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Is this your mobo and that green spot (F_AUDIO) on the left by the audio jacks is where you need to plug in? http://www.orangeit.com.au/catalog/images/prodimg/img1338.jpg

I don't remember where mine went and can't check until later tonight.. but i think mine was bottom left. Is it possible the cable is wrapped around something behind the other sidepanel? I don't know if anyone sells an extension cord for those, but i found some stuff that may work for you.

http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=8535
and this to create a male end: http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=117

Even though that cable is out of stock, it looks like other suppliers are selling it as well. Or i could make you one this weekend if you're not in a rush? I can test it on my computer to make sure it will work and put it up on ebay for 3$.

Is this your mobo and that green spot (F_AUDIO) on the left by the audio jacks is where you need to plug in? http://www.orangeit.com.au/catalog/images/prodimg/img1338.jpg

I don't remember where mine went and can't check until later tonight.. but i think mine was bottom left. Is it possible the cable is wrapped around something behind the other sidepanel? I don't know if anyone sells an extension cord for those, but i found some stuff that may work for you.

http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=8535
and this to create a male end: http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=117

Even though that cable is out of stock, it looks like other suppliers are selling it as well. Or i could make you one this weekend if you're not in a rush? I can test it on my computer to make sure it will work and put it up on ebay for 3$.

If you plugged one of these into a serio you couldn't get any closer to analog input/output for your crappy bash scripts :)

There's always the Link (http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=9263), there's also an interesting thread of discussion in its comments page.
 
Then there are various products from USBee (http://www.usbee.com/products.htm) as well.

Digital Oscilloscope DIY Kit DSO Nano - Pocket-Sized Digital Oscilloscope

Useless toys for real work.
You need to get a real scope.

Digital Oscilloscope DIY Kit DSO Nano - Pocket-Sized Digital Oscilloscope

Useless toys for real work.
You need to get a real scope.

We have a Yokogawa DL-750 at work. Thermocouples, Strain input, Voltage. Up to 1 Ghz sampling rate (on 1 channel). 40GB HD. Should be just under $40k :).

Spark fun has quite a few inexpensive ones. They probably have everything else you need for your hardware projects too. Looks like it's a signal generator too. Or for 'on the go' stuff, this pocket one at SparkFun looks good.

Here's a generic one for $65

Even the most basic ones at Tektronix start out at over $3k (that I was finding).

But it all depends on what you want to do also. Some small microcontroller stuff or trouble shooting complex circuits.

Digital Oscilloscope DIY Kit
DSO Nano - Pocket-Sized Digital Oscilloscope

Digital Oscilloscope DIY Kit
DSO Nano - Pocket-Sized Digital Oscilloscope

http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/news.php?id=326

Ah, yes. The old "it cost more, therefore it must be better/newer/faster" generalization.

So, go have a look at what's actually available. You'll see that while the prices do vary wildly, there is very little variation in terms of the actual products (aside from packaging) other than a handful of products that appear to actually be independently engineered (which is not necessarily a good thing).

Just to pick one particular product: B&H sells it for $11.95. Computer Geeks has the same one for $7.99. Our hack-friendly friends at Sparkfun sell their copy for $10.99.

Meanwhile, buy.com has the same thing for $3.37 plus shipping. Deal Extreme is even cheaper at $1.85 including shipping, but you have to wait for it to cross the Pacific.

So...uh. Should I buy the expensive one from B&H, or the cheap one from Deal Extreme? B&H will certainly handle returns better in case the thing breaks or whatever, but for the price I can buy a small handful of these widgets from DX and spread out the MTBF myself.

(The rest of your post is spot-on.)

Whereas your average Arduino board is about $20-30 or so, an Arduino board with Bluetooth costs about $150.

http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/tutorial_info.php?tutorials_id=148

Yes, Bluetooth is that expensive. The ArduinoBT board uses an off-the-shelf BlueGiga WT11. Newark sells those for about $60.

http://www.newark.com/bluegiga/wt11-a-ai/class-1-bluetooth-2-0-edr-module/dp/15P4005

Mind you, this is a Class 1 (i.e. long range) transmitter, using BT 2.0 and not BT 2.1. Compare this to a standard RF transmitter and receiver, which is a couple bucks per chip...

It's worth taking a read of the satellite itself. Apparently, the accelerometers themselves (3 pairs of them) are mounted to within one picometre (that is micro-micro-metre). Gravity measurements are to within 10^-13 G. All pushed ahead by a cool xenon ion engine :)

That's some serious engineering precision. A bit more than your average accelerometer in your iPhone.

There's a bit more on how it works in this article.

Of course, the raw data looks a lots uglier than the beautiful image of the final result, but if the research is for climate change, then manipulating raw data is what they do best ;)

BBB is much cheaper then the official arduino at any quantity if you don't need the USB after programming or shield compatibility. Same for the arduino pro, which is more expensive, but has shield compatibility and requires no assembly.

Seeeduino is slightly cheaper then the official version and has some cool hardware features missing from the original.

Your first one should probably still be the official arduino board, however. If you need a large quantity, you can save a bundle with the BBB or RBBB.

You can get a lasers and related materials off of ebay, United Nuclear and Sparkfun at much better values.

Actually, it has something like this 4x4x0.9mm ITG-3200 Triple-Axis Digital-Output Gyroscope. Not one, but three real MEMS gyroscopes in a single surface-mount IC package.

Yes, they actually can make them that small these days. Amazing, isn't it?

And FYI, SparkFun Electronics, one of the companies listed, makes more than $10 million in annual revenue, which is some serious growth for one company in a new field. Couple that with sheer awesome, and you get a powerful combination.

I like SparkFun. I do buy stuff from them, but really they pretty much just a easier to use digikey or newark. Most of their designs that are "open" can be considered an unfavorable type of Open Source, since about all of them have the stipulation that they are not to be used for any commercial purposes. This seriously dampens what could be done with it. I can't take the design and code expand on it into a single board to use for my purposes and use it at work.. Nope unless I want to start from scratch I have to buy their breakout, and run wires. Doesn't quite seem like the open source spirit. Maybe the old unix open source spirit.

A billion dollars is not a big number, and not really worthy of tooting ones horn over. Are you kidding me? And 50 million dollars for an industry isn't even enough to launch a magazine over. Wow.

Yep. Sure isn't. (and yes, I know this is not quite what you meant. I couldn't resist!)

and I think that everyone here is missing the point. It's not "wow, $50 million? that's a big industry!" It's more "wow, $50 million? OS hardware is growing fast from the ~$0 from about 5 years ago." And FYI, SparkFun Electronics, one of the companies listed, makes more than $10 million in annual revenue, which is some serious growth for one company in a new field. Couple that with sheer awesome, and you get a powerful combination.

Slashdot ate the link for some reason. Maybe it's hungry.

http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/news.php?id=350

That's a great list, I have every one of those and use them often, but it has a very steep starting point.

Books like Gettng Started in Electronics by Forrest Mimms, Practical Electronics for Inventors, Tab Electronics Guide to Understanding Electricity and Electronics (2000) by Randy Slone, Teach Yourself Electricity and Electronics (5th ed.) by Stan Gibilisco, Grob's Basic Electronics by Mitchel E. Schultz, or MAKE: Electronics: Learning Through Discovery by Charles Platt are more suitable first book for a starting point.

Also ARRL's Ward Silver has a great little hands-on book of lessons, ARRL's Hands-On Radio Experiments that is cheap ($20 US) and a great 2nd book. (Electrical Engineering 101 2nd. ed by Darren Ashby is another great 2nd book, oriented to new EE students / grads).

Make-zine and their blog are full of interesting hobbyist oriented stuff for beginners, and cool projects to inspire you to learn more.

For licensed amateur radio operators, the QRP community and their own QRPedia is a area of kit-building and home-made of simple radio transmitters and receivers that can be simple to get started, and fun to operate (as the solar cycle improves).

All About Circuits is partial (unfinished) online basic electricity and electronics textbook.

Fun stores (of many) include Ada Fruit Industries, and SparkFun.

The more hobbyist friendly big parts distributors in US are Jameco, Digikey, and Mouser. Anyone interested should request a catalog from them. They also ship to Canada, and Digikey does operate in Europe, but Farnell is generally better to deal with. G3SEK's Technical Topics website includes a list of UK electronics suppliers that deal with individuals (rather than businesses-only).

Enjoy!

The Art of Electronics is the best book ever for learning all these basics.
http://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271114053&sr=8-1
(not an affiliate link)
Yeah, it's $90, but its worth it. Broke? I'm sure the library has it, and that's free!

After that I'd really recommend learning microcontrollers, and for that, Sparkfun Electronics is great.
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/tutorials.php

My only other advice is to learn stuff the same way I've been learning stuff the last few years - just look on google. You'll find what you're looking for.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=learning+electronics&aq=f&aqi=g-sx10&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=
-Taylor

Start with a kit, like these or these. See if you enjoy the practical end of putting something together. You'll need some basic tools - a soldering iron, sidecutters, solder.

If you enjoy that, then there's a bunch of different ways you can go, depending on what you're interested in. Microcontroller based systems, if you like software too, are easy enough to start working with. Or if you prefer analogue electronics, old school audio and radio, then you'll want to learn some more about the theory and practice and there are lots of good books there - I like The Art of Electronics but choose something that suits your style and covers the areas you want to start with.

But first see if you enjoy the mechanical end of putting a circuit board together.

Start with a kit, like these or these. See if you enjoy the practical end of putting something together. You'll need some basic tools - a soldering iron, sidecutters, solder.

If you enjoy that, then there's a bunch of different ways you can go, depending on what you're interested in. Microcontroller based systems, if you like software too, are easy enough to start working with. Or if you prefer analogue electronics, old school audio and radio, then you'll want to learn some more about the theory and practice and there are lots of good books there - I like The Art of Electronics but choose something that suits your style and covers the areas you want to start with.

But first see if you enjoy the mechanical end of putting a circuit board together.

Awesome now another chip in my phone to help trim away my already bad phone battery life!

Most broad spectrum gas detection sensors generally work by heating up a strange oxide catalyst and measuring a resistance change. Not entirely unlike an O2 sensor in a car exhaust system.

You can buy a gas sensor off the shelf from boutique online stores for about $5 each, so $1 in bulk wholesale is believable, or at least possible.

The problem is power consumption. Check out a MQ-4, at a whopping 750 mW heater power. Thats probably more than the entire rest of the phone at peak. And the heater has to preheat for a minimum of 24 hours to provide good data, this is not something that "goes to sleep mode". Thats 3/4 of a watt, all day, every day. It will literally make a poor hand warmer in ones pocket.

http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=9404

http://www.sparkfun.com/datasheets/Sensors/Biometric/MQ-4.pdf

The parts in the sensor are not cheap. The manufacturer is already highly motivated to make it as small and light as possible, which would incidentally make it low powered. At this time, thats the best "we" can do with current technology. Its not like I cherry picked the highest power unit available. However, higher power would imply bigger would imply more durable, so I'd think a cell phone model might actually be worse.

My very-much-non-smartphone uses a 3.7V lithium battery and runs "several days" between charges. Lets claim 4 days. So, 5 volts / 33 ohms = 150 ma times 5/3.7 (voltage upconverter) means 200 ma continuous draw from my 3.7V battery. 200 ma times 24 hours/day times 4 days, equals about 19 AMP-HOURS just to run the gas sensor. We'll add another amp-hour to run the phone itself, and round up to 20 AH.

Batteryspace sells a nice 20 AH lead acid battery... 14 pounds, 7 inches by 3 inches by 7 inches. Rechargeable lithium, maybe half that size and weight. We are looking at the revival of the "bag phone" circa 1980s.

http://www.batteryspace.com/sealedleadacidbattery12v20ah240whs.aspx

I would qualify this idea as an epic fail.

Awesome now another chip in my phone to help trim away my already bad phone battery life!

Most broad spectrum gas detection sensors generally work by heating up a strange oxide catalyst and measuring a resistance change. Not entirely unlike an O2 sensor in a car exhaust system.

You can buy a gas sensor off the shelf from boutique online stores for about $5 each, so $1 in bulk wholesale is believable, or at least possible.

The problem is power consumption. Check out a MQ-4, at a whopping 750 mW heater power. Thats probably more than the entire rest of the phone at peak. And the heater has to preheat for a minimum of 24 hours to provide good data, this is not something that "goes to sleep mode". Thats 3/4 of a watt, all day, every day. It will literally make a poor hand warmer in ones pocket.

http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=9404

http://www.sparkfun.com/datasheets/Sensors/Biometric/MQ-4.pdf

The parts in the sensor are not cheap. The manufacturer is already highly motivated to make it as small and light as possible, which would incidentally make it low powered. At this time, thats the best "we" can do with current technology. Its not like I cherry picked the highest power unit available. However, higher power would imply bigger would imply more durable, so I'd think a cell phone model might actually be worse.

My very-much-non-smartphone uses a 3.7V lithium battery and runs "several days" between charges. Lets claim 4 days. So, 5 volts / 33 ohms = 150 ma times 5/3.7 (voltage upconverter) means 200 ma continuous draw from my 3.7V battery. 200 ma times 24 hours/day times 4 days, equals about 19 AMP-HOURS just to run the gas sensor. We'll add another amp-hour to run the phone itself, and round up to 20 AH.

Batteryspace sells a nice 20 AH lead acid battery... 14 pounds, 7 inches by 3 inches by 7 inches. Rechargeable lithium, maybe half that size and weight. We are looking at the revival of the "bag phone" circa 1980s.

http://www.batteryspace.com/sealedleadacidbattery12v20ah240whs.aspx

I would qualify this idea as an epic fail.

Yes, not the really high end ones. More like these. 1W Luxeons are advertised as 45 lm, whereas these are 10 and I can spread a bunch around the room. They take 0.02A * 3.4V = 0.068W each, or about a third of a watt for 5. Plus AC/DC conversion loss, of course.

I have a single enclosed fixture in the office. CFLs overheat in there very easily, but I'm loathe to put an incandescent in there. This is probably the most used light in the house, since I work at home. The only light I have right now is a 10W halogen reading lamp that covers my desk somewhat adequately.

I'm a youngin' myself, so I wasn't around for these "good ol' days." However, I recently got hooked on AVR microcontrollers via Arduino, and I'm loving it. Being able to have total control and understanding of the hardware, to hold the entire execution context in ones head, is exhilarating. My laptop is more or less a black box that I stick my code into, but with these AVR chips I understand exactly what's going on with each and every instruction, and there's simply nothing that I can't do.

Right now I'm working on a threads system for the ATMega family of microcontrollers. It's tons of fun, and I'm learning a lot, not only about the hardware and assembly programming, but also about how my "real computer" and "real languages" work (for example, what exactly is going on when function calls happen).

I can't recommend these things strongly enough. I think that it's an essential experience for any programmer, and if you've just started programming in the past five years or so, chances are you haven't dealt with anything like it. Even if you have, you can still do tons of nifty stuff with these things, and they're only $30 for a ready-to-program, USB package.

If you want folks to use something that isn't "closed", then make it better than Eagle and have documentation that shows us how to make better stuff with it.

Right now, I can download eagle, find a bunch of "directed at n00bs" guides that take baby steps to end up at a fully functioning ready-to-send-off set of files. Just look around.

gEDA's website, on the other hand, has three links to tutorials, two of which are broken, and one that breezes through a lot of things. You want folks to use it? Cater to the baby steps and release good guides.

As a side note, there is plenty of images of the schematics for this project. You don't need eagle for that.

The logic of the hardware is free for anyone to use. There is nothing stopping you or me from taking her work and cranking monchrons out in our own form.

I am pretty sure that the way they did this from reading the article was by installing a wireless serial link. They did nothing more than install a transmitter into the card reader which outputs a serial stream, it will not be confused instead it will just transmit the data off that card instead acting as a transparent data interceptor. The machine will just reject the card and tell you the card could not be read or invalid card ect... So now they can clone your "preferred shoppers card" using a card writer and voila they can now steal your groceries too....lol I also noticed on the linked sites that a few people say that a car or other odd object would have to be in close proximity (to receive) in order for them to steal the information. Just so people know a (decent power) bluetooth transmitter about the size of a stick of gum can transmit over a football field. I wouldn't consider a football field to be in "close proximity" in the slightest since. Plus the receiver could be a box no larger than a (3.5in) external hard drive that is BURIED in the ground with 2 TINY antennas that look like sticks protruding up. People also think that the crook has to be there to get the data but this is FALSE! The box could contain a cellular modem that could literally text the information to the criminal EVERY time someone swipes a card. Technology is a lifesaver (I love it) but its also the devil for criminal assholes like these guys trying to leach off hard working people! In order to prevent this the gas pumps must be made TAMPER PROOF like the credit card readers at retailers. If the machine does not have a special code input into the panel BEFORE opening the panels it will immediately cease functioning, alert the gas station, cut power to the reader / disable it, and flash warnings to alert people that its out of order. The machine could be reset but only by a technician after they found out what happened. It's amazing that the machines don't have this already, people need to crack down on gas pump manufacturers about this. If a machine is compromised you have no way of knowing, the best protection is not to go to shady places to fill up and to check your statements every month. Any charges on your card that you didn't make no matter what the amount should be taken seriously and you should contact your card company immediately. People don't care about a few bucks missing but say a few hundred or thousand goes missing will you be worried then? The really funny thing was that they only got $11,000 from that gas station. Now does $11,000 with the chance of getting sent to jail for a VERY VERY long time sound like its really worth it? I didn't think so...... BTW a similar story broke a while back where people were using products from one of my favorite online stores to steal information and rip people off. What an evil use of there products it makes me so angry! http://www.sparkfun.com/tutorial/news/SparkFun-PINScam.pdf

I am pretty sure that the way they did this from reading the article was by installing a wireless serial link. They did nothing more than install a transmitter into the card reader which outputs a serial stream, it will not be confused instead it will just transmit the data off that card instead acting as a transparent data interceptor. The machine will just reject the card and tell you the card could not be read or invalid card ect... So now they can clone your "preferred shoppers card" using a card writer and voila they can now steal your groceries too....lol I also noticed on the linked sites that a few people say that a car or other odd object would have to be in close proximity (to receive) in order for them to steal the information. Just so people know a (decent power) bluetooth transmitter about the size of a stick of gum can transmit over a football field. I wouldn't consider a football field to be in "close proximity" in the slightest since. Plus the receiver could be a box no larger than a (3.5in) external hard drive that is BURIED in the ground with 2 TINY antennas that look like sticks protruding up. People also think that the crook has to be there to get the data but this is FALSE! The box could contain a cellular modem that could literally text the information to the criminal EVERY time someone swipes a card. Technology is a lifesaver (I love it) but its also the devil for criminal assholes like these guys trying to leach off hard working people! In order to prevent this the gas pumps must be made TAMPER PROOF like the credit card readers at retailers. If the machine does not have a special code input into the panel BEFORE opening the panels it will immediately cease functioning, alert the gas station, cut power to the reader / disable it, and flash warnings to alert people that its out of order. The machine could be reset but only by a technician after they found out what happened. It's amazing that the machines don't have this already, people need to crack down on gas pump manufacturers about this. If a machine is compromised you have no way of knowing, the best protection is not to go to shady places to fill up and to check your statements every month. Any charges on your card that you didn't make no matter what the amount should be taken seriously and you should contact your card company immediately. People don't care about a few bucks missing but say a few hundred or thousand goes missing will you be worried then? The really funny thing was that they only got $11,000 from that gas station. Now does $11,000 with the chance of getting sent to jail for a VERY VERY long time sound like its really worth it? I didn't think so...... BTW a similar story broke a while back where people were using products from one of my favorite online stores to steal information and rip people off. What an evil use of there products it makes me so angry! http://www.sparkfun.com/tutorial/news/SparkFun-PINScam.pdf

It's not 1920 anymore. There are 2.4 Ghz antennas that are the same size as a grain of Basmati rice.

Example: 2.2mm x 6.5mm 2.4GHz Ceramic Chip Antenna

Here you go. A port-o-rotary for $200. They provide full source and schematics. You can even buy a 6000mAh battery to run the thing for weeks and you don't have to deal with any PDA functionality. Any more complaints?

Radios are expensive. The only reason phones are cheap is because they're heavily subsidized or because they're a simple little phone produced a million at a time from a small handful of highly-integrated mixed analog/digital ASICs. "Open-source" devices are small-run devices with hopelessly obsolete radio hardware because it's all they can get documentation for and manufacturers aren't looking to release their secret sauce to just anybody.

And on top of all of this, most of the open-source types are desktop or server programmers. On the desktop, you don't have to think about low-power code. Everything changes when you're running off a battery. There just isn't the expertise there (yet). Having said all this, I love my rooted T-mobile G1. I built a scratchbox environment for it and ported a few important CLI tools and it's now perfectly capable of being all the pocket Linux machine I need and it's not very difficult getting Debian running on top of the Android environment.

I've been meaning to get started with Arduino but haven't yet - anybody know which Arduino part these Japanese boards would be equivalent to? They seem to have several models below its cost.

You assume otherwise? That's why my phone is a phone. Good luck contact/photo sucking off of that.

I visit http://sparkfun.com/ and I find a company that sells electronic parts and kits and things of that nature. I attempt to visit http://sparc.org/ and I get gigantic warnings from both Google and from Mozilla/Firefox telling me it's an "attack site" and it may "harm my computer". I see no basis for their lawsuit; Sparkfun obviously sells electronics, sparc.org obviously creates malware. Case closed.

You're right, it does help to read the article. Sparkfun doesn't sell anything that could remotely be considered a competitor to SPARC. They're a hobbyist electronics kit store. Unless you consider something like this to be a competing product to a SPARC server?

And could they do wifi chips and antennas this small?

Introducing the Polymer Lithium Ion Batteries

This is a 3 cell battery that outputs 3.7v @ 6Amps. Best of all its 40 bucks. I have modified many cell phones to utilize this battery pack.

Happy hacking folks.

http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=8484

Look, here's the disclaimer: I am a software engineer. No, not hardware, software.

But I've written camera drivers from schematics and datasheets alone. It's *just not that hard*. Even for a software guy. I don't have an EE, just an interest in electronics.

And digital electronics are, quite frankly, rather simple. If you know ohm's law, and can read a datasheet or two, you could very easily put together a digital camera module. PCB express will happily etch the board for you, and you *might* have to do some soldering. Unless, of course, you buy one of the cameras from sparkfun or other hobby supplier.

Until you have a * CORRECTLY WORKING* system that you designed from scratch from your own PCB design, you should probably not make such statements. You have appear to have no idea what you are talking about.

I just went through this process over the last 4 months to design, build, and code a simple SMD soldering oven. I know considerably more than you appear to about 'Ohm's Law' and a few data sheets. I am not an EE; like you I am a software/firmware guy. I build hardware as a hobbyist. It's not a simple drag and drop editing solution by any stretch of the imagination. It's a major engineering project. Even for a few components. Why? For the same reason a word processor doesn't make a great writer, and Photoshop doesn't make a great photographer. These tools assume a knowledge base that you and I do not have. This knowledge base must be learned to get even marginal success. Making that stretch is much harder than you appear to be implying.

I'll go further: It is much easier for an EE to become a software engineer, than for software engineer to become a hardware engineer. Why? I think it's because the tools used to develop software are considerably more advanced than the tools hardware engineers need to use. Is that used O-Scope really telling you what you think it's telling you? Do you really understand, in your bones what your DVM is telling you when you probe a node? When your carefully crafted (by the data sheets) prototype starts crashing unexpectedly do you know where to start looking for anomalies?

I challenge you to go ahead and make something; ANYTHING with something as seemingly simple as a PIC mpu and a few analog sub-circuits, on a PCB you designed, and get back to me when you have it in your paws, working as designed. It's not as easy as it looks. I am sure you can do it. You just need to make the effort. Your journey will be the reward, and you should document it.... warts and all as I have: http://forum.sparkfun.com/viewtopic.php?t=13239

Cheers

Even the interfaces such as the parallel port, that were relatively easy to use to say flip switches in your home, have gone away, without a similarly simple equivalent device. That's the real regression.

We haven't really regressed. The "simple" parallel port you talk about from, say, 20 years ago, wasn't all that simple to work with. The electronics were not straightforward to interface to. The languages were not easy to work with at all, a lot of peeks and pokes on early Atari/Commodore/TRS-80 machines, or assembly, or both. On PC's, you had issues where not all parallel ports were created equal...

With regard to there being no new products to replace, that's actually incorrect. Check out something like Sparkfun. They've got a slew of products ranging from $10-$50 that have things like USB development boards complete with multiple digital and analog inputs and outputs. These devices, and tons of others like them, are programmable in new languages designed to be easily approachable by designers, prototypers, and experimenters. Examples of these languages include wiring and Processing.

I do agree that it's more difficult in some ways than it was 20 or 30 years ago. Back then, there were fewer possible paths to choose among. You'd get an Altair or a Heathkit, or grab some electronics at Radio Shack and a book and get to work. Today, there are so many possible choices that it's not real clear what the best way to roll is. There's more diversity and choice, but the landscape is richer now, not worse.

Wow are they full of crap. Or the iphone is crappy designed.

I se a GSM open module every day....

http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=478

I use this thing and I have full access to all it's parts except for the sourcecode to the phone/modem.

If the iphone does not have one of these phone chipsets in it like the other 99.9987% of the cellphones on the planet, then they made a really crappy phone.

Of course, the problem is that I don't know of anyone who can comfortably solder BGA chips.

People have been doing it with toaster ovens (http://www.instructables.com/id/Toaster-Oven-Reflow-Soldering-BGA/ and http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/tutorial_info.php?tutorials_id=60&page=). I haven't tried that yet. I have soldered QFNs by laying down some solder paste and blasting the other side of the board with a heat gun, but it's a high-pucker-factor operation. I plan to try the toaster oven hack the next time I need to do that.

It may not be solid metal nor does it have a camera, but there is a cellular version of the old-school rotary dial phone available from http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=286.

They use real old bakelite phones, hacked to accept an internal cellular module and LiIon battery. It emulates the dialtone and everything. Just add a SIM card and away you go. It looks really cool.

*I am not affiliated with SparkFun except as an occasional customer. Unless they want to give me a job!

I made a primitive version with a partner in highschool, we did finger bending using potentiometers but never got around to getting position so we used a mouse.
(I was in charge of software)

Now I looked at sparkfun and they have a 6 degrees of freedom sensor for $125, add to that six flex sensors ($13 each) and some sort of CPU looks like something around $40 would do and you have your very own data glove for around $250.

This might seem like a harsh question, but how "handicapable" are you? Are you able to do basic electronics and such?

If so, read up on sensory substitution/augmentation, it's truly amazing stuff! I have no idea why modern prostethics that cost in the order of $4000 do not use ss/a to provide feedback, when the parts needed cost roughly $3! I mean, try picking up an egg with your robotic hand with only visual feedback (no pressure, movement, etc.)!

I don't know what part of you is missing, but you should probably be able to make a silicone mold or something that sticks pretty well.

1. Lube up your stump (shave as needed)
2. Open valve to let air out of device
3. Slide stump inside
4. Close valve

I saw a tv show about this stuff once, and it seems like a pretty trivial thing to make. Problems arise when/if you try to do heavy lifting but for typing, it should be more than secure enough.

Add a "pen" with a force sensor or three to the tip, each coupled to a button vibrator placed on the skin of your arm.

The electronics cost $28 per sensor/feedback pair, plus a few bucks for silicone, fiberglass and the "pen". Yeah, it's a hazzle to build it yourself instead of whining on /. but if you want something done right.. you get the point. =P

This might seem like a harsh question, but how "handicapable" are you? Are you able to do basic electronics and such?

If so, read up on sensory substitution/augmentation, it's truly amazing stuff! I have no idea why modern prostethics that cost in the order of $4000 do not use ss/a to provide feedback, when the parts needed cost roughly $3! I mean, try picking up an egg with your robotic hand with only visual feedback (no pressure, movement, etc.)!

I don't know what part of you is missing, but you should probably be able to make a silicone mold or something that sticks pretty well.

1. Lube up your stump (shave as needed)
2. Open valve to let air out of device
3. Slide stump inside
4. Close valve

I saw a tv show about this stuff once, and it seems like a pretty trivial thing to make. Problems arise when/if you try to do heavy lifting but for typing, it should be more than secure enough.

Add a "pen" with a force sensor or three to the tip, each coupled to a button vibrator placed on the skin of your arm.

The electronics cost $28 per sensor/feedback pair, plus a few bucks for silicone, fiberglass and the "pen". Yeah, it's a hazzle to build it yourself instead of whining on /. but if you want something done right.. you get the point. =P

I have one of those phones. It's beige. It has a rotary dial. It works just fine, thank you. I got it from a friend who bought three on EBay.

If you're into that kind of thing, you might like SparkFun Electronics Bluetooth rotary phone and GSM rotary phone or ThinkGeek's retro Bluetooth handset.

I have one of those phones. It's beige. It has a rotary dial. It works just fine, thank you. I got it from a friend who bought three on EBay.

If you're into that kind of thing, you might like SparkFun Electronics Bluetooth rotary phone and GSM rotary phone or ThinkGeek's retro Bluetooth handset.

I'm going to leave aside the wisdom of doing this, and focus on the practical aspects.

Has anyone built anything like this?

An Android phone hooked up to Google Latitude would meet most of your requirements - small, accessible anywhere you've got an internet connection, accessible on mobile phones, phone can be turned off, phone is linux based.

Is there an open source solution?

There's OpenGTS, an Open GPS Tracking System. However, it's not obvious from their website what trackers it works with.

How would I go about building my own?

People have home-made basic versions. GPS modules can be purchased which give a reasonably accurate location once per second, or on demand, over a serial, usb, or bluetooth link; many mobile phones have gps modules already built in. Most tracking systems communicate over the cell phone system, either by SMS or mobile data connections. Of course, many mobile data connections are firewalled/NATed, so the benefit of SMS is you can transmit a query to the tracker. The disadvantage is the per-message cost, especially if you want regular location updates, and that it's easier to program the PC end of a mobile data connection. Cell companies also offer "machine to machine" data plans, but it's unlikely they'll want to deal with you if you're making a one-off homebrew system.

You could get a separate cell phone and GPS and make a homebrew device, like the one linked above, but you're unlikely to get things much more compact than buying a mobile phone with both built in.

If you're a programmer, my suggestion would be a mobile phone running Android, and using the GPS APIs to read the location and send it off to your server.

How does a tinfoil hat wearer engineer such a device to make sure Big-Brother isn't watching too?

Pretty much every mobile tracking system uses the cell phone network for connectivity, because it's more widely available than WiFi, and more affordable than a satellite connection. If you're paranoid about privacy, you should be worried about cell phone triangulation, as that would be the most practical way for "big brother" to track people; so to be paranoid, you can't use a cell phone connection, which will make your design task substantially more difficult. It would be far easier to get a mobile phone, set it up with Google Latitude, turn it off, and tell your daughter to turn it on if she gets lost.