I too would recommend the AVR series from Atmel. Their development boards (STK500 et. al.) are fairly inexpensive, and work with a variety of chips, including the cheap and versatile "2313" chip, my personal favorite.
If you're famaliar with C programming, then the AVRs are excellent, as gcc will cross-compile for these chips, and give excellent performance for the dollar, as most of the chips operate at 1 instruction per clock, speeds between 4 Mhz and 10Mhz. Getting a single-chip, 10 MIPS solution for $4 is pretty unbelivable.
As well, the chips are extremely cheap, (between $1.25 and $10) and easy to incorporate to whatever homebrew projects you can come up with, with minimal extra circuitry required, and extensive documentation in the spec sheets. Most of them are available in DIP form, so they're easy to prototype using a handy-dandy protoboard.
Just go to digi-key, and search for the parts I've mentioned above, and go from there.
I don't think you're going to be able to get enough energy out of solar panels to run a compressor type air conditioner.
I'm sure you could just run a nice DC fan, maybe even with a temperature controller. There are many a model of solar Attic fans that can significantly cool a house in the summer.
I know they're inefficient, but how about a peltier device?
There's a great GPL'd program out there called XFoil that contains a large database of standard airfoils, including several "flat bottomed" foils, that are easy to construct from balsa.
I've used these before in some simple hobby projects (that never actually got finished)
Yes, Its on TechTV. Yes, Its on at odd times, and they move it around a bit. Just set your TiVo. Yes, Its got a horrid announcer voice, just use your TiVo to skip it. Yes, Its got lots of inane banter, just use your TiVo to skip it.
Whats left is about 12 minutes of great, objective, intelligent, wide-ranging game reviews.
Up until very very recently, I was still using an HP DeskJet PLUS from circa 1989. It cost about $1000 when I got it new, and I had upgraded it with a TimesRoman and a Helvetica font cartridge.
It was first connected to my PCJr running IBM DisplayWrite 4.
Then, it was connected to my PS/2 Model 80 (80386 16Mhz) running WordPerfect 5.2 under DOS and OS/2 Warp.
Then, it was connected to my Pentium 100Mhz running Windows for Workgroups.
Then, to a Pentium II, 500Mhz, Windows95.
Then, to an Athlon 700Mhz, running RedHat Linux 6.2.
Then, very briefly, to a Pentium 4 2.4Ghz and Red Hat 8.0.
Now its been replaced by a Canon photo printer, but the HP still looks better than the Canon for Black and White letter style output.
Ink Cartidges are still available, and still outrageously expensive. (They've remained at a fairly constant $24.95 ever since 1989.)
This is the kind of electronics project I was doing when I was about 12 years old. Why is this worthy of Slashdot? Pretty soon I'm just gonna stop reading this drek.
Why is everybody so angry about this? (as I sit here and type this on a Dvorak keyboard)
Why did I switch? Because I hit that point in my career where the wrist pain was so great that the only option was to stop typing alltogether or type much more slowly for several months. It was a great opportunity to switch to Dvorak, and I've never gone back.
After 7+ years, I can still touch type Qwerty, and have no problem using "guest" computers. It takes about 2 seconds to do the mental "context switch" back to the old ways. Grated, when you "switch" you have to commit for the time being, because you'll never absorb Dvorak if you don't type exclusive Dvorak for a half year or so.
I also don't understand why people ignore what they call "anecdotal" evidence. I've never met a Dvorak user who didn't think they could type faster, more accurately, "smoother", and most of all with less wrist pain.
Its also funny to see all the Qwerty-files talking about how terrible it would be to switch, when they haven't actually gone through the process themselves. They should listen to the people who actually type Dvorak for information about that kind of stuff, and don't jump to conclusions. Just because it took you 15 years to get to typing 100wpm doesn't mean it'll take you that long to get up to speed on Dvorak.
Almost everyone I've ever talked with who's gotten laser eye surgury has been disappointed with the results. They all say:
"My doctor told me that my vision would be better than what I see with my contacts in. Its not. Its worse than it was before, but at least I don't have to deal with contacts. They say I can stop using these eye drops after a couple of months."
Well, to me, that sounds like a pretty sorry tradeoff. Don't waste your vision on convenience! Find several people who have had the procedure, and ask them how satisfied they are, if they have to wear glasses (most still do for reading) and if there were other side effects.
I actually like flash, but unfortunately, I don't use it under Linux, because its sooooo darned instable. And since I'm Windows-free, it also means I'm flash-free.
Why don't we petition Macromedia to fix the stability of the x86 version before having them embark on something like PPC?
Slashdot Mirror
Wow. I'm famous!
You should really be going here: slacy's page about building avr-gcc and avr toolchains for Linux
Thanks!
I too would recommend the AVR series from Atmel. Their development boards (STK500 et. al.) are fairly inexpensive, and work with a variety of chips, including the cheap and versatile "2313" chip, my personal favorite.
If you're famaliar with C programming, then the AVRs are excellent, as gcc will cross-compile for these chips, and give excellent performance for the dollar, as most of the chips operate at 1 instruction per clock, speeds between 4 Mhz and 10Mhz. Getting a single-chip, 10 MIPS solution for $4 is pretty unbelivable.
As well, the chips are extremely cheap, (between $1.25 and $10) and easy to incorporate to whatever homebrew projects you can come up with, with minimal extra circuitry required, and extensive documentation in the spec sheets. Most of them are available in DIP form, so they're easy to prototype using a handy-dandy protoboard.
Just go to digi-key, and search for the parts I've mentioned above, and go from there.
Steve
I don't think you're going to be able to get enough energy out of solar panels to run a compressor type air conditioner.
I'm sure you could just run a nice DC fan, maybe even with a temperature controller. There are many a model of solar Attic fans that can significantly cool a house in the summer.
I know they're inefficient, but how about a peltier device?
Wow, what a great acronym, and I'm quite surprised that they seem to be actually using it externall!
Anyone who disagrees with microsoft can just SFU! I mean, install SFU from microsoft.com.
(Just in case somebody missed it, SFU = Shut the F**k Up.)
There's a great GPL'd program out there called XFoil that contains a large database of standard airfoils, including several "flat bottomed" foils, that are easy to construct from balsa.
I've used these before in some simple hobby projects (that never actually got finished)
Yes, Its on TechTV.
Yes, Its on at odd times, and they move it around a bit. Just set your TiVo.
Yes, Its got a horrid announcer voice, just use your TiVo to skip it.
Yes, Its got lots of inane banter, just use your TiVo to skip it.
Whats left is about 12 minutes of great, objective, intelligent, wide-ranging game reviews.
Steve
Up until very very recently, I was still using an HP DeskJet PLUS from circa 1989. It cost about $1000 when I got it new, and I had upgraded it with a TimesRoman and a Helvetica font cartridge.
It was first connected to my PCJr running IBM DisplayWrite 4.
Then, it was connected to my PS/2 Model 80 (80386 16Mhz) running WordPerfect 5.2 under DOS and OS/2 Warp.
Then, it was connected to my Pentium 100Mhz running Windows for Workgroups.
Then, to a Pentium II, 500Mhz, Windows95.
Then, to an Athlon 700Mhz, running RedHat Linux 6.2.
Then, very briefly, to a Pentium 4 2.4Ghz and Red Hat 8.0.
Now its been replaced by a Canon photo printer, but the HP still looks better than the Canon for Black and White letter style output. Ink Cartidges are still available, and still outrageously expensive. (They've remained at a fairly constant $24.95 ever since 1989.)
The Straight Dope
They've got a good search engine, and answers to all kinds of interesting questions. I've spent many an evening browsing through the archives...
This is the kind of electronics project I was doing when I was about 12 years old. Why is this worthy of Slashdot? Pretty soon I'm just gonna stop reading this drek.
Why are you guys focusing so much on speed?
Noone really needs to type faster. Dvorak for me is all about wrist and hand pain. Qwerty hurts. Dvorak doesn't.
I don't care if thats considered "anecdotal" evidence, because its TRUE FOR ME.
I would like for other people to understand the easy way I've found to reduce RSI. Thats all.
Why is everybody so angry about this? (as I sit here and type this on a Dvorak keyboard)
Why did I switch? Because I hit that point in my career where the wrist pain was so great that the only option was to stop typing alltogether or type much more slowly for several months. It was a great opportunity to switch to Dvorak, and I've never gone back.
After 7+ years, I can still touch type Qwerty, and have no problem using "guest" computers. It takes about 2 seconds to do the mental "context switch" back to the old ways. Grated, when you "switch" you have to commit for the time being, because you'll never absorb Dvorak if you don't type exclusive Dvorak for a half year or so.
I also don't understand why people ignore what they call "anecdotal" evidence. I've never met a Dvorak user who didn't think they could type faster, more accurately, "smoother", and most of all with less wrist pain.
Its also funny to see all the Qwerty-files talking about how terrible it would be to switch, when they haven't actually gone through the process themselves. They should listen to the people who actually type Dvorak for information about that kind of stuff, and don't jump to conclusions. Just because it took you 15 years to get to typing 100wpm doesn't mean it'll take you that long to get up to speed on Dvorak.
I actually like flash, but unfortunately, I don't use it under Linux, because its sooooo darned instable. And since I'm Windows-free, it also means I'm flash-free.
Why don't we petition Macromedia to fix the stability of the x86 version before having them embark on something like PPC?