Another Word for Nerd

The Pong electronics kit is done, and it works. I need to wire up some real joysticks though.

My Atmel AVR Butterfly eval kit arrived today. A nifty little piece of hardware for only $20!

With some wire and other parts that I’ve already got, I’m going to (eventually) expand it into a full experimentation kit like the BASIC Stamp.

I’ve finished my third and fourth electronics kits. Next up is the “Classic TV Game”, e.g., PONG.

My project for this weekend was to create a “bouncing LED” display with the BASIC Stamp microcontroller.

After picking up some more 470-ohm resistors and extra red LEDs at EPO on Friday, I got around to it and finished everything in about half an hour today.

Here’s a video (DivX). I wish I had some blue LEDs instead of red, but EPO only had red, yellow, green, and white.

As part of my electronics hobby, I’ve picked up a number of books that have been recommended by friends. All of them finally arrived over the past few days; most purchased via eBay or used from Amazon.

“Programming the Z80″ by Rodnay Zaks, copyright 1980
“Z80 Assembly Language Programming” by Lance Leventhal, copyright 1978
“Getting Started in Electronics” by Forrest M. Mims III, copyright 1984
“TTL Cookbook” by Don Lancaster, copyright 1982

I’ve also got PDF versions of the Zaks and Mims books for reference. I still want to find an affordable copy of The Art of Electronics, but online pricing runs anywhere from $55 to $95 depending on where you get it.

Today I picked up a Parallax BASIC Stamp microcontroller development kit from Radio Shack (apparently the only one in stock in the entire Houston area as far as I could tell), and my Southern Cross 1 Z80 single-board computer kit arrived.

After a little more than 12 hours, I’ve decided that I’m in love with the new Apple Mighty Mouse. Mine finally arrived last night, and I had no problem switching from my standard Logitech optical two-button mouse to the new Apple “buttonless two button” model.

Some people have complained that you have to slightly lift your left (index) finger for the mouse to recognize a “right” click, but I’ve found that I do this anyway without realizing it.

The tactile feel/audio feedback from scrolling the “nipple” scroll ball is interesting to get used to, but it *works*. I think I like it better than Logitech’s tactile scroll wheel.

My dedicated Asterisk voice-over-IP PBX server arrived yesterday; it’s an old Dell Optiplex GX100 (small form factor case), 500Mhz/128M/6G with 10/100 Ethernet, CD-ROM, and two PCI slots. I put my clone X101P PCI FXO card in one of the slots, added 128M of PC100 RAM that I had lying around, and the machine is done! I’ve installed Asterisk@Home, and will be setting up and testing things at home over the next few days before I do the final switchover and plug the box into our POTS line from SBC. I’ll probably do the switchover this weekend; we have lots of other stuff around the house that needs to be done first.

I’ve currently got one Grandstream BT101 native IP phone and two Cisco ATA-188 analog (“normal phone”) adapters. I’ll put the BT101 on my desk, an ATA-188 on Amy’s desk (so she can use the same phone she’s had for a couple of years), and put the second ATA in either the kitchen/den area or the bedroom. This only leaves me needing one more IP phone or ATA unless I decide to not use a softphone in the music room.

Amy collects stegosauruses, so when we went to EPO tonight to pick up a couple more small kits for me to practice on, I got her birthday present as well.

I just finished assembling STEGOMECH!

He actually walks properly too. My desk is now covered in tiny bits of balsa wood…

Due to popular demand, I’ve done a writeup about making a USB interface cable for a CVS “disposable” camcorder and pulling the videos off onto a Windows PC or Macintosh.

Update: the MAKE: Blog has posted my writeup!