Theo Verelst Local Diary Page 4


The same holds as for my tripod and other diary pages: nothing on this page may be copied or changed and distributed except that the page as a whole may be printed or otherwise transfered in unchanged form,  mentioning the original URL and global page reference, and that holds for everyone on the globe and beyond, including so called 'christians' and self-appointed 'Secret Services'.


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Feb 26 2003, 21:45 AM

News flash page to begin with. I've hooked up my 'found' and partwise gifted computer from last year again to show pin layouts of electronics parts with a windows 3.1 acrobat reader, and prepared it to use its printer port again for driving my own digital hardware.

You might have guessed it:

The AD converter  works!

Moi eating something.

Seriously, the little chip from the last page actually works in a electronic test setup. What does it do? It is given a variable voltage potential, adjustable with a slider, which is reads, and according to its function converts into a binary number, a value proportional with the voltage coming from the slider. The binary number is shown by 8 little lights (LEDS), and when the slider is moved up slowly, the number goes counting from zero to one to two, etc, to 255, in binary form (that is from 0000 0000 to 1111 1111), which works according to plan.


   fuzzy capture of breadboard with int about the middle the chip with its connecting wires, left of centre the
   clock generator, and on the right 8 leds.

Also according to plan, there is hum or noise in the signal, the last few bits aren't as steady as they should be, probably because some long wires pick up all kinds of interference, I'll need to look into that, but that is normal electronics stuff, nothing for me to even think too much about.

The essence is that the whole construction on the little pins, and the modern part is now useable as a fast AD converter, so interesting circuits must become possible. I'm currently builting a counter unit, with 16 bits of fast counter, for instance to make DMA possible, or storing AD converted voltage graphs in a memory.

Are you being service timed ?

A graph from some days ago from this servers' service time. that is how fast it responded to a request for pages and files. Its a sort of gaussian with lower end lift or sort of a bolzman like thing, with one higher peak, maybe because of an average swap in time for requests when the server process in virtual memory, or hald asleep. Some requests are serviced out of the graph time of 2 seconds, probably when the disc is in standby and must first start up, like at night.



Most URL requests are serviced well within 1/10 th of a second, which is fine, and that while I run a windows TV, a browser, a unix shell, at times a webcam or scanner, media player and/or realplayer and various other programs at a time as well on the happily ticking machine. Not bad. Especially since the Tcl webserver is free, open source software, though I did do tweaking and installation and the whole software tree is probably not for straigh away and unsupervised consumption.

We hold these truths to be self evident

The background on this page is a scan of the declaration of independence (from the us of a, for very illeterate ones).

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable rights. that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

It seems to me for a lot of people those truths are not at all self evident, they should be, though.