Geeking like it's 1995!
May. 24th, 2006 12:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsOmaha and I switched to VoIP about a month ago, and one of the critical failures of installing VoIP was the TiVo. The onboard modems inside the TiVo are cheap and cannot handle communicating over the VoIP lines. Omaha and I are in an even worse bind; our TiVo is an ancient Dish TiVo with one 30 GB hard drive, a very sad machine indeed. Ever since we've switched over, the TiVo has been complaining about its inability to call the mothership and confirm that Omaha and I are subscribers in good standing. We'd damn well better be after five years.
The problem can be fixed. It took one custom DB9M-to-1/4stereo cable. The stereo jack goes into a plug on the TiVo labeled "command". The DB9M end goes into a DB9F-to-DB25M convertor, which in turn goes into a US Robotics 38k modem. It was a little strange stopping by RePC to buy a modem after I'd actually given them all my modems a few years ago, thinking I would never need one again. The total cost for this repair job was about $35 bucks.
I twiddled with the dip switches on the back of the modem, and it didn't work. After realizing I had twiddled the switches backwards, I reversed them all and, miracle of miracles, after 32 days, the TiVo was finally happy. And the screeching, whining sound of a modem connecting at 38K resounding through the house again after years of DSL did not make me feel nostalgic. Fortunately, there's a volume control on the modem, and we'll be setting it to low.
After that, we put the kids to bed and then Omaha and I went downstairs to frag each other on Quake 4 in our own little LAN party. It was fun. I kicked Omaha's ass on the first round, so for the second I took on a few handicaps: I used only the shotgun, I downed a full glass of wine, and I walked everywhere. Walking's not entirely a handicap; you don't make footsteps. A few times I snuck up behind her and gibbed her with the shotgun, but since she had the rocket launcher she managed to win that round. She hasn't quite got down the coordination of looking sideways while running, and she's not paranoid enough to continually look behind herself. She also stops running to shoot. But the biggest thing is simple: Omaha doesn't play FPS's, whereas I've played every version of Doom, Quake and Half-Life there is, as well as Tron, Bloodrayne, Unreal, Halo, Hexen/Heretic and the Jedi Knight series.
The problem can be fixed. It took one custom DB9M-to-1/4stereo cable. The stereo jack goes into a plug on the TiVo labeled "command". The DB9M end goes into a DB9F-to-DB25M convertor, which in turn goes into a US Robotics 38k modem. It was a little strange stopping by RePC to buy a modem after I'd actually given them all my modems a few years ago, thinking I would never need one again. The total cost for this repair job was about $35 bucks.
I twiddled with the dip switches on the back of the modem, and it didn't work. After realizing I had twiddled the switches backwards, I reversed them all and, miracle of miracles, after 32 days, the TiVo was finally happy. And the screeching, whining sound of a modem connecting at 38K resounding through the house again after years of DSL did not make me feel nostalgic. Fortunately, there's a volume control on the modem, and we'll be setting it to low.
After that, we put the kids to bed and then Omaha and I went downstairs to frag each other on Quake 4 in our own little LAN party. It was fun. I kicked Omaha's ass on the first round, so for the second I took on a few handicaps: I used only the shotgun, I downed a full glass of wine, and I walked everywhere. Walking's not entirely a handicap; you don't make footsteps. A few times I snuck up behind her and gibbed her with the shotgun, but since she had the rocket launcher she managed to win that round. She hasn't quite got down the coordination of looking sideways while running, and she's not paranoid enough to continually look behind herself. She also stops running to shoot. But the biggest thing is simple: Omaha doesn't play FPS's, whereas I've played every version of Doom, Quake and Half-Life there is, as well as Tron, Bloodrayne, Unreal, Halo, Hexen/Heretic and the Jedi Knight series.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-24 08:07 pm (UTC)I'd be tempted to set it to screwdriver, myself.