Turning my sync separator thing into an external box since I realized it's probably gonna be easier to adjust for other display resolutions that way. Now it's in an altoids tin.
Posting again since it's been a day. Had a power surge here last night; broke my 56 day uptime (with no UPS) on my desktop (which doubles as my main file server). Pretty annoying, not gonna lie, even though it automatically booted again when power was restored. I was hoping I'd hit two months. If it were a planned reboot, I'd have been able to work a kernel ugrade and maybe other updates into it.
My desktop usually lags behind my laptop with the upgrades, since I care about the stability and it runs the same distro as my laptop (Debian "unstable" ironically). So I try to work out all the stupid breakages and the new exciting ways to force me to install Systemd on the laptop first and then repeat what I did on the desktop.
This is the same computer that boots off a HDD from 2005. So all things considered, it's been nothing but a champion for me.
It also gets all audio from my VCR, DVD player, Roland MT-32, game consoles, etc. passed through it so it can be captured or manipulated if so desired. It also has a capture card hooked in, so it's sort of a central hub for multimedia.
Also, I wrote scripts so I can outsource Waifu2x processing queues to it from other devices (it's my only one with CUDA or Hardware OpenCL support available). It's also my go-to video encoder, and I've got it set up for playing back music (so I can play something while I'm on my laptop in the same area, and so I don't waste space on the laptop for music files).
I'd like to get or make a relay controller for it, so I can use my laptop to turn the monitors on/off from a distance (like across the room or whatever). It's so nice being able to use software to turn off the display in my laptop instantly, but my LCD likes to show 'not connected' or something for a while after I turn off output. My CRT of course says nothing but I'd still like to turn it off to save power when it's not being used and to avoid unnecessary wear on the heater and everything else. Control via parallel port would be fine (it has a parallel port and serial port header on the motherboard still; I broke them out on a bracket). For the LCD I could probably even just use an AVR or a PIC or something coupled with a MOSFET hooked up behind the power button, since it's a simple tact switch, but my CRT has a latching-action switch that carries a lot more voltage and current so I don't think I can avoid a relay there.
This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Apr 9 2020, 09:49
People in this topic could open a "Ask the Experts (Tech chat edition)" topic. But then, if they can only answer when somebody ask a question, they would have no reason to leave this "thoughts" topic most of the time, and the newly opened topic would sink in the depths (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/mellow.gif)
Thought I killed the Horizontal Output Transistor in one of my CRT's today; got a vertical line centered on the screen. Turned out to just be a cracked solder joint, though. I'm relieved.
Even though I can still find this particular transistor on ebay, they aren't made anymore and they're sort of expensive.
I should probably just buy one (and a flyback transformer, since the correct flyback's miraculously on ebay right now for once) so I have backups in stock if or when they die. Those'll be among the hardest parts to source in the near future, I think, apart from the tube itself (but tubes are often swappable within reason with similar designs, even from different manufacturers; sometimes you can just take the 'deflection' circuitry off the neck of one tube and swap it on another and have an exact match as a result, though aligning it right on the neck is hard).
QUOTE(uareader @ Apr 9 2020, 05:08)
People in this topic could open a "Ask the Experts (Tech chat edition)" topic. But then, if they can only answer when somebody ask a question, they would have no reason to leave this "thoughts" topic most of the time, and the newly opened topic would sink in the depths (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/mellow.gif)
edit (to avoid double post):
I get a feeling you don't like my posting habits.
I often edit to avoid double posts, unless a day or so has passed. In fact, I just did.
And I honestly think most people think they know more than they do, myself included. Dunning-Kruger effect and all of that. I hope I'm starting to get over that now, but it's hard to introspect myself. I'm still pretty judgemental about OS choices, nowadays, but I think that's because of my higher level of experience rather than naïvité, since I've gotten comfortable enough in my current environment to not have any desire to ever touch WinNT again.
This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Apr 9 2020, 21:31
Oddly, I can't reach Paint'net's official website when using Cloudflare's DNS servers' IP address. Nothing to do with browser at all as the application's auto update feature also isn't working.
Update: Nope. Never mind. I can go to the website like normal now. No need to use VPN.
This post has been edited by loli-hujan86: Apr 10 2020, 17:54
According to the manual, there is an option to change that Power button's function to Reset. Reset Bios and Clear CMOS basically accomplishes the same thing right?
According to the manual, there is an option to change that Power button's function to Reset. Reset Bios and Clear CMOS basically accomplishes the same thing right?
Reset might also mean like "instantly restart." Clear CMOS would likely erase your bootloader settings. That's what "clear CMOS" usually means. It's kind of strange to see abutton dedicated to that on a computer. Most I see have a jumper, or on laptops maybe an un-bridged (and sometimes unlabelled) pair of solder points that aren't actually documented anywhere so you have to guess or trace the pads.
My family used to have a Pentium III-era Dell Dimension that had a button like that (the 'instantly restart' kind). It was handy especially because they had Windows 98 (not even SE) on it in those days and locked up somewhat frequently when playing games and stuff. Especially since (IIRC) windows 98 would "mask" the ctrl+alt+delete interrupt (technically it actually just changed the interrupt vector table, since it's an NMI event), and if it was totally deadlocked it wouldn't reboot on the second ctrl+alt+delete like it was supposed to.
This is from memory, haven't had a Win9X machine lock up in a long time now. Or used Win9x for more than ten minutes for a long time.
---- >I had an 8-pin integrated circuit that fulfills a very simple task that I reversed the polarity on and fried it. >(Wired the DC barrel jack backwards, even though I figured out and marked the 'tip' and 'shell' pins, I wired them in reverse anyway because I was hasty and eager to verify that it still worked after transferring from the solderless breadboard.) >Ordered a replacement from digikey on Monday or Tuesday >It's supposed to arrive today >They decide to change the hours for the mail room in my apartment building without warning anyone >It's not even open today or tomorrow (Saturday or Sunday) anymore >It's open for a three hour period every weekday instead of a nine hour period (11 to 14) >It's at a time of day that I'm at work >I probably won't be able to get this goddamn chip for a goddamn week (IMG:[i.imgur.com] https://i.imgur.com/4tsjX2Fm.jpg) It's one of the first SOIC (a kind of surface mount) chips I've ever soldered, so yeah I know the soldering isn't great (it's misaligned, too). >I also ordered another chip to mod my N64 for RGB video output >It's in the same package >I had the console out, opened up, and RCA jacks mounted on it, awaiting this goddamn chip >I have an alternate way I can do the mod using discrete transistors, but I've only got NPN transistors and I also need three PNP ones to do the job if I want to be able to make the signal drive a load (analogue video signals are supposed to have a slight load (meaning a resistance, or an impedance) on the line, and just an NPN transistor will amplify the signal but won't be able to push very much current at all, resulting in near-black video signals. [en.wikipedia.org] This is what I want to do) >Those PNP's are also in the goddamn mail, in the same fucking shipment >The couple projects I would like to do are ones I didn't order parts for because they aren't really pressing (like I need a new fuse for my Super Famicom, I'm using a wire right now) So now for the first time in this shitfest I'm finally out of projects I want to do. I'd ordered on monday partially because I knew I'd probably be done with everything else by now. And I am. Fuck my apartment complex.
I guess I'll just try to learn PCB layout in Kicad or something.
This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Apr 11 2020, 19:42
Thought I killed the Horizontal Output Transistor in one of my CRT's today; got a vertical line centered on the screen. Turned out to just be a cracked solder joint, though. I'm relieved.
Yes, I had something similar happen to my Sony 32-inch trinitron TV decades ago. The high voltage input to the flyback transformer is controlled by a high voltage transistor. This voltage is then stepped up to the famously high voltage used by those glass CRT tubes. These high voltage output transistors often go bad especially if dust or an insect manages to bridge a random critical location. It's a 192 pound TV and would need quite a bit of manhandling for repair. When I found out the SONY technician repair costs included both a separate travel fee plus the diagnosis fee added to the estimated repair cost of a Horizontal Output Transistor was basically the cost of a more modern TV, I was done with Sony.
I got rid of the Sony. It's too bad as that was the high-end model that even came with a deluxe audio system with a separate subwoofer. Their method of repair is to REQUIRE the trade of the entire assembly board and attached chassis section for a repaired working assembly board. Of course, they would simply repair my old part and sell it to someone else. How nice to have your customers supply most of the assembly parts for repairs. Sony's service profiteering was atrocious and snooty. Back then, they could ride the laurels of the trinitron tube for which they still had patent control, but their snooty attitude of take it or leave it sucked.
Yes, I had something similar happen to my Sony 32-inch trinitron TV decades ago. The high voltage input to the flyback transformer is controlled by a high voltage transistor. This voltage is then stepped up to the famously high voltage used by those glass CRT tubes. These high voltage output transistors often go bad especially if dust or an insect manages to bridge a random critical location. It's a 192 pound TV and would need quite a bit of manhandling for repair.
I knew this, but I'm assuming you're explaining for people who might not have a clue what I said. Very nice explanation. My largest CRT that I currently own is 20 inches and 75 lbs (also a Trinitron). My favorite set's a Matsushita tri-dot shadow mask ~14" one, though - Panasonic BT-H1390YN. Very flexible inputs and a wonderful picture. Even the 20" is a pain in the ass to work on purity/convergence for due to the size and difficulty reaching around the back. I should really use a mirror next time I have to work on one that big.
QUOTE(Anime Janai @ Apr 12 2020, 02:06)
When I found out the SONY technician repair costs included both a separate travel fee plus the diagnosis fee added to the estimated repair cost of a Horizontal Output Transistor was basically the cost of a more modern TV, I was done with Sony.
Well done; I hate them, too. Which is ironic, considering my Sony is one of the "meme-level" hyped models for CRT video gaming now as it's capable of multiscan, up to 720p (and 1080i). But I wouldn't pay a tenth of what they go for on ebay for one. Anyway that and the PS3 George Hotz thing kind of made me swear their new products off for the remainder of my existance. My newest Sony stuff is that TV and a PSX (original playstation, not the DVR).
QUOTE(Anime Janai @ Apr 12 2020, 02:06)
I got rid of the Sony. It's too bad as that was the high-end model that even came with a deluxe audio system with a separate subwoofer.
Mine has no built-in audio worth noting since it's one of those rack mount monitors you'd see in TV stations. I use Chintzy Harman Kardon PC speakers that came with a Dell desktop around 2005.
QUOTE(Anime Janai @ Apr 12 2020, 02:06)
Their method of repair is to REQUIRE the trade of the entire assembly board and attached chassis section for a repaired working assembly board. Of course, they would simply repair my old part and sell it to someone else. How nice to have your customers supply most of the assembly parts for repairs. Sony's service profiteering was atrocious and snooty.
My experience exactly. And why I hate Apple so much. But it's much easier to remove or install large through-hole components for the average servicer I guess.
QUOTE(Anime Janai @ Apr 12 2020, 02:06)
Back then, they could ride the laurels of the trinitron tube for which they still had patent control, but their snooty attitude of take it or leave it sucked.
People still hype the Trinitrons now on old video game forums and IRC. I honestly don't really care for it. With things like PC displays above around 640x480 or 800x600, they were markedly crisper than most shadow mask tubes, though, so it had some merit there (due to the nature of pixels and how well they can align with a trinitron mask pattern vs. a tri-dot pattern).
Same reason people aren't really using PenTile matrix screens on desktops or anything where seeing individual pixels actually matters much. Also things like viewing angles and ugliness at large sizes.
This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Apr 12 2020, 17:40
People still hype the Trinitrons now on old video game forums and IRC. I honestly don't really care for it. With things like PC displays above around 640x480 or 800x600, they were markedly crisper than most shadow mask tubes, though, so it had some merit there (due to the nature of pixels and how well they can align with a trinitron mask pattern vs. a tri-dot pattern).
Nowadays, the flat square pixels of LCD are better and more accurate in terms of providing detail in a picture.
But BACK IN THE GLASS CRT ERA when it was the Sony trinitron glass tube versus toshiba glass versus everyone else, the Sony tube had a physical advantage in providing a field of view to the consumer. If you look at the large screen trinitron, you'll see that the glass is basically a cylinder. Looking at the surface, if you then extend all dimensions of the sony glass surface infinitely, you will see it forms a giant cylinder. This cylindrical surface was highly compatible with the way humans sat in front of the screen and panned their eyes horizontally. This cylinder was also compatible with how the electron beam scanned across inside, so it was a Win-Win for both Sony and the way consumers' eyes worked when watching glass CRT screens.
Sony refused to license the patent because it could maintain a monopoly on all benefits until then. It's their right, but it is scummy to use a patent to decrease quality for all consumers unless they bought Sony. Sort of like when Mercedes Benz invented crumple points in cars. It was an incredible safety and marketing edge, but Mercedes Benz recognized that it improved safety so much for all car users that it gave free use of the patent to all car makers so that the safety quality of cars would be improved for everyone. They could have sat on the patent.
The low cost competitors to Sony had spherical screens. They were spherical since if their exterior glass surfaces were extended out to the sides infinitely, they would eventually meet to form a sphere. Thus, there was always a slight asymmetry in the corners of the rectangular viewing screen as you have an electron beam scanning a spherical surface yet the image must be displayed in a rectangular format. One partial exception was Toshiba which tried to provide a flat exterior glass screen at the cost of making the actual glass thicknesses vary. It sort of succeeded so that was ingenuity in trying to overcome Sony's tremendous edge in having an evenly thick glass cylinder screen.
19V to 36V+ open circuit? So that's why it's marked battery charging only. Need to see how much a lead acid battery tames it down, and what the AC side looks like o a faster true RMS meter. I was getting not-sane values for AC frequency.
Been working on yet another perceptual hash duplicate finder program using pHash, it worked but was horribly hacky/inefficient so I 've started writing a new version that uses an sqlite3 database of hashes that can be preserved between runs.
I just had this experience and it's such a wonderful feeling. Valgrind reporting zero malloc/free issues, too. Not using any external libraries for handling file I/O or strings or anything. Just C89 and the standard libraries. (plus a couple other semi-standard libraries relating to file I/O which are present in Unix, Win32, OS/2, etc)
This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Apr 20 2020, 00:41
Proton seems to work out nicer than wine does. I guess it's easier to interact with non-FOS software made for a non-FOS OS if your compatibility layer doesn't need to be open source. It sucks, but I guess it makes sense.
Proton seems to work out nicer than wine does. I guess it's easier to interact with non-FOS software made for a non-FOS OS if your compatibility layer doesn't need to be open source. It sucks, but I guess it makes sense.
Not sure what you mean, since AFAICT proton's using wine and appears to itself use a sort of MIT or BSD-style license. Never used Proton though.
Wish I didn't have to use BTC to donate here. Cryptocurrency's fucking trash (I get there's probably not a lot of better ways given the site's situation, but it still rankles me).
This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Apr 23 2020, 04:25
Is it? I'll have to look into that more. I can tell it's not a copyleft license, as it downloads MS blobs of code without giving me an EULA, so it has to be a compatible license with their free-to-use software.
I ate some overhead, and went through virwox/2nd life to get my BTC for a gold star. The actual US based currency exchanges I've seen want information you'd give a bank to be compliant. They are rather shifty and can literally just vanish though- so I refuse to trust them with this info or bank account numbers. I'd legit be interested if somebody knew another way to buy BTC- I want catgirl someday.
Is it? I'll have to look into that more. I can tell it's not a copyleft license, as it downloads MS blobs of code without giving me an EULA, so it has to be a compatible license with their free-to-use software.
It's probably largely like Winetricks, but I'd have to check. Don't really have a good reason to dig too deeply.
QUOTE(Wayward_Vagabond @ Apr 22 2020, 22:40)
I ate some overhead, and went through virwox/2nd life to get my BTC for a gold star. The actual US based currency exchanges I've seen want information you'd give a bank to be compliant. They are rather shifty and can literally just vanish though- so I refuse to trust them with this info or bank account numbers. I'd legit be interested if somebody knew another way to buy BTC- I want catgirl someday.
Might try that then. I'm not too hurried anyway, since I'm not getting much income at the moment.
Just added S-Video output to my Sega Genesis (Mega Drive) today. Years ago I did one of my first console mods to it (added RCA jacks for RGB + sync output and mono audio); added S-video finally because my capture card doesn't support RGB capture, just composite or Y/C (s-video). Replaced the RF modulator with it, since I have absolutely no reason to keep RF now and I don't have to drill more holes this way. I know the port's at an angle, but I really don't care with my own personal system like I would for someone else's. [i.imgur.com] (IMG:[i.imgur.com] https://i.imgur.com/6Xuyj7Kg.jpg)
I'd forgotten how horrible my old mod work was on the inside. It was a real pain to work around due to some stupid decisions I made when I first was working inside it around 2015. I guess I did okay though since it didn't break in the last five years and still isn't broken.
Pretty happy with the s-video part, though. Was able to tap and buffer the luminance signal I needed by just piggybacking a transistor (2N3904 in my case) on the video encoder chip directly.
It was much easier than the later revision board I modded for someone else, where everything was surface mount (including the encoder chip). I still know I did a better job on theirs than on my own though since I didn't want to hear back from them about something failing.
BTW, no one will need to know this probably, but the sync signal output by the genesis can't drive a load. It's an open-collector output. Your video signal will go to black if you try to drive a load with the sync signal, since it's run directly from the VDP (like a GPU) to the output port. You need to buffer it in some way or another to use it with most monitors.
I was too lazy to try to figure out such a buffer using transistors and resistors, so I just ran it through both input pins of an AND gate on a 74LS08 (or 74HC08 or 7408; can't remember) and added an appropriate resistor such that the termination on the line would form a divider and bring the +5v down to around the 1Vp-p specification most monitors want. And a capacitor in series to remove some of the DC offset. 7408 and variants have totem pole style outputs, so this worked fine.
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One day later update: I should probably update the SSL certificate for my WebDAV server; it's been expired since last year. I completely forgot I had it.
And I just looked back at a perfboard circuit I made a couple months ago, and I realized the reason it didn't work is because I never connected the fucking ground pin on the central component. Also I used one incorrect value resistor which resulted in a bad audio mix, but that's fixed now. Without ground I wasn't getting sound at all.
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Edit again: Ugh, still not quite the right mix. PSG audio from my other Genesis (not the same one I s-video modded; this is a model 2) is wrong. PSG = the "bloop, bleep" generator inherited from the Sega Master System/Mark III. Used for Sonic's jumping noise in the first game. It's too quiet.
Everything else is stellar. I'll take another stab at it tomorrow when I'm better able to think and I can motivate myself to pull the oscilloscope out and see what's up. If I can't figure out what's wrong with the mixing circuit, maybe I'll just amplify the signal a shitload so it comes out of the mixing stage at the right level anyway.
I hope my op amp's not oscillating or some shit. I'm using a higher bandwidth one than I usually do since one of the four op-amps on the last of my usual 3mhz IC's was defective, and I found a brand new pin-compatible 4mhz chip sitting in my parts bin from some 10 year old old evaluation kit.
Seen here with a couple wires clipped and one resistor lead clipped for testing I was doing earlier. I was experimenting with changing the value of a pulldown and also with using a transistor to amplify the PSG input before passing it through the mixer. It somewhat worked, but it was clipping - Likely because I didn't actually do the proper math to set the biasing voltage, or indeed check what the input voltage of the PSG channel actually was. I just sort of guessed since I was feeling lazy and wanted to see if the concept was sound. [i.imgur.com] (IMG:[i.imgur.com] https://i.imgur.com/JENIQBvg.jpg)
In hindsight, I should have taken this time as an opportunity to teach myself to use KiCad and get a non-perfboard PCB fabricated. I didn't because I wanted to challenge myself (which I have successfully done, it seems). I've made one of these boards successfully before, but it was for a different revision of Mega Drive than this and I made it on a larger and less cramped perfboard so it was less troublesome to get to individual parts of it.
In any case this Mega Drive was free, and the only thing I stand to gain by making this one work better is less noisy audio (this revision's stock amplifier clips the synth output horribly) and cleaner composite video than my model 1. Since my model 1 is only really getting used with RGB and S-Video anyway, this is a minor detail.
The other thing is that this model 2 has a different DAC on its yamaha synth, which doesn't produce the "ladder effect" of the DAC in the YM2612 found in my model 1. This ladder effect isn't very noticeable, and I kind of like it to be totally honest.
It'd be a narrower footprint when paired with my Sega CD, I guess, though. I still think I'll use the model 1, since I like the look and it has a volume slider on the front (for the headphone jack that I use for stereo output) which comes in handy for quickly adjusting the volume of games without opening alsamixer on my desktop.
Anyway, assuming I take the time to make a PCB, I'll just get one fabbed and then mod both my systems to not give the five second "licensed by sega" screen at startup while I wait for the board to arrive in the mail. I'm confident I can do that cleanly since it just takes two or three 7400-series logic chips to evade. Hopefully the ones I have on hand are fast enough (most are the ancient original 74xx series chips or 74LSxx chips, with a few 74HCxx thrown in).
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Another edit, that's right.
I think I figured out a really annoying netsurf/cURL bug that'd cause it to randomly crash when loading SSL-encrypted pages. Now I just have to let the damn thing compile on my powerbook and I can figure out if I'm right or not.
(hours later) OK, I was right. (This update posted from Netsurf.)
This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Apr 26 2020, 13:09
Apparently someone had decided to make quick money by ripping off free open source applications and sell them on Windows Store. Shame if someone actually fall for this.
What is the last thing you thought?, Tech Edition
Apr 8 2020, 23:07
