I’ve been spending the last two or three hours trying to set up the Wii so that it runs on a dedicated computer monitor. Two shopping trips, three calls to various vendors, multiple consultations of the Internet, and a good amount of swearing later, a magnificent kludge was constructed… with one exception. No way to plug in the speakers.
So I turn to my wife. “Honey,” I ask her, “Have you ever seen this kind of connection before?”
And then she went unto the Box of Cables And Cords That We Have Accumulated Over The Days of Our Lives that she maintains, rummaged through – and lo! There was the cable I needed.
Save your cables.
Yes, yes, yes.
Funny thing: I use one of those the other way, to plug the computer audio out into my stereo receiver. 🙂
Oh wait, that’s RCA female-3.5mm male. Doh. Don’t have one of those. Mine’s a SSC (same-sex connector).
It’s not just cables. Any decent tech and most engineers (the ones who like hands-on, at least) keep a “junk box”.
The $250,000 waterjet cutter at my day job is, even as I type, running on a relay salvaged from my junk box. It came originally from a 1998 model Sanyo microwave oven. It’s possible that I go too far — my house looks like a surplus store in some areas — but there’s just no telling when you’re gonna need that.
This Public Service Announcement has been brought to you by the letters D, B, Z, and the number 9001.
It also does not hurt to have a small supply of gender benders on hand, just in case you need to turn a M cable into a F cable. Saved me many trips to Fry’s.
I was using that cable all last semester in an engineering class. If radioshack were still true to their original purpose, you could walk in and grab one of those off the shelf. I’m not so sure now.
I knew it! I just gave my box of wires and cords to Goodwill.
Almost as important: Marry wisely and well. 8^)
I have six banker boxes of cables in my attic. Sorted by audio/video, cat5, cable, misc computer, misc power, and other.
One of the most amazing technological feats in Star Trek, especially TNG, was that they always could find the right cable to interface so some weird gizmo they had just acquired. They obviously followed your advice.