I am in so much trouble …

… wife will kill me!

Look what I bid on!

So, 4 cpu server with 70plus gig of memory.  Maybe dual cores (so eight all up), may be quad cores (so 16 all up).  Won’t know until I grab it (if I win the auction).

I will have to install a hard drive.

Turns out Debian installs just fine, based upon web searches at least.

Why?

Chapel box.

And cheaper than a Parallella.

Should be able to stuff at least one CUDA board in it – just need find a good second hand one.

Go figure, powers up but that’s all I know.

I am so dead.

Mind you, both the wife and the mother in law are actually addicted now to the auction website.

So I feel vindicated … but very, very afraid.

So why do I want to buy the second one they have?

Spares?

Death wish?

Is Charles Bronson channeling through me?

In hind sight

Looking at it realistically, OpenSprinkler hardware is likely a no-go for me.   Why?

When I looked at it rationally, I have the skills and the technology and I have also lamented the “maker” mentality before (buying things and plugging them together rather than designing and constructing).

Besides the $80 for the OpenSprinkler hardware is about what I paid for the Blackwidow board, a few years ago now.  I used the Blackwidow on a now decommissioned project – so it is sitting there wanting to be used.

Use me !

 

Why waste it?

Besides a four relay shield is in the order of $6 instead of $80.  I have found a mqtt library for Arduino so will need to integrate that with the wifi (rather than ethernet) library etc.

I might even be able to mod the OpenSprinkler software to control relays via mqtt, instead of driving GPIO pins directly.

Yes, one could go NodeMCU and a $4 four relay board and get a controller under $20, and I will for extensions to the irrigation system.  I just need to get the Blackwidow out of the parts draw doing something useful.

 

DSP and all that jazz

Further to …

It turns out Analog Devices buried their 21xx DSP mcu into motor controller version in a SOIC-28 package.

I trawled the internet and found an archive of the software tools to program and load  software onto these toys.

The chip (admc32x and admcf32x) are still available for a couple of dollars a pop, though they are no longer produced.

Moreover, there are more modern turnkey chips out there (see Allegro Microsystems A4960 itself obsolete 😉 so why bother.

Pure arse sentimental value.

I coded on these 21xx and 21xxx chips yonks ago.

Fairchild has a motor control chip that can drive the Isense line.  Just needs work on algorithms 😉

Turns out there are about 20 application notes you can grab off the web for these chips that talks about the nuances of motor control.

 

Call me sentimental

Up late, sick all week with flu so, since at home and not studying, well … you know.

So I have bought a 3 1/2 inch floppy drive – usb of course – and I am trying to sneak my software for my Analog Devices DSP boards onto a drive for prosperity.

I had only found them in a box a couple of weeks ago and could not bring myself to throwing them out.

I have an EZKIT-LITE 2181 and  also a 2111 board.

Thank God for DOSBOX … or at least the developers of DOSBOX.

 

ADSP 2181 EZ-LITE

ADSP 2111 EZ-LAB

These were the little cousins to the SHARC.

Now DISC 2 of 3 of the C-TOOLS is flaky so I am here with RUM nursing it.

Actually, while the disc failed it appeared to fail after expanding all but one file (the simulator exe for the ADSP2111).

This is a pain but I can go without the simulator if I have the compiler, assembler, PROMSplitter etc.

In fact, I poked around and the extraction is script driven.  On first inspection I thought I might not be able to get to files on the 3rd disc but, in fact, I just copied the installer exe onto that disc, edited the script file to only look for the third disc, and pulled off the disc the rest of the software, including the ADPS2181 simulator.

It all runs under DOSBOX so, worst case, I write a simulator in F83 lol.

Been there, done that!

POST SCRIPT

I found one(1) other person on the planet who has the ADPS 2111 EZ LAB board.  He was trying to sell it on EBAY (US) and no one wanted it – go figure.  So I have organised to get the missing software off him.