Donating Software
October 15, 2006
Do any of you know how to donate software licenses?
I’ve got a 20 CAL copy of Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition, for x64 here. It’s NFR, and was handed to me by a MS rep. Unfortunately I don’t have a use for it. I can’t really sell it, so I’d like to donate it to a charity which can use it. But I don’t know of any. If any of you know of a organization which can (and will) use it, and how I can get it to them, please let me know.
And yes, it’s brand new, still sealed, etc.
Thanks. :D
there’s a collaborative group of local agencies here in Lapeer that i can inform – some may not even know what it is, but others will have IT staff that would probably JUMP at something like that. if you don’t hear anything about what to do with it by tomorrow, i’ll post it on their mailing list. most of them, if not all, have 501(c)3 status, too, so you could get a tax break for the donation.
d’oh! that was me… didn’t know i’d been logged out. *rolls eyes*
I was hoping you’d reply to this. Yeah, they are more than welcome to it. I just simply don’t need it, and I don’t want to toss it out. I just want it to get used. :)
are you living in lapeer now?
yep… been working up here for a year and a half, and living here a year. it’s a whole ‘nother world compared to the Detroit area (:
lol..for real! i didnt know you were living up there now..
i have an uncle that used to live in lapeer (plus it isnt that far from Grand Blanc)
my sweetie lives in A2, so i’m up/down US23 at least one weekend a month. whenever i pass the Grand Blanc/Rankin exit i catch myself thinking “that’s where jeremy used to live.” even though i’m long gone from irc, i still feel sorta mom-like to some of the old skool folks (:
i miss being in a metro area, as Flint is a bit lacking for stuff to do, but i absolutely adore my work. being in a small town is a new experience and kind of neat. not sure yet if i’m here for the long haul.
You didn’t call him your ‘boo’!
hahahaha! i was telling a colleague that “boyfriend,” especially after this length of time, sounds so seventh grade, at least to me. sweetie just works. but next time, i’ll definitely refer to him as my “boo.” cuz yeah…
I run this charity called The Trade Beer & Ale for Software Foundation. Anytime you want to donate something let me know. :)
Hehe. :D
Just curious, what would you do with a 25-CAL copy of 2K3? That’s enough for most small multi-employee businesses.
i believe the answer is lots of porn servers
nah..pron serves up best on Linux servers.
I am a small multi-employee business. :)
Oh, heh. I thought you were a single employee business… Sorry. :)
Quick question: The sidbox, once done & powered up, needs to have it’s sw dumped onto it, right?
It’s all done, but the power-on state appears to flicker the display, turn on the pwr led, and steady blink the midi out led, which seems like the generic midibox firmware state for “gimme some software”.
That’s correct. It should repeat the same sysex over and over. Fire up the MIOS loader app thingie (MIOS Studio) and while the MIDIbox SID-NUXX is polling with sysex, start an upload of the MIOS binary from here: http://www.nuxx.net/wiki/MIDIbox_SID-NUXX_-_Binaries
Make sure you have the In and Out windows visible in the app because you’ll see a whole bunch of fast replies as the blocks of data are received. Then the box should reboot and say something like MIOS Ready. After that it won’t be polling via sysex any longer, but you can start the upload of the appropriate SID application from the aforementioned link. Then it should just work. :)
Hm, yeah, something isn’t right… It took the software pushes just fine (and stopped asking for sw accordingly), but it never does anything more to the display than the little flash at the beginning (no chars, just a couple spots as it powers up), and the test tone app makes no noise.
I double checked the pins to the display, they correlate to your chart exactly. Strange…
But I’ve got no time to troubleshoot now, I guess I’ll look into it sometime later.
When you start sending the software, do the replies from it speed up a lot? They should. (Just to be certain, you did install the 1N4148 reverse from the silkscreen, per the post-it note? If not, MIDI IN won’t work.)
Yeah, the dumps went well, and I was using feedback from the core, so it was checksumming as it went. That side of things all looked good.
Huh. But no audio, even with the test tone…
Let me rule out the easy:
1) You’re sure the SID works? (I only ask because I have more than one bad SID here.)
Gur, I don’t have any more ideas after that point… Are all the caps in the audio out chain right?
I can also upload the test app which cycles the lines on the SID itself one at a time as you move the mod wheel up.
Also, I think with the OLED the Contrast setting is actually the brightness (things are per normal with the LCD). Try playing with those to get things in order with the display?
1) huh, good point, I’m not entirely sure of that.
For what it’s worth, I’ve got two known-bad SIDs. One just simply doesn’t do anything, the second doesn’t turn off the VCO until it receives a reset. It’s not the ‘normal’ SID bug, it just keeps on playing a note.
Is it safe to power the thing up with no SID in place?
Completely. You can power it up without any of the ICs in place with no problems.
In fact, the test app to be sure communication to the SID works sort of requires the SID not be in there.
http://www.nuxx.net/files/mbsid-nuxx/interconnect_test.hex
That works as follows:
; A CORE->SID Module Interconnection Test
;
; This application allows you to check the interconnections to the SID module
; with a multimeter. You can control the SID pins by sending a Modulation Wheel
; event to your MIDIbox SID - just connect a keyboard or use
; MIDI-Ox (View->Control Panel)
;
; By default all unselected pins are 0V, except for the CS# pin which is 5V
;
; The Pins are mapped to following Modulation Wheel Values:
;
; # 0: Pin A0 = 5V
; # 1: Pin A1 = 5V
; # 2: Pin A2 = 5V
; # 3: Pin A3 = 5V
; # 4: Pin A4 = 5V
; # 5: Pin RES# = 5V
; # 6: Pin D0 = 5V
; # 7: Pin D1 = 5V
; # 8: Pin D2 = 5V
; # 9: Pin D3 = 5V
; #10: Pin D4 = 5V
; #11: Pin D5 = 5V
; #12: Pin D6 = 5V
; #13: Pin D7 = 5V
; #14: Pin CS# = 0V
;
; The pin names are also visible on LCD (if connected)
Thanks, I’ll try this when I get a chance, my bet is on a bad SID. The display was fine once I’d trimmed it up, I thought I’d set them both at 50%, but I guess not.
If I remember right the brightness lines don’t actually connect to anything once they hit the display PCB. But yeah… It’s sounding like a bad SID to me too.
Oh, also, the midi in light blinks correctly on midi input, so it looks like the cpus doing some things correctly… minus LCD and SID i/o.
Just FYI, the MIDI LED is tied to the 5V pulse on the MIDI In line, nothing the CPU is actually doing. You can pull the PIC and the MIDI In LED will still flash.
Doh, I didn’t check the schems and assumed the led was off of a cpu line.
Yeah, d1 was the first thing I did so I wouldn’t forget (plus, the checksums wouldn’t have gone right if midi in wasn’t working).
Oh, you might want to use the SID test tone generator as your first app uploaded (instead of the normal SID app) so that you can hear if the thing makes noise at all.
After the test tone app is on there, you can just upload the SID player or the SID instrument in it’s place and… it’ll… just… replace it.
Also, be sure to use the patch manager to upload the preset patches so that you have more sounds to play with than the default note.