30kHz - 300kHz is definately not shortwave, SW is more like 10-100MHz.
There is of course some radio transmissions using very low frequencies (like 10kHz), used for communicating with submarines and things like that. Pretty rare...
Maybe not exactly amateur science, but DIY is certainly alive and well on the Internet. There are hundreds of websites and mailing lists where people show off and discuss their projects.
Surface mounts components aren't that hard to work with either, you just need to learn new techniques. Also you don't have to drill all those holes...
Most projects only support serial devices such as PIC/AVR microcontrollers, serial EEPROMs etc. Supporting parallell devices means a lot more hardware (more pin drivers).
The best way (IMHO) to do a truly universal programmer would be to have a intelligent base unit (powered by say a PIC16F87x, plus maybe some SRAM or EEPROM storage) with a couple of variable voltage outputs (Vdd and Vpp) and a number of simple tri-state I/Os.
For each family of devices you then create a cheap addon module, with the right type of socket(s) and drivers for pins that need it.
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30kHz - 300kHz is definately not shortwave, SW is more like 10-100MHz.
There is of course some radio transmissions using very low frequencies (like 10kHz), used for communicating with submarines and things like that. Pretty rare...
Everything is integrated on the motherboard (CPU, GPU, RAM...).
The harddrive and DVD drive are more or less standard components with slightly altered firmware.
Maybe not exactly amateur science, but DIY is certainly alive and well on the Internet. There are hundreds of websites and mailing lists where people show off and discuss their projects.
Surface mounts components aren't that hard to work with either, you just need to learn new techniques. Also you don't have to drill all those holes...
A giant ant colony is cool, but I want giant radioactive *ants*.
Well, the PS2 can play "backups" while there are no (AFAIK) pirated games for the X-box so far.
Not that piracy would give MS any more money, but maybe the boxes would sell better =)
Old Crays also make cool sofas, which adds a lot of value to their multi-million dollar price tags. =)
We have two of them (a Cray-1 and a X/MP) here at LiU
Most projects only support serial devices such as PIC/AVR microcontrollers, serial EEPROMs etc. Supporting parallell devices means a lot more hardware (more pin drivers).
The best way (IMHO) to do a truly universal programmer would be to have a intelligent base unit (powered by say a PIC16F87x, plus maybe some SRAM or EEPROM storage) with a couple of variable voltage outputs (Vdd and Vpp) and a number of simple tri-state I/Os.
For each family of devices you then create a cheap addon module, with the right type of socket(s) and drivers for pins that need it.