Do you honestly think the/. effect on a 5KB page of text is significant, in comparison to the millions of people who are periodically downloading large chunks of uncompressible data from their servers? Do you realize that most slashdot vistors aren't interested in the dicussion? They only read the front page and click the links. Filling up the comments page with that crap is just irritating, unless the site is down.
I read the subject line. As another poster put it, it's "whoretastic!".
truly a bizarre idea if you think about it, right? Money for information...
Dude, get over it. Information is valuable. Otherwise, you wouldn't give a shit about this issue, right? Things which are valuable are, by definition, worth money. Got it?
BTW I'm curious who provides the food you eat and the roof over your head.
MPEG can charge whatever they want, and Apple can tell them to shove it. That's what the free market is all about. I'll be happy to buy your fucking one-way ticket to China if you don't like it.
Simpsons are still great, and for as long as they can maintain this quality I've got no complaints. I don't want to seem them stick around past their prime, but we've still got a few years until we need to worry about that, IMHO.
The Simpsons has changed ever so gradually over the years. They started with great characters that everyone could relate to. Then as they ran out of jokes that every family with 2.3 children could appreciate, they started to get just plain bizarre. Sturgeons falling from the sky, homer's chest being ripped open by a dog, etc. There's a lot of these useless gags creeping into the recent episodes, and I never thought I'd say this, but I'm actually getting tired of the Simpson's now.
Futurama is what Groenings first animated sitcom would have been, had he not (presumably) been forced to give Fox something that wasn't so far out to begin with (See his Life In Hell books). The stories are damn funny, and the characters are ingenious (Zoidberg kicks ass). But what's different wrt the Simpsons is that this time there are no rules. You just couldn't have an egg sandwich causing a symbiotic worm colony in Homer's stomach, but it works great in Futurama. When you can pull off stories like that, you don't have to worry about ever running out of ideas.
Anyway, no amount of petitioning Fox will increase the audience for this brilliant show. If you want Futurama to live, you need to get people WATCHING it.
As a youngster, I broke the law solely for the thrill of being punished (or more often, cunningly escaping punishment).
It's a frequently overlooked aspect of human psychology. We're not lab rats. Many of us rebel just for the pleasure of doing so - it's not as simple as dangling a carrot to make us behave.
I realized that getting phat lewtz and my epic weapon and lvl 60 and all that didn't amount to jack in the real world, so it was time to stop.
Heh. When I realized that busting my ass for a PHB in the real world to make the payments on my new Mercedes didn't amount to jack, I decided it was time to stop.
I took up OSS development instead, and I find it much more rewarding. To each his own.:)
That sounds great, until you take a step back and look at all the *crap* that people have tried to sell this way. Most of these products are just cheap PCs running a free UNIX, a little bit of other free software like a web server/router/firewall/sendmail, and maybe a little web config tool to help you set it up. I've seen products like this sold for $30K or more! FYI the shunra is a horrible network simulator product that I evaluated at my last company - we ended up building something way better for $0 plus the cost of a PC, using FreeBSD and DummyNet. Look at all those lame-ass NAS boxes which cost $1500 and up. Why would I want to pay that kind of markup for the simplicty of setup, when the box is so severely cripped compared to a cheap PC? Unfortunately not everyone realizes how easy it is to do this stuff themselves, so there will always be a market for garbage like this.
Now, there have been a few notable exceptions, and these are only the ones where the value of the software far exceeds that of the hardware needed to run it. This googlebox sounds like one of them. Another PC-based Internet appliance that is almost worth the $$$$ is Cobalt's Qube and Raq products - I wouldn't buy one myself because I know how to set up all that stuff w/o a pretty web UI, but I've heard great things from people who have purchased them.
It's just too easy to get ripped off buying these appliances.
Re:Mediocre people can no longer get good jobs! D'
on
The Laid-off Techie
·
· Score: 2
Many of them are from non-techy backgrounds, often design or Mickey Mouse degrees like Media Studies.
You're right on about the web development industry. Professional shops who've been doing it since before '99 were probably a little better prepared for the current slump, so hang in there. I have a friend who runs a 5-man web design shop, and they're now hustling to catch up on the "harder" aspects of web development, ie databases, online ordering, etc. It's a tough business right now, but they're pros and they know how to compete.
I worked for that company when I was in high school, long before the web boom, when their core business was interactive CDROMs and video production. I was grateful for the opportunity to work on "Mickey Mouse" stuff like banging out HTML, as it was just the opportunity I needed to get into Perl, C, and networking. While not every one of your hires will have the skills and experience you're looking for right off the bat, I hope you'll keep your eye out for motivated young guys who want to learn. They just might turn into the star coders you need.
I disagreee. I laughed out loud to this one [firstpr.com.au]. I bet they leave that little girl in her helmet at all times so she doesn't hurt herself.
Maybe she just got off her bicycle, or perhaps she's epileptic. No need to laugh at someone who possibly has a serious neural disorder. Fucking grow up.
Isn't it funny how that bible states that the earth is round? and this was written in the bible when the earth was still considered to be flat. Isn't that interesting? Think about it... Now, how on earth could that get into the bible? And it wasnt by pure chance, unlike the theory of evolution which depends puerly on chance.
There are a few possible answers to this. If I felt contrary, I could say that the "Earth=round" was inserted into the Bible after the fact.
He who is sitting on the circle of the earth, And its inhabitants [are] as grasshoppers, He who is stretching out as a thin thing the heavens, And spreadeth them as a tent to dwell in.... Yea, slew they the goats, and so on.
This verse was once used as proof that the earth was a flat circle, now it's used as proof that Christians knew all along it was a sphere.
I was referring to the switch that changes the curves for the throttle and collective. In normal flying I think you have something like 5 to 15 degress of pitch on the main blades, and the throlle is adjustable. When you're getting ready to invert, you flip that switch and it puts the engine on full throttle, and changes the collective so it's -15 degrees to +15 degrees. Right?
Once you learn to hover the helicopter, the other (non inverted) stuff is easy.
Yep, forward flight is definitely not as hard as holding the thing in one spot.
You're making it sound a lot easier than it really is. Learning to fly an RC helicopter is damn hard, in my experience.
I practiced quite a bit using RealFlight, and I found it very helpful in getting the hang of controls and tuning my reflexes. Unfortunately I would still crash my real chopper from time to time, and I just got tired of fixing before I ever got good at it. Every crash costs *at least* $75 and one hour of repairs. That's if there's no tail rotor damage. I found it a very expensive and time-consuming hobby.
I know that a lot of people will have the skill and patience for this sort of thing, but I certainly wouldn't recommend it to anyone with $2500 to burn.
Oh... and flying inverted is hardly something that happens at just the flick of a switch. Get real, hotshot.
I'm sticking with #3 until the RIAA gets a fucking clue.
How can they be so stupid as to think that ANY kind of copy protection will ever prevent their music from getting onto the net? Clearly, they think that someone is sitting there repeatedly dubbing a CD again and again every time something is downloaded. Don't they realize that no matter how difficult they make the initial ripping, it only has to be done ONCE to make a billion copies?
The only people they're inconveniencing with these tactics are guys like me who would otherwise have paid for the material. It doesn't make it any harder to download the file off gnutella.
I seem to remember: 190 volts minimum at 3 to 5 milliamps. Discouraging if you want to use batteries.
Big whoop. It's not hard to make a switching power supply that will give you whatever voltage you want from a battery supply. Lots of sample circuits are out there.
You can also buy inexpensive inverter modules that make 100VAC from a battery supply - typically used for powering LCD electroluminescent backlights. Seach on digikey for "backlight inverter".
It uses an oscilloscope tube to draw the time in green phosphor arcs - no pixels.
Very nice!
If you don't feel like figuring out how to drive a CRT directly, there are some interesting things you can do with just a regular oscilloscope set to XY mode. Next time you're at Fry's, go to the aisle where they have all the oscilloscopes and function generators. This works best on a CRT scope, not a digital sampling scope. Hook two function generators to the scope inputs and set it to XY mode. Set the function generators to a sine wave, and play with the frequencies. You can generate all sorts of interesting lissajous figures.
I once made a project using a PIC, a couple of DACs, and two stepper motors. The stepper motors were wired up like a "poor man's galvanometer" - the were driven by the DACs to move back and forth within a step. By mounting the motors at 90 degrees and hitting them with a laser pointer, I was able to make a pretty groovy portable laser show for about $40 worth of components.
Another thing you can do if you don't feel like making your own hardware is to hook your sound card's left and right outputs to an oscilloscope. The you could write some simple software to draw these kinds of figures on the scope by just sending the wave forms out of your sound card. Unfortunately the frequency response is limited to the audible range so this is not ideal. A simple resistor-ladder DAC on the parallel port might work better because you could have <20HZ frequencies.
It's amazing what you can do with a little geometry....
128k is more than enough for live recordings, considering background noise, proximity of the source of the recording (loud speakers, etc)
Actually, I've found the opposite to be true. The kinds of "noise" on a live recording include clapping and cheering, as well as quiet bits of background din. Sounds such as these, which either use a wide chunk of bandwidth or are much quieter than the music, are very difficult for an MPEG encoder to capture at ANY bitrate - in fact, this is exactly the part of the signal that MP3 is *designed* to lose. As a specific example, try encoding the sound of an audience clapping in unison.
I have found that studio recordings almost always sound as good as the original CD with 256K+/VBR encoding, whereas live albums can have a significant amount of distortion/loss.
I'm neither a musician nor do I have a "golden ear", but this stuff is quite audible when you're used to listening to the original CD and then you go to your MP3 player.
How many people have code but don't know how to set up a good makefile, but could if a decent template were explained? How many people would like to have configure scripts, but aren't sure how the magic works? How many people aren't sure how to put their code in CVS or upload it to SourceForge?
I doubt if you've actually tried doing this stuff, and failed for lack of documenation. Yes, make, autoconf, etc are difficult programs, but there are many books and web sites on the topic. I'm sure if you allocated 8 hours and a 6-pick of Dew to the task, you'd get the basic idea.
CVs and sourceforge are *much* easier than they appear. There is a book called "open source development using CVS" which covers CVS in excruciating detail. If you want to learn CVS I'd suggest just diving in with the basic functions, and don't worry about learning how to use a more difficult feature (like branching) until you feel the need for it.
These issues:
1. Read and understand the code.
2. Make changes.
4. Hope they get accepted.
Are all specific to the project and the development community you want to join. I think that as you get into open development, you will most likely find that projects always want help, and they don't expect (or even want) everyone to be a seasoned hacker. If you're a beginner, lurk on the mailing list for a while, read the code, then introduce yourself. Read the bug tracker on sourceforge and see if there's any housekeeping you can do there, or any small bugs that need fixing. Send a diff against the current source. Or send a big diff. Get involved. Answer people's questions. Ask for CVS write access.
You're asking how to join a community. The answer is listen & learn, introduce yourself, make some friends, find something to do. It's no different than real life.
I spent my first few glances at this wondering whether it was more likely that someone would put a compact flash slot into an Apple II or whether someone would put an Apple II (equivalent) into a compact flash device.
You mean an emulator? There are tons of Apple ][ emulators already.
What I'd like to see is a complete Apple ][ on a single chip. The ][+ schematics used to come with the computer, and I think 65C02 cores are freely available. You could easily fit an entire Apple ][, along with disk controllers, video, etc in a single $200 FPGA. Screw emulators, I want a hard Apple ][ clone!
How can the parent post be modded down as redundant when it is the 2nd post made?
Posts which state the obvious are usually modded down as redundant, and rightly so. We don't need to be told that non-geeks would find this practically useless.
I dunno if my server's going to hold up any better, but it's worth a shot.:)
Just in case, a couple snippets from the page:
ast Update: Jan 17, 2002 - 11:40am CST
Project Introduction:
This page describes a project to create an IDE / CompactFlash Interface card for 8 bit Apple II series of computers. The
card is ProDOS 8 compatible. I did this project over the span of several months. Although it took much longer than
expected, it was a fun project. This project is very much a case of old technology (the
Apple II computer) meets new (IDE / CompactFlash cards and Altera CPLDs).
My reasoning for this project is described in detail in the last section, but suffice it to say, I
wanted to be able to pull out my old Apple and use it from time to time to reminisce about the
early days of personal computers. I wanted a reliable way to store my Apple II programs and
data files for many years to come. Due to the Apple II's floppy drives long term reliability
prospects and my general laziness, I decided a mass storage device is what I needed.
If there was enough interest in this project I would love to make a small batch of boards to
sell to those interested. But I would need at least 10 orders, and it may be hard to find 10 people interested in something
like this. I can be reached at rich@dreher.net
Currently I have only built a prototype, which means no extensive testing has been done
yet.
The Apple II was an excellent example of an open system, with unheard-of-today
documentation like system schematics, firmware listings, and peripheral design tips. Indeed
the only thing that was totally hidden was the source for the BASIC interpreter - "AppleSoft"
written by giga-monopoly Microsoft. In the spirit of the Apple II this project is completely
open.
Project Definition:
A CompactFlash/IDE Interface for 8 bit Apple II family of computers
Support for up to 64 Meg, (two ProDOS 32Meg drives)
On board EPROM for the ProDOS 8 driver code
Allow booting ProDOS directly from the Interface card (for a floppy-less system)
Current version of driver code requires a 65C02. (IIe Enhanced or later)
Project Prototype Hardware:
My first prototype used no discreet 74HCTxxx series parts and all logic was in the CPLD, but due to several unrelated
problems with construction and the consumption of all PLD resources, I decided to build a second prototype with using
74hct373 parts, this time paying more careful attention to power distribution. I still believe it would be easy to eliminate
the discreet 74xxx series parts if you used a larger PLD, like the EPM70128S. Although it might not be very cost
effective.
Here is the schematic I developed AFTER completing my prototype. That means this schematic has not been tested. If
you decide to build this project, you might want to check with me for any changes first. Also if you find any mistakes
please let me know. Project Schematic: ORCAD Capture Format
If you just want a quick look at the schematic click here to view a 640k jpeg of the schematic. Modem users: sorry about
the size, but I wanted it to be clear and readable as possible.
Prototype Parts List:
1 - SanDisk CompactFlash 64Meg or 32Meg
1 - CompactFlash to IDE conversion board - Adtron SDDA-03 available from EMJ Embedded
1 - ISA bus prototype board (trimmed to fit into the apple bus) Jameco part #21531
1 - 44pin PLCC socket. Jameco part #71618
1 - 44pin PLCC wire-wrap socket. (http://smt-adapter.com/ - part #44PG-W or similar)
1 - Altera EPM7064SLC44-10F
1 - 27128 EPROM
2 - 74HCT373 transparent latch
2 - 74HCT245 bus transceiver
7 - 22ohm 1/8w resistors
5 - 0.1uf capacitors non-polarized (used for power supply bypass)
3 - 1.0uf capacitors non-polarized (used for power supply bypass)
10 - 30 pin wire wrap SIPP sockets. Jameco part #104053 (there were some leftover)
misc wire wrap tools and wire
The point which you glossed over is that although information (photographs, code, schematics, CAD drawings for a Ferrari) costs virtually nothing to transfer/store, the resources to initially create this information ARE scare. Even if all the programmers, engineers, and musicians of the world were willing to work for free, there would still be a scarcity because there is a finite number of these people, and the work takes time.
As you point out, some day the cost of "copying" any tangible object, even a space shuttle, will be virtually insignificant. Who will design all these products that cost nothing to produce? Presumably, there won't be much point in paying anyone, since everything (except living space, I suppose) will be free. Would talented people just do it for fun/prestige? The OSS movement has demonstrated that it works, at least within the scope of software development. However, I don't think a ccouple o guys with a HandyCam could film the next Titanic.
If you have faith in your vision, then you should have no problem with allowing the creators of "intellectual property" to set their own price for the information they produce. When the MARKET decides that their effort is no longer worth paying for, these people will disappear (as is clearly the trend for the RIAA).
Everything happens in cycles. If the software industry, the RIAA, and Hollywood are unable to adapt, they will be wiped out and the production of high-budget information will practically cease. In time however, the demand for such material will inevitably find some way to provide for these industries again.
Slashdot Mirror
Do you honestly think the /. effect on a 5KB page of text is significant, in comparison to the millions of people who are periodically downloading large chunks of uncompressible data from their servers? Do you realize that most slashdot vistors aren't interested in the dicussion? They only read the front page and click the links. Filling up the comments page with that crap is just irritating, unless the site is down.
I read the subject line. As another poster put it, it's "whoretastic!".
Moderators: Parent post is OVERRATED and REDUNDANT. Please mod it down to -1 accordingly.
/.ed - it's is coming up just fine.
He just copied the enite text from the link in the article. The page is NOT
First off, at 2.4ghz RG58 loses .25db/ft, not 2.5db/ft.
...that is 2.5db per foot
What he said is:
RG58 has a 25db loss per 100 foot at 2.5ghz
But then he says:
I guess I don't fully grok the exponential scale for decibels wrt loss/foot. I'd think 25db per 100 feet == 0.25db per foot. Care to clarify?
truly a bizarre idea if you think about it, right? Money for information...
Dude, get over it. Information is valuable. Otherwise, you wouldn't give a shit about this issue, right? Things which are valuable are, by definition, worth money. Got it?
BTW I'm curious who provides the food you eat and the roof over your head.
MPEG can charge whatever they want, and Apple can tell them to shove it. That's what the free market is all about. I'll be happy to buy your fucking one-way ticket to China if you don't like it.
Simpsons are still great, and for as long as they can maintain this quality I've got no complaints. I don't want to seem them stick around past their prime, but we've still got a few years until we need to worry about that, IMHO.
The Simpsons has changed ever so gradually over the years. They started with great characters that everyone could relate to. Then as they ran out of jokes that every family with 2.3 children could appreciate, they started to get just plain bizarre. Sturgeons falling from the sky, homer's chest being ripped open by a dog, etc. There's a lot of these useless gags creeping into the recent episodes, and I never thought I'd say this, but I'm actually getting tired of the Simpson's now.
Futurama is what Groenings first animated sitcom would have been, had he not (presumably) been forced to give Fox something that wasn't so far out to begin with (See his Life In Hell books). The stories are damn funny, and the characters are ingenious (Zoidberg kicks ass). But what's different wrt the Simpsons is that this time there are no rules. You just couldn't have an egg sandwich causing a symbiotic worm colony in Homer's stomach, but it works great in Futurama. When you can pull off stories like that, you don't have to worry about ever running out of ideas.
Anyway, no amount of petitioning Fox will increase the audience for this brilliant show. If you want Futurama to live, you need to get people WATCHING it.
As a youngster, I broke the law solely for the thrill of being punished (or more often, cunningly escaping punishment).
It's a frequently overlooked aspect of human psychology. We're not lab rats. Many of us rebel just for the pleasure of doing so - it's not as simple as dangling a carrot to make us behave.
during the time I was dating her, I quitmud,
Stealthily trying to coin a new verb, eh?
I've never played EQ. I'm just saying that from his description, I think I get the general idea, having worked hard for equally unfulfilling goals.
;)
gf is a different story - she's well worth the effort.
I realized that getting phat lewtz and my epic weapon and lvl 60 and all that didn't amount to jack in the real world, so it was time to stop.
:)
Heh. When I realized that busting my ass for a PHB in the real world to make the payments on my new Mercedes didn't amount to jack, I decided it was time to stop.
I took up OSS development instead, and I find it much more rewarding. To each his own.
That sounds great, until you take a step back and look at all the *crap* that people have tried to sell this way. Most of these products are just cheap PCs running a free UNIX, a little bit of other free software like a web server/router/firewall/sendmail, and maybe a little web config tool to help you set it up. I've seen products like this sold for $30K or more! FYI the shunra is a horrible network simulator product that I evaluated at my last company - we ended up building something way better for $0 plus the cost of a PC, using FreeBSD and DummyNet. Look at all those lame-ass NAS boxes which cost $1500 and up. Why would I want to pay that kind of markup for the simplicty of setup, when the box is so severely cripped compared to a cheap PC? Unfortunately not everyone realizes how easy it is to do this stuff themselves, so there will always be a market for garbage like this.
Now, there have been a few notable exceptions, and these are only the ones where the value of the software far exceeds that of the hardware needed to run it. This googlebox sounds like one of them. Another PC-based Internet appliance that is almost worth the $$$$ is Cobalt's Qube and Raq products - I wouldn't buy one myself because I know how to set up all that stuff w/o a pretty web UI, but I've heard great things from people who have purchased them.
It's just too easy to get ripped off buying these appliances.
Many of them are from non-techy backgrounds, often design or Mickey Mouse degrees like Media Studies.
You're right on about the web development industry. Professional shops who've been doing it since before '99 were probably a little better prepared for the current slump, so hang in there. I have a friend who runs a 5-man web design shop, and they're now hustling to catch up on the "harder" aspects of web development, ie databases, online ordering, etc. It's a tough business right now, but they're pros and they know how to compete.
I worked for that company when I was in high school, long before the web boom, when their core business was interactive CDROMs and video production. I was grateful for the opportunity to work on "Mickey Mouse" stuff like banging out HTML, as it was just the opportunity I needed to get into Perl, C, and networking. While not every one of your hires will have the skills and experience you're looking for right off the bat, I hope you'll keep your eye out for motivated young guys who want to learn. They just might turn into the star coders you need.
I disagreee. I laughed out loud to this one [firstpr.com.au]. I bet they leave that little girl in her helmet at all times so she doesn't hurt herself.
Maybe she just got off her bicycle, or perhaps she's epileptic. No need to laugh at someone who possibly has a serious neural disorder. Fucking grow up.
Isn't it funny how that bible states that the earth is round? and this was written in the bible when the earth was still considered to be flat. Isn't that interesting? Think about it... Now, how on earth could that get into the bible? And it wasnt by pure chance, unlike the theory of evolution which depends puerly on chance.
There are a few possible answers to this. If I felt contrary, I could say that the "Earth=round" was inserted into the Bible after the fact.
The passage in question Isaiah 40:22, says:
He who is sitting on the circle of the earth, And its inhabitants [are] as grasshoppers, He who is stretching out as a thin thing the heavens, And spreadeth them as a tent to dwell in.... Yea, slew they the goats, and so on.
This verse was once used as proof that the earth was a flat circle, now it's used as proof that Christians knew all along it was a sphere.
54% of Americans are now online, and that's certainly a Good Thing(tm).
What's this whole "Good Thing(tm)" thing all about?
Is it supposed to be cute? Is it some obscure reference to something? Is there any difference between a good thing and a Good Thing(tm)?
I don't get it. For some Reason(tm), I found it so God(tm) damned Irritating(tm) that I was unable to read the Rest(tm) of your Post(tm).
Please explain.
I was referring to the switch that changes the curves for the throttle and collective. In normal flying I think you have something like 5 to 15 degress of pitch on the main blades, and the throlle is adjustable. When you're getting ready to invert, you flip that switch and it puts the engine on full throttle, and changes the collective so it's -15 degrees to +15 degrees. Right?
Once you learn to hover the helicopter, the other (non inverted) stuff is easy.
Yep, forward flight is definitely not as hard as holding the thing in one spot.
You're making it sound a lot easier than it really is. Learning to fly an RC helicopter is damn hard, in my experience.
I practiced quite a bit using RealFlight, and I found it very helpful in getting the hang of controls and tuning my reflexes. Unfortunately I would still crash my real chopper from time to time, and I just got tired of fixing before I ever got good at it. Every crash costs *at least* $75 and one hour of repairs. That's if there's no tail rotor damage. I found it a very expensive and time-consuming hobby.
I know that a lot of people will have the skill and patience for this sort of thing, but I certainly wouldn't recommend it to anyone with $2500 to burn.
Oh... and flying inverted is hardly something that happens at just the flick of a switch. Get real, hotshot.
- Buy more CDs
- Steal music online
- Enjoy the albums you already own
I'm sticking with #3 until the RIAA gets a fucking clue.How can they be so stupid as to think that ANY kind of copy protection will ever prevent their music from getting onto the net? Clearly, they think that someone is sitting there repeatedly dubbing a CD again and again every time something is downloaded. Don't they realize that no matter how difficult they make the initial ripping, it only has to be done ONCE to make a billion copies?
The only people they're inconveniencing with these tactics are guys like me who would otherwise have paid for the material. It doesn't make it any harder to download the file off gnutella.
I seem to remember: 190 volts minimum at 3 to 5 milliamps. Discouraging if you want to use batteries.
Big whoop. It's not hard to make a switching power supply that will give you whatever voltage you want from a battery supply. Lots of sample circuits are out there.
You can also buy inexpensive inverter modules that make 100VAC from a battery supply - typically used for powering LCD electroluminescent backlights. Seach on digikey for "backlight inverter".
It uses an oscilloscope tube to draw the time in green phosphor arcs - no pixels.
Very nice!
If you don't feel like figuring out how to drive a CRT directly, there are some interesting things you can do with just a regular oscilloscope set to XY mode. Next time you're at Fry's, go to the aisle where they have all the oscilloscopes and function generators. This works best on a CRT scope, not a digital sampling scope. Hook two function generators to the scope inputs and set it to XY mode. Set the function generators to a sine wave, and play with the frequencies. You can generate all sorts of interesting lissajous figures.
I once made a project using a PIC, a couple of DACs, and two stepper motors. The stepper motors were wired up like a "poor man's galvanometer" - the were driven by the DACs to move back and forth within a step. By mounting the motors at 90 degrees and hitting them with a laser pointer, I was able to make a pretty groovy portable laser show for about $40 worth of components.
Another thing you can do if you don't feel like making your own hardware is to hook your sound card's left and right outputs to an oscilloscope. The you could write some simple software to draw these kinds of figures on the scope by just sending the wave forms out of your sound card. Unfortunately the frequency response is limited to the audible range so this is not ideal. A simple resistor-ladder DAC on the parallel port might work better because you could have <20HZ frequencies.
It's amazing what you can do with a little geometry....
128k is more than enough for live recordings, considering background noise, proximity of the source of the recording (loud speakers, etc)
Actually, I've found the opposite to be true. The kinds of "noise" on a live recording include clapping and cheering, as well as quiet bits of background din. Sounds such as these, which either use a wide chunk of bandwidth or are much quieter than the music, are very difficult for an MPEG encoder to capture at ANY bitrate - in fact, this is exactly the part of the signal that MP3 is *designed* to lose. As a specific example, try encoding the sound of an audience clapping in unison.
I have found that studio recordings almost always sound as good as the original CD with 256K+/VBR encoding, whereas live albums can have a significant amount of distortion/loss.
I'm neither a musician nor do I have a "golden ear", but this stuff is quite audible when you're used to listening to the original CD and then you go to your MP3 player.
How many people have code but don't know how to set up a good makefile, but could if a decent template were explained? How many people would like to have configure scripts, but aren't sure how the magic works? How many people aren't sure how to put their code in CVS or upload it to SourceForge?
I doubt if you've actually tried doing this stuff, and failed for lack of documenation. Yes, make, autoconf, etc are difficult programs, but there are many books and web sites on the topic. I'm sure if you allocated 8 hours and a 6-pick of Dew to the task, you'd get the basic idea.
CVs and sourceforge are *much* easier than they appear. There is a book called "open source development using CVS" which covers CVS in excruciating detail. If you want to learn CVS I'd suggest just diving in with the basic functions, and don't worry about learning how to use a more difficult feature (like branching) until you feel the need for it.
These issues:
1. Read and understand the code.
2. Make changes.
4. Hope they get accepted.
Are all specific to the project and the development community you want to join. I think that as you get into open development, you will most likely find that projects always want help, and they don't expect (or even want) everyone to be a seasoned hacker. If you're a beginner, lurk on the mailing list for a while, read the code, then introduce yourself. Read the bug tracker on sourceforge and see if there's any housekeeping you can do there, or any small bugs that need fixing. Send a diff against the current source. Or send a big diff. Get involved. Answer people's questions. Ask for CVS write access.
You're asking how to join a community. The answer is listen & learn, introduce yourself, make some friends, find something to do. It's no different than real life.
I spent my first few glances at this wondering whether it was more likely that someone would put a compact flash slot into an Apple II or whether someone would put an Apple II (equivalent) into a compact flash device.
You mean an emulator? There are tons of Apple ][ emulators already.
What I'd like to see is a complete Apple ][ on a single chip. The ][+ schematics used to come with the computer, and I think 65C02 cores are freely available. You could easily fit an entire Apple ][, along with disk controllers, video, etc in a single $200 FPGA. Screw emulators, I want a hard Apple ][ clone!
How can the parent post be modded down as redundant when it is the 2nd post made?
Posts which state the obvious are usually modded down as redundant, and rightly so. We don't need to be told that non-geeks would find this practically useless.
I've mirrored it at the URL below. Photos will be up as soon as they've finished downloading. :)
:)
http://www.slimdevices.com/CFforAppleII
I dunno if my server's going to hold up any better, but it's worth a shot.
Just in case, a couple snippets from the page:
ast Update: Jan 17, 2002 - 11:40am CST
Project Introduction:
This page describes a project to create an IDE / CompactFlash Interface card for 8 bit Apple II series of computers. The
card is ProDOS 8 compatible. I did this project over the span of several months. Although it took much longer than
expected, it was a fun project. This project is very much a case of old technology (the
Apple II computer) meets new (IDE / CompactFlash cards and Altera CPLDs).
My reasoning for this project is described in detail in the last section, but suffice it to say, I
wanted to be able to pull out my old Apple and use it from time to time to reminisce about the
early days of personal computers. I wanted a reliable way to store my Apple II programs and
data files for many years to come. Due to the Apple II's floppy drives long term reliability
prospects and my general laziness, I decided a mass storage device is what I needed.
If there was enough interest in this project I would love to make a small batch of boards to
sell to those interested. But I would need at least 10 orders, and it may be hard to find 10 people interested in something
like this. I can be reached at rich@dreher.net
Currently I have only built a prototype, which means no extensive testing has been done
yet.
The Apple II was an excellent example of an open system, with unheard-of-today
documentation like system schematics, firmware listings, and peripheral design tips. Indeed
the only thing that was totally hidden was the source for the BASIC interpreter - "AppleSoft"
written by giga-monopoly Microsoft. In the spirit of the Apple II this project is completely
open.
Project Definition:
A CompactFlash/IDE Interface for 8 bit Apple II family of computers
Support for up to 64 Meg, (two ProDOS 32Meg drives)
On board EPROM for the ProDOS 8 driver code
Allow booting ProDOS directly from the Interface card (for a floppy-less system)
Current version of driver code requires a 65C02. (IIe Enhanced or later)
Project Prototype Hardware:
My first prototype used no discreet 74HCTxxx series parts and all logic was in the CPLD, but due to several unrelated
problems with construction and the consumption of all PLD resources, I decided to build a second prototype with using
74hct373 parts, this time paying more careful attention to power distribution. I still believe it would be easy to eliminate
the discreet 74xxx series parts if you used a larger PLD, like the EPM70128S. Although it might not be very cost
effective.
Here is the schematic I developed AFTER completing my prototype. That means this schematic has not been tested. If
you decide to build this project, you might want to check with me for any changes first. Also if you find any mistakes
please let me know. Project Schematic: ORCAD Capture Format
If you just want a quick look at the schematic click here to view a 640k jpeg of the schematic. Modem users: sorry about
the size, but I wanted it to be clear and readable as possible.
Prototype Parts List:
1 - SanDisk CompactFlash 64Meg or 32Meg
1 - CompactFlash to IDE conversion board - Adtron SDDA-03 available from EMJ Embedded
1 - ISA bus prototype board (trimmed to fit into the apple bus) Jameco part #21531
1 - 44pin PLCC socket. Jameco part #71618
1 - 44pin PLCC wire-wrap socket. (http://smt-adapter.com/ - part #44PG-W or similar)
1 - Altera EPM7064SLC44-10F
1 - 27128 EPROM
2 - 74HCT373 transparent latch
2 - 74HCT245 bus transceiver
7 - 22ohm 1/8w resistors
5 - 0.1uf capacitors non-polarized (used for power supply bypass)
3 - 1.0uf capacitors non-polarized (used for power supply bypass)
10 - 30 pin wire wrap SIPP sockets. Jameco part #104053 (there were some leftover)
misc wire wrap tools and wire
The point which you glossed over is that although information (photographs, code, schematics, CAD drawings for a Ferrari) costs virtually nothing to transfer/store, the resources to initially create this information ARE scare. Even if all the programmers, engineers, and musicians of the world were willing to work for free, there would still be a scarcity because there is a finite number of these people, and the work takes time.
As you point out, some day the cost of "copying" any tangible object, even a space shuttle, will be virtually insignificant. Who will design all these products that cost nothing to produce? Presumably, there won't be much point in paying anyone, since everything (except living space, I suppose) will be free. Would talented people just do it for fun/prestige? The OSS movement has demonstrated that it works, at least within the scope of software development. However, I don't think a ccouple o guys with a HandyCam could film the next Titanic.
If you have faith in your vision, then you should have no problem with allowing the creators of "intellectual property" to set their own price for the information they produce. When the MARKET decides that their effort is no longer worth paying for, these people will disappear (as is clearly the trend for the RIAA).
Everything happens in cycles. If the software industry, the RIAA, and Hollywood are unable to adapt, they will be wiped out and the production of high-budget information will practically cease. In time however, the demand for such material will inevitably find some way to provide for these industries again.