This is the story of my life so far: 68 years and counting.
Prequel: A Brief History of my Family in France
The story starts here
Previous episode: Part 71
My computer game was still working
When I arrived on the Jean de Vienne, I learned that the computer game that I wrote on the Georges Leygues was still alive and kicking.
In fact, as there have been some slight modifications to the computer system of the Corvettes, it has been necessary to modify the code and that has been done by one of the petty officers on the Georges Leygues. I was quite pleased with the fact that the game was still working on all the Corvettes of the series, without my own involvement.
A bug in the computer system
The computer officer of the Jean de Vienne was names Herry. I had met him when he was a petty officer and we were learning the computer system](@vcelier/the-story-of-my-life-so-far-part-51-1976-six-months-in-paris) of the Georges Leygues in Paris.
However, Herry did not finish the formation, because he had previously written an exam to become an officer and he had succeeded. So, he left us in the middle of the formation in Paris.
During the trials at sea of the Jean de Vienne, Herry came to see me and told me that he suspects that there was a slight problem with the computer system: from time to time, one of the computer was rebooting, seemingly randomly.
We designed some tests to understand the circumstances, and together with the computer team of the ship, we found exactly when the problem was occurring.
So, Herry made a report to the CPM, the establishment that wrote the computer program, who reproduced the problem on board and corrected it later.
Corvette Jean de Vienne
source
My microcomputer
As I had bought my microcomputer in Canada, its power supply was 115V 60Hz. In France, electricity is distributed as 220V 50Hz.
So, you would think that I only needed a transformer to lower the tension to 115V, and that the frequency did not matter. Unfortunately, the motor for the floppy disk drives were synchronous. So, at 50Hz they were too slow and it was not possible to load any program.
Fortunately, worldwide on all ships, military or merchant, the power is always 115V 60Hz, so that it is possible to get the power from ashore when the ship is in any port.
So, my computer was initially aboard the Jean de Vienne, as it was the only place where I could use it.
I told this to an engineer from an equipment manufacturer who was on board for the trials at sea, and he told me that if I give them the mechanical part that was connected to the belt of the disk drive, they could make one that would be 1.2 times larger and thus the disk drive would rotate at the correct speed on 50Hz.
So, this is what we did, and then I was able to use my computer at home.
At the end of the trials at see, the Jean de Vienne did her TLD (Long Crossing). Unfortunately, I don't remember exactly where we went.
Then, the Jean de Vienne was sent to its new port: Toulon.
But, before staying in Toulon, the ship were sent for a short while to Cyprus and Lebanon.
Continue to Part 73
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Summary
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8
Part 9 - Part 10 - Part 11 - Part 12 - Part 13 - Part 14 - Part 15 - Part 16
Part 17 - Part 18 - Part 19 - Part 20 - Part 21 - Part 22 - Part 23 - Part 24
Part 25 - Part 26 - Part 27 - Part 28 - Part 29 - Part 30 - Part 31 - Part 32
Part 33 - Part 34 - Part 35 - Part 36 - Part 37 - Part 38 - Part 39 - Part 40
Part 41 - Part 42 - Part 43 - Part 44 - Part 45 - Part 46 - Part 47 - Part 48
Part 49 - Part 50 - Part 51 - Part 52 - Part 53 - Part 54 - Part 55 - Part 56
Part 57 - Part 58 - Part 59 - Part 60 - Part 61 - Part 62 - Part 63 - Part 64
Part 65 - Part 66 - Part 67 - Part 68 - Part 69 - Part 70 - Part 71
