techtravels.org

inital results on error correction

While I have yet to actually implement the full-scale error correction as I want to, I did some manual tests today. I basically took a track that I was erroring out on, and swapped in 1-bit away values for the bad bytes.  In some cases, it appeared...

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new book

I recently received “On the Edge: the Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore” and have read about half of the book so far.  Very interesting read.  It’s fun to read about how the various Commodores...

not the PC again?

I was doing some more tests trying to get the PC to fail. It seems that the PC really likes EVEN delays between data, and it’s wierd because faster data that comes in evenly is better than slower data that comes...

SX EOL

I hate when this happens. 🙂 The Parallax SX microcontroller line has reached production EOL. The owner of the SX design (www.ubicom.com) has given Parallax final notice that we are to place a lifetime buy of wafers. We...

reading problems

I hate leaving projects for awhile.  Any more than a few days, and you lose the focus, you lose the insight, and remembering exactly where you left off can be a pain in the butt. This time, I’ve come back to a...

java software

I’ve been working on the Java software the last couple days. Trying to read from RXTX is producing only 3968 bytes per read.  It looks like my USB -> serial converter uses a “transfer size” of 4096...

PC xfer working now, timing in order

Welp I pretty much solved the big problems I encountered over the past couple weeks. Ground issues — turned out I was attaching ground of one interface to Vdd on another interface. That was solved by actually...

today’s successes

I really stumbled on some stuff, and I think I have traction on a couple of problems. 1. My sizes are absolutely perfect. For me, this is a big milestone. This tells me alot. I’m getting perfect distances between...

PC might be the problem!

I think I’ve found at least one problem here. My PC is at least one problem. Even though I’ve done extensive tests with the PC in the past, including measuring a 9us total cycle time, it appears the PC must...

more hardware

When in doubt, just throw some more money at the problem! 🙂 Actually, I’m kidding. But I do have the Parallax USB2SER on its way — maybe the USB will be much faster, buffered, and more reliable. Those...

Found one issue

Well, within an hour or so of getting my new LogicPort logic analyzer hooked up, I’m at least noticing some symptoms that I haven’t seen before. The drive is putting out(or the logic analyzer and my sx is...