nuxx.net
Making, baking, and (un-)breaking things in Southeast Michigan.

Category electronics

Old Hardware…

March 4, 2007

I’ve got a bunch of hardware here that I just can’t bring myself to throw out. For example, a Digi AccelePort C1 (with a REAL 16C650) which I had previously used with a 3Com ImpactIQ for ISDN network access from 1997 through 2000. There is also the first computer I bought, a Pentium 90 which I’d paid almost $3k for, with 17″ monitor. A real, made in the USA 3Com Sportster 56k x2 modem from the time before the v.34 standard was formalized, which had been subsequently flashed to v.34. Some great-for-wardriving Pentium II 300 laptops, etc.

computerselectronicsmoved from livejournal

Spark Fun Electronics Hacked?

February 12, 2007

Hmm, I received this from what appears to actually be Spark Fun Electronics (sent from one of the servers physically near them), and the site itself is still offline:

Hello,

On February 8th, 2007 it came to our attention that someone or something gained unauthorized access to the Spark Fun Electronics server. It is highly unlikely that this person gained full access to our server data. But because there is no way for us to confirm the depth of the access, we felt it in the best interest to warn our (wonderful, wonderful) customers the server contained sensitive customer information including some credit card data. All numbers have since been removed and we are putting systems in place to better protect sensitive user information in the future.

Please check your credit card statement for any unauthorized activity. We will do everything in our power to work with you and your credit card company to investigate any discrepancies.

We truly appreciate your business and are very sorry to cause a scare. Please contact us (you can reply to this message) if you have any questions or concerns and we will address them as quickly as possible.

Best regards,
Spark Fun Electronics

—
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.

UPDATE: Here’s some more info about the message… it appears to be legit:

c0nsumer@rowla:/var/log> grep "server89" maillog
Feb 12 13:36:26 rowla postfix/smtpd[50546]: connect from server89.sparkfun.com[65.58.240.213]
Feb 12 13:36:26 rowla postfix/smtpd[50546]: setting up TLS connection from server89.sparkfun.com[65.58.240.213]
Feb 12 13:36:26 rowla postfix/smtpd[50546]: TLS connection established from server89.sparkfun.com[65.58.240.213]: TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)
Feb 12 13:36:27 rowla postfix/smtpd[50546]: 180394AC23: client=server89.sparkfun.com[65.58.240.213]
Feb 12 13:36:27 rowla postfix/smtpd[50546]: disconnect from server89.sparkfun.com[65.58.240.213]
c0nsumer@rowla:/var/log>

server89.sparkfun.com is now down, and Spark Fun doesn’t publish SPF records. However, sparkfun.com is 65.58.240.188, so with a whole /25 (or less, maybe a standard /24?) they could be in the same subnet. It all appears to be in a block of colocated stuffs owned by dnssys.com who doesn’t have much of a site. Still, the email message appears to be legit…

At least there are no strange charges on the card I used there. Yet. :(

computerselectronicsmoved from livejournal

9090 Update

February 9, 2007


9090 PC001 Component Side — All Parts Fitted
(Click for solder side…)


9090 PC002 Component Side — All Parts Fitted except U38, C92, and C100
(Click for solder side…)

Wow, I can’t believe it’s come this far. Starting a few months ago with a pile of PCBs and a couple of ROMs and a microcontroller I got to work building Trevor Page’s 9090, a clone of the sound creating bits inside the Roland TR-909.

I’ve been working on it here and there, ordering all the resistors one day, a bunch of caps another, etc. Except for my screwing up and failing to acquire (in the course of three separate rounds of ordering) enough .47uF electrolytic capacitors and an IC (CA3080) which I’m waiting to receive in the mail, the PCBs are complete.

In addition to the two above, there is also a board with ten separate 1/4″ mono jacks which handles audio output for each of the ten separate instruments. The component side of that board can be seen here and the solder side here.

So, what’s left before it is done? Quite a bit, unfortunately. Let’s see…

· Get the missing three parts and fit them in place.
· Decide on an enclosure and design the front and rear panels so they fit the pots, knobs, LEDs, power switch, audio jacks, MIDI jacks, and mains connector.
· Order remaining parts.
· Design indicators / artwork and figure out the best way to apply / fit them.
· Cut the enclosure to fit all the externally-fitted components (pots, jacks, etc).
· Physically assemble the enclosure and mount the boards inside.
· Cable everything together.
· Test everything to be sure all instruments and switching jacks work as expected.
· Troubleshoot, if needed.

As you can see, there is quite a bit more to go, although I think this is a good stopping point for now.

electronicsmaking thingsmoved from livejournal

9090

February 5, 2007


9090 PCBs

If everything goes according to plan, I’ll have the 9090 PCBs done sometime around the end of the week. I ended up having to place two Mouser orders today (doh!), but all I’m waiting on is a few resistors, a few tantalum capacitors, and some spacers for stacking the PCBs. After that I’ll put it aside for a while, mostly until I feel like designing the enclosure, coming up with front panel artwork, and putting it all together.

After placing that last order I’m finishing up my final can of Old Speckled Hen, then I’m going to… probably watch more of The Mayfair Set one of the films by Adam Curtis, the same guy who did The Power of Nightmares. Both of these, thus far, are excellent political documentaries and very worth watching. The Power of Nightmares is a bit more applicable to the present, as it is about the rise of neoconservatism and radical Islam and how they play off of each other to ends a ways away from what each intends.

beerelectronicsmoved from livejournalpolitics

Friday Night Bordom

January 19, 2007


Sequentix P3 controlling two MIDIbox SID-NUXXs chained into an x0xb0x.

I arrived home from work a bit early today with nothing to do. I’m not exactly sure why I did it, but for some reason I got out my Sequentix P3, MOS SID 6581 and 8580-based MIDIbox SID-NUXXs, and x0xb0x. I chained the MIDIbox SID-NUXXs into each other, ran those through the x0xb0x, hooked it all up to the P3, then got to playing. I spent a good bit of time going back through the P3’s manual, stopping somewhere in the Step section. (Yes, I have yet to learn about using accumulators… I know…)

Anyway, I mostly just screwed around with three patterns, one for each instrument, stacking them on top of each other. The end result is this:

6581_8580_x0xb0x_p3.mp3

It’s nothing great, just my screwing around. But I can say that all the sound and sequencing comes from gear I put together myself.

Now, to find something to do tonight. I’m sort of in the mood to do something social, but I’m not sure what. A club / bar is kind of out, as it’s a bit dull going by one’s self uncertain if there will be anyone familiar there. Hmm.

I think I’ll at least play some Missile Command. :D

electronicsmoved from livejournalmusic

January 3, 2007


It works!
(Click for more moblog photos…)

1) I have Founder’s Breakfast Stout.

2) My MAME cabinet (photo gallery retired) is working again, this time running completely from Compact Flash. I played Bubble Bobble!

As soon as I figure out why the sound card keeps failing (it’ll just cease to work suddenly, for no apparent reason) and fix that, everything will be good. Oh, and once I get all the controls / display stuffs sorted out. But that’s not too difficult.

I just bid on another card on eBay. I think it’s the card failing, so it’s best to replace it.

Expect more on the MAME cabinet soon. There will likely be photos and a write-up in the projects portion of nuxx.net.

Also, today I:
· Smoked a power supply after replacing the fuse inside. I guess more than the fuse was bad.
· Diagnosed a motherboard bearing a rather nice AMD Athlon XP 1700+ chip as no longer powering on. I hope I can figure out why, as it was working fine a few months ago. (It’s not the power supply.) This was to be the board in the MAME cabinet. Fortunately I still had my trusty nine year old Abit BH-6, formerly of many different computers including bornslippy.nuxx.net (photo gallery retired). Seems to be working well enough with MAME.
· Ate Kraft Macaroni and Cheese w/ curry powder for dinner.
· Played with Compact Flash to IDE adapters, which work great.
· Installed DOS a few times.
· Ate an enormous salad for lunch which had completely too much blue cheese on it.
· Learned that RAMDRIVE.SYS RAMdisks can’t be more than 32MB.
· Found that AdvanceMAME runs horribly from flash unless you turn on write caching. (Not sure of why yet.)

beerelectronicsgamesmoved from livejournal

110 Slide / 35mm Negative Scanning & Custom Cables

December 20, 2006

Well, I finally started something and finished it! Earlier today I began writing up a overview of how I’ve been handling scanning my 110 slides and 35mm negatives. It’s still in a sort-of rough draft state, but all the photos are there and such. So, if you are interested in how I’ve been handling the scanning, along with enough info to do it yourself in a similar way, go ahead and give this article a read:

· 110 Slide / 35mm Negative Scanning

I also spent a bit of time putting together info about the materials and such which I use for making custom audio and video cables. It currently only covers component video cables, iPod connectors, and subwoofer cables. More info will come later. The article can be found here:

· Custom Cables

It’s nice to feel as if I’ve finally managed to get something done.

UPDATE: Also, please digg this story.

electronicsmaking thingsmoved from livejournal

Honda Music Link

December 10, 2006

The Honda Music Link communicates with an iPod at 9600 / N-8-1, and I can successfully sniff it.

Eg: 000043 17:16:12.750 FF 55 04 04 00 29 04 CB FF 55 04 04 00 29 01 CE

This can be looked up here: http://ipodlinux.org/Apple_Accessory_Protocol

UPDATE: As an exercise to myself, this is as follows:

FF 55 – Header
04 – Length of Command
04 – Mode 4 / AiR Mode
00 29 – AiR Playback Control
04 – Skip– Command
CB – Checksum calculated as: 0x100 – (FF + 04 + 04 + 00 + 29 + 04)

FF 55 – Header
04 – Length of Command
04 – Mode 4 / AiR Mode
00 29 – AiR Playback Control
01 – Toggle Play / Pause
CE – Checksum

computerselectronicsmoved from livejournal

.1μF

December 10, 2006

How can a place called Radio Shack not even have .1μF polarized caps?

I need five to build this MAX232 circuit because the level shifters from Spark Fun don’t work for some reason.

Bah. This is absurd.

electronicsmoved from livejournal