Tag Archives: hardware

I’m back — Why is buying a new graphics card so difficult?

Posted on July 17, 2012 by robert

My good old Nvidia 7600GT started crapping out. It has crashed my computer several times, leaving semi-permanent artifacts on the screen. I discovered that the heatsink doesn’t touch some of the RAM chips, which might explain just that. Why it … Continue reading →

Posted in The Dump. | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Playing with the OSCCAL register of an ATmega168

Posted on December 25, 2009 by robert

I was having problems with the “led ring” boards. Their internal oscillators were not ticking with the same speed and required constant re-syncing. I tried to improve the situation by recalibrating by adjusting the OSCCAL registers. Recalibration can be done … Continue reading →

Posted in Arduino., Electronics. | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

V3.04 PCBs from MakePCB have arrived

Posted on July 17, 2009 by robert

I’ve waited for 5 weeks for the 2nd batch of the 64-pixel RGB matrix controller boards. This time I ordered from MakePCB as I wanted to test another PCB manufacturer. Also I couldn’t get gold plated pads from GoldPhoenix for … Continue reading →

Posted in Arduino., Electronics., Soldering & PCBs. | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

FrOSCon 2009

Posted on April 12, 2009 by robert

“FrOSCon is a two day conference on Free Software and Open Source, taking place for the third time on August, 23rd/24th 2008 at the Fachhochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg in Sankt Augustin near the cities of Bonn and Cologne. “We are looking for … Continue reading →

Posted in The Dump. | Tagged , | Comments Off on FrOSCon 2009

Trying to fix the sound of my Sega Game Gear — part 2

Posted on February 6, 2009 by robert

I was lucky :-) It seems the guys at Sega just replaced the 470µF capacitors shown in the reference setup for the TDM2822M dual amplifier with 47µF ones. Other people have had problems with these too, so I just pulled … Continue reading →

Posted in Electronics., Fix me. | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Trying to fix the sound of my Sega Game Gear — part 1

Posted on February 3, 2009 by robert

Last time I turned it on, I didn’t get the usual boot-up sound of ‘Seeeeegaaaaa’. There’s a little chip next to the earphone plug. I haven’t checked yet, but I suspect it’s some kind of amplifier. So I’ll warm up … Continue reading →

Posted in Electronics., Fix me. | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Trying to fix the sound of my Sega Game Gear — part 1

Computer archaeology

Posted on October 30, 2008 by robert

Today, while cleaning out documents, I found a some old things and really ‘prehistoric’ ones:

Posted in Electronics. | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment