Slashdot Mirror
Cyrix Hotplate Howto
fimbulvetr writes "Looking to put those old processors to work? Tired of catching flack for having hardware, but no use for it? Worry no more! Doc from rabidhardware.com shows us how to employ 7 Cyrix processors to build a spectacular cooking device. Cooking instructions not included. Void where prohibited."
That said, an interesting use of old CPUs. I wouldn't think that they would be hot enough, but I guess it makes sense. I heard that when the Intel guys finished designing the origional Pentium, someone gave the head designer a hotplate as a gift because the hotplate had the same thermal dissapation (W/cm^2) as the Pentium.
That said, the hack would have been more impressive if the processors were running Seti@Home at the time. But then it would be hard to get them all right next to eachother like that.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
5 cavity HV Klystron (satellite transmitter)
TSSP unit (shouldn't have gotten that hot, but did)
Hang some grub in front of the dish and crank 'er up to 7200 watts
Manifold of a diesel generator (obviously)
Ah, those were the days...
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
Ok, that is cool. But as I am stuck with an electric stove at home I have a bit of a rant to add.
Electric coils don't heat evenly, and I always get nasty hot spots when cooking. (Yum, burnt on the left side, raw on the right)
To get around this nasty problem I use my cast-iron for almost everything I cook. It's big and heavy and disperses the heat better than anything else I own. If you don't have one, a 12" cast iron skillet is one of the best pan investments you can make.
We are the Borg...
Yeah, the article talks about how it was added to regulate the amperage available, which is not what a 7805 does. They noted it was rated for 1A output, so that means it could normally put out a whopping 5W of power. Plus, since they are going from 12V to 5V, they are eating 7V in the regulator, which works out to 7W @ 1A, so this means that the regulator is dissipating more power than the load it supplies. So I agree, either the 7805 was defective, or the article was BS.
"No one likes working in a hamster wheel, and your shop smells of cedar shavings from here." - TaleSpinner
I had a Cyrix MII chip that overheated to the point that it turned the fan (cheap plastic fan with cheap plastic prongs holding it to the heatsink) to a pool of molten plastic at the bottom of the case.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Bad idea to just burn up old Cyrix chips: if you have a Cyrix motherboard of just the right make and model, you can flip it on Ebay as it will be quite valuable.
The reason is that Williams Pinball made their final two pinball machines with Cyrix motherboards, before going out of business in 1999: "Revenge From Mars" and "Star Wars Episode I".
Because they went out of business before completing their plans to make the game software more portable to newer motherboards, these pinball machines work ONLY with these certain Cyrix motherboards!
The motherboard is Cyrix MediaGX, BAT form factor, with the CX5520 bridge. Not CX5510, and not CX5530. CPU speed should be 233 Mhz (33x7), but 266 and 200 are also rumoured to work.
A motherboard that matches this description is quite rare these days, and sells for $300 or more -- ironically, twice the price of that motherboard when it was new!
So, if you have an old Cyrix motherboard sitting around, it just might be a gold mine, think of that before melting those chips onto a hotplate....
Dr. Demento On The 'Net!