some diving history

Here s the story: Before we will start, here s the author with his usual working habit (some 20 years ago from now) a DRAEGER helmet, made of copper, approx. 70 pounds ( 35 kilogrammes (kg)). The rest of the equipment (return-home bottle 10 kg, back weight 10 kg, 2 ground weights 10 kg each and the dry suit and the umbilical makes up for approx. 100 kg (yeah: 200 pounds !!!).

YES: and here you see the famous DIVETRONIC dive computer "Hans Hass DECO BRAIN", swiss made: it is the big black box with the 5 display windows, near my HEUER watch, swiss made too, on my right forearm.(I still use the watch, but the DECO Brain s got replaced a dozen of times since then with other computers...). The lead accumulators lasted for approx. 8 h dive time. Then you had to recharge the unit. However, it gave us the possibility to do safely three times a day something like 60 to 70 m (or even more .. :-) ) with really reasonable deco-times. Once upon a time, I did the "BLUE HOLE" in Dahab at approx. 100 and after a surface intervall of 2 hours the "CANYON", descending to "MOSES SEAT" (this is something you will never find in any "Red Sea Divers Guide" or so, simply because it is too deep ...). To come to an end with this long story, the overall deco-time was something like 50 min. I like this machine !!! (and I have 2 of them in my little museum). It was the first commercially available and reliable box (well, in the 80's there was as well the ORCA EDGE, the electronic dive guide, available. It had a nice aluminium caseing [you could beat a hammer head away with it] and a leaky compartment for the 9 V block..., when it worked and you went beyond 63, your decompression data where not very healthy ...)

Since then I dived virtually with almoust every computer. For the last 12 months I used a SCUBAPRO EDI PRO: yeah, this is a small and SMART thing!!! I just tested the new OCEANIC Versa Pro (Summer 2001), now I use an ALADIN ULTRA.

Normally I use a:
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