Driver to drive?

[Dave VanHorn]

Ohhh yeah. I've heard of Verifone . I've worked with credit cards for a
very long time. I've developed software to emulate the Verifone on a PC.
Nothing much to it other then getting it certified with the different
networks.

And therein lies the fun
Kind of like getting equipment certed for australian telco used to be.
Some of their requirements were mutually exclusive, so it was actually
impossible to comply.
Makes it easy to keep foreign products out, if you want to.

I was actually considering the consulting/employment part. I can give you
a call/e-mail you some of the details one this project and see what you
can do, maybe I can throw a few bucks your way.

Sure, dvanhorn@dvanhorn.org, or 765 287 1987
--
KC6ETE Dave's Engineering Page, www.dvanhorn.org
Microcontroller Consultant, specializing in Atmel AVR

 

[Dave VanHorn]

One bit would be enough if the output filter cap is large enough.

In the end, it IS a one-bit output afterall, we're just talking about how
finely we can control the on and off times.


--
KC6ETE Dave's Engineering Page, www.dvanhorn.org
Microcontroller Consultant, specializing in Atmel AVR

 

[Roy Battell]

In article <r1jnm0p7jg50nje551dosgdbtlocteqruk@4ax.com>, Terry Pinnell
<terrypinDELETE@THESEdial.pipex.com> writes

Roy Battell <news@vutrax666.co.uk> wrote:

Terry,

*** Lots Snipped

In fact, I've been working on similar lines late last night and this
morning. XP actually makes it fairly easy to edit boot.ini, without
the chore of changing attributes, as follows: System
Properties>Advanced>Startup and Recovery>Settings>System startup>Edit.

All very nice, but I'm never sure WHICH version of boot.ini it is
editing - if it is the one on you Secondary/Slave drive it won't
be changing the right one. That why I suggested the pedantic way
to make sure you hit the copy on the FIRST bootable partition.

You have checked the boot order in your BIOS looks at the drives
in the right order (only applies if your second drive the secondary
master rather than primary slave.

That brings boot.ini up in Notepad, and you can save changes. Here's
what mine looks like right now (I've separated the lines for clarity):

[boot loader]

timeout=5

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="XP Home Edition"
/fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="XP Home Edition (#2)"
/fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="Recovery Console C" /cmdcons

-------

That incorporates a few tentative changes I made. Apart from cosmetics
like cutting out 'Microsoft Windows', there was earlier this line:
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home
Edition (#1)" /fastdetect

As you see, that pointed to my D (data) partition, so I think I just
zapped it. I may also

Anyway, things have progressed a little further this morning, and I
now feel tantalisingly close to sorting this and doing something more
interesting <g>. A post I had (from Eric) in
comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage said: "The current OS partition
always shows up as Boot. Active means bootable. The active part that
booted shows up as System, and other ones as Active."

Afraid I normally fix Windows crises using Linux, and if I can't
boot anything off the hard drive I use Knoppix which runs off a
CD which can be relied on to tell the truth. My Bootable Windows
partitions are all FAT32 to keep it simple (Partition Magic does
an excellent conversion when Windows refuses to install anything
but NTSC, but did screw up the sequencing of partitions to keep
the 3rd (Windows) partition numbered 1, and then wouldn't touch
it again because the partition table was not in the right order!
Changing the partitions from Windows changed the partition
numbering to 'natural' order but didn't update boot.ini so it
wouldn't reboot until I edit boot.ini. What a shambles!

From that, it may be that I'm already there! I can only hope...

But, as already mentioned I find it very counter-intuitive. And I
can't quite square Eric's statement with the up-thread definition here
by Dave. So can you bear with me while I try to sort it please?

I've booted to XP Home Edition, the 'first' of my 2 multi-boot
options (using the boot.ini above). This is what my system looks like
right now according to XP Disk Management:

http://www.terrypin.dial.pipex.com/Misc/Sep12-XP.gif

From that, can you tell definitively what partition I am 'running
in'?

See below.

BTW, both Drive Image 2002 and Partition Manager 7.0 just show both C
and E as 'Active', no distinction.

Normally boot the first. Check your BIOS setup if you are worried.

My interpretation before that post above was that I am 'in' E, instead
of C where I want to be. That was based on seeing that 'Active'
annotation XP shows against E. But it now seems I was mistaken, and
I'm 'in' C after all, yes? No?

In your DOS box type
set<enter>
and look for 'windir', or type
echo %windir%
Whichever drive letter it has is your 'Windows' drive letter.

Why do I care? That got raised earlier, and it's a fair question,
giving that everything is working fine, shortcuts OK, etc. The answer
is that it's because I want to be back in exactly the same state I've
been in for the last 2 years. C was exclusively my system and boot
partition. No E involved at all. E was just sitting patiently on my
2nd HD until some emergency (or experiment) prompted me to boot to it
instead. So, as I didn't normally use the files on F either, only my
1st HD would actually be being accessed. The 2nd HD (XP calls it Disk
1 to confuse me) would just be spinning passively for most of the
time. That's a mental picture with which I'm comfortable!

Of course you have to get things right, so that when it falls

over (as it will sooner or later) you will not be in a total shambles.

So, bottom line: can you tell me if I'm already back in the required
state of grace, or whether I still need to do something
clever/complex/risky?

Look like you are there.

Its unfortunate that some backup tools tend to do crazy things with
disk letters when you copy a partition unless you know the right
options. I don't know what does what anymore because I archive Windows
using Linux and restore it the same way. You can view the partition
table with Knoppix using
Start a shell
su (super user - blank password)
fdisk -l (minus Ell)

I'm sure some of the Windows groups can tell how not to get
messed up again!
--
Roy Battell.
To use this address remove the digits included to remove Spam ...
Mail: news@vutrax666.co.uk
URL: http://www.vutrax.co.uk (Main UK site for Vutrax CAD)
http://www.protonique.com/vutrax (Central Europe Mirror)
(Downloadable Vutrax CAD system for Windows 95 though XP and
modern Linux Distros. FREE up to 256 pins.

 

[none]

On Sun, 10 Oct 2004 23:06:39 +0200, Richard Rasker <smat@smot.com>
wrote:

James Meyer wrote:

On Sun, 10 Oct 2004 15:52:48 +0100, Terry Pinnell
terrypinDELETE@THESEdial.pipex.com> wroth:

I'm tearing my hair after somehow scrambling my drive letters on this
XP PC, so if there's anyone around that can help I'd much appreciate
it please. I have a few posts out in the Windows NGs too.

In brief, I used Drive Image 2002 to copy my C system partition to an
alternative hard disk. This is what the setup now looks like:
http://www.terrypin.dial.pipex.com/Misc/Mess1.gif

And this is what it should look like (as it did before):
http://www.terrypin.dial.pipex.com/Misc/XPDiskMgmt.gif

So what's the problem? After all, a rose by any other drive letter
designation will smell as sweet.

Hm, if I had to associate Windows with a smell, a rose would definitely not
be on my list ... nor would the word "sweet", for that matter ...

Richard Rasker

You might be better off going over to sysopt.com
There are alot of pros there that can give you the straight dope on
getting it back right.
They've saved my bacon on more than one occasion.

 

[Terry Pinnell]

"Dave" <db5151@hotmail.com> wrote:

<snip>

In the first few pages there are
a couple of symbols I don't recognize. The first is simply an ampersand (&
symbol) but it's between a couple of variables in an equation.

Without seeing the context, impossible to be sure. But my first guess
would be a logical AND. Is it something like 'A&B' or 'X&Y', and were
logic signals being discussed?

The second is simply two vertical lines in
parrallel, rather like the side-bars of a capital H but without the
cross-bar in the middle.

With the same caveat about context, that normally means 'in parallel'.
So for example 'Ra||Rb' would mean the two resistors Ra and Rb in
parallel. And '8||8' would be 4 if the context was resistance, or 16
if capacitance.

--
Terry Pinnell
Hobbyist, West Sussex, UK

 

[Daniel Haude]

On Fri, 01 Oct 2004 00:39:22 +0100,
Paul Burridge <pb@notthisbit.osiris1.co.uk> wrote
in Msg. <h06pl0tmmscqbvk841a38cj1stuq6vh6mb@4ax.com>

AIUI, Fawlty Towers is popular (or was) in Germany, but they never
released the episode entitled 'The Germans' which is a shame, as it's
actually self-deprecatory towards the Brits and makes us look
seriously *stoopid*. Even John Cleese thought witholding it was daft.

Extremely daft. And they did release it, eventually. I think it's one of
the funniest FT episodes, and I announce "Yess, vee haf meet in ze
bildink" at least once a month.

--Daniel

--
"With me is nothing wrong! And with you?" (from r.a.m.p)

 

[nyffeler]

In article <ckgnsm01j9@drn.newsguy.com>, Winfield Hill <Winfield_member@newsguy.com> wrote:

S. hashem Aref wrote...

Please download its datasheet from this address:
www.foc-fo.de/data/stecker/e2000/MAT_MAR_d.pdf

and find MAR,Receiver High Performance Table and find Siemens SDR 00512Z
Vr=5v has been written on piece of paper adhered on its cover.

I couldn't find any sign of these APD diodes on the Infineon website,
do you know if the optical-detector product area went to another
company in the Siemens reorganization?

At least some of the parts are now available from OSRAM
http://www.osram-os.com/

 

[colin]

"Rich Grise" <null@example.net> wrote in message
news:Ab0bd.5237$gd1.1168@trnddc08...

shouldnt this be ...
FUNCTION DIV(X,Y)
IF Y = 0 see captain
ELSE DIV = X/Y
END IF

 

[colin]

<robin.pain@tesco.net> wrote in message
news:bd24a397.0410112324.42477888@posting.google.com...

"Left hand down a bit number one. What's that to starboard?"

"It's the missing DLL captain."

"Hold her steady, steady... Fire!"

"I can't sir, it says 'Windaz has detected you are too pissed to
operate machinery' Sir."

"What! lemme see! Blimey they've installed "Windaz-too-thoosand (c)",
the student version for the North of England... none of us will be
able to use it, I told them to get the full home version."

Cheers
Robin Pain

"why have we slowed down number one ?"

"sorry sir but ever since we were forced to upgrade to windows XP
every time some one does a file search we have to divert power for the
noding dog animation"

Colin =^.^=

 

[ChrisGibboGibson]

Joerg wrote:

Micro controllers can be used to drive a switcher from their PWM output.
Most of us know how to do that. But my question: Is there some nifty
literature on the web or elsewhere about all the trade-offs this entails?

What I mean are trade-offs with respect to PWM granularity, for example.
Suppose the counter runs off 5MHz. In order to arrive at reasonable cost
for the magnetics the PWM output needs to be, say, 300KHz or higher.
That leaves only 4 bits of granularity. So it would idle like a Harley
with worn spark plugs, something that may be ok. Then there is the
feedback. Most uCs with an on-board ADC are out of price range so slope
may have to do. On top of that there may be a limit of one slope
conversion unless eternal muxing is done.

Current mode is another topic. Tough to do on a uC but then again if one
can measure both current and voltage the uC "knows" where about the PWM
should be. But it's all not very precise. Then there is the issue of
making the code that runs the PWM safe and fast enough. After all, one
minor hangup in this area could result in a plume of smoke. Next, there
is the trend to ever lower VCC levels which renders the task of turning
on a FET hard enough non-trivial.

This may seem unrelated but it isn't. Several manufacturers have built pure
sinewave DC/AC inverters using *just* PICs, mosfet drivers, mosfets and
transformers. Nothing else. No PWM controllers. As these things have to
tolerate truck, boat and caravan owners connecting them to just about anything
possible the protection on these *has* to be good.

They have shown themselves to be *very* reliable.

So it clearly *is* feasable though I've never looked into it in any detail.

Gibbo

 

[DaveC]

magic4you@hotmail.com (Al Hastings) wrote in
news:71676a6f.0410130034.2843528b@posting.google.com:

Does anyone know any devices (such as ion ray guns) that can push
metal away instead in your direction like an electromagnet?
any advice would be appriciated
thanks!
-A

First off, in your direction is a bad idea!!!

While I do not recommend building one for fear you will kill your self or
some one else.. I have seen this done with a bank of very large
capacitors each attached to a ring electro magnet.. the rings are spaced
to compensate for acceleration along outside of a tube the diameter large
enough for your projectile to fit in of course.

The capacitors are all fully charged, firing involved discharging each
capacitor in turn into it's respective coil, this takes careful timing.
Each coil attracts the projectile, and is designed to be fully
discharged; by the time the projectile reaches the coil, then the next
one and so on.

Any way if you have the skills to put something like this together, then
I don't think I need to warn you of it's dangers.

if you really must puch, then use a magnet. I think some shot gun pellet
metal is anti magnetic but I can not remember what it is called.

DaveC

 

[Paul Burridge]

On Tue, 12 Oct 2004 23:49:55 -0700, "john jardine"
<john@jjdesigns.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:

Windaz in subs and naval vessels?. Jesus f****ng wept.
The whole of the procurement executive need their arses smacking. Engineers
putting in charge and a long term, commons investigative commitee setting
up.

Gosh! That's a bit effusive for you, John!
Seriously, I agree. Windoze is a non-starter. Apart from being a
flaky, bug-ridden, crash-prone pile of sh*t, it's also got too many
security holes and backdoors into it to be suitable for defence
purposes.
--

"What is now proved was once only imagin'd." - William Blake, 1793.

 

[Paul Burridge]

On Tue, 12 Oct 2004 15:04:07 -0500, "Dave" <db5151@hotmail.com> wrote:

Well, I probably knew this at one time, but then I went into the business of
repairing computers and associated equipment (simple troubleshooting and
board-swapping) and did that for 12 years before sleeping for the last ten
(with a sleep disorder). Now I find I have forgotten everything but Ohm's
Law (and am beginning to wonder about that.) So, I have some questions...

Snip!

There are several sites on the web that provide the info you seek.
Just try Googling under "mathematical symbols" and you'll be spoilt
for choice.
--

"What is now proved was once only imagin'd." - William Blake, 1793.

 

[Paul Burridge]

On 13 Oct 2004 22:29:15 NZST, DaveC <bobason456@hotmail.com> wrote:

While I do not recommend building one for fear you will kill your self or
some one else.. I have seen this done with a bank of very large
capacitors each attached to a ring electro magnet.. the rings are spaced
to compensate for acceleration along outside of a tube the diameter large
enough for your projectile to fit in of course.

The capacitors are all fully charged, firing involved discharging each
capacitor in turn into it's respective coil, this takes careful timing.
Each coil attracts the projectile, and is designed to be fully
discharged; by the time the projectile reaches the coil, then the next
one and so on.

That's a 'rail gun' you're describing, isn't it?

Any way if you have the skills to put something like this together, then
I don't think I need to warn you of it's dangers.

if you really must puch, then use a magnet. I think some shot gun pellet
metal is anti magnetic but I can not remember what it is called.

Er, lead?
--

"What is now proved was once only imagin'd." - William Blake, 1793.

 

[martin griffith]

On 13 Oct 2004 01:34:28 -0700, in sci.electronics.design you wrote:

Does anyone know any devices (such as ion ray guns) that can push
metal away instead in your direction like an electromagnet?
any advice would be appriciated
thanks!
-A
http://www.physics.ucla.edu/marty/diamag/

martin

Serious error.
All shortcuts have disappeared.
Screen. Mind. Both are blank.

 

[H. Peter Anvin]

Sorry to post a late addition to this thread, but I did run into a
1995 paper with some interesting results on using more complex
encoding techniques on conventional audio cassette tape. If you're
willing to do some DSP on the receiving end (the transmitting side is
still quite simple) then it might be interesting:

http://kabuki.eecs.berkeley.edu/~abo/papers/224/224_report.pdf

This is one of the few places where I've seen discussed dealing with
the time jitter problem that's inherent in the use of tape for the
more advanced modulation techniques.

Note, though, that the best results for magnetic media are achieved
when the media is always magnetized to saturation, and the data is
encoded in binary flux transitions. Time-modulation techniques like
RLL can be used to increase the amount of data encoded per flux
transition. This is of course hard to achieve with analog recording
devices, of course, since they are designed exactly to avoid
saturation with the resulting distortion.

-hpa

 

[Terry Pinnell]

Roy Battell <news@vutrax666.co.uk> wrote:

In article <r1jnm0p7jg50nje551dosgdbtlocteqruk@4ax.com>, Terry Pinnell
terrypinDELETE@THESEdial.pipex.com> writes
Roy Battell <news@vutrax666.co.uk> wrote:

Terry,

*** Lots Snipped

Brilliant, thanks a bunch Roy. A few comments inline.

In fact, I've been working on similar lines late last night and this
morning. XP actually makes it fairly easy to edit boot.ini, without
the chore of changing attributes, as follows: System
Properties>Advanced>Startup and Recovery>Settings>System startup>Edit.

All very nice, but I'm never sure WHICH version of boot.ini it is
editing - if it is the one on you Secondary/Slave drive it won't
be changing the right one. That why I suggested the pedantic way
to make sure you hit the copy on the FIRST bootable partition.

Yes, see your point. In a similar context, it seems that boot.ini can
get edited behind your back. I've not touched it directly since I
pasted it for you. Yet I just rebooted and was disarmed to see during
the boot-up that the default was now called 'Windows XP Media Center
Edition'! Here's what boot.ini now looks like:
[boot loader]
timeout=5
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Media Center
Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="XP Home Edition (#2)"
/fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="Recovery Console C" /cmdcons

The only thing I can think of is that TweakUI did it. I decided to
remove my 'automatic log-on' for a while. So I made a rare use of
TweakUI to change that option. So I now get the log-on screen, where I
choose user and enter my password. Can you think of any other
possibility for that bizarre change of title?

You have checked the boot order in your BIOS looks at the drives
in the right order (only applies if your second drive the secondary
master rather than primary slave.

Haven't explicitly looked at BIOS, but I've changed nothing physically
or in BIOS since I installed that 2nd HD 2 years ago.

<snip my earlier stuff>

http://www.terrypin.dial.pipex.com/Misc/Sep12-XP.gif

From that, can you tell definitively what partition I am 'running
in'?

See below.

BTW, both Drive Image 2002 and Partition Manager 7.0 just show both C
and E as 'Active', no distinction.

Normally boot the first. Check your BIOS setup if you are worried.

My interpretation before that post above was that I am 'in' E, instead
of C where I want to be. That was based on seeing that 'Active'
annotation XP shows against E. But it now seems I was mistaken, and
I'm 'in' C after all, yes? No?


In your DOS box type
set<enter
and look for 'windir', or type
echo %windir%
Whichever drive letter it has is your 'Windows' drive letter.

My Command Prompt comes up with
C:\Documents and Settings\Terry Pinnell>
The first gave me 'syntax of the command is incorrect' but the echo
one gave 'C:\WINDOWS'.
So that seem to confirm that I am 'in' C.

<snip>

Of course you have to get things right, so that when it falls
over (as it will sooner or later) you will not be in a total shambles.

So, bottom line: can you tell me if I'm already back in the required
state of grace, or whether I still need to do something
clever/complex/risky?


Look like you are there.

Excellent news if indeed finally proved!

Its unfortunate that some backup tools tend to do crazy things with
disk letters when you copy a partition unless you know the right
options. I don't know what does what anymore because I archive Windows
using Linux and restore it the same way. You can view the partition
table with Knoppix using
Start a shell
su (super user - blank password)
fdisk -l (minus Ell)

I'm sure some of the Windows groups can tell how not to get
messed up again!

The only thing still nagging at me is the picture I get when I boot to
my 'alternative', XP Home Edition (#2). I'll do it again right now.

-------

I've just rebooted to XP Home Edition (#2), and I'm picking up the
composition of this post in Agent. (Agent data files are on D, HD1,
BTW.)

I can't get my mind around C now being shown on HD2?
http://www.terrypin.dial.pipex.com/Misc/AnotherBootOption.gif

Everything works. All files that know as being in C are still shown in
C, etc. All shortcuts are still exactly the same as in 'XP Home
Edition'. For example, if I click my shortcut 'Prog Files', I get a My
Computer folder C:\Program Files. But how can I square that with C now
being physically shown on HD2?!

While I'm here, this is what Edit displays as boot.ini:
[boot loader]
timeout=5
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="XP Home Edition"
/fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="XP Home Edition (#2)"
/fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="Recovery Console C" /cmdcons

As you see, it's identical to the boot.ini in the other environment.

Aha!! But if I view C:\boot.ini in Explorer, I see this:

[boot loader]
timeout=5
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home
Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home
Edition (#1)" /fastdetect
C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows Recovery Console" /cmdcons

That second option has now somehow gone wrong! It's pointing to my F
partition, which is data...

That implies that if I were to try to boot to it, it would screw up.

I think I'm going to go and lie down in a dark room for a bit...

--
Terry Pinnell
Hobbyist, West Sussex, UK

 

[Kryten]

shouldn't this be ...
FUNCTION DIV(X,Y)
IF Y = 0 see captain
ELSE DIV = X/Y
END IF

I recall a seminar about software project management.

The statistics are appalling. Most software projects over-run significantly.
And a good portion of those are between 2 and 5 times original estimates.

Few people actually test systems, or allow anything like enough time to do
so.

One project example entitled "five billion quid in a cigarette packet" was a
UK project to put some kind of smart fighter autopilot in a box that size.
It relied on one programmer coding away in a cellar for years and it never
worked. If he fell under a bus, the whole project would have died with him.

Another fighter aircraft system used tan(), which as any O-level student
knows soars to infinity as theta approaches 90 degrees. Worked fine, right
up to the moment you do a barrel roll, loop-the-loop, tight banked turn etc.
All very handy in combat situations.

Another such system was set for a demo in front of the yanks, and it was not
fully tested either. The test pilot wisely demanded a big switch for
auto/manual. Took off, switched it on, plane goes unstable, switch off, fly
home.

I hear the UK health service wants to spend 5 billion on computerising
patient records. At least they admit it could cost as much as 30 billion.
Divided by 60 million people in the UK, that's 500 quid each.

Yet managers still pretend they can manage software projects to deadlines...

 

[Jeroen Belleman]

Kevin Aylward wrote:

moist communications don't need much BW.

ROFL! I'll remember that one!

Jeroen

 

[Jeroen Belleman]

Kevin Aylward wrote:

but moist communications don't need much BW.

[...] And happens to be the best one for adults.

Please Kevin! Stop!



Jeroen