Rabbit Hole Learning

I really enjoy what I call Rabbit hole learning, to explain this this I will give you an example of today, I'm sure 99.1% of you have done this many many times. The other 0.1% is a troll

So today having got about as far as I want to go with installingMPLABXC8 and compilers, and not having any tools,boards,parts (slightly untrue) and generally having no hands on stuff to do. I decided to have a think about how I might tackle my very long term goal of getting a old dot matrix printer to do some cool stuff with a pic. Yes bonkers idea with zero practical need or want, but the thing is I really like the idea of a pic data logger spewing out the days data on a old Dot Matrix printer.
Partly I think its because I am old, I have so many memories of those printers and the noise! going to my accountant every year to get my accounts printed out, (6 week lead time lol).
I would walk into his office and all you could hear were loads of dot matrix printers in cases with huge fans going full pelt! So anyway back to my point!!

I started looking at cheap DMPs (Dot Matrix Printer from now) on ebay and every time I found one I went looking for the user guide or manual. Now like many/most I go straight to google and bang in a search, like most if I can be bothered or more likely if I didnt get results I wanted first time, I would add say .PDF at the end. Now yes you can get lucky like this, yes you can use google 'dorks' or 'dork' pages, but it still leaves a problem. It still uses google with a few tweaks but it still gives a biased result.
So while going through this process I stumbled on a link to a site that had the manual I wanted, wow it turns out to be a amazing way to find books,manuals almost anything and no dodgy sites.

So thats what I mean by rabbit hole learning, when you start doing one task and end up on a different journey and learn some handy stuff doing it.
Simon

simple-simon said:

So thats what I mean by rabbit hole learning, when you start doing one task and end up on a different journey and learn some handy stuff doing it.

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I am on that journey, I have been doing it for the past 3 or 4 years.
Retirement is wonderful.

JimB

The last time I had put my hands on a DMP as you say, was to convert it in a coil winding machine by a careful brain surgery to insert a PIC 18F452 duly programmed to replace the original micro and the logic glue IC.

The last thing I would do is to use it as a printer. Collecting / displaying data nowadays can be implemented in a much simpler/cheaper way.

I recall entering a supermarket to buy glasses to finally arrive home with just a packet of sausages.

I have an Oki Microline ML182 - terribly ancient, it has a RS232C socket on it (and a parallel port). I use it occasionally to print code on listing paper - easier to write scribbles on it with a pen and spot bozo mistakes and go up and down the listing being able to see a lot of it, than scrolling up and down on screen. I bought the printer 2nd hand especially for the purpose nearly 20 years ago. If I wrote code more often I'd use it use it more. But I stopped being interested in writing anything more complicated than a bash script a long time ago and my forays into pic assembler haven't reached completion because of doing other stuff.

But rabbit hole learning - yep, do it all the time

Reading the first senesce of post 1, I have to ask: What category do you pigeonhole the remaining 0.8%? E

canadaelk said:

Reading the first senesce of post 1, I have to ask: What category do you pigeonhole the remaining 0.8%? E

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lets just say yje other 0.8% is more the Rabbit hole type than the learning type..............