Dear day log, it's been a while since I wrote to you. That's because
my life sucks, or at least is damn boring.
Anyways, I just thought I'd share my experiences with TI calculator cables with you.
Today, I finally decided it's time to fix my broken, homemade design TI-86 <=> PC parallel port cable. So, at approximately 11 pm, I dug up my soldering iron, left it heating and went get the remains of my TI cable which was ruined 3 months ago by my little brother and his friends. This time, I managed not to burn a charred hole in the table; but that's another story. So, I grabbed the iron with self-confident motion of my hand, moved it towards the cable port, hit my hand and burned the skin on it. Damn it. But I let that not discourage me, skillfully fixed two places where the ironing had broken, straightened the twisted stiff wires and went testing it.
Testing... testing... test says OK. Get image from calculator. Not OK. [repeat 100 times]. Oh dammit. I remembered from my earlier experiences that holding the cable right way might help, let my aura mix with it and bring positive energies or whatnot. No work no. So, I digged up the diagnostics tool, a batch file calling over and over again a COM file writing and reading into LPT port. It showed that, again, writing 02 does not bounce 10 back like it should do, it bounces 10 1/2 of time and 00 1/2 of time. This was familiar, and using old methods I found the trick: hold the calculator in about 50 degree angle against tangent of earth's gravitational field, at such height that the bottom of calculator will be slightly below the level of two piled books. Hand must not be supported by anything but be in free-float. It is imperative that the wire section of calculator is twisted, even though that may cause short circuits. And lo, I managed to create a working mode! And even maintain it for 2 seconds.
Much time later, I transferred a single file and was grateful.