I Need Some Help

We don't do this often around here. But I could use some help with a project I'm working on. Think of this as sort of a kick starter for something that could prove useful in fairly short order.

As you may or may not know I'm working on a very interesting microprocessor. You can see a picture of it on my workbench with USB cables going to the computer I'm typing on. Convenient. Internet and development system all in one. Everything is talking nice and following commands.

But you will note that there is a hole on the left side of the photo where my oscilloscope should go. That is because both of my previous scopes have gone belly up on me. I need a scope to continue my experiments and complete a design I have been working on. And this is what such a 'scope would look like. A Tektronix 475.

Which brings me to my point. I need some help to get such a 'scope. They can cost up to $500 depending on what is available and the reputation of the seller. If you can help:

Make A Donation Today

And for those of you moved by sentiment: 13 Oct is my birthday. I was born on a Friday. My lucky day.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Steve Jobs

I am rather fortunate to have grown up in the hacker era. To have heard of Steve and Woz before they became household names. The lights are going out. A lot of us were reaching for the brass ring Steve captured. Way to go guy. And lucky (and very good) you. You will be missed.

Now about that new processor I'm working on.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

The Partitioning Of An Area

Some times you have to divide things up to make them work better. At least in the computer world. Which is why disc users who work with legacy systems often partition their systems. What to do? And how to do it? Well I found the testimonial on this page very helpful. Well what does it say? Just this:

My four stars for "Paragon Partition Manager 10" are to reflect the quality of the product as I found it to be. I was tempted to give it only three stars due to the major limitation that I had with it, however went with four due to the overall effort that the developers put into it. It is four starts because "I like it", however I doubt that I will be using it in the future. Others will likely find also that it is a good program, but not needed as there are free alternatives ("Partition Wizard Home Edition", "GNU Parted") that completely fill their needed.

*** "Paragon Partition Manager 10": Works with Windows and (primary drive) Linux partitions. Sadly, does not work with Linux partitions on logical drives.

*** "Partition Wizard Home Edition": Free. Works with Windows partitions. Does not work with Linux partitions.

*** "GNU Parted": Free. Works with Linux partitions. Does not work with Windows partitions.

*** Having both "Partition Wizard Home Edition" and "GNU Parted" will likely do everything that you need.

Partition Wizard is free? I like that price. So I down loaded it from Partition Wizard Home Edition. And then I tried it out. I decided to allocate 10GB to a new partition. The software was simple. It asked me how many megs I wanted in my new partition. I entered a number and clicked. And I got back the usual warning: "Open programs - do you want to shut them down or change partitions during reboot?" I chose "reboot" as the preferred option. It seemed the safest. So I rebooted. I got one or two unexpected screens (transient) during the reboot and then everything was back. Whhheeeww (always backup before changing your fundamentals - you will be more relaxed during operations). So I checked. Sure enough 10 GB was now in an unallocated partition.

When I add Linux to the system I'll check out GNU Parted and give a report.

Let me add that this is part of my ongoing saga about a failing hard drive and this is actually where I planned to start if my hard drive had not started to go bad. As the saying goes: even if it does not profit me I have had a profitable experience. I learned something.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Some Video Posts About History

I have a couple of video posts up at Classical Values.

One is a history of the start of the Israel-Palestine conflict in two and a quarter minutes.

The other is a history of Hackers with some text from me about my involvement in hacking. About an hour long.