also offers an optional "Premier" account that adds additional features like up to four active phones at one time on the same phone number, three-way calling, integration with Google Voice, etc. for $10/month.

So let's recap.  Old phone with AT&T; local-only, no long distance, no caller-id, about $30/month.  New phone with Ooma, unlimited local and long distance, includes caller-id, about $3/month.  Hmm, seems like a no-brainer to me.

As an added bonus, our DSL Internet got cheaper as well.  Previously DSL cost $43/month, but to drop the phone line AT&T had to cancel the account and create a new DSL-only account, and they signed me up at $25/month for the same speed level.

The hardware cost $200, and it was another $40 to port our existing home phone number to Ooma - but we're saving about $45 a month.  At that rate it's just over 5 months until we break even, and after that it's nothing but savings!

Next time I'll talk about the hardware itself, the sound quality, and my opinions of the system.

Star Wars parody videos

Time for some Star Wars parody videos.

Original video - "Somebody That I Used to Know" by Goyte

Parody video - "The Star Wars That I Used to Know" by Teddie Films

Original video - "Friday" by Rebecca Black

Parody video - "Primeday" by Teddie Films

Is Thunderbird going to die?

Mozilla announced yesterday that their email client Thunderbird would no longer receive major updates.  This doesn't mean Thunderbird is dead, just that they will only fix security issues going forward.  So in the short term Thunderbird will still live, but it's only a matter of time before it becomes so outdated that it's not worth using.

Mozilla's justification for this is a lack of interest in Thunderbird.  They say most people use web-based email access.  Who are these idiots out there checking their email using web-based programs, at least from a desktop computer?  Seriously, if you are using the native web-based UI for services like gmail, hotmail, etc., give Thunderbird a try.  It's a LOT better, not to mention more secure.  The only time I use the web-based interface is if I'm checking my email from a friend's computer.

This really frustrates me because Thunderbird is my email client of choice.  When it comes time to find a new client, I'm not sure what I'm going to switch to.  If anyone can recommend a good standalone email client for Windows please do so.  The client must support IMAP as well as POP3.