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This article was posted to the Usenet group alt.hackers in 1995; any technical information is probably outdated.

Re: Is your Radio Shack like this?


Article: 7945 of alt.hackers
From: schwabe@rzaix530.rz.uni-leipzig.de (Johannes Schwabe)
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
Subject: Re: Is your Radio Shack like this?
Date: 2 Jun 1995 18:06:08 +0200
Organization: Geeks International, Ltd.
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loki@world.std.com wrote:
>to wait in line and listen to this Radio Shack employee "verbally
>assault" this guy left and right.  To make a long story short,
>this guy had some 12-volt DC device that he wanted to power off
>of 120-volt AC.  (Big deal, you're probably thinking - All he
>needed was a transformer.  That's the same thing I thought.)
>
>I have no idea where the manager was coming from.  She started
>screaming at the guy, saying "Sir, do you know what your house
>voltage is?!  What is it?!  It's 120, and you want to run something
>that uses 12 volts!  You can't do that!"

;)
Very many (not all) sales persons are so INCREDIBLY stupid... they don't know
about the things they sell. Sell tech like toasters.. The typical
attitude of a suit. Guess hackers' typical attitude to suits... >-)

The canonical example is a salesperson, asked about a cheap mini-stereo or
something. "Frequency Range? It hasn't got one!"

Or look at all the Multimedia Computer catalogs. You can now play WAVs in
CD quality, can't you? I guess all the MOD fans must do something wrong ;)

Which leads to an
ObHiFiHack: building pseudo-quadrophony with a stereo set. 2 extra (back)
speakers, wired as follows:

                        [+]
----------R+>-------+-----------------------------------+         [+]
AMPLIFIER   !  !Right_Main_Speaker!             !back_right_speaker!
----------0->-------+                                   |
            !  !Left_Main_Speaker_!             !back_left_speaker_!
----------L+>-------+-----------------------------------+         [+]
                        [+]

The [+] denotes the phase of the speakers.
One can use lower-quality speakers as back speakers, and one must take
care the amp does not burn up. Try at your own risk.

It's not my idea.

  Johannes  ------------------------------------------ Ignoramus. Ignorabimus.
... I'm IMAGINING a sensuous GIRAFFE, CAVORTING in the BACK ROOM of a
KOSHER DELI!!



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