ASCII Art FTW

A digital project that's been bouncing around in my brain for a few months has finally started to take shape during this holiday break. Machinations of design have already begun! Pencils are sharpened, Eagle skillz are flexed, and the Logic is rdy for the big time.

Also, for reasons unknown, this project incorporates a super simple piece of ASCII art.

Inner dialog:

- "Needed?" No.

- "Waste of precious Mega8 flash (8KB!)?" Most certainly.

- "Freaking cool?" Most certainly not.

- "Necessary?" Absolutely.

Astounding Ways to Graphically Depict The Solar System

XKCD never ceases to impress me with innovative uses of stick figures and fascinating data representation. Seriously, click here.

Daddy, I'm not sure about this...

Sweet L00t!

Santa Sara dropped the perfect gift for me under the tree this year. She got me a Saleae USB Digital Logic Probe (Logic for short). What is a Saleae (still unsure of proper pronunciation; 'say-lee' in my head) USB Digital Logic Probe and how will it help you take over the world?

In my last blog post (August!? lazy...), you can see a screenshot of hyperterminal displaying the serial output of my hacked Defcon 17 badge. This morning, I broke out the DC 17 badge and attached a couple of probes to test out the Logic (see picture above). The device itself communicates with a Windows XP / Vista / 7 computer via USB and requires you to download the software and drivers from Saleae's website.

With everything hooked up and the software installed, I went about testing the Logic. To my great surprise I found it dead easy to use. Attach the gray probe cable to ground and the black cable to some TTL goodness and start analyzing. That's how easy it is to use. As you can see from the screen shot below of Saleae's software, the Logic was able to interpret the first few characters outputted from the badge.

Get one from Sparkfun today!

Monkey Lover

I know, I know... strange title but all will become clear as you consume the various bits of media on this post. First, however, some quick background information. Due to an extraordinary happenstance, a badge from Defcon 17 landed in my possession and (the best part) I've been granted hacking rights to it. The results are below....

Since reading small text on youtube is nigh impossible, here's a screen shot of that hyperterminal session. (click to embiggen)

Watch this space for more minor delinquency.

Mr Thermo!

I finished Mr. Thermo! Here it is using a GDM1602K LCD and a DS18B20 temperature sensor. I have the sensor outside a window at our house. I took the picture at 8:00pm on a Friday evening in February. I love Texas. :)

In the freezer with you, Mr Thermo!

That's Not a Knife...

I had the chance to shoot an Armalite AR-50 the other day. A .50 caliber round is huge compared to your normal hunting rounds such as the .308 or 30-30. Check this out from Wikipedia for a better idea of how big the cartridge is.

That's a shot of me getting the rifle sited in on a poor water melon.