philpem

philpem, 5 days ago to random

Browsing ebay for text terminals (I'm looking for something recent and ideally built into an LCD) and I read: "Keyboard sold separately for keyboard enthusiasts"

Please excuse me, I just need to go sharpen my kitchen knives...no reason...

philpem, 5 days ago to random

I've reached the point where I'm sick of trying to find "the right RS232 cable for $thing". My idea was to make up a bunch of RJ45-to-DB9 or DB25 adapters to go from Cisco Console to $whatever, because those cables are ubiquitous.

It's a good idea but one thing annoys me: to do DTE<=>DTE (null modem) you need rollover cables. I'd never expect to find a rollover cable in a box of random RJ45 cables. Especially if it was made of cat5 (that should be a crossover or straight patch cable)

philpem, 6 days ago to random

Entirely safe and reasonable way to remove an #emfcamp wristband without damaging it

philpem, 6 days ago to random

A few things you'll hear and say a lot at #emfcamp:
"Don't worry about it, pay it forward."
"Hey, you need a hand?"
"My round!"
"That's a really cool project, tell me more!"
"Oh yeah, it seems hard but there's an easier way to do that! Would you like me to show you?"

Need I say more?

philpem, 6 days ago to random

Git clone doesn't work well on shitty railway station WiFi or shitty railway station 4G, does it?

philpem, 7 days ago to random

You know what #EMF2024 #emfcamp needs?

Cable TV.

philpem, 8 days ago to random

Playing with MastoDot at #emf2024

video/mp4

philpem, 9 days ago to random

Waking up to the sound of birdsong. ♥️♥️♥️

philpem, 9 days ago to random

Someone brought what looks like a complete 4-axis CNC controller to the #emfcamp swapshop...!

philpem, 9 days ago to random

Indiana Phil and the Quest for Breakfast...

philpem, 10 days ago to random

It's amazing to me how much human behaviour relies on trust, which is rooted in "nobody would be enough of a dick to break the rules". And then when someone does, it's "huh. Now what do we do?"

philpem, 10 days ago to random

Improvised lithium battery charging device mk1. Safe as houses. Don't try this at home.

philpem, 11 days ago to random

"What is the payload size of a fully laden UDP datagram?" is not a question I was expecting to answer this morning.

philpem, 12 days ago to random

This project needs a better name, but the dragon looks GOOD. I might see if I can tweak the eyes in png2svg, he shouldn't look that scary...

philpem, 13 days ago to random

My favourite RISC OS error message (though technically an Econet Fileserver one) is "Who are you?"
You get this when you're logged into a fileserver, but the FS is rebooted. The FS thinks you're logged out, but your local station claimed to be logged in.

philpem, 14 days ago to random

Anyway, thanks to the invention of RCBOs, I'm not going to be a footnote in Tim Hunkin's EMF talk on the history of electrocution this weekend.
Is your hedge trimmer truly broken-in without at least one waterproof splice on the power cable?
(I have a rule, maximum one splice: if the cable gets cut again, it gets shortened or replaced)

philpem, 14 days ago to RaspberryPi

Tonight on "what the frisk?", a Raspberry Pi device tree overlay that works fine on 32-bit Pi OS, but on a 64-bit Pi Zero 2W it kills the WiFi. I have no idea where to even start figuring this out. #RaspberryPi #RaspberryPiZero

philpem, 15 days ago to random

I'm doing a talk on DIY cable TV at @emf next weekend, if you're into #AnalogCable TV please feel free to pop by, or find me in the ECHQ (EMF Hams) village :)
https://www.emfcamp.org/schedule/2024/203-being-elliot-carver #EMFcamp

philpem, 15 days ago to random

Well it's eleven o'clock on a Saturday,
The regular crowd's sneaking in.
There's a young man sittin' next to me
Makin' love to his Club-Mate drink
He says "Son, can you find me a zero-day?"
"I'm not really sure how it goes."
"But it's easy, a treat, and I knew it complete"
"Before it was called 'out of scope'."

philpem, 16 days ago to random

In case you missed it, I've got a spiffy new logo for my slides and PCBs. This is Chaos the dragon!
https://meemu.org/@quesadillawizard/112493013282894564

philpem, 17 days ago to random

I really need to break out of my habit of bodging stuff together out of whatever cheap Sparkfun- and Adafruit-style protoboards I can find. My old job put me off doing electronic design for a while and I'd like to get back in the groove.

philpem, 19 days ago to retrocomputing

Folks of a certain #retrocomputing persuasion might enjoy this :) Play with sound.

#riscos #fox #WaveSynthBeep

Credits:
Fox video: @a1ba (https://elk.zone/suya.place/objects/84de9001-7eab-4bd7-91c4-0383d4dea126)
Beep sound: @Gammitin (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hobeufw0bao)

video/mp4

philpem, 19 days ago to random

I'm starting to think that "too big to fail" is a synonym for "needs to fail", or at least "needs restructuring". Nothing and no-one should be too big to fail, there's always room to admit you were wrong and learn from it.

philpem, 20 days ago to random

Alas, it seems the rackmount Acorn A4000 I built is dead, at least for now. During the LAN party, the Arduino (which runs the soft power off) came loose and touched the +12V test point on the power supply. Turns out it put 12V straight up the I2C Bus SDA pin and has blown that I/O pin on the SoC. Feck.
It still "boots" but the I/O pin appears to the CPU as being permanently low, i.e. I2C Ack and all data bits low.

philpem, 23 days ago (edited 23 days ago) to random

Small repair project this morning. This is a Northern Electronics UV141 UV EPROM eraser. All it needed was a bit of a clean and some fresh ESD foam. The bulb inside looks almost new. Full ballast and starter setup. I might swap in an electronic starter from one of the old fittings in the garage - they tend to go easier on the tubes.

Edit: it also needed some fresh rubber feet.