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This article was posted to the Usenet group alt.hackers in 1995; any technical information is probably outdated.

Re: Car hack + Hack adhesives


Article: 7437 of alt.hackers
From: chris@ec119.residence.gatech.edu (Chris Adams)
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
Subject: Re: Car hack + Hack adhesives
Date: 22 Feb 1995 17:24:29 GMT
Organization: US Space Acadamey
Lines: 50
Approved: Stanly R. 'Slick' Chapman
Message-ID: 3ifs0d$plm@hub.terc.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: ec119.residence.gatech.edu
Status: RO

In article <D4BFLw.B33@nova.sarnoff.com>,
Hans Baumgartner  <hab3@cornell.edu> wrote:
>ObDuctTapeCarHack: I was in a 60's Ford Falcon at one of the 3 busiest
>intersections
>in Los Angeles county (Wilshire & Veteran) throttle coupling broke.  We
>had to
>idle/push the car accross the intersection.  I popped the hood was
>thrilled to see that
>the linkage between the pedal and the throttle wheel was made by a 1/2
>inch hollow
>bent steel rod (instead of a sheathed cable like operates bicycle
>brakes).  A tiny cotter
>pin that had held the rod to a peg on the throttle wheel had given up
>after 30 years.
>One quick wrap of handy DuctTape and the car was back to its
>roaring :-) self!

I had something similar to this happen in my 1977 Honda Wagon.  I was
stopped at a stop light.  When the light turned green, I pushed the
pedal.  When I changed to second gear (manual transmission), I
heard/felt something pop, and the pedal went all the way to the floor.
Except on my Honda, the link WAS a cable.  I managed under the momentum
I had to get off the road into a parking lot.  I phoned home, my dad
came out with his truck, and I figured we would try to tow it home
(about 8 miles).  Silly me!  Instead, we turned the idle speed up from
~800 to ~2500, and I drove home!  Top speed was only about 35 miles per
hour, but we got home!  Putting a new cable in was tough work; it goes
through the firewall on the passenger side of the car and loops around
under the hood.  I hope it never breaks again, but now I know what to do
if it does!

ObHack: Hmmm, running Linux on a 386DX20 with one 40MB hard drive?  No,
I guess that's just stupid.  I did get X running though.  Initially, it
would only do 640x480, because everything else was outside the monitor's
specifications.  However, I figured out how to do interlaced and found a
dot clock that was just under the line, and got 800x600 @ 45Hz
interlaced.  Then I really started having fun, and using the same dot
clock, got 1024x768 interlaced.  Only problem was that it was at 30 Hz
refresh, and I had a headache for the rest of the night after looking at
it for just a couple of seconds!

I still have a problem with the interlaced modes though: it doesn't
relly interlace.  I only get every other line.  This is with
XFree86-3.1.1 using a ET4000 based card.  Anybody know how to make it
work right?
--
Chris Adams - Computer Science Junior - Georgia Tech - chris@cc.gatech.edu
     Also: gt8741b@prism.gatech.edu, chris@ec119.residence.gatech.edu
           Home page: http://ec119.residence.gatech.edu/~chris
                Abandon all hope, ye who PRESS ENTER here.



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