What corporate desktop "standard-image computer with standard corporate software" doesn't have a PDF viewer?
aside - I do my formal resume in LaTex and export to PDF. Noones ever had an issue with it. (I also offer the tex, dvi, and PS versions, and noones ever used those AFAIK.)
everyone on slashdot bashes microsoft non-stop and its very annoying.
Everyone, eh? That is quite the overstatement. There are a decent number of folk here who have high praise for certain aspects of MS software, as well as others who bash just about everything.
Annoying? I can see that you are new here.
pdf support. it became a feature that maybe they didn't do first
no "maybe" - they didn't.
are they supposed to never add features they didn't originally think of?
Not at all! Otherwise they'd have next to NO PRODUCT TO SELL WHATSOEVER.
Sorry if this was mentioned earlier, but I've no iPod or care to discuss!
My Rio Karma's screen is also very susceptible to scratching. The solution we (the Karma fans) found was to use a PDA static-film cut in the shape of the screen. I went even cheaper, and just covered the easily-scratched part with clear packing tape. You only need to smooth the air bubbles out when applying, and removal is easy. Just make sure you cut it to shape BEFORE applying. Either way is inexpensive, easy, and non-obtrusive. Protect your ASAP.
Aside: From pics of the iPod Nano, does anyone even care about album-art? It looked like they were smaller than an index-fingernail, 32x32 or so? looked nearly useless.
Mod me down if redundant, but the above two solutions are cheap and easy for people not wanting to deal with a case for their DAP!
That's a really neat idea, AdrianMonk! I'll have to pass that suggestion around the lab, and see what other's thoughts are.
Yes, we would need differential inputs. We'd be able to design a new input circuit if needed, but we've plenty of lego-like parts that we could probably make that work quickly. Everything is matched to 50 Ohm right now.
We do do control, but not quite realtime, so that shouldn't be an issue.
The downside is that this would cover only maybe 50% of the research we do. I think we'd PREFER a DAQ that can handle up to 13 MHz, although that'd be rare. The soundcard idea is a good one though, for some stuff!
I only briefly browsed the link you gave me on writing linux drivers, but bookmarked it for future reference. It seemed to be considerably over-my-head for right now. I'll need to sit down and really study the article, since it does seem well organized and informative.
That makes some sense to me, the intermediate quicky device driver between the kernel and the old Borland code. If I understand this right then, would this be the "easy" way to get around manually changing the code from the inb/outb calls into the linux-required reads/writes?
Do you not understand how a CPU interacts with the attached devices ? Just curious.
Correct! Fundamentally, I do not understand it, as it is something I've never studied. To me, a device driver is just some vague in-between code that allows the OS kernel to speak directly to hardware, somehow magically - a translation layer so that the kernel can "talk" to the device without knowing exactly what the hardware expects to "hear". ie. a kernel-to-hardware Babelfish.
No flame taken! Seriously, thanks for giving me a direction for at least learning a bit more how the low-level stuff operates. This is all new to me.
No, it unfortunately wouldn't. We need a DAQ that is 16-bit or better, with a sampling rate no less than 100 kHz. Oh, and it has to have two input channels.
I just want to thank people for giving me some direction on this, so... Thank You!
On a personal note, I've been working in the lab for 5 years now as a grad student. That's five years (instead of two) for a M.S. in ElecEng. Sometimes I've had funding, other times I (and others here) have not been as fortunate.
The issue with the PC/Board/System has been around since I've been here. I've pushed for a system overhaul since my start. The post on/. just gave the opportunity to ask you folks for some input.
Personally, I've basically given up on seeing things change while I'm here. With the combo of the time I've been (stuck) here, financial difficulties, etc... I just want my degree and to get out of here (hopefully in Dec.) To that end, I'll just deal with the equipment as-is for a few more months. The ideas and directions that you all have pointed me towards will basically give my research prof and students who follow me some good ideas. At least I hope that's the case.
I think we're stuck in DOS mainly because that's the only working driver that was developed.
As for why we use Borland... the original code was developed by my research prof, that was his perrogative at the time (over 10 years ago.) I've avoided making changes to it as much as possible because it is a spaghetti mess, and generally works. With a complete system revamp or change in OS, I'd think that a complete rewrite would be doable.
Getting the firmware from the vendor is indeed a problem; the main issue is that the manufacturer went bankrupt years ago (?) and I've been unable to track down where their old code might exist, if it even does.
Nice! Thanks much for that link. I'd not heard of, let alone looked at, COMEDI.
A cursory glance at the supported hardware doesn't show the device. We _may_ have the HW specs for ours, so this could (should) be something for us to investigate.
Yes, revampng the entire system would be ideal!! We're so low on funding, ATM, that that isn't a real viable solution here though.
We (our lab) are a part of the Electrical Engineering dept. here. We have considered just redesigning/rebuilding everything ourselves, and may do just that. That would come sometime in the future, probably past my duration in the lab. (I just want to get my MS done, and get out.)
Yes, it is an ISA card. The PC itself isn't so much an issue though. IIRC, we've actually got a duplicate mobo in storage in case the current one fails.
dosemu... never came to mind. That's a great idea which I wouldn't have though of! (why I asked here on/.) Thanks! I'll be looking into it.
a) Interrupts on the system (for the DAQ board as well as others) should be responsive to within 20uS. Futher experimentation, that we cannot currently do, would be possible with responsiveness under 10uS.
b) Don't have the specs on me, I just lobbed the questions out there before the post was pushed too far into the past. AFAIK, there's no driver for it except for DOS. There wasn't even one for Win 3.11. The documentation we have is minimal, so perhaps reverse engineering it is the way to go.
Yes, we could use other cards. The problem is that we don't currently have the funding for the changes.
In the university lab where I help to research the development of NQR (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NQR) to detect explosives/narcotics/bioagents, our main experimental system's computer is a Pentium 90 MHz running Windows 3.11 and DOS.
We boot into 3.11 because the operational code was developed using Borland C++, but need to exit 3.11 into DOS for the "RT" interrupt capability of the driver for a A/D data acquisition board. You can imagine the hassles that this has given us. It has become a problem just to upload data to our servers.
Our main problem in upgrading the system is that the board hasn't been supported for years, a driver for anything past DOS was never developed, which was proprietary. AFAIK, the company doesn't even exist, and so its unlikey that we could even find someone who might have the code for us to inspect.
IANACoder of much of anything extensive beyond MatLab scripts, and so the idea of myself (or anyone else currently in the lab) wrtiting a new driver for the A/D board. Furthermore, I wouldn't even know where to start to point someone in that direction.
So, I've a muti-part question here, and any input would be appreciated.
1) Would this "rt" linux be up to the task, assuming that drivers are available. (I'd guess that it would, but that's a guess.)
2) How hard would it be, in general, to write a linux driver for this vague hardware?
The easiest solution to our problem might be a complete revamp of the experimental system, but this would cost us well beyond what our current research funding is. Note that wikipedia link, we're one of the few groups worldwide doing NQR research. Such little interest in the field means little funding available, so we'd prefer to be able to reuse as much of the current system as possible.
Oh, I am! I've been going through my old SHNs and converting to FLAC, as of late.
I was mentioning it for anyone else who might be following this thread. However, due to the age of the story and how many levels deep this is, I'm sure that it's just you and I reading it, tgv. heh.
Oh, I did some (minimal) research. It looks like the lossless-AAC is really called "Apple Lossless Encoding" or ALE. (cool acronym, at least.) From what I was able to find, the only portable devices that can play ALE files are (some of) the iPods.
I think foobar2000 will do the conversions as well.
And of course, its always BadThing to encode one lossy format into another lossy format, since more sonic data is destroyed. Though, if the first lossy encoding is at a pretty high bit-rate, and the 2nd a much lower one, then it should be hard to tell the difference.
- Good Luck finding a new one (~$200), or refurbished (~$150).
- Rio just left the DAP business, so...
- It has a 20GB HD, not flash.
- It is larger than the nano in ALL dimensions.
I did research on DAP features for almost a full year before I finally decided on the Karma. It has a ton of other nifty features (Ethernet on the dock, anyone?) that are cool as well. The big selling points for me were that it plays FLAC and Vorbis, progresses to the next track gaplessly, and has wonderful analog output (and true line-out on the dock.) Other features like its 5-band Parametric equalizer are exceptional.
Personally, I'm very happy with it. That being said, it might not be anything close to what is good for you. If form-factor is "VERY" important to you, the Nano clearly beats it. If you don't care about FLAC, gapless, etc. - then those are pointless features. There are features that the Karma does NOT have, that most DAPs do. The biggie here is MSC, which I really wish it had.
I'm not saying that the Nano isn't perhaps the best device for you or others, it very well may be! For myself, I don't mind the larger size and weight for the features which I find important. I'll probably try and find a deal on a refurb Karma to use as a backup device. Just research the different options on all the players out there. Check out http://dapreview.net/news.php and other sites.
The Nano could be exactly all you need. My post was just criticizing calling any iPod the best player.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, they're using the Mayan calendar.
/sarcasm off
They're a multi-national corporation. Of COURSE they are using the business calendar based quarters.
doesn't seem to have removed this. Time to update my filter list!
Thanks for the info, Antique. That's good to know!
What corporate desktop "standard-image computer with standard corporate software" doesn't have a PDF viewer?
aside - I do my formal resume in LaTex and export to PDF. Noones ever had an issue with it. (I also offer the tex, dvi, and PS versions, and noones ever used those AFAIK.)
from what I've written, then I DO need a computer to work the LaTeX code!
Annoying? I can see that you are new here. no "maybe" - they didn't.
Not at all! Otherwise they'd have next to NO PRODUCT TO SELL WHATSOEVER.
Be very cautious around new people this week.
Some may attempt to revoke your geek card.
I didn't realize that ANYTHING they did was "open".
IT folks and such also count as geeks, and there are growing numbers of them - less engineers.
Sorry if I speak of the evil.
However, is this something that Sony could use the DMCA to fight in the U.S.?
(to, you know, alienate current users and cause potentially new customers from purchasing the thing.)
Sorry if this was mentioned earlier, but I've no iPod or care to discuss!
My Rio Karma's screen is also very susceptible to scratching. The solution we (the Karma fans) found was to use a PDA static-film cut in the shape of the screen. I went even cheaper, and just covered the easily-scratched part with clear packing tape. You only need to smooth the air bubbles out when applying, and removal is easy. Just make sure you cut it to shape BEFORE applying. Either way is inexpensive, easy, and non-obtrusive. Protect your ASAP.
Aside: From pics of the iPod Nano, does anyone even care about album-art? It looked like they were smaller than an index-fingernail, 32x32 or so? looked nearly useless.
Mod me down if redundant, but the above two solutions are cheap and easy for people not wanting to deal with a case for their DAP!
That's a really neat idea, AdrianMonk! I'll have to pass that suggestion around the lab, and see what other's thoughts are.
Yes, we would need differential inputs. We'd be able to design a new input circuit if needed, but we've plenty of lego-like parts that we could probably make that work quickly. Everything is matched to 50 Ohm right now.
We do do control, but not quite realtime, so that shouldn't be an issue.
The downside is that this would cover only maybe 50% of the research we do. I think we'd PREFER a DAQ that can handle up to 13 MHz, although that'd be rare. The soundcard idea is a good one though, for some stuff!
Thanks again!
That makes some sense to me, the intermediate quicky device driver between the kernel and the old Borland code. If I understand this right then, would this be the "easy" way to get around manually changing the code from the inb/outb calls into the linux-required reads/writes?
Correct! Fundamentally, I do not understand it, as it is something I've never studied. To me, a device driver is just some vague in-between code that allows the OS kernel to speak directly to hardware, somehow magically - a translation layer so that the kernel can "talk" to the device without knowing exactly what the hardware expects to "hear". ie. a kernel-to-hardware Babelfish.
No flame taken! Seriously, thanks for giving me a direction for at least learning a bit more how the low-level stuff operates. This is all new to me.
No, it unfortunately wouldn't. We need a DAQ that is 16-bit or better, with a sampling rate no less than 100 kHz. Oh, and it has to have two input channels.
I just want to thank people for giving me some direction on this, so... Thank You!
/. just gave the opportunity to ask you folks for some input.
On a personal note, I've been working in the lab for 5 years now as a grad student. That's five years (instead of two) for a M.S. in ElecEng. Sometimes I've had funding, other times I (and others here) have not been as fortunate.
The issue with the PC/Board/System has been around since I've been here. I've pushed for a system overhaul since my start. The post on
Personally, I've basically given up on seeing things change while I'm here. With the combo of the time I've been (stuck) here, financial difficulties, etc... I just want my degree and to get out of here (hopefully in Dec.) To that end, I'll just deal with the equipment as-is for a few more months. The ideas and directions that you all have pointed me towards will basically give my research prof and students who follow me some good ideas. At least I hope that's the case.
Thanks again, folks! Its really much appreciated.
The reason we have to stay with the current board is mostly financial - we've currently no major source of funding needed to revamp the system.
It is indeed an ISA card. As somoene posted, there are still mobos out there with ISA slots, but we do have a backup mobo just in case ours horks.
We've looked at N.I. products, we just can't currently afford them from what I've seen.
I think we're stuck in DOS mainly because that's the only working driver that was developed.
;) Thanks
As for why we use Borland... the original code was developed by my research prof, that was his perrogative at the time (over 10 years ago.) I've avoided making changes to it as much as possible because it is a spaghetti mess, and generally works. With a complete system revamp or change in OS, I'd think that a complete rewrite would be doable.
Getting the firmware from the vendor is indeed a problem; the main issue is that the manufacturer went bankrupt years ago (?) and I've been unable to track down where their old code might exist, if it even does.
Enjoy??
Nice! Thanks much for that link. I'd not heard of, let alone looked at, COMEDI.
A cursory glance at the supported hardware doesn't show the device. We _may_ have the HW specs for ours, so this could (should) be something for us to investigate.
Thanks for the input, Kavli!
Yes, revampng the entire system would be ideal!! We're so low on funding, ATM, that that isn't a real viable solution here though.
/.) Thanks! I'll be looking into it.
We (our lab) are a part of the Electrical Engineering dept. here. We have considered just redesigning/rebuilding everything ourselves, and may do just that. That would come sometime in the future, probably past my duration in the lab. (I just want to get my MS done, and get out.)
Yes, it is an ISA card. The PC itself isn't so much an issue though. IIRC, we've actually got a duplicate mobo in storage in case the current one fails.
dosemu... never came to mind. That's a great idea which I wouldn't have though of! (why I asked here on
a) Interrupts on the system (for the DAQ board as well as others) should be responsive to within 20uS. Futher experimentation, that we cannot currently do, would be possible with responsiveness under 10uS.
b) Don't have the specs on me, I just lobbed the questions out there before the post was pushed too far into the past. AFAIK, there's no driver for it except for DOS. There wasn't even one for Win 3.11. The documentation we have is minimal, so perhaps reverse engineering it is the way to go.
Yes, we could use other cards. The problem is that we don't currently have the funding for the changes.
In the university lab where I help to research the development of NQR (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NQR) to detect explosives/narcotics/bioagents, our main experimental system's computer is a Pentium 90 MHz running Windows 3.11 and DOS.
We boot into 3.11 because the operational code was developed using Borland C++, but need to exit 3.11 into DOS for the "RT" interrupt capability of the driver for a A/D data acquisition board. You can imagine the hassles that this has given us. It has become a problem just to upload data to our servers.
Our main problem in upgrading the system is that the board hasn't been supported for years, a driver for anything past DOS was never developed, which was proprietary. AFAIK, the company doesn't even exist, and so its unlikey that we could even find someone who might have the code for us to inspect.
IANACoder of much of anything extensive beyond MatLab scripts, and so the idea of myself (or anyone else currently in the lab) wrtiting a new driver for the A/D board. Furthermore, I wouldn't even know where to start to point someone in that direction.
So, I've a muti-part question here, and any input would be appreciated.
1) Would this "rt" linux be up to the task, assuming that drivers are available. (I'd guess that it would, but that's a guess.)
2) How hard would it be, in general, to write a linux driver for this vague hardware?
The easiest solution to our problem might be a complete revamp of the experimental system, but this would cost us well beyond what our current research funding is. Note that wikipedia link, we're one of the few groups worldwide doing NQR research. Such little interest in the field means little funding available, so we'd prefer to be able to reuse as much of the current system as possible.
Any thoughts, ideas, recommendations? Thanks!
My guess is that the parent meant the basics: kernel, apps, X.
Does any fresh Windows install automagically do all of the things you've mentioned?
(I honestly don't know that answer. I'm still running Win2kPro, and I know that it doesn't.)
Oh, I am! I've been going through my old SHNs and converting to FLAC, as of late.
I was mentioning it for anyone else who might be following this thread. However, due to the age of the story and how many levels deep this is, I'm sure that it's just you and I reading it, tgv. heh.
Oh, I did some (minimal) research. It looks like the lossless-AAC is really called "Apple Lossless Encoding" or ALE. (cool acronym, at least.) From what I was able to find, the only portable devices that can play ALE files are (some of) the iPods.
I think foobar2000 will do the conversions as well.
And of course, its always BadThing to encode one lossy format into another lossy format, since more sonic data is destroyed. Though, if the first lossy encoding is at a pretty high bit-rate, and the 2nd a much lower one, then it should be hard to tell the difference.
Well, the Rio Karma! HOWEVER
- Good Luck finding a new one (~$200), or refurbished (~$150).
- Rio just left the DAP business, so...
- It has a 20GB HD, not flash.
- It is larger than the nano in ALL dimensions.
I did research on DAP features for almost a full year before I finally decided on the Karma. It has a ton of other nifty features (Ethernet on the dock, anyone?) that are cool as well. The big selling points for me were that it plays FLAC and Vorbis, progresses to the next track gaplessly, and has wonderful analog output (and true line-out on the dock.) Other features like its 5-band Parametric equalizer are exceptional.
Personally, I'm very happy with it. That being said, it might not be anything close to what is good for you. If form-factor is "VERY" important to you, the Nano clearly beats it. If you don't care about FLAC, gapless, etc. - then those are pointless features. There are features that the Karma does NOT have, that most DAPs do. The biggie here is MSC, which I really wish it had.
I'm not saying that the Nano isn't perhaps the best device for you or others, it very well may be! For myself, I don't mind the larger size and weight for the features which I find important. I'll probably try and find a deal on a refurb Karma to use as a backup device. Just research the different options on all the players out there. Check out http://dapreview.net/news.php and other sites.
The Nano could be exactly all you need. My post was just criticizing calling any iPod the best player.