Chris' Miscellanea

Erasing a FEZ Panda using the serial port

2011-12-17T11:54:00.001Z

I bought a FEZ Panda to play around with the NXP LPC2387, and at 32€, it's a rather cheap development platform. Furthermore it has all pins brought out on convenient pads, unlike other "Arduino compatible" alternatives that only connect the usual four connector blocks.

The LPC2387 on the FEZ Panda is preprogrammed with a bootloader from GHI electronics as it's intended to be used with the Microsoft.NET embedded (or something) framework. It also has the JTAG port disabled, so the first thing I have to do is to get rid of bootloader and clear the chip. Helpfully, GHI provide a special firmware that erases the whole chip and removes all memory protections. You can currently get the file "USBizi_ERASE.zip" in from a directory on GHIs servers.

Steps to erase the FEZ Panda

The steps here are actually described in GHI's document Beginner's Guide to porting .NETMF, but I I'll summarize the steps as executed on a Linux machine:

Obtain USBizi_ERASE.zip and unpack. You'll have to install the cu terminal emulator and the lrzsz x/y/z-modem protocol. Then write a short script (see below) to send "X" and then the included USBizi_ERASE.GHI via xmodem-1k-crc16. Connect the first UART of the FEZ-Panda to a suitable 3.3v CMOS serial port (e.g. a ft232 usb to serial module). Connect the MODE pin on the unpopulated pads on the short edge of the PCB opposing the USB/Power connector side to GND. Press the reset-button marked RST while holding the LDR button next to it.

In the serial terminal, you should see the BL prompt of the bootloader, start the script to send "X" followed by the xmodem-upload, then wait for the included software to erase the board.

[distress /home/chris/Downloads]
$ cat erase.sh 
#!/bin/sh

echo -n "X"
sx -k -o -vv USBizi_ERASE/USBizi_ERASE.GHI

[distress /home/chris/Downloads]
$ cu -l ttyUSB0 -s 115200
BL
BL
BL
BL
~+./erase.sh
Sending ./erase.ghi, 2696 blocks: Give your local XMODEM receive command now.
Bytes Sent: 345088   BPS:9933                            

Transfer complete

File Transfer Finished Successfully
USBizi
Version: 4.1.5.0
Debug: COM1
LCD: 0x0
IP: 0.0.0.0
MAC: 00.00.00.00.00.00
Managed heap size: 64412
Custom heap size: 0
~?çƄ

Now the USBizi is erased and the "usual" LPC bootloader takes over on the serial port, at 9600 bits per second:

[distress /home/chris/Downloads]
$ cu -l ttyUSB0 -s 9600
Connected.
Synchronized

JTAG now works:

[atrocity /home/chris/openocd]
$ openocd 
Open On-Chip Debugger 0.3.1 (2010-01-18-18:43)
$URL$
For bug reports, read
 http://openocd.berlios.de/doc/doxygen/bugs.html
parport port = 0
OLD SYNTAX: DEPRECATED - use jtag_khz, not jtag_speed
jtag_speed: 2
Error: Translation from jtag_speed to khz not implemented
Info : interface specific clock speed value 2
Info : JTAG tap: lpc2387.cpu tap/device found: 0x4f1f0f0f (mfg: 0x787, part: 0xf1f0, ver: 0x4)
Info : Embedded ICE version 7
Error: EmbeddedICE v7 handling might be broken

HP82240A RedEye on Arduino Duemilanove

2011-12-10T16:39:00.002Z

A long time ago I had played with my old HP 82240A printer, but unfortunately I somehow misplaced the software I wrote back then. So I re-wrote it, you can get it on github. This time it's written for a Atmel AVR ATMEGA328P as used on the Arduino Duemilanove because this little board makes prototyping so very convenient.

From chris' blog

Synology Cubestation CS407 - Boot Log

2011-10-23T19:25:00.002Z

Just for reference: Booting up a CS407, this is what you can see on the serial port (jumper block near the SATA connectors, 2=GND, 4=Tx, 6=Rx):

$ cu -l ttyUSB0 -s115200
Connected.

         __  __                      _ _
        |  \/  | __ _ _ ____   _____| | |
        | |\/| |/ _` | '__\ \ / / _ \ | |
        | |  | | (_| | |   \ V /  __/ | |
        |_|  |_|\__,_|_|    \_/ \___|_|_|
 _   _     ____              _
| | | |   | __ )  ___   ___ | |_ 
| | | |___|  _ \ / _ \ / _ \| __| 
| |_| |___| |_) | (_) | (_) | |_ 
 \___/    |____/ \___/ \___/ \__|  ** LOADER **
 ** MARVELL BOARD: Synology Disk Station LE 

U-Boot 1.1.1 (Jan 18 2007 - 12:01:00) Marvell version: 1.11.2

DRAM CS[0] base 0x00000000   size 128MB 
DRAM Total size 128MB 
[4096kB@ffc00000] Flash:  4 MB
Addresses 20M - 0M are saved for the U-Boot usage.
Mem malloc Initialization (20M - 16M): Done
*** Warning - bad CRC, using default environment


Soc: 88F5281 D0
CPU: ARM926 (Rev 0) running @ 500Mhz 
Orion 2 streaming disabled 
VFP initialized to Run Fast Mode.
SysClock = 166Mhz , TClock = 166Mhz 


Model: CS-407
CPLD version: 0x0
FAN Status: Running

USB 0: host mode
CPU: Write allocate enabled
Net:   egiga0 [PRIME]
Press Ctrl+C to abort autoboot in 1 second
## Booting image at ffc00000 ...
   Image Name:   Linux-2.6.15
   Image Type:   ARM Linux Kernel Image (uncompressed)
   Data Size:    1450556 Bytes =  1.4 MB
   Load Address: 00008000
   Entry Point:  00008000
   Verifying Checksum ... OK
OK
## Loading Ramdisk Image at ffe00000 ...
   Image Name:   synology_88f5281_cs407 1354
   Image Type:   ARM Linux RAMDisk Image (gzip compressed)
   Data Size:    810453 Bytes = 791.5 kB
   Load Address: 00800000
   Entry Point:  00800000
   Verifying Checksum ... OK

Starting kernel ...

Uncompressing Linux............................................................................................. done, booting the kernel.
Linux version 2.6.15 (root@image15) (gcc version 3.4.3 (CSL 2005Q1B) (Marvell 2006Q3)) #1354 Sat Oct 23 01:49:30 CST 2010                 
CPU: ARM926EJ-Sid(wb) [41069260] revision 0 (ARMv5TEJ)                                                                   
Machine: MV-88fxx81                                   
Using UBoot passing parameters structure
Sys Clk = 166666667, Tclk = 166666667   
Synology Hareware Version: DS407v10  
Memory policy: ECC disabled, Data cache writeback
CPU0: D VIVT write-back cache                    
CPU0: I cache: 32768 bytes, associativity 1, 32 byte lines, 1024 sets
CPU0: D cache: 32768 bytes, associativity 4, 32 byte lines, 256 sets 
Built 1 zonelists                                                   
Kernel command line: console=ttyS0,115200 ip=off initrd=0x00800040,4M root=/dev/md0 rw syno_hw_version=DS407v10
PID hash table entries: 1024 (order: 10, 16384 bytes)                                                          
Dentry cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 5, 131072 bytes)
Inode-cache hash table entries: 16384 (order: 4, 65536 bytes)  
Memory: 128MB = 128MB total                                  
Memory: 122452KB available (2400K code, 594K data, 108K init)
Mount-cache hash table entries: 512                          
CPU: Testing write buffer coherency: ok
checking if image is initramfs...it isn't (no cpio magic); looks like an initrd
Freeing initrd memory: 4096K                                                   
NET: Registered protocol family 16
                                  
CPU Interface
-------------
SDRAM_CS0 ....base 00000000, size 128MB 
SDRAM_CS1 ....disable                   
SDRAM_CS2 ....disable
SDRAM_CS3 ....disable
PEX0_MEM ....base e0000000, size 128MB 
PEX0_IO ....base f2000000, size   1MB  
PCI0_MEM ....base e8000000, size 128MB 
PCI0_IO ....base f2100000, size   1MB  
INTER_REGS ....base f1000000, size   1MB 
DEVICE_CS0 ....base fa000000, size   2MB 
DEVICE_CS1 ....base f8000000, size  32MB 
DEVICE_CS2 ....base fa800000, size   1MB 
DEV_BOOCS ....base ffc00000, size   4MB  
Marvell USB EHCI Host controller #0: c0bf5c00
PCI: bus0: Fast back to back transfers disabled
PCI: bus1: Fast back to back transfers enabled 
SCSI subsystem initialized                    
use IDMA acceleration in copy to/from user buffers. used channels 2 and 3 
Done.                                                                     
VFS: Disk quotas dquot_6.5.1
Dquot-cache hash table entries: 1024 (order 0, 4096 bytes)
Initializing Cryptographic API                            
io scheduler noop registered  
io scheduler anticipatory registered
io scheduler deadline registered    
io scheduler cfq registered     
Serial: 8250/16550 driver $Revision: 1.3 $ 2 ports, IRQ sharing disabled
serial8250: ttyS0 at MMIO 0x0 (irq = 3) is a 16550A                     
serial8250: ttyS1 at MMIO 0x0 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
RAMDISK driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 65536K size 1024 blocksize
loop: loaded (max 8 devices)                                          
Marvell Gigabit Ethernet Driver 'egiga':
  o Ethernet descriptors in DRAM        
  o DRAM SW cache-coherency     
  o Checksum offload enabled
  o Loading network interface 'egiga0' as eth0
  o Radom MAC address 00:ef:af:c3:17:94       
                                       
PCI: enabling device 0000:00:01.0 (0140 -> 0143)
Delay 10 seconds to wait for disk 0 ready.

Thunderbolt GPSDO PPS Signal

2011-10-23T13:13:00.002Z

Years after I got my thunderbolt GPS controlled clock I finally managed to connect the precise pulse-per-second signal to my linux-based router and NTP-server.

From chris' blog

Fire-Basket

2011-10-02T18:41:00.001Z

Getting rid of the remaining (small, not really useable for anything) pieces of wood left over from the garden-shed project.

(Update: Last pictures distorted by virtue of Microsoft Windows Live Writer ™ © ®…)

Garden-House almost finished...

2011-09-28T16:23:00.002Z

After a looooooooooong time, my garden-shed project is nearing its completion.

From chris' blog

Previously

Long Term Exposure

2011-08-24T19:20:00.001Z

Illumination by thunderstorms, and the transmitter’s beacon lights

Audio Editing

2011-07-31T17:53:00.001Z

Behringer UB1002 Pre-Fader FX Modification

2011-06-10T21:40:00.003Z

I have a small UB1002 mixer from Behringer connected to my computer, but one of the annoying things about this (otherwise very cost-effective and nice) device is that the built-in AUX/Effect bus is configured as post-fader only. And therefore I never had any use for it. With a little soldering, I managed to convert it to pre-fader, which makes the FX output much more useful as a pre-listening or monitor channel. For the stereo-channels 3–10, you can just move one resistor each, solder it perpendicular to its normal location and add a jumper wire on the unconnected end of the resistor:

From chris' blog

For the mono-channels, the resistor to the FX-summing-bus is integrated in a four-channel resistor array. Therefore I chose to cut the trace from the resistor pad to a via next to it (indicated with a red line in the picture), and add a resistor from the parts box (the ones soldered in a 45 degree angle to the pins of the FX-pot). I only found 4.7kΩ in my parts box, the resistor-pack nominally is 5.1kΩ:

From chris' blog

Promise SmartStor NS4600 Serial Port Connector Pinout

2011-06-03T14:44:00.005Z

I have problems with a Promise NS4600 which seems to suffer from corruptions of its flash memory. For debugging, it's useful to be able to access the NS4600's serial port.

For this you have to get to the PCB: Remove the single screw that locks the black right cover in place, then slide the cover to the front. With the cover removed, loosen the 5 screws that hold the PCB in place. Lift the PCB up. The connectors to the harddisk backplane and the LED/button part on the front should part easily.

The signals are on a 4pin connector marked CN11 (2mm spacing, not 1/10"!). As I didn't have a compatible plug, I just soldered a 4-pin cable to the bottom of the PCB that goes through the small void in the cutout for the SATA port.

From chris' blog

The port uses 3.3V levels and runs at the usual 115200 bps. Promise has chosen to use the u-boot bootloader. This is how a normal powerup of the device looks, up to the point where the linux-kernel takes over (output continues, I just stopped pasting). I'm using a FT232RL breakout board as a 3.3V serial port, but any other should do.

$ !cu
cu -l ttyUSB0 -s115200
Connected.


U-Boot 1.3.3 (NS4600 - 021) (May 26 2009 - 11:16:20)

U-Boot code: FFF90000 -> FFFC8E17  data: 00070000 -> 00072993
        BSS: 00072994 -> 00088CDB stack: 00088CDC -> 00098CDB
     malloc: 00098CDC -> 000DCCDC
CPU Freq: 600 Mhz
FSB Freq: 400 Mhz
DRAM size: 256 MB
DRAM Configuration:
Bank #0: 00000000 256 MB
Bank #1: 10000000  0 kB
        00  01  8086  5023  0880  0b
        00  02  8086  5024  0604  0b
        02  00  105a  3f20  0104  0b
        00  03  8086  5025  0604  0b
        03  00  8086  5040  0200  0b
        03  01  8086  5044  0200  0f
        03  03  8086  503e  ff00  00
        03  07  8086  503c  1110  0b
        03  08  8086  503d  0680  0b
        03  09  8086  502c  0b40  0b
        03  0a  8086  503f  0880  0b
        03  0c  8086  5030  1101  0b
        00  04  8086  5037  0604  00
        00  0a  8086  5038  ff00  00
        00  1d  8086  5033  0c03  0b
        00  1d  8086  5035  0c03  0b
        00  1f  8086  5031  0601  00
        00  1f  8086  502b  0104  0f
        00  1f  8086  5032  0c05  0f
        00  1f  8086  5036  1101  07
In:    serial
Out:   serial
Err:   serial
I2C:   Ready
NAND:  128 MiB
Net:   e1000: 00:01:55:11:8a:76
1000 Mbs, Full Duplex
Valid link established!!!
GbE#0
Hit Ctrl + C to stop autoboot:  0 

NAND read: device 0 offset 0xa20000, size 0x200000

Reading data from 0xc1f800 -- 100% complete.
 2097152 bytes read: OK

NAND read: device 0 offset 0xc20000, size 0x800000

Reading data from 0x141f800 -- 100% complete.
 8388608 bytes read: OK
## Booting kernel from Legacy Image at 01100000 ...
   Image Name:   linux
   Created:      2009-09-03   8:38:23 UTC
   Image Type:   Intel x86 Linux Kernel Image (uncompressed)
   Data Size:    2014136 Bytes =  1.9 MB
   Load Address: 00500000
   Entry Point:  00500040
   Verifying Checksum ... OK
   Loading Kernel Image ... OK
OK
## Loading init Ramdisk from Legacy Image at 01600000 ...
   Image Name:   02.01.0000.06
   Created:      2009-12-31   2:57:40 UTC
   Image Type:   Intel x86 Linux RAMDisk Image (gzip compressed)
   Data Size:    4792129 Bytes =  4.6 MB
   Load Address: 00900000
   Entry Point:  00900040
   Verifying Checksum ... OK
Using boot protocol version 2.05
Linux kernel version 2.6.20.21-4600 (root@johnny) #32 PREEMPT Mon Aug 31 17:15:48 CST 2009
Initial RAM disk at linear address 0x01600040, size 4792129 bytes
Kernel command line: "root=/dev/ram rw mtdparts=nand0:2048K(safe-k),8320K(safe-r),2048K(kernel),8192K(rootfs),16512K(usr),2048K(data),91776K(app) console=ttyS0,115200"
Loading bzImage at address 0x00100000 (2008504 bytes)

Starting kernel ...

Harddisk woes

2011-03-27T13:11:00.005Z

I'm currently debugging a problem with SATA harddrives in a NAS and there is a certain series of SAMSUNG drives that have a nasty data corruption problem. In short, it means that you have to run a DOS(!) program to upgrade your harddisk firmware! The amount of workarounds and kludges to get this running on my main PC (with a rather picky BIOS) is really staggering.

Radiation

2011-03-17T19:10:00.001Z

These are old pictures from when we visited the AKR2 reactor at the university of Dresden in March 2009.

eBay and PayPal suck

2011-03-11T08:38:00.001Z

tl;dr: Today I tried to pay via PayPal for the first time in my life, it’s broken and sucks really hard.

In principle there should be the possibility to pay “via paypal” using only your bankaccount or credit card, but if you try to, you find out that the system is completely broken.

First, it only reloaded endlessly when trying to switch from eBay to the paypal-page in the Opera Browser.

Then, using the Idiot’s Browser™, I finally was able to pay using my bank-acocunt. Or so I thought. Every attempt I made, using the bank-account or two credit cards was greeted with a different uninformative error message, and yes, I triple-checked everything and there was no typo involved (especially in the AMEX case).

It completely eludes me how such a horribly idiotic system could rise to be a major payment processor.

IKEA doesn’t like pirates…

2011-01-05T19:40:00.001Z

Seen on the packaging of a IKEA cupboard.

Blubb

2010-12-23T18:14:00.001Z

This thing *really* needs some more colourful illumination…

Building Bike-Sheds

2010-09-22T18:49:00.001Z

Summer in Austria

2010-09-01T10:00:00.001Z

This photo has been taken in August!

From chris' blog

Update update update update…

2010-07-07T12:48:00.001Z

Update to enable future updates… You just can’t make that up.

Cool music…

2010-06-26T18:30:00.001Z

There’s a battle going on between two musicians over on youtube:

IT Crowd S04E01

2010-06-26T07:50:00.001Z

DVB Streaming…

2010-06-13T21:07:00.001Z

dvblast is kind of neat… :-) Streaming 4 programmes (one DVB-T transponder/frequency) to a windows machine running 4 vlc decoders.

$ dvblast –c dvblast_746000000.conf –f 746000000 –b 8

$ cat dvblast_746000000.conf

# arte
arte:239.0.0.1:4008 1       2
# Phoenix
239.0.0.1:4009 1       3
# EinsPlus
239.0.0.1:4010 1       6
# Das_Erste
239.0.0.1:4011 1       32

The corresponding “channel.conf” can be found on the VDR Wiki.

Damn it, it’s 2010!

2010-05-11T17:05:00.001Z

I was looking for the cause of a erratic jumping mouse cursor (about once every minute moving, clicking, …) when I suddenly realized that I had a GPS receiver still connected to a USB/serial adapter on the Windows machine. Cut that shit off, Microsoft! It’s 2010, no one is using serial mice anymore. And anyone who still does can sure be bothered to install the f*cking driver themselves!

Update: It’s a feature of the FTDIchip USB-to-serial driver and documented in the manual for the advanced driver options:

To disable auto detect, go to the device properties, advanced, and uncheck the “serial enumerator” feature.

26 MHz

2010-05-09T12:50:00.001Z

Motorola C155, Rita XOUT between C132 and C210, 26 MHz nominal

Trnava

2010-04-28T04:42:00.004Z

Trnava, Slovakia, Wikipedia, Simple Wikipedia.

Old Wood

2010-04-08T16:33:00.001Z

Motorola C123 Pictures (bottom)

2010-03-27T11:39:00.001Z

My new not-so-smart-phone: Motorola C123.

Painted Wall

2010-02-18T20:57:00.001Z

Best TED-Talk ever…

2010-02-15T20:27:00.001Z

http://www.ted.com/talks/clifford_stoll_on_everything.html

Snow

2010-01-31T14:22:00.001Z

There’s currently a lot of very pretty snow around here.

I especially like the funny shapes the wind has created at one corner of the house.

New computer case…

2010-01-24T19:28:00.001Z

Mini-ITX in wooden box.

Country Selection Fail

2010-01-13T20:31:00.001Z

Georgia, Germany, Ghana, …?

VLANs on a cheap switch

2010-01-06T18:48:00.002Z

Today I read on tmbinc’s blog about how he modified a cheap Ethernet-switch to be VLAN capable.

With VLANs you can fan out the single built-in Ethernet-interface of your computer to several isolated networks. These cheap switches (you can get them with 8 ports for about 10€) have this functionality because they use the same chips as common plastic routers that separate their three different types of network ports with the same technique and usually connect with a ninth MII-port that’s not being used in a common desktop-switch.

I had tried to do the same in the past, but initially failed as I blew the serial i2c-eeprom during my attempts of programming it, but today I didn’t make any mistakes that destroyed the little thing. As my configuration is different from tmbinc’s, I’ll make it also available in the archive linked to below.

The Process to make your switch (that has to use a RTL8309SB IC) VLAN capable.

Get a switch that preferably already has a I2C eeprom to store it’s configuration. Mine had, because it advertised QOS (quality of service) functionality that requires the IC it to be configured by some external memory. I used a Longshine LCS-FS6108, but it’s already 4 years old, so most likely they’ve switched to a different IC already? One never knows.
Remove the I2C eeprom. On that particular switch the ground planes are very thick so I wasn’t able to desolder it properly. I just cut off the pins and…
Put it on top of a IC socket providing replacements for the severed limbs.
Change the contents of the eeprom using your favorite programmer, the text files in the archive linked to below contain some explanations (see details.txt)
Put chip back into switch.

The configuration in the .zip-file provides you with 6 untagged ports and 2 tagged ports according to the table below:

Label on Switch	RTL8309SB Port Number	VLANs
8,7	0,1	1, untagged
6,5	2,3	2, untagged
4,3	4,5	3, untagged
2,1	6,7	1…9, tagged
-	MII	Unused

Download Configuration:

20100106_switch_eeprom_vlan.zip (798k)

switch_eeprom_vlan.dat : VLAN Configuration of Switch, copy contents to eeprom
switch_eeprom_orig.dat : Original configuration of Switch, Backup
switch_eeprom_detail.txt : VLAN Configuration with comments
switch_eeprom_detail.pdf : VLAN Configuration with comments, as pdf

I tested the switch with a Linux machine that has a NVIDIA nForce Gigabit Controller and my OpenSolaris NAS that uses a RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller.

Update 2011-02-18: zip-file available again on new server

Random stuff happening…

2010-01-01T16:18:00.001Z

No Brat with crackbrained Name on Board.

2009-11-22T15:33:00.001Z

(as seen on a car on the grocery’s parking lot)

Ubuntu & Gdm make me angry.

2009-11-04T13:22:00.001Z

I installed the new and shiny Ubuntu Karmic on my computer today. Now there’s a speciality: I run the same installation (on a 2nd harddrive) both natively on the computer, but also in a VirtualBox VM.

That’s actually not complicated to setup, and most of the things work out fine, but there’s a remaining wart, which is the X-server needs additional and different configs for native-mode and running under the VM.

In former times, I just set the X-server being run by gdm (in /etc/gdm.conf) to /usr/local/sbin/Xserver.sh and used that shell-script to launch the correct server (with a different config, or even the same config but different “layouts”).

Now the wise men of gnome (gdm programmers) and Ubuntu decided to hardcode the paths of every component involved… And I only found out after learning…

that gdm no longer looks at /etc/gdm/gdm.conf, but rather is configured via the gconfd-mechanism
that the X-server configuration is not included in the new mechanism, but rather a compile-time default is hardcoded
that the X-server is not run directly, but rather via the wrapper /usr/bin/X, which is, indeed, configurable… but also lacks a configuration directive to choose which server to run.

So, again, in the sake of… “simplification”, or should I say dumbing-down, of their core programs, they made deviating from their “single user on a dedicated machine with internet dial-up” standard scenario even more painful. I might just use MS Windows then, because it basically adheres to the same “do what we have forseen and don’t deviate” belief.

Immediate update: One can adjust the symlink /etc/X11/X! Which isn’t documented (as far as I see) and also not as flexible as the original gdm.conf solution, but should suffice.

Opera 10.1 Upgrade FAIL!

2009-10-31T18:37:00.001Z

Opera just announced the existence of a upgrade to it. I told it to proceed, shorty after I noticed my (usually silent) PC to spin its fans vigorously…

This repeats whenever Opera is restarted, so I had to delete the offending file somwhere in %TEMP%. Great engineering, guys!

Broken Kepco Power-Supply

2009-10-31T18:25:00.001Z

One of the reference values is much too low, note the brown and crispy Zener.

Update: Looks very shitty, but it works. I’ll replace those with real 6.2V Zeners the next time I order some electronics stuff.

LCD working

2009-10-10T20:18:00.001Z

I spent a little while debugging my microcontroller code.

LCD - Update

2009-10-07T20:26:00.001Z

Success! Even though I’m still scratching my head about the funny memory layout in graphics mode when using a 6x8 font. Time to read the datasheet (again).

Graphical LCD Controller

2009-10-04T20:55:00.001Z

New project: Using a Atmel ATmega168 to control a graphical Everbouquet LCD that itself uses a T6963C Controller. Right now it seems that I can read the status-register and data successfully. The integrated DC/DC controller (for the negative LCD driving voltage) powers up and delivers –9V.

Running, three times…

2009-08-18T18:59:00.001Z

Vacation

2009-08-17T18:48:00.001Z

Currently on vacation.

Copying VHS to DVD...

2009-08-02T16:45:00.003Z

After fighting with Linux's v4l2, alsa, pulseaudio, mencoder, mjpegfoobarblahblubbtools etc.. I just borrowed one of those. Probably it will just work.

This is my ambition.

2009-07-28T21:00:00.001Z

Three Phase Power

2009-07-26T20:06:00.001Z

Breadboard

2009-07-19T17:10:00.001Z

I started playing around with a breadboard. Until now, I never had done this, but I have to say, it’s kind of convenient. The only downside: I don’t have pre-cut cables, so I used the one from a big spool I found, but they are kind of pink-ish ;-).

Gainclone

2009-07-11T12:11:00.002Z

It hums. And I’m annoyed.

What did I do on Saturday? Well, via the wonder of the web, I watched my friend burn both himself and his baby daughter with his home-made amplifier, then rail against excel and python in an attempt to print out some gradesheets. He eventually got so angry he threw himself out the window. He was in the basement, but you have to appreciate the attempt.

Update: I modified the last stage to have less gain (4 instead of 20), so it better matches my source, furthermore I added a 5k resistor at the input to have less input impedance. That helped a lot.

i can has censorship

2009-06-18T18:23:00.001Z

Our junta of incompetent politicians have passed the law that will now introduce censorship in Germany. Ignorant assholes.

device-mapper ate my linux installation

2009-06-14T09:16:00.001Z

Just a quick note about the harm that you can suffer, should you try to install the “dmraid” package in your linux distribution: It’s EVIL! The problem is that for me it installed the dmraid signature in my harddisks last sector, so that Ubuntu’s initrd would automatically create useless mappings from…

/dev/sda –> /dev/mapper/NVIDIAxyzqwert
/dev/sda1 –> /dev/mapper/NVIDIAxyzqwer_1
/dev/sda2 –> /dev/mapper/NVIDIAxyzqwer_2
…and so on…

Everything completely pointless, and wrecking my distribution’s ability to boot. I usually run my self compiled kernels which exclude the device-mapper for this exact reason, but it’s not possible on my other PC for one reason or the other. And the final and correct cure is to boot with the greatest bootable live-system there is: GRML, and overwrite the harddisk’s last sector (which holds the signature) with zeroes:

# dmsetup remove_all # get rid of the mappings # cat /proc/partitions … 8 0 12345678 sda # your harddisk … # sdd bs=512 –inull of=/dev/sda oseek=12345677k count=1 # overwrite last block

Reboot and enjoy. Use this recipe at your own risk!

Pointless^∞

2009-06-14T08:52:00.001Z

There’s a post over at slashdot about the Twitpocalypse… What it’s supposed to mean is that twitter, this stream of useless short-messages you can (or, if you are like me: you don’t) follow to be informed about the social life or bodily functions of your peers now has accumulated over 2³¹ items, a number exceeding the range of a 32bit signed integer. I’ll never understand how anyone can care about such a thing, but it for sure made it’s inventors famous and rich. And there’s one comment about the stupid choice of words and names I think is especially hilarious (see screenshot).

Vintage moving coil meter

2009-06-13T09:20:00.001Z

I put some of my electronics garbage to good use, this pretty instrument was salvaged from the dumpster a long time ago. It displays Neper with a full range of +0.5Np at 40µA, 0Np at 24µA.

Pirate Bay Anthem

2009-05-17T20:26:00.003Z

It might not be one with the most highbrow lyrics, but The Pirate Bay now has an anthem! YouTube Video, PirateBay News, mp3 torrent.

New Mascot

2009-05-17T10:24:00.001Z

I got myself a new mascot. Somehow reminds me of the fabulous Creatures In My Head. Previously.

News! (Olds?)

2009-04-26T19:09:00.004Z

Ok, so there hasn't been much activity in this blog since... ages. I left the physicist's natural habitat (university) to work in industry. That said, I hope that the frequency of posts will rise now that I got accustomed to doing "real work". As prearrangement I already changed the subtitle of this blog, maybe I should also hold a "Blog Reader Kick-Off Awareness Meeting"?

200000 km

2008-09-17T06:41:00.001Z

My trusty old Polo had its kmversary...

msdnaa fail

2008-09-11T12:46:00.002Z

To download a ISO image for Windows XP (as a member of a university, I joined the Microsoft Developers Network Academic Alliance programme) I have to download a special windows-only binary program... Which doesn't work right in WINE (the windows API for Linux). But they didn't even get it right on Windows either, as the screenshot here suggests.

Back from holiday.

2008-09-06T13:49:00.002Z

Thunderbolt

2008-06-09T16:21:00.003Z

Finally my nice GPS disciplined clock arrived.

New home-office...

2008-06-08T16:26:00.003Z

This is what will become my new home-office... as soon as both mould and hole are removed from the wall :-(

Disappointment

2008-05-28T17:04:00.003Z

I ordered a GPS antenna, checked that the list of "compatible" GPS receivers include +5V types, asked them in a Email about it, to which they replied "3.3V - 5V is ok", and now got the product depicted next to this text.

Office Temperature

2008-05-27T09:04:00.001Z

Office temperature has reached 28 degrees celsius (upper line).

Accident on the highway...

2008-05-15T20:47:00.001Z

Keyboard taking a bath

2008-05-08T08:17:00.002Z

Knight Rider

2008-05-05T06:13:00.003Z

When I was about 10 years old, we loved to watch this. Yesterday in the evening, I found out that someone analyzed almost all episodes, which are, I have to admit, incredibly bad! But a very entertaining read, unfortunately in german.

Measuring Power

2008-05-01T15:20:00.007Z

I don't own something like a Kill-A-Watt but was interested in the power-consumption of several computers, so I had to improvise. Upper trace: Voltage, lower trace current. The result is that the fluorescent lamp illuminating the still-life depicted consumes 7.2W. A 1.2 GHz Athlon is 95W when idle, 105W when busy. A Pentium-II needs 45W of juice.

Competition Pro

2008-04-23T14:23:00.003Z

I repaired my second Competition Pro (german article) joystick from the old Amiga days. It works remarkably well with the linux db9-driver:

$ jstest /dev/input/js0 
Driver version is 2.1.0.
Joystick (Multisystem joystick (2 fire)) has 2 axes (X, Y)
and 2 buttons (Trigger, ThumbBtn).
Testing ... (interrupt to exit)
Axes:  0:     0  1:     0 Buttons:  0:off  1:off

This one now has two buttons: I had to repair the broken cable, removed the auto-fire electronics and then just rewired the small triangle buttons to fire2. (not-so-recently).

Salvaged from the scrap-metal bin...

2008-04-17T14:48:00.002Z

Spam....

2008-04-10T08:32:00.001Z

Subject: Drucke hierher und bekomm die Postkarte. Von wem erkennst du spater Sie haben eine virtuelle Karte erhalten! Sie konnen die Karte innerhalb von 30 Tagen ansehen, unter der Verweisung gehend: http://xxxxx.xxy.ru/card/123566.html Klick der Verbindung auf oder Kopie es zur Adressbar des Internet-Browsers. ------- Befreien Virtuelle Karten! xxxxxxx.xx.ru

all 4 teh lulz

2008-03-04T17:17:00.003Z

Scientist - like new!

2008-02-26T13:42:00.003Z

Ebay #330212923460:

Wissenschaftler, neuwertig
Erstklassiger Wissenschaftler, promoviert, habilitiert, auslandserfahren, belastbar, kreativ, teamfähig, multi-lingual, kommunikativ, Organisationstalent, jung, unverheiratet, kein Kinderwunsch (Arbeit geht vor), erstklassige Publikationsliste, kein Privatleben
Arbeitet mindestens 65-70 Stunden pro Woche, wenn das nicht reicht, gerne auch zusätzlich am Wochenende. Die Nacht ist bis auf Ausnahmen für Literaturarbeit reserviert. Übernimmt sämtliche Lehrverpflichtungen, präsentiert Ergebnisse auf Kongressen und Tagungen. Schreibt Reviews und Publikationen, bereitet Vorträge vor und organisiert Begehungen (Arbeitssicherheit, Gentechnik, Radioaktivität, Tierschutz …). Gerne auch drittmittelfinanzierte Zeitverträge bis zur Rente. Garantiert kein Arbeitsausfall durch Urlaub oder Krankheit. Wer nicht zu Hause schläft, hat auch keinen Unfall.
Gehaltsvorstellung BAT 2a oder weniger (auch mal Hartz IV wenn es sein darf), gerne auch in Hessen (kein Tarifvertrag). Geld ist eh nur schnöder Mammon.
Sucht perspektivlose, frustrierende Routinearbeiten in der akademischen Forschung mit Giftstoffen, Radioaktivität und Tierversuchen, alles was andere liegenlassen. Wo andere ins Ausland abwandern, steht ein echter Wissenschaftler seinen Mann. Frust ist ein Fremdwort.

(Scientist, like new. First class scientist, graduated, lecture qualification, able to work under pressure, creative, can work in a team, multilingual, communicative, talent for organizing, young, not married, not planning to have children (work first!), good publications, no private life, works 65-70 hours/week, possibly also on weekends. Nights are reserved for researching literature. Will also do lecture-work, will present results on conferences, writes review and publications, prepares results and does misc inspections, like work-security, biohazard, radiation and animal-rights. Does short-term contracts until retirements, will not take holidays or sick-days... (...) Looking for repetitive, boring work without perspective in academic resarch with poisonous, radioactive substances or animal experiments. Everything that others won't touch. When all others are fleeing in foreign countries, a real scientist will take the burdon, frustration is a word he does not know.)

CCD camera

2008-02-15T17:58:00.003Z

The bright LEDs are completely dark to the human eye, it's a camera for near infrared..

Small pages... (2)

2008-02-13T18:43:00.002Z

Recently.

Valve thing

2008-02-13T17:53:00.004Z

Things I did not want to end in the dumpster, Part 123512.

Running JACK with realtime priorities

2008-02-07T10:48:00.000Z

I spent *HOURS* trying to figure out how to use POSIX capabilities unter Linux to run the jack soundserver with realtime priorities. The simple answer to this “how-to” question is: YOU DON'T!. There are many pages describing the various merits of SYS_CAP_NICE and all, a buggy kernel-module that does no longer work on a recent kernel, and even more junk. But the real solution is to just use rlimits. Had I only used GENTOO, most likely, I would have found out earlier. I only found out what to really search for, after stumbling over this page on linuxaudio.org.

Happy New Year

2007-12-31T20:26:00.000Z

At least where I live the end of the year 2007 is near, and we'll never be able to go back (see photo ;-) ). I wish everyone a happy new year 2008 and much fun with their new-years celebrations.

ICQ Exploit

2007-12-25T16:42:00.000Z

Is this some kind of ICQ exploit or just the usual GAIM breakage?

New Skype Setup

2007-12-16T11:54:00.000Z

I improved my computer telephony setup a little...

Traffic Jam

2007-12-13T08:55:00.000Z

Small pages...

2007-11-27T20:16:00.000Z

The day the routers died...

2007-11-27T16:38:00.000Z

The day the routers died, performed at at the RIPE 55 conference: Video, Lyrics. Update: You can even find the lyrics in WHOIS.

56 pages

2007-11-20T21:51:00.000Z

Now that Gajo Simpatico is bragging about his imminent departure from the wonderful world of physics, I have to blog that I reached the number of 56 crappy pages in my thesis. I'll not add a live-counter, though.... So it's only a matter of few more years until I'll finish...

new airport power supply

2007-11-13T20:47:00.000Z

Recently. The new and improved power supply, getting about 8V from a wall-wart. Using a LM2575 for 3.3V@1A and the venerable 78L05 for 5V at some insignificant current.

Scope

2007-11-13T16:19:00.000Z

Vorratsdatenspeicherung

2007-11-10T10:48:00.000Z

I have removed the banner in the upper-right corner linking to http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/, obviously the aim of this campaign was not reached: Our beloved parliament has passed a law demanding storage of extensive records about phone- and internet usage of every citizen yesterday. I'll not go into the details of the infamous lies Mrs. Zypries has told the citizens to get to this point, please read about it in the link above. Update: If you want to learn about yet another reason why CDU/CSU or SPD must not be allowed to govern this country any longer, please have a lookt at the names of the members of parliament and their votes on this law.

Airport Express

2007-11-08T14:47:00.000Z

Claudio gave me his broken Airport-Express, which still seems to work fine if you don't use the switching power supply. As the SPS basically consists of only one chip on the primary side - which is broken - I'll most likely put the Airport Express in a nice plastic box with a new power adapter.

Making Coffee

2007-11-08T14:45:00.000Z

y00ng l1b3r4lz

2007-11-06T12:39:00.001Z

The young liberals invite to their monthly meeting. In l33t.

Tapes

2007-11-05T10:54:00.001Z

Physicists in motion

2007-10-26T19:11:00.000Z

Drums

2007-10-24T13:45:00.000Z

Scientists Talking

2007-10-22T13:57:00.000Z

Cute Overload

2007-10-13T17:26:00.000Z

Ant

2007-10-03T13:30:00.000Z

Comfy Bike

2007-10-03T13:22:00.000Z

Kawai K1, nude

2007-10-02T14:14:00.000Z

Inside a Kawai K1 Synthesizer

“Laser”

2007-09-28T14:25:00.000Z

The interesting thing about this setup is, that it's a infrared laser. You can barely see it with your eyes (yes, I know... you shouldn't) but it's very bright for the camera CCD.

more physics profanities

2007-09-21T16:34:00.000Z

After only 1294 lines of f*cking GEANT/ROOT code....

Disco Mirror-Ball

2007-09-20T17:02:00.001Z

Avast!

2007-09-19T08:30:00.000Z

Today, Sept. 19th, is Talk Like A Pirate Day!

Mallorca

2007-09-07T10:18:00.000Z

I'm back home from my summer holiday, all inclusive, in Mallorca.

Chris' Miscellanea

Erasing a FEZ Panda using the serial port

Steps to erase the FEZ Panda

HP82240A RedEye on Arduino Duemilanove

Synology Cubestation CS407 - Boot Log

Thunderbolt GPSDO PPS Signal

Fire-Basket

Garden-House almost finished...

Long Term Exposure

Audio Editing

Behringer UB1002 Pre-Fader FX Modification

Promise SmartStor NS4600 Serial Port Connector Pinout

Harddisk woes

Radiation

eBay and PayPal suck

IKEA doesn’t like pirates…

Blubb

Building Bike-Sheds

Summer in Austria

Update update update update…

Cool music…

IT Crowd S04E01

DVB Streaming…

Damn it, it’s 2010!

26 MHz

Trnava

Old Wood

Motorola C123 Pictures (bottom)

Painted Wall

Best TED-Talk ever…

Snow

New computer case…

Country Selection Fail

VLANs on a cheap switch

Random stuff happening…

No Brat with crackbrained Name on Board.

Ubuntu & Gdm make me angry.

Opera 10.1 Upgrade FAIL!

Broken Kepco Power-Supply

LCD working

LCD - Update

Graphical LCD Controller

Running, three times…

Vacation

Copying VHS to DVD...

*This* is my ambition.

Three Phase Power

Breadboard

Gainclone

i can has censorship

device-mapper ate my linux installation

Pointless^∞

Vintage moving coil meter

Pirate Bay Anthem

New Mascot

News! (Olds?)

200000 km

msdnaa fail

Back from holiday.

Thunderbolt

New home-office...

Disappointment

Office Temperature

Accident on the highway...

Keyboard taking a bath

Knight Rider

Measuring Power

Competition Pro

Salvaged from the scrap-metal bin...

Spam....

all 4 teh lulz

Scientist - like new!

CCD camera

Small pages... (2)

Valve thing

Running JACK with realtime priorities

Happy New Year

ICQ Exploit

New Skype Setup

Traffic Jam

This is my ambition.