Off-topic: keeping a fifteen minute log while testing old hardware

[ekaputrigame]

Slightly off-topic, but this crowd seems to appreciate small habits. For a few months I have been keeping a two-column notebook whenever I test a machine: the time and one line about what changed. Fifteen minute intervals, nothing clever. What surprised me is how much of what I remembered turned out to be wrong. Machines that felt stable for an hour were actually degrading after twenty minutes, and the part I blamed was rarely the part at fault. It costs almost nothing and it has saved me from repeating the same wrong diagnosis twice. Curious whether anyone here keeps notes on their builds, or if it is all in your head after a while.

[ekaputrigame]

Since a couple of people asked: the notes themselves live in a small blog I keep, mostly as a memory aid, and the fifteen minute habit is described there in more detail - my notes. It is not about Tiny Core at all, more about phone and handheld testing, but the method transferred better than I expected. The one thing I would add after a few months is a column for ambient temperature, because half of my early conclusions turned out to be about the room rather than the machine.

[Stefann]

Sure,
When trouble shooting I ALWAYS keep a log.
Mostly do it as a simple textile.
timestamp/message format.

Have been doing that for all my live. Now as a hobby, before when trouble shooting at work.
Its the only way to make progress

using a simple texfile and not something formatted has the benefit it can at any machine be shown by a "cat" command.

[gadget42]

hand-written notes for each machine/motherboard/sbc/etc
(no electricity and/or keyboard/monitor/power-supply/etc required to know the basics of hardware/firmware/software/etc)

[Stefann]

I have been working in cleanroom for semiconductor manufacturing business.
Than using logbook on text file on share drive was most common and most efficient.
It allowed to prepare work and read progress from office.
Handwritten notes are indeed not depending on infrastructure but can get lost, can be difficult to read, are a pain when one needs to insert into earlier comments. For cleanroom use it also requires to get the notebook cleaned on entrance.
Text file notes are also very handy to share with others to discuss results.
But also…. “sure,… as we speak a physical notebook is next to my laptop while I also maintain a text file logbook on that laptop (on the crash issue I have)”. I use the physical notebook for short scribbles.