Slashdot Mirror


The Ultimate Reset Button

Gary writes "The gigantic red switch looks more like a mushroom straight out of Super Mario. It can be connected easily using two wires and can be activated in any direction. To get rid of the blue screen of death all you have to do is hit it with something (like, a fist)."

28 of 184 comments (clear)

  1. Just amazing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Wow, this is just amazing....almost rivals the development of the polio vaccine.

    1. Re:Just amazing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This is the lamest 'hack' I have ever seen on Slashdot. You can get industrial panel/remote buttons from just about any industrial or electrical supply store. Then you wire up two leads to your reset button.

      I can't wait to see what innovative tinkerer's project comes next on Slashdot. Maybe an LED with brightness control?

    2. Re:Just amazing by Petronius.Scribe · · Score: 3, Informative

      Actually they're dead easy to make. Get a digital potentiometer (variable resistor) and connect it as a current source. Hook your LED up to the current source and there you have it. If you want schematics, try this article.

    3. Re:Just amazing by anethema · · Score: 3, Funny

      A stepper motor to control LED brightness?? Stop breathing the solder fumes.

      --


      It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
    4. Re:Just amazing by galaad2 · · Score: 4, Funny

      what is amazing is the error message that the former site shows now:

      [...snip...]

              SQL/DB Error -- []
      Error executing error template.

      ROFL, even the error generator causes errors.

      --
      root@127.0.0.1
    5. Re:Just amazing by YouTookMyStapler · · Score: 5, Funny

      It's amazing that the article is supposed to be fore a reset button for the "blue screen of death" and all I get when I click the link all I get is a blue error page.

  2. Yet another excuse... by Idbar · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... to buy Windows! ;)

    Page was /.'d, or perhaps they used the button on their webserver?

    1. Re:Yet another excuse... by Brandybuck · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Nah. Just run Linux with the fglrx driver...

      --
      Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
  3. Unix guys prefer... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Thats for Windows users. Unix guys would rather like to have a pedal under their desk that is mapped to Escape. Imaging how much fun vi could be...

  4. Re:Link? by Ellis+D.+Tripp · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://www.automationdirect.com/ is one good supplier. This kind of industrial grade hardware is expensive, so eBay might be the best choice. What you want is commonly called a "mushroom head emergency stop pushbutton". If using it for a PC reset switch, you want normally open contacts, whereas most E-stop systems would use normally closed.

    --
    Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
  5. Re:Options. by Timesprout · · Score: 5, Funny

    Your parents must shit themselves every time they hear you coming up the stairs from the basement.

    --
    Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
    What truth?
    There is no dupe
  6. the ultimate? by ArcSecond · · Score: 4, Funny

    You ever wonder if servers have thoughts and feelings? Sometimes I think it is cruel the things Slashdot does to them.

    Reset button indeed. More like LITTLE BLUE LINK OF DEATH.

    --

    I've got a bad attitude and karma to burn. Go ahead. Mod me down.

  7. As always, Mirrordot by Necroman · · Score: 4, Informative
    --
    Its not what it is, its something else.
  8. Re:Options. by mulvane · · Score: 5, Funny

    I don't have parents anymore. They had an untimely accident tied to a series of unfortunate events.

  9. WHACK-A-MOLE by no_pets · · Score: 5, Funny

    Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these.

    --
    "A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." - Shepard Book Quoting Malcolm Reynolds
  10. Re:Already down by Timesprout · · Score: 4, Funny

    The webmaster is checking out his new button.

    --
    Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
    What truth?
    There is no dupe
  11. In addition by WillRobinson · · Score: 4, Informative

    The common variety of E-Stops are locking, you want the momentary type, as said by poster, with open contacts.

  12. Hey!! I have one of these! by Khyber · · Score: 3, Informative

    *looks at the big "OFF" switch on his power strip.*

    I think we already had these for a couple decades, now...

    --
    Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
  13. Re:Options. by nine-times · · Score: 4, Funny

    whose basement do you live in, then?

  14. Re:Options. by mulvane · · Score: 5, Funny

    I inherited it my current living arrangements.

  15. More impressive by stg · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I think http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/accessories/911 6/ would be much more impressive, if it could be set as a reset button.

    I'd be a bit worried about being arrested as a terrorist, if I had one of those in a office, though...

  16. The ultimate GDO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The switch looks pretty dumb sitting on a desk. Realistically whos computer not suffering from hardware problems spontaneously crashes anymore?

    Wire this sucker up in your garage instead and you have a very cool looking and very useful garage door opener. I might even replace my door bell with one. Although it would look painfully stupid outside my front door it might give the javahoas and dish network goons second thoughts about pressing my ESO.

    Also if your going to bother making a computer reset switch like this I'd damn well make it useful. Instead of taking 5 minutes to wire it to the reset pins on your motherboard...

    There should be a watchdog driver to go with it, if it stops sending keep-alives to the switch it should have an option to press itself. It could also light up in different colors or patterns to indicate various error conditions...

    Low/No mem, something spinning the cpu, Disk I/O queue full, watchdog failure, drive timeout, network down..etc.

    There should be an "enterprise" edition of the same switch only it would be ethernet based using SNMP traps and host MIBs to monitor servers and devices and then issueing reset signals to a managed RPB when pressed.

    Is anyone interested in a cell phone that looks like a mineature DHD? The first 100 people who hack the neilson database in order to dramatically improve SG1's ratings get a complimentry DHD phone with lighted chevrons and big red glowing button in the center in their choice of unlocked GSM/UMTS or CDMA models.

  17. Re:Funny but stupid by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's not a reset button, it's an anger management tool.

    --
    If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
  18. Re:Awesome! by ktappe · · Score: 4, Funny

    I hope this can be installed on any computer! Just think, rather than coming to the network admin to take out their frustration, the users could take it out on the reset button.
    Nooooo!

    I don't know about you, but a notable portion of my day is spent responding to users' woes with "Did you try rebooting?" If users learn to reboot their own computers, that would cut the need for us admins in half. This button thingie will lead to mass unemployment. It's evil! Kill it! Kill it!

    --
    "We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
  19. Re:Options. by swillden · · Score: 5, Funny

    I don't have parents anymore. They had an untimely accident tied to a series of unfortunate events.

    Just because they're in the freezer doesn't mean they're not still your parents.

    --
    Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  20. Re:Options. by halcyon1234 · · Score: 3, Funny
    Better yet, hook it up to an accelerometer, which is hooked up to a small monitoring CPU. Put the accelerometer into a punching back. Then right it to send a signal once it reaches a certain acceleration (ie: when you hit it long enough).

    Then, set the monitor to start a timer once it registers a high enough average acceleration. Set the time for, say, 10 seconds. If you manage to sustain the average acceleration for a long enough time, the monitor will reset the computer for you.

    It's not enough to hit something. It's not enough to hit something hard enough. It's only enough to hit something hard enough, repeatedly, for a period of time. Only then will you have worked out your rage. =)

  21. Computer controlled LED by Simonetta · · Score: 5, Informative

    Real men don't fool around anymore with digital potentiometers and op-amps when it comes down to the nitty-gritty task of controlling an LED.

        Now it's far cheaper to use a microcontroller with pulse-width modulation to guide the LED into it luministic destiny. Get an 8-pin AVR (like the Tiny11) or even a 6-pin PIC microprocessor for less than 50 cents US, preferably one that is in a new surface-mount package much smaller than the LED and fits underneath it. Then write the code that gently awakens the LED from its inner darkness. Be guided in your code by the idea that just as the LED is being raised from its inherent chaotic darkness, so too is man raised from his internal chaotic darkness by the direction and focused energy of Jesus, God, Jehovah, Allah, Buddha, Krishna, Great Spirit, or Whoever (grammar goblins, note the proper capitalization of the indirect pronoun that refers to the deity).

          The point is that now it is cheaper to effect a hardware solution with an ultra-cheap microcontroller than it was in the 20th century to do with cheap 555 timers coupled with resistors and caps or to do with TTL clusters. It does require software skills that weren't needed previously. It's a whole new frame of reference for electronic designers. This trend will continue as very fast, (50 MegaHertz system clocks, fast for microcontrollers), very powerful 32-bit microcontrollers with large internal memory continue to fall in price [the 50MHz/32K FlashROM ARM controller has broken the $5 barrier].

          Will we ever use a 32-bit microprocessor to control a single LED? Don't laugh too hard. Using a chip that has more internal resources than the original IBM PC to control a few LEDs is not rare now. If some future 128-bit CPU has the ability to be programmed just by talking to it, and it's cheaper than an LED, then why not?

  22. Re:Options. by chmod+a+x+mojo · · Score: 3, Funny

    Don't worry, i tried to kill myself also when i sat down to watch that movie. I'm just sorry to hear that they succeeded...

    --
    To err is human; effective mayhem requires the root password!