Analog Tachometer PC Mod

greenape147 writes: "BurnOutPC has this review of a tachometer modification for your PC. The tachometer, made and sold by Xoxide, works via the serial port and displays the CPU utilization in RPM's! The classical look of this external tachometer is really nice to see after the "window phase" everyone seems to be going through. Not to mention the fact that analog meters are so fun to watch. Currently supported in Windows NT/2000/XP, a GNU/Linux driver is in the works."

Comments

Cheating?

[Lord Puppet]

When you want to sell the computer, is there a way that you can cheat and roll back the tachometer?

"Oh, this baby's practically brand new..."

Oh, the humanity!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is pretty cool product, but I have these visions of computer geeks, who as a group can barely manage to use a fork without injuring themselves, trying to cut holes in PC cases with power tools and horribly maming themselves.

What they really need is a miniature version that fits into a 5.25" drive bay, without the need for major case surgery.

Useless for my DUAL MP1900, When will offer

[Anonymous Coward]

Useless for my DUAL CPU AMD 1900, When will they offer support of two tach meters.

I guess if you have one cpu this might be cool, but not if it uses a lame way of judging unutilized cpu time.

Supporting most of the common OSs instead of the ones they offer now would be good, but if they cant, then at least offer source example for systems developers to write driver code to support it.

Could be fun on Macs too.

But with dual CPUs you might as well just use screen based utilities.

Schweete!

[Chuqmystr]

But when will they come out with those little tripple-gang under-dash mounting gauge thingies that were so prevalant in POS pickup trucks and Cameros all throughout the '70s and '80s? And just what would they measure? CPU and case temp and voltage? What's next, Pep Boys and Napa Auto stores end up with a cheesy PC hop-ups isle? Oh the humanity!

/sbin/fsck -U micro$oft

Gah!

[Neon Spiral Injector]

So what does this have a big assed shift light, even though you're driving an automatic transmission? There are enough "riced" out cars around now. Leave the computers alone. This in no way adds performance.

Add a turbo or nitrous oxide, overclock or supercool. Not these useless mods.

P.S. It is RPM, not RPMs, and expecially not RPM's.

Re:It's not RPMs

[scorcherer]

$ rpm -qa|wc -l
573

Dunno about the rev/min, but my PC has 573 RPMs.

"Linux" driver, not "GNU/Linux" driver

[Frothy Walrus]

since drivers deal with the kernel and not userspace apps, RMS can keep his grubby little mitts of this one. i'd call it a "Linux" driver.

YMMV

[_PimpDaddy7_]

Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase
"Your Mileage May Vary" now doesn't it? ;)

It only goes to 8!

[Performer Guy]

I want one that goes to eleven.

http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Academy/9177/

burnoutpc's tachometer

[MrSpiff]

burnoutpc's tachometer must be going warm now, they've been slashdotted :/

some follow-up mods

[mlas]

• a dipstick that measures free RAM by the depth of brown viscous goo
• a peep plug-in that makes revving noises as cpu cycles increase, and the sound of burning rubber when an app is launched
• and heck, why not a temperature gauge with a probe attached to the CPU for all you overclockers out there?

If this keeps up, it won't be long before you start seeing aftermarket replacement chips to improve your computer's performance... oh, wait...

Re:Cheating? -Tach not odometer

[Rand Race]

In the States you get funny looks if you drink pints at all, especialy 20 oz imperial pints rather than 16 oz US pints (and your ounces are 4% smaller than ours). And plenty of people down a six-pack a day, which is more than three imperial pints. Hell, you can buy single bottles of beer over here that are more than two imperial pints in capacity (warning to visiting brits, you will NOT like a 40 of Olde English 800).

Drug sales are mixed on this side of the pond too. Pot is always measured in standard, coke is always measured in metric.

My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that's how I like it!

Re:Cheating? -Tach not odometer

[Anonymous Coward]

"or approx 3.2 grams"

or 3.5 grams. then theres 28 grams in an ounce, or is there 30? depends. its 100 in holland, apparantly! how many ounces in a 9 ounce bar? 9? wrong - more like 8.5. I`m sure most deaths from drug dealing arent from people being deliberately ripped off. its just all the converting to/from standards!!

That's nice, but...

[dracvl]

...the really cute thing about the case mod was the Pac-man eating the reset button and LEDs.

Check out the picture :)

Re:Cheating? -Tach not odometer

[swillden]

My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that's how I like it!

Wow, that's what I call a real gas guzzler. I thought my SUV sucked fuel, but it gets around 270,000 rods per hogshead. Well, unless I'm pulling my trailer, then it drops to about 141,000, but what do you expect, I mean the trailer weighs like 500 stone and has a pretty large front sail area.

What kind of vehicle are you driving, anyway? I mean, I think an M-1 Abrams tank gets around 6000 rph.