Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Focus Keyboard FK-8200

I am dependant upon an extremely rare keyboard. This keyboard is the Focus Electronic FK-8200. It is special for several reasons.

First, it has an extra top row of PF key’s above the function keys. This top row is programmable on the keyboard itself; no special drivers or software. Some other vintage programmable keyboards also have extra keys, but they are on the left side of the keyboard which makes the keyboard too long for most keyboard trays. Other programmable keyboards require computer software or drivers to work, which means that if the company stops supporting the product, the keyboard will become obsolete. I couldn’t do without these PF keys for my CAD work.

Second, it has a built-in calculator that can send results directly to the computer. This is a function that is unique to an extremely few number of keyboards. I think there’s a patent on it or sumfin, otherwise I’m sure this would be a more common feature. As it stands, only two Focus keyboards and a few their predecessor Omni keyboards have this feature; and only the Focus keyboards have the “Send” function.

Once a person gets to using this features, they become addicted to them.

The fact that makes all of this frustrating is that no new FK-8200’s have been made in several years, and the company that used to make them appears to no longer be in business. Finding these keyboards is becoming increasing more difficult as time goes by. I’m becoming dismayed at the prospect of breaking mine and not being able to find another to replace. They are good quality keyboards that take frequent use in stride, unless you happen to spill the slightest bit of liquid on it, then they fry. I’ve already destroyed two this way.

[UPDATE April 2024]
So this article gets a far amount of attention from time to time.  There seems to be interest in the feel of the FK-8200, its programmable keys and also the calculator function.  As noted in the comments, I'm also using a G910 keyboard, which has a mechanical-feel keyboard and nine programmable keys. It works well, though software is needed for the programmable keys. Additionally, I'm considering something like a modern numeric keypad that doubles as a calculator, which appears to have a function to send calculated values to your computer, similar to the FK-8200.

Monday, May 08, 2006

MI:III

Mission Impossible III is a good movie. It's better than II, and definitely different that I. At the beginning, after the opening scene, I did get a little fearful about the movie getting bogged down in story, but the action picks up a just the right moment, and keeps going to the end. There are the normal set of twists in the plot, so no surprizes there, but the action was incredible and intense. It's a fun movie.
Now, I'm looking forward to Da Vinci Code, X-Men 3 and kinda interested in Poseidon (mostly cuz of the g/f's interest), all coming out this month. It’s not often that Hollywood has (at the least) a promising lineup of movies in a single year, but this is all within a single month!

Saturday, May 06, 2006

Cinco de Mayo

uAnother friday night spent out, for Cinco de Mayo. Yes I celebrated of the day of the great battle in which the locals mexicans pulled together a militia to take on the French, but lost, however the French were so annoyed they left on there own anyways! lol It's funny how this day has grown in popularity in the U.S., but is pretty much not even noticed in Mexico. Anyways, Miriam, Allie, Stevo and I meet up at Compadres in Palo Alto for after work drinks. It was hella crowded. After that, we tried to go to a couple of other places, but ended at St. Stevens Green in Mt. View. Later Miriam's new interest came out later and she scared him with her dancing abilities. He was a trooper though, but he did drop her on the floor once. lol
Apparently, after Stevo, Allie and I left, Miriam and her date had enough fun where she ended up barfing at some point.

Thursday, May 04, 2006

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

The Cellar in SF






Well...it looks like I discovered a new place in SF Friday. Kimi and I meet up with her younger sister in SF and headed down to The Cellar with some other friends, to meet up with even more friends that were celebrating another friend's BD. It was a crazy night! The DJ sucked, and the music was mostly Eighties with some random Ninties thrown in from time to time, but the atmosphere was fun. For example, it's been awhile since I've watched girls making out with each other.
This picture Kimi's little sister, her b/f, and me. This is my second night out in SF within two weeks. I haven't been in a club up there in years, and now all of a sudden, it seems like I've never stopped. hehe Posted by Picasa

Sunday, April 30, 2006

Depeche Mode

Their concert last Thursday at the Shoreline was fun, but nufin exciting. They started off with some newer stuff, then went into the classics. Stranger wasn't played, but they did play Reach Out and Touch Faith (or whatever the name of that song is). Allie and I enjoyed it, but there's really not much more to talk about.

Friday, April 28, 2006

Zebra Lounge Friday

Posted by Picasa
The Zebra Lounge in SF was great last Friday. My cuz, her b/f and her classmate, along with Allie and I meet up there around 10. My friend Maria is part of Sugarbeats which is a promotional group that threw the party that night. My cuz and her friend are seen here (the pic to the left) on stage dancing. Can you guess which one is my cuz? I'm asking cuz it ain't obvious. :) Kris (the classmate) was up on stage most of the night! Anyways, we all had a great time. BTW, the photo is deceiving. Kris is actually over six feet tall, and my cuz is under 5'6", but they look almost the same height in the pic.

I'm looking forward to getting up to SF again. Oh wait, I'm heading there tonight with some friends!

Saturday, April 22, 2006

Selfsexual

Imagine a person who's is turned on by flirting with themself. Yes, there are people out there that are like this. To this point, I think that pop culture and science have both ignored this class of sexual orientation. No longer!
Selfsexual is a term I had to create to describe how a certain friend of mine is, at least at times, attracted to herself. It goes beyond just looking yourself in the mirror to check if everything is in place. It goes to the level of actually turning yourself on by doing nothing more than looking at your own yourself.!
Now, I have to admit that I may be selfsexual curious at times. I mean, even though I'm happily engaged, I do make love with myself quiet a lot. lol That doesn't make me selfsexual, of course. Simply masterbating doesn't make one selfsexual. Masterbating while looking at yourself in the mirror does show some tendencies.

Friday, April 21, 2006

I got an old camera working

I've lost an really cool camera a couple years ago. It was a digital Canon. I loved it. But even before that camera, I had others. One is this old Advantix thang. It's never been lost, but I've kinda lost track of it since I don't use it. I ran across it today. It's the only camera I got these days, and I prolly only have it cuz it's the one I stopped using before. I didn't stop using cuz its usefulness of expired though. The camera's flash is one of those hide-a-way ones. There's really no reason that it is a hide-a-way, but some engineer at Minolta musta thought it would be a good idea. Pointless for sure. Anyways, the automatic mechanism that pops the flash out stopped working years ago. When I use it at night or in-doors, I have to remember to pop the flash out manually before the camera will take a shot. Ghetto, huh? What's even more ghetto is that if I do use it, I actually have to go to the store to process the pictures.

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

So I'm addicted

I got Civilization IV almost as an afterthough to my recent visit to Best Buy. Well, I've loved the Civilization game series since the initial version was released back in the day. I remember playing it on my old Tandy computer, which didn't even have a hard drive. I was pimping it out by having two 3.5" floppy disk drives so that I didn't have to do as much disk swapping for the bigger games (like Civilization).
My favor release is Civilization II. The producers expanded the scope of the game perfectly. I felt Civilization III was good, but it came across as not as well balanced for length and type of game play it offered. Civilization IV scales back much of what made Civilization III too looming, while at the same time offers more depth of game play.
So, I've been playing Civilization IV about every chance I get now. So far, it's my second favorite release. There's not a whole lot of waiting around for thangs to happen, so the pace is quicker, but it feels as though I'm still playing with the same level of control as the previously releases.
I very highly recommend this game! I'm a bit surprized by how much I'm enjoying it.

Thursday, April 13, 2006

It's sunny

Today it's sunny.

Ketchup

Isn't it funny how drive-thru fast food places with either give you no ketchup at all (if you don't ask), yet they give you enough ketchup packages to allow one to survive a nuclear winter (when you do ask)?

Trouble with Bush

It's funny, people dislike Bush Jr. so much that in an informal poll online, these are the running results when he's compared to Jimmy Carter.


Who will history judge more favorably?
Carter
77%

Bush
23%

Total Votes: 32,283



What the hell? LOL

In other news, this is a recent story about yet another retired general speaking out against the administrations (particular Rumsfield) approach to the Iraqi War. Read article

Monday, April 10, 2006

A player's trouble

So, I was at this party one time at a friend’s house in Monterey many years ago. There was a few guys that lived in the same place, and they always had some friends over. It was a den of players. At this party, a female friend of theirs had brought over some fresh meat, a cute 18-year old blonde girl. I had started talking to her and even got her number, but couldn’t hang out too long. Anyways, the king player had his eyes set on her, and hung out with her for awhile too.

The next day, I get a call from him. He went into this short story how he liked her and that she said she liked him too and he was hoping he could get her number from me. I was thinking that’s a pretty slimy move, but hey, it didn’t really matter to me. So I gave him the number, or at least I thought I did. It turns out that I misread the number when I gave it to him. By some massively strange coincidence, I gave him the new number to his ex-girlfriend’s new place. When he called, he got cussed out by his ex over the phone.

I get a call back from him like 20 minutes later. He was kinda pissed, but he was a trooper. He still wanted the blonde’s number from me, even though he thought I intentionally gave him his ex’s number to fuck with him. His friends thought I was a genius for that maneuver, even though it was completely accidental. I never met his ex, nor did I know her number. However, I think the accident ended up working in his favor anyway cuz he was able to use the incident to suck his ex back into his game for a little while longer.