String around my finger
A 'blog to remember things I found.
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- networks 33
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- software 17
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- windows 3
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FWD# 61159
Wed, 03 May 2006
As of Feb, 2006 there are over 8818 documents containing over 830,000 pages in the archive.
Would you like to help bitsavers? We're looking for documentation and software for minicomputers and mainframes, from the 50's to the 80's. email contrib at bitsavers dot org if you can help.
Help Us Save What Bits Still Exist.
Work on the bitsavers project has been going on now for over five years, and it is appears that very little software for minicomputers and mainframes has survived in machine-readable form from the mid-seventies and earlier. If you know of surviving software on 1/2" tape, paper tape, cards, DECtape, etc. from users groups or computer manufacturers, please contact us. Equipment is available to recover these bits, and in some cases can be brought on-site.
Sun, 14 Aug 2005
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I bought a black one of these for A$73. Should read and write all single and dual-layer media types.
Downloads here including version 1.57 firmware
Thu, 21 Jul 2005
Linksys NSLU-2 (Network Storage Link for USB 2.0 Disk Drives)
|
A low-cost embedded Linux device that turns any USB hard drive into a NAS (network-attached storage) device.
It gets rave reviews and was hacked by Jim Buzbee to add NFS server, add iTunes server (mt-daapd), customise startup, and finally moved to Unslung.
Can obtain replacement firmware from NSLU2 Linux Unslung (stable) or OpenSlug (devel).
Then you can run other things on it like media streaming, Asterisk - as home PBX, etc, etc.
With an auto-spindown laptop drive or USB stick, a setup is very small, quiet, and uses a tiny amount of power.
It is now possible as per Slashdot to Install Debian Sarge.
You can also de-underclock it.
shopbot.com.au shows it is available from oztechnologies.com.au for $149.60 + $12.00 shipping.
Fri, 15 Jul 2005A student couldn't self register their PC in addhost because their Ethernet MAC address was already registered to a computer in South Africa.
Googling turned up 433 hits.
It appears the problems occurs with ASUS P4S533-VM motherboards and the Windows XP default driver. The solution is to use the driver from the CD, or download site.
ntou.edu.tw scan.co.uk asus.com.cn (translated)
Mon, 04 Jul 2005
kernel: usb 4-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2
kernel: Linux video capture interface: v1.00
kernel: sn9c102: V4L2 driver for SN9C10x PC Camera Controllers v1:1.24
kernel: usb 4-1: SN9C10[12] PC Camera Controller detected (vid/pid 0x0C45/0x6005)
kernel: usb 4-1: TAS5110C1B image sensor detected
kernel: usb 4-1: Initialization succeeded
kernel: usb 4-1: V4L2 device registered as /dev/video0
kernel: usb 4-1: Optional device control through 'sysfs' interface ready
kernel: usbcore: registered new driver sn9c102
[root@tower in]# v4l-info
### v4l2 device info [/dev/video0] ###
general info
VIDIOC_QUERYCAP
driver : "sn9c102"
card : "SN9C10x PC Camera"
bus_info : "usb-0000:00:1d.2-1"
version : 1.0.24
capabilities : 0x5000001 [VIDEO_CAPTURE,READWRITE,STREAMING]
...
video capture
VIDIOC_ENUM_FMT(0,VIDEO_CAPTURE)
index : 0
type : VIDEO_CAPTURE
flags : 0
description : "bayer rgb"
pixelformat : 0x31384142 [BA81]
VIDIOC_ENUM_FMT(1,VIDEO_CAPTURE)
index : 1
type : VIDEO_CAPTURE
flags : 1
description : "compressed"
pixelformat : 0x30313953 [S910]
VIDIOC_G_FMT(VIDEO_CAPTURE)
fmt.pix.width : 128
fmt.pix.height : 96
fmt.pix.pixelformat : 0x31384142 [BA81]
fmt.pix.field : NONE
fmt.pix.bytesperline : 128
fmt.pix.sizeimage : 12288
fmt.pix.colorspace : unknown
fmt.pix.priv : 8
...
http://www.spinics.net/lists/vfl/msg13912.html
http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=9038&limit=no
http://sonix.sourceforge.net/
http://www.linux-projects.org/modules/mydownloads/
http://sn-webcam.sourceforge.net/
http://mxhaard.free.fr/download.html
http://mxhaard.free.fr/spca5xx.html
http://alpha.dyndns.org/ov511/cameras.html
Wed, 08 Jun 2005
From http://www.inkjetart.com/custom/ ... You are free to click on both images and download them to use for your own printer test (Please do not use these images for any use other than inkjet printer testing). ...
| ||||
From Norman Koren's Printer calibration page: I found a nice image on The Digital Dog's website PrinterTestfile.jpg.hqx [ No DNS for digitaldog.imagingrevue.com at the moment ... ] I needed to unpack this file on Linux using programs from "macutils".
$ hexbin PrinterTestfile.jpg.hqx
$ ls -ltr
-rw-r--r-- 1 johnm cos 686716 Apr 30 16:28 PrinterTestfile.jpg.hqx
-rw-r--r-- 1 johnm cos 506880 May 12 23:00 Printer_Test_file.jpg.bin
$ macunpack -3v Printer_Test_file.jpg.bin
This is "MacBinary" input.
name="Printer_Test_file.jpg", type=JPEG, author=8BIM, data=416054, rsrc=90578
Data: No compression, Rsrc: No compression.
$ ls -ltr
-rw-r--r-- 1 johnm cos 686716 Apr 30 16:28 PrinterTestfile.jpg.hqx
-rw-r--r-- 1 johnm cos 506880 May 12 23:00 Printer_Test_file.jpg.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 johnm cos 128 May 12 23:01 Printer_Test_file.jpg.info
-rw-r--r-- 1 johnm cos 90578 May 12 23:01 Printer_Test_file.jpg.rsrc
-rw-r--r-- 1 johnm cos 416054 May 12 23:01 Printer_Test_file.jpg.data
$ file Printer_Test_file.jpg.*
Printer_Test_file.jpg.bin: data
Printer_Test_file.jpg.data: JPEG image data, JFIF standard 1.02
Printer_Test_file.jpg.info: data
Printer_Test_file.jpg.rsrc: MPEG sequence
$ cp Printer_Test_file.jpg.data Printer_Test_file.jpg
| ||||
He also includes examples of Color errors and how to adjust an Epson printer driver. The sample image is available a JPEG:
| ||||
Bruce Lindbloom has an interesting site including computer-generated RGB Reference Images
|
Ever wondered how much ink a head clean cycle consumes?
# escputil -qur /dev/usb/lp0 -i
Ink color Percent remaining
Black 47
Cyan 64
Magenta 84
Yellow 74
# escputil -qur /dev/usb/lp0 -n
Running nozzle check, please ensure paper is in the printer.
# escputil -qur /dev/usb/lp0 -c
Cleaning heads...
# escputil -qur /dev/usb/lp0 -n
Running nozzle check, please ensure paper is in the printer.
# escputil -qur /dev/usb/lp0 -i
Ink color Percent remaining
Black 38
Cyan 60
Magenta 80
Yellow 70
Ouch !! A head clean used 9% of the Black (costs $19.95) and 4% each of the Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow ($11.95 each). This comes to about $3.22 !!!
Sun, 15 May 2005
Digital Video Broadcasts (DVB)
Which digital TV tuner card should I buy?
Linux Driver for the digitalnow DNTV Live! DVB-T
[ Some MPEG2 test files for testing WIndows DXVA, but might be useful for testing Linux playback. ]
Norman Koren is a photographer who has a fine website with image galleries, and a long, detailed series of tutorials "Making fine prints in your digital darkroom ".
I found it a little bit hard to navigate by the links on each page -- it's hard to tell what's a link to a subsection of the current topic, v. a link to a different topic. You may have better luck by using the sitemap.
There's lots of pages about scanners, printers, film v. digital cameras, color management -- what he uses and why, how to callibrate, etc etc etc.
Highly recommended!!
Thu, 12 May 2005This new series of chips is getting rave reviews for low power consumption and high performance.
Summary table of all Athlon 64 models
Thermal and Electrical Specifications of 8th Generation AMD Processors includiong Order Part Number (OPN). Linked from thread on PC Perspective ADM forum.
AMD Athlon 64 Processor; CPUID Model 2F; 0,09um SOI
ADA3000DAA4BP / AMD Athlon 64 / 3000+ / 1800 Mhz / 939 Pin lidded 0uPGA / variable operating voltage / variable case temperature / 512 Kbyte / 67.0 W
or ADA3000BPBOX (boxed). CPUID Model 2F = Rev E3.
Avoid Winchester cores ADA3000DIK4BI or ADA3001BIBOX (boxed) because they are CPUID Model 1F (Rev D0).
My Epson C65 printer had stopped printing Yellow.
Yellow sort of faded away. I did the occasional Print Head Clean, but it didn't get better. I didn't do too many head cleans, since they use about $1.30 worth of ink each time. Yellow is not that important a colour since it is so close to the colour of the white background colour.
When I pressed the little piston on the bottom of the Yellow ink cartridge, some ink would come out, and it might print some stripy Yellow for a bit ...
Epson printers have a 1 year Back to Base Warranty.
Phoned Epson's contact centre on 1300 361 054.
They directed me to Business Works at 782 Burke Road, Camberwell, Tel: (03) 9813 1121.
On the telephone, they estimated a 3-day turnaround, but when I dropped the printer off, the paperwork said 4 days.
Thu, 05 May 2005The AC power adapter was left behind in a lecture theatre.
The laptop's DC socket is round with a small pin-hole inside (looks a bit like a TV antenna socket). The bottom of the laptop says "suitable for PA-10 or PA-13".
The Dell Store Australia doesn't list adapters (or anything) for Inspiron 5150's.
The Dell USA site does show results for
inspiron 5150 ac adapter.
However, the
130-watt AC Adapter for Dell Inspiron 5150 / 5160 Notebooks
looks like it has the wrong DC plug.
The web site doesn't mention a part number and so doesn't explicitly
say if it is a PA-10 or PA-13.
Digging around further, I find
Dell Inspiron 1100, 5100, and 5150 Service Manual
which has a photo
that shows the wrong DC power socket (square hole one third from the left
side).
Hopefully, this is for the 5100 rather than 5150!
An photo on eBAY
for a
130W PA-13
looks like the adapter that was lost.
They do also list a
90 W PA-10
with a picture too:
Just found a Dell Inspiron 1100, 5100, and 5150 page that links to a PDF Inspiron 5150 Setup Diagram that shows the round DC socket, and a PA-13.
From Dell Inspiron 5100 and 5150 Owner's manual page 26 "Back View NOTE: The connector for your AC adapter on your computer may look different than the connector in the following graphic." and "NOTE: The AC adapter in the following graphic may not look exactly like the AC adapter that shipped with your computer."
On page 119 and 120, it appears there are slightly different size/shape 90W AC adapters for Inspiron 5100 and 5150! Maybe that also lines up with the square v. round plug difference ... No AC adapter part numbers are listed.
Mon, 04 Apr 2005Mindful! received a donation of 68 computers and 44 monitors from a Hitachi Data Systems disaster recovery site that is closing down. The computers will be used for e.g. creating a lab for teaching children to use computers, create a basic web site.
These computers were assembled by Australian Computer Recyclers in April 2000 and presumably ran Microsoft Windows 98. They have a ASUS P/I-P55T2P4 (REV. 3.10) (manual), motherboard, up to Pentium MMX 233 processor, 32 or 64 MB of RAM, ≤ 2 GB disk, SMC EtherCard Elite Ultra ISA Ethernet Adapter 8216C (RJ-45, BNC, AUI connectors).
No sound card! AT keyboard, serial mouse, 40x CD-ROM.
Thu, 31 Mar 2005
the 5-in-1 network admin's cable
"... after putting together four simple custom adapters, I now have an ethernet cable, a crossover ethernet cable, a modem cable, a null modem cable, and a Cisco console cable"
Also serial AND Ethernet loopback plug, receive-only ethernet sniffer cable, and "throwing star" LAN tap.
Cisco Cabling Guide for Console and AUX Ports s RTS and CTS reversed on the DB9/RJ45 console cable ??
Yost Serial Device Wiring Standard
Receive-only UTP cables and Network Taps
Sun, 06 Mar 2005There is lots of information about the ESC/P2 protocol within the GIMP-Print Developer's Manual which is also available as info files within the gimp-print distribution, e.g. as /usr/share/info/gimpprint.info-4.gz.
The various status (ink level) and command (clean nozzle) ESC/P2 sequences are available using 'escputil'.
# escputil -q -i --new --raw-device /dev/usb/lp0
Ink color Percent remaining
Black 14
Cyan 9
Magenta 7
Yellow 20
But the status command doesn't look right (compare with
this
[root@tower ink]# escputil -q -s -u -r /dev/usb/lp0 @BDC ST ST:04Libinklevel and Ink "Check the ink level of your printer with linux". Enabling DEBUG in inklevel.h enable verbose output
[root@tower ~]# ink -p usb ink v0.3 (c) 2003 Markus HeinzNote the percentages returned as hex!! Fri, 04 Mar 2005Printer reported size 78, real size is 79 0: MFG:EPSON 1: CMD:ESCPL2,BDC,D4 2: MDL:Stylus C65 3: CLS:PRINTER 4: DES:EPSON Stylus C65 ... Printer returned <<@BDC ST IQ:0E090714; >> Black: 14% Cyan: 9% Magenta: 7% Yellow: 20% ...
Linux support for Philips
USB webcams halted
Okay, this is not going to be pleasant. I've decided to discontinue
supporting PWC, the Philips webcam driver for Linux. The reason is
continual disagreement between me and the kernel maintainers on the
binary-only part that PWC has, in order to use the webcam to its full
potential. This has now reached a point where I'm throwing in the
towel.
Restoring the Philips
Webcam Driver
Users of the Philips webcam driver known as 'pwc' will be relieved to
the learn that the driver will continue to be part of the Linux kernel.
In an earlier dispute over the removal of a special hook only used to
load its binary-only counterpart the author requested that the entire
driver be removed, a request agreed to by Linux creator Linus Torvalds.
Alan Cox agreed to be the maintainer for pwc.
http://ngc891.blogdns.net/kernel/docs/howto-patch.txt
Example of patching process to get pwc/pwcx in the kernel
http://ngc891.blogdns.net/index.php?q=pwcx
http://www.mail-archive.com/linux-usb-devel@lists.sourceforge.net/msg31183.html
In the meantime Luc Saillard (http://saillard.org/linux/pwc/) hast taken
over the maintenance of the (GPL'ed) sources ...
http://saillard.org/linux/pwc/
Free Philips USB Webcam driver for Linux that supports VGA resolution, newer kernels and replacing the old
pwcx module.
http://saillard.org/linux/pwc/INSTALL.en
says "3) ... (this needs the source of your actual kernel to be installed)
http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/release-notes/fc3/x86/
says "An exploded source tree is not required to build kernel modules against the currently in-use
kernel." And pwc-10.0.6a seems to build OK without it.
PWC
Documentation Project
This is a web-based collaboration area for the next generation Philips
Web Camera Linux Kernel Module.
-rwxr--r-- 1 root root 86424 Feb 2 16:43 pwc.ko.9 -rwxr--r-- 1 root root 421828 Mar 4 15:11 pwc.ko.10"strip"ing pwc.ko.* brings the sizes down to 74092 and 73952 respectively. Sat, 11 Sep 2004
http://www.pcnineoneone.com/howto/moboid1.html
PC Mainboard Identification
The "Lookatit" Method ..
Drive external relays from PC parallel port.
"main page"[http://www.southwest.com.au/~jfuller/robokit.html] "modifications"[http://www.southwest.com.au/~jfuller/robomods.html]
Wed, 01 Sep 2004
DVD notes
"videohelp"[http://www.videohelp.com/]
"DVD burner compatibility list"[http://www.americal.com/pg/dvd-burner-compat.html]
"Dell support forum"[http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=insp_cdrom&message.id=35747]
"ND-5100a firmware"[google] http://www.google.com/search?q=%2BND-5100a+%2Bfirmware+&sourceid=mozilla-search&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
"NEC ND1x00A DVD RW Firmware"[http://etna.rpc2.org/nec/]
The Dangerous Brothers "5100A to 5500A firmware"[http://tdb.rpc1.org/#ND5100A] "announcement"[http://forum.rpc1.org/viewtopic.php?t=24027].
"DVD FAQ"[http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html]