so I'm correct in assuming that only those with lots of cables, fiber, copper, satellites, tin-can and twine, can be "directly connected"? What about universities?
I went to the same launch event and it was nothing more than an 8 hour marketing presentation. I took the IT track and stuck with it until the end because at the end we all got retail copies of Office 2003 pro. Of course it was just a voucher and it doesnt seem like MS will be shipping it to us until late next month while the torrents are everywhere.
Aside from that I cant complain, free software, free food, met some cool people. Felt like a corporate lan party in some weird way.
I think the most interesting product I saw at the event was MS Virtual PC in action so I'm on my way to get VMware:).
This post had no point but to say "me too!" and "yeah M$ sucks" and if you've even read this far I apologize for wasting your time, get back to work, slacker.
Ok, here is my question, it may sounds stupid to some but honestly I have no idea how else Ill find an answer
I pay my dialup ISP $10/mo for access. They pay big bucks to Verizon for access. Who does Verizon pay for access? How do I get on without the middle man, or is it not possible because I dont own a bunch of fiber lines?
If you traceroute a connection between here and accross the country I find myself going from major ISP to major ISP, but who lets those ISPs on? I understand ICANN but I dont think this has anything to do with them.
Sorry if this is sounding really stupid but Its been blowing my mind. At least with DNS I could find a book, and I'm sure I can with this but I wouldnt even know what to google.
Here are pages 1-3. Please reply if you have the rest.
Today we are going to be building a budget, high performance storage server. So what exactly is a storage server? We'll first go over the technical requirements and operational goals for our system, then move onto the design and assembly of the system.
First we need to discuss why we need a storage server. It is useful for a workgroup environment, where there are multiple users that need to share data across a network. In addition, it facilitates backup of data since the storage is centralized. Where cost is an issue, it is much cheaper to build a robust server with high levels of reliability than to submit that level of reliability and performance to all the network nodes.
At the most basic level, a storage server needs to be able to hold a lot of hard drives. To accomplish this, we could go out and buy a network attached storage device, but remember this is a budget system. Our goal is to maximize the functionality, reliability, and performance of the server, while keeping costs under control. It sounds like you could just add a bunch of hard drives to any networked PC and call it a "network attached storage device," but if you want it to be reliable, you have to think about cooling, power, and anticipated usage. So, if you're only interested in building a hardcore gaming PC, you'll still want to read this article to see our thoughts on cooling and power.
We wanted a server that would serve only data files and not program files. This would limit our network bandwidth and maximize performance. At the same time, we wanted this server to act as a workstation with as much capability as the other systems attached to the storage server. Our minimum storage requirement would be one terabyte. Not too long ago, terabyte storage was reserved for government labs like Sandia National labs, Lawrence Livermore labs, or science fiction.
Another consideration specific to storage is expandability; how we will cope with increases in storage requirements over time. Some network attached systems are great in the first year, but as needs expand, you basically have to double your initial investment to double your storage, by duplicating your initial purchase. The technology that you bought the first time does nothing for your future expansion, this is something that we tried hard to prepare for.
Let's start with discussing what we need to have and then build around that. First the hard drives.
A storage server should have a hard drive for the operating system and an array of drives for the shared storage. We feel that the most important feature for a storage hard drive is reliability. We went with IDE drives because of their superior price to performance ratio, as compared to SCSI. In our case, we don't even need the bandwidth of the SCSI drives - quantity rather than blistering speed was important. With respect to SATA or parallel ATA, both are more then adequate for our needs.
With these needs in mind, we chose the Maxtor Maxline II Plus 250GB 7200rpm 8MB buffer hard drives. These drives are rated at 1,200,000 hours MTBF as compared to 600,000 hours for standard consumer drives. This does not mean that you can run your hard drive for 137 years, but does imply that it is more reliable than a standard desktop drive. Maxtor has advertised this drive as one designed for 24/7 applications, this is in stark contrast to the old line of IBM drives that did not recommend continuous usage. Currently 250GB is the maximum capacity for 7200rpm drives. The only other IDE/SATA drive with a similar MTBF rating is the Western Digital Raptor series, but the max capacity is still only 36GB, with a 74GB version coming soon.
We will use four of these drives for a nice and even one terabyte of storage, with a server design that will allow for an easy addition of another 4 drives for a peak of 2 terabytes. But, when we are ready for a storage upgrade there will likely be even higher capacity hard drives on the market, further extending
Sorry for replying for my own post, forgot to add this:
I found from techtv.com a program for network intrusion detection called Intrusec Expose from www.intrusec.com. Its pretty cool software for monitoring your network and can do a lot more than just tell you what computers are connected and altert you when net computers enter the network. It can also scan for services and such.
No I'm not affiliated with this company and I'm not endorsing this software, I'm actually asking if anyone knows of a free, OSS or not alternative. The demo was great but that was 30 days ago.
Recently my cable internet service was suspended. Upon calling tech support I was transfered to the fraud and abuse department, you can imagine the look on my face. The techie told me that my access had been suspended because a computer on my network was infected with the welchia worm. The techie was kind enough to even provide me with the MAC address of the offending machine. I was suprised because my mixed network of 10, linux and windows machines, is kept up to date with the latest security patches. After checking all 10 machines I found that none of them had the mac address supplied by the techie. Upon further investigation of my DHCP logs I found that my WiFi network, SSID free_as_in_beer had its first visitor. I left it open because I believe in free access and wanted to see if anyone interesting would enter the network. Unfortunatly the mysterious computer was not logged in so I could not send a net send message to it, and it seems that the person would connect infrequently. I asked my neighbors and couldnt find the individual so I was forced to employ WEP enchrption. Now I've got chalkings outside my apartment just incase someone with any bit of knowledge wants a free ride, but my point, yes I actually had one, thanks for reading was that I feel bad for grandpa and grandma with their 2000 model compaq connected directly to the cable modem for emailing the grandkids. I was fortunate enough to convince the ISP that my network had been secured and I was granted access again, they on the other hand have few options. Then again this is a good thing for repair guys that make house calls, but between gator (or whatever its called now) and all the other crap out there I think they're busy enough.
I only wish that I could keep my WiFi up without WEP for my neihgbors or anyone walking by without exposing myself to risk of internet connection termination.
Have any other slashdotters had similar experiences, or suggestions. Thanks.
I absolutly LOVE the tablets in Enterprise. Larger than a pocket pc yet smaller than a tablet pc, think and does not require a pen. PERFECT. I want one so bad, I want it with LCARS. I can imagine in a perfect world(TM) there would be a standard operating system and communications protocol for these devices and you could use it to download ebook versions of hard copies at any bookstore, that would be spiffy.
When do I get to walk in to my apt after work, fall into my couch, grap the tablet off the coffee table and start reading slashdot. WHEN!!!
I've had this idea for a long time also. Too bad the write speed of CF or USB is too slow and cost of such a device is too expensive (how about a 8GB card for renting 2 movies... 3 movies...).
Not to mention the fact that not everyone is leet enough to have built a tv box (call it a HTPC if you really want to, all my PC implementations, car, bike, tv, end in box), and good luck getting everyone to upgrade their dvd players to ones that accept such media just to watch your movies. Its a great idea, and if only this country was made up of nothing but geeks it could come true, but in that case we'd all be downloading the movie's torrents anyway so, um, nevermind.
There is a Texaco in town that I used to fill up at, but no more. They installed talking gadgetry to the pump that would try to sell my hot dogs, beverages, and car washes. It was very loud and annoying, echoed a lot under the canopy too, thank god it had a mute button. The solution to this annoyance was easy, dont fill up there anymore.
Lesson learned: people dont like automated thingies trying to sell them things by talking to them.
Whats next, some company starts selling beige boxes to the public with instructions on how to use them. How about a kit complete with 3/8" socket wrench and modified tone dialer (redbox). This is sick.
I remember using these 'tools' back in the day when it was cheap thrills and soldering experience but now a days the only box I want is the one that gets 12v off ring and tip for power outages (forgot the color, anyone remember?)
PS: #phreaks on dalnet was the shit in 1993 (pre-Hackers the Motion Picture). Wish I still had those logs.
After watching those Great Clips of geekcon or whatever it was I have come to the realisation that I am far from true geekdom. It seems that 52 hour coding binges or countless hours tweaking hardware for 0.2% performance increases will never come close to the true geeks depicted in those clips. I am a shame to slashdot.
PS: I've already loaned out over 300 Megs upstream on the torrent. 68.22.145.171, 68.38.165.1, 142.59.181.210, and 203.219.51.26, you owe me next time.:)
I think the coolest wearable computer has to be the one in 117_1750.AVI. Its a computer belt with usb and bluetooth and some decent flash ram. Now if I can only get one with WiFi and a heads up display for running NetStumbler ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Kismet (almost forgot where I was). For those Site Surveys ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H War Chalkings.
I've never tried RAM or CPUs but it works great with most PCI cards. I remember building my g/f's box and forgetting to plug in a NIC after windows install (her choice not mine). I didnt want to reboot because I'm lazy so I plugged in the NIC and did a refresh in device manager and we're off and running from there.
Computer upgrade tip #42: Dont install hardware while in hibernation mode.
This page explains how to cheaply connect a Dance Dance Revolution pad to an RC car via your PC, for literally minutes of racing enjoyment. Even more fun than the "race tracks" we played with in elementary school, where all you actually did was hold down a button and wait for your car to fall off the track.
The general approach taken here is to use the parallel port to flip the switches in the RC controller, thereby avoiding all the radio stuff. A few transistors are required to help the 3.3V parallel port pull down some pins on the 9V RC car controller.
Source code is included below... it actually just uses DirectInput to talk to the pad, so if you're burning to drive an RC car around with your PC joystick or keyboard, that works too. If you're using this approach, the software also tries to pulse the pins on the parallel port to give you some crude analog speed control.
What you'll need:
A Dance Dance Revolution pad. I recommend buying one of the soft PlayStation pads, which run about $20, and nailing it down to a big piece of plywood, as is illustrated in the image to the left. The soft pads tend to slide around and/or rip apart without support, and the hard pads are expensive.
A cheap-ass RC car... the kind that actually has no analog steering, just four switches for forward, back, left, and right. This includes just about any car you get for $20 or less. I went with the fabulous Nikko Octane.
A few electronic components, namely:
# A DB-25-M connector # Four resistors, about 500ohms # Four NPN transistors # Wire+solder
Total cost ~$6 at Radio Shack. I also used a breadboard to make nicer pictures, although this project is probably appropriate for the solder-in-the-air-and-cover-it-in-duct-tape-or-glu e approach.
Connecting the hardware:
First you'll need to open up the controller and take a look at the switches. The buttons shown here each have four terminals on them, but you only need to make one connection to each button. If you're using a different car than I am, you'll need to put a voltmeter on the terminals to find out which ones you care about. What you want is a terminal that is normally sitting at 9V relative to the battery ground, but goes to 0V when you press the button. For this particular controller, there were two terminals on each button that fit this description, and I picked one arbitrarily on each button. If you're looking at the controller as shown in the image to the left, I chose:
# The upper-right terminal on the "forward" button # The lower-right terminal on the "reverse" button # The lower-left terminal on the "left" button # The upper-right terminal on the "right" button
Solder about 8 inches of wire to each of these terminals, and about 8" of wire to the battery ground.
Now we connect all the components, according to the schematic show on the left. The important points are:
# Battery ground on the controller needs to get connected to ground on the parallel port # The emitter from each transistor goes to the common ground # The collector on each transistor goes to one of the terminals in the car controller # The base on each transistor goes through a resistor to one of the parallel port data pins
The software expects the reverse, right, left, and forward switches to be on the parallel port's data 1, 2, 3, and 4 pins, respectively. Data 0 got left out because it was mean to the other children on the playground.
If you left enough wire between the components and the DB-25 connector, you can plug the whole mess right into the parallel port. I like to use an extension cable so I'm less likely to knock things out of my breadboard in the heat of my excitement about driving an RC car with my feet.
You'll also need to connect your DDR pad to your PC somehow and get it recognized as a game controller, assuming you actually want to use the
This has been happening to me for the past few days on slashdot. Seems +4 doesnt yield any comments on stories anymore. Maybe our slashdot overlords are toying with the slashcode again, maybe moderators just gave up, either way I've set my default threshold to +2.
Oh, and whats with the 500 errors all the time now? Cant go to a page without having to refresh it at least once.
Or if you really want to have some fun call up the voice TDD/TTY operator and ask her to dial the data TDD/TTY operator and ask her to ask him to dial your friend. Or do it the other way around.
Its a service for deaf people. They use 1200/2400 baud terminals to connect to a special data operator. From there they instruct the operator what number they would like to call and the operator serves as a proxy for communication between deaf and hearing people. The system works both ways so you can call the operator and have her/him call your deaf friends terminal. The numbers are in the front few pages of your phone book. Google "TDD/TTY +Phone Loosers of America"
Kinda off topic but the voice number is an 800 number. I used to have a BBS setup at home while I was at school that would pose as a person if the operator called it. I would call the TDD voice op from a payphone free of charge and have her dial my home and from there I could have her type specific commands that would retrieve email subject lines. Awesome!
Slashdot Mirror
so I'm correct in assuming that only those with lots of cables, fiber, copper, satellites, tin-can and twine, can be "directly connected"? What about universities?
I went to the same launch event and it was nothing more than an 8 hour marketing presentation. I took the IT track and stuck with it until the end because at the end we all got retail copies of Office 2003 pro. Of course it was just a voucher and it doesnt seem like MS will be shipping it to us until late next month while the torrents are everywhere.
:).
Aside from that I cant complain, free software, free food, met some cool people. Felt like a corporate lan party in some weird way.
I think the most interesting product I saw at the event was MS Virtual PC in action so I'm on my way to get VMware
This post had no point but to say "me too!" and "yeah M$ sucks" and if you've even read this far I apologize for wasting your time, get back to work, slacker.
Ok, here is my question, it may sounds stupid to some but honestly I have no idea how else Ill find an answer
I pay my dialup ISP $10/mo for access. They pay big bucks to Verizon for access. Who does Verizon pay for access? How do I get on without the middle man, or is it not possible because I dont own a bunch of fiber lines?
If you traceroute a connection between here and accross the country I find myself going from major ISP to major ISP, but who lets those ISPs on? I understand ICANN but I dont think this has anything to do with them.
Sorry if this is sounding really stupid but Its been blowing my mind. At least with DNS I could find a book, and I'm sure I can with this but I wouldnt even know what to google.
Anyone?
Here are pages 1-3. Please reply if you have the rest.
Today we are going to be building a budget, high performance storage server. So what exactly is a storage server? We'll first go over the technical requirements and operational goals for our system, then move onto the design and assembly of the system.
First we need to discuss why we need a storage server. It is useful for a workgroup environment, where there are multiple users that need to share data across a network. In addition, it facilitates backup of data since the storage is centralized. Where cost is an issue, it is much cheaper to build a robust server with high levels of reliability than to submit that level of reliability and performance to all the network nodes.
At the most basic level, a storage server needs to be able to hold a lot of hard drives. To accomplish this, we could go out and buy a network attached storage device, but remember this is a budget system. Our goal is to maximize the functionality, reliability, and performance of the server, while keeping costs under control. It sounds like you could just add a bunch of hard drives to any networked PC and call it a "network attached storage device," but if you want it to be reliable, you have to think about cooling, power, and anticipated usage. So, if you're only interested in building a hardcore gaming PC, you'll still want to read this article to see our thoughts on cooling and power.
We wanted a server that would serve only data files and not program files. This would limit our network bandwidth and maximize performance. At the same time, we wanted this server to act as a workstation with as much capability as the other systems attached to the storage server. Our minimum storage requirement would be one terabyte. Not too long ago, terabyte storage was reserved for government labs like Sandia National labs, Lawrence Livermore labs, or science fiction.
Another consideration specific to storage is expandability; how we will cope with increases in storage requirements over time. Some network attached systems are great in the first year, but as needs expand, you basically have to double your initial investment to double your storage, by duplicating your initial purchase. The technology that you bought the first time does nothing for your future expansion, this is something that we tried hard to prepare for.
Let's start with discussing what we need to have and then build around that. First the hard drives.
A storage server should have a hard drive for the operating system and an array of drives for the shared storage. We feel that the most important feature for a storage hard drive is reliability. We went with IDE drives because of their superior price to performance ratio, as compared to SCSI. In our case, we don't even need the bandwidth of the SCSI drives - quantity rather than blistering speed was important. With respect to SATA or parallel ATA, both are more then adequate for our needs.
With these needs in mind, we chose the Maxtor Maxline II Plus 250GB 7200rpm 8MB buffer hard drives. These drives are rated at 1,200,000 hours MTBF as compared to 600,000 hours for standard consumer drives. This does not mean that you can run your hard drive for 137 years, but does imply that it is more reliable than a standard desktop drive. Maxtor has advertised this drive as one designed for 24/7 applications, this is in stark contrast to the old line of IBM drives that did not recommend continuous usage. Currently 250GB is the maximum capacity for 7200rpm drives. The only other IDE/SATA drive with a similar MTBF rating is the Western Digital Raptor series, but the max capacity is still only 36GB, with a 74GB version coming soon.
We will use four of these drives for a nice and even one terabyte of storage, with a server design that will allow for an easy addition of another 4 drives for a peak of 2 terabytes. But, when we are ready for a storage upgrade there will likely be even higher capacity hard drives on the market, further extending
I dont know about you but I would much rather have a phone powerful enough to run a Gameboy emulator.
Cox Communications, beautiful Williamsburg Virginia. They're techies seem to have a clue. I would give them at least a +4 insightful.
Never tried comcast, actually only had 2 providers in my now 8 year net experience. thats gotta be worth a prize or something.
Sorry for replying for my own post, forgot to add this:
I found from techtv.com a program for network intrusion detection called Intrusec Expose from www.intrusec.com. Its pretty cool software for monitoring your network and can do a lot more than just tell you what computers are connected and altert you when net computers enter the network. It can also scan for services and such.
No I'm not affiliated with this company and I'm not endorsing this software, I'm actually asking if anyone knows of a free, OSS or not alternative. The demo was great but that was 30 days ago.
Recently my cable internet service was suspended. Upon calling tech support I was transfered to the fraud and abuse department, you can imagine the look on my face. The techie told me that my access had been suspended because a computer on my network was infected with the welchia worm. The techie was kind enough to even provide me with the MAC address of the offending machine. I was suprised because my mixed network of 10, linux and windows machines, is kept up to date with the latest security patches. After checking all 10 machines I found that none of them had the mac address supplied by the techie. Upon further investigation of my DHCP logs I found that my WiFi network, SSID free_as_in_beer had its first visitor. I left it open because I believe in free access and wanted to see if anyone interesting would enter the network. Unfortunatly the mysterious computer was not logged in so I could not send a net send message to it, and it seems that the person would connect infrequently. I asked my neighbors and couldnt find the individual so I was forced to employ WEP enchrption. Now I've got chalkings outside my apartment just incase someone with any bit of knowledge wants a free ride, but my point, yes I actually had one, thanks for reading was that I feel bad for grandpa and grandma with their 2000 model compaq connected directly to the cable modem for emailing the grandkids. I was fortunate enough to convince the ISP that my network had been secured and I was granted access again, they on the other hand have few options. Then again this is a good thing for repair guys that make house calls, but between gator (or whatever its called now) and all the other crap out there I think they're busy enough.
I only wish that I could keep my WiFi up without WEP for my neihgbors or anyone walking by without exposing myself to risk of internet connection termination.
Have any other slashdotters had similar experiences, or suggestions. Thanks.
I absolutly LOVE the tablets in Enterprise. Larger than a pocket pc yet smaller than a tablet pc, think and does not require a pen. PERFECT. I want one so bad, I want it with LCARS. I can imagine in a perfect world(TM) there would be a standard operating system and communications protocol for these devices and you could use it to download ebook versions of hard copies at any bookstore, that would be spiffy.
When do I get to walk in to my apt after work, fall into my couch, grap the tablet off the coffee table and start reading slashdot. WHEN!!!
Let me just make sure I understand this correctly:
/. ramblings...
Windows Tablet PC == Bad
Linux Tablet PC == Good
Ok, continue on with the mindless
I've had this idea for a long time also. Too bad the write speed of CF or USB is too slow and cost of such a device is too expensive (how about a 8GB card for renting 2 movies... 3 movies...).
Not to mention the fact that not everyone is leet enough to have built a tv box (call it a HTPC if you really want to, all my PC implementations, car, bike, tv, end in box), and good luck getting everyone to upgrade their dvd players to ones that accept such media just to watch your movies. Its a great idea, and if only this country was made up of nothing but geeks it could come true, but in that case we'd all be downloading the movie's torrents anyway so, um, nevermind.
There is a Texaco in town that I used to fill up at, but no more. They installed talking gadgetry to the pump that would try to sell my hot dogs, beverages, and car washes. It was very loud and annoying, echoed a lot under the canopy too, thank god it had a mute button. The solution to this annoyance was easy, dont fill up there anymore.
Lesson learned: people dont like automated thingies trying to sell them things by talking to them.
Yes but will it allow you to emit an inverse takeon pulse through the main deflector while setting the shields to a rotating modulation?
your comment reminds me of the movie hackers:
Whoa, its got a 28.8 BPS modem!
Thats going to be a fun one to explain to the kids (when I get some in like 10 years)
Whats next, some company starts selling beige boxes to the public with instructions on how to use them. How about a kit complete with 3/8" socket wrench and modified tone dialer (redbox). This is sick.
I remember using these 'tools' back in the day when it was cheap thrills and soldering experience but now a days the only box I want is the one that gets 12v off ring and tip for power outages (forgot the color, anyone remember?)
PS: #phreaks on dalnet was the shit in 1993 (pre-Hackers the Motion Picture). Wish I still had those logs.
After watching those Great Clips of geekcon or whatever it was I have come to the realisation that I am far from true geekdom. It seems that 52 hour coding binges or countless hours tweaking hardware for 0.2% performance increases will never come close to the true geeks depicted in those clips. I am a shame to slashdot.
:)
PS: I've already loaned out over 300 Megs upstream on the torrent. 68.22.145.171, 68.38.165.1, 142.59.181.210, and 203.219.51.26, you owe me next time.
I think the coolest wearable computer has to be the one in 117_1750.AVI. Its a computer belt with usb and bluetooth and some decent flash ram. Now if I can only get one with WiFi and a heads up display for running NetStumbler ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Kismet (almost forgot where I was). For those Site Surveys ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H War Chalkings.
Mines got Bluetooth! Eat your heart out Bat Man!
I've never tried RAM or CPUs but it works great with most PCI cards. I remember building my g/f's box and forgetting to plug in a NIC after windows install (her choice not mine). I didnt want to reboot because I'm lazy so I plugged in the NIC and did a refresh in device manager and we're off and running from there.
Computer upgrade tip #42: Dont install hardware while in hibernation mode.
This page explains how to cheaply connect a Dance Dance Revolution pad to an RC car via your PC, for literally minutes of racing enjoyment. Even more fun than the "race tracks" we played with in elementary school, where all you actually did was hold down a button and wait for your car to fall off the track.
:
:
:
:
The general approach taken here is to use the parallel port to flip the switches in the RC controller, thereby avoiding all the radio stuff. A few transistors are required to help the 3.3V parallel port pull down some pins on the 9V RC car controller.
Source code is included below... it actually just uses DirectInput to talk to the pad, so if you're burning to drive an RC car around with your PC joystick or keyboard, that works too. If you're using this approach, the software also tries to pulse the pins on the parallel port to give you some crude analog speed control.
What you'll need
A Dance Dance Revolution pad. I recommend buying one of the soft PlayStation pads, which run about $20, and nailing it down to a big piece of plywood, as is illustrated in the image to the left. The soft pads tend to slide around and/or rip apart without support, and the hard pads are expensive.
A cheap-ass RC car... the kind that actually has no analog steering, just four switches for forward, back, left, and right. This includes just about any car you get for $20 or less. I went with the fabulous Nikko Octane.
A few electronic components, namely:
# A DB-25-M connector
# Four resistors, about 500ohms
# Four NPN transistors
# Wire+solder
Total cost ~$6 at Radio Shack. I also used a breadboard to make nicer pictures, although this project is probably appropriate for the solder-in-the-air-and-cover-it-in-duct-tape-or-glu e approach.
Connecting the hardware
First you'll need to open up the controller and take a look at the switches. The buttons shown here each have four terminals on them, but you only need to make one connection to each button. If you're using a different car than I am, you'll need to put a voltmeter on the terminals to find out which ones you care about. What you want is a terminal that is normally sitting at 9V relative to the battery ground, but goes to 0V when you press the button. For this particular controller, there were two terminals on each button that fit this description, and I picked one arbitrarily on each button. If you're looking at the controller as shown in the image to the left, I chose
# The upper-right terminal on the "forward" button
# The lower-right terminal on the "reverse" button
# The lower-left terminal on the "left" button
# The upper-right terminal on the "right" button
Solder about 8 inches of wire to each of these terminals, and about 8" of wire to the battery ground.
Now we connect all the components, according to the schematic show on the left. The important points are
# Battery ground on the controller needs to get connected to ground on the parallel port
# The emitter from each transistor goes to the common ground
# The collector on each transistor goes to one of the terminals in the car controller
# The base on each transistor goes through a resistor to one of the parallel port data pins
The software expects the reverse, right, left, and forward switches to be on the parallel port's data 1, 2, 3, and 4 pins, respectively. Data 0 got left out because it was mean to the other children on the playground.
If you left enough wire between the components and the DB-25 connector, you can plug the whole mess right into the parallel port. I like to use an extension cable so I'm less likely to knock things out of my breadboard in the heat of my excitement about driving an RC car with my feet.
You'll also need to connect your DDR pad to your PC somehow and get it recognized as a game controller, assuming you actually want to use the
Give it WiFi and a webcam and I'm sure it would be even more fun. ;)
This has been happening to me for the past few days on slashdot. Seems +4 doesnt yield any comments on stories anymore. Maybe our slashdot overlords are toying with the slashcode again, maybe moderators just gave up, either way I've set my default threshold to +2.
Oh, and whats with the 500 errors all the time now? Cant go to a page without having to refresh it at least once.
For those who are too lazy to read the entire article, I'll point you to the good stuff: Wifi Chick, complete with iBook.
Article has heading "Lessons learnt". Dont they mean "Lessons Learned"? Or is this some weird cultural Center/Centre thing I dont know about?
I cant stop laughing! I want to print this out and tack it to my wall, but it doesnt make any sense out of context. If I could i would mod you up.
Ok I can buy your already at +5 and they're Mine for another 2 days DAMNIT!
Kinda off topic but the voice number is an 800 number. I used to have a BBS setup at home while I was at school that would pose as a person if the operator called it. I would call the TDD voice op from a payphone free of charge and have her dial my home and from there I could have her type specific commands that would retrieve email subject lines. Awesome!
Oh yeah, cant wait to get my tax return check in PDF. Try explaining that one to the bank teller
...Honest!
Or better yet how about my ATM/Credit card?
Do you take plastic?
VISA, MasterCard, Discover and Amex
Great -- Hands over printed card
Awkward Pause (tm)
Yeah, I had to print it since it came in my email...