http://neil.franklin.ch/Projects/Parport/Logfile - things done and to do author Neil Franklin, last modification see last entry near bottom 2003.12.23 Tue gave up on PDP-10 and VirtexTools projects, as both only used for each other because frustrated with FPGA situation, and lost interest in hardware PDP-10 was end of any hardware building projects at that time http://neil.franklin.ch/Projects/PDP-10/ http://neil.franklin.ch/Projects/VirtexTools/ 2004.01.20 Tue surfed B.Kainka website, lots of small few-component electronics discoveries http://www.b-kainka.de/bastel0.htm 2004.05.28 Fri looked at building arcade style game controllers http://www.arcadecontrols.com/arcade.htm 2004.06.21 Mon went surfing by the colorforth website http://www.colorforth.com/ surfed multiple other Forth sites, http://www.theforthsource.com/ http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/projects/forth.html http://www.zetetics.com/bj/papers/moving1.htm rewoke interest in low level stuff 2004.06.23 Wed at LinuxTag 2004 accidently just booth next to Forth guys there PC controlled metal xylophone, simple TTL decoders and phone relays reminded how simple elextronics projects can be fun, control stuff and also that Assembly and Forth are interesting, would like to do again also competing interest in perl, python and Lisp 2004.06.29 Tue went surfing Assembly oriented site http://cs.smith.edu/~thiebaut/ArtOfAssembly/artofasm.html 2004.07.12 Mon surfing simple TTL self build CPU sites http://www.homebrewcpu.com/ http://www.venturalink.net/~jamesc/ttl/ and surfing Forth sites http://www.figuk.plus.com/byof.htm 2004.08.25 Wed looked at Paul Graham Lisp site, work on ARC modernising, seems to be stalled 2004.10.18 Mo looked at perl 6 development, but not much interest 2004.10.21 Thu re-visited Linux Assembly site, http://linuxassembly.org/ 2004.12.14 Tue went looking at Lisp macros, http://www.lisperati.com/ 2004.12.31 Fri went looking at x86 Assembly http://www.jegerlehner.ch/intel/, http://www.sandpile.org/ 2005.03.05 Thu as Chemnitz Linux Tage saw that Xbox guys are now opening up LAN APs after speech experimented with Lisp, decided it is not what I want too strange and incomplete to use as is, too complex to implement my own also around same time at work lost interest in perl, and not much in python so more go for Assembly or Forth based projects, go lower level stuff 2005.04.30-05.01 Sat-Sun VCFe 6.0 with theme of making own interfaces to old computers Atari 800 guys showing USB interface, other speech on using 8051s rewoke interest in doing some hardware next year will be theme of building kits and own computers general interest in getting people back into hardware hacking 2005.05.05-08 Thu-Son LUG-Camp 3 projects soldering on stuff, AVR model car, MSP340 ergometer and Linux Xbox hackers doing Linux on WLAN routers, incl speech on it and reference to Linux on USB NSLU2 disk servers, colleague has one http://www.nslu2-linux.org/ both are just generic 200MHz MIPS or 266MHz ARM with Flash and SDRAM decided I really want to get back into hardware, after giving up PDP-10 remaining interest in Python fits with Blender use for LUGS movie project but later project terminated, so that interest has dropped, so time free 2005.05.31 Tue Karel Kulhavy (Ronja) posts link to open source board w ARM9 I just looked at not usable for me, because cache timing irregular, but nice NSLU2 competitor mention I am interested in high speed hard realtime for signal generating spawns multiple discussions of self brew hardware projects, incl mechanics and about DIP/PGA/2.54mm vs SMD parts and wired/wrap vs print construction 2005.06.05 Sun started this Logfile, collected dates from webcache, agenda, maillist archives 2005.06.08 Wed while on walk thinking about presenting hardware stuff at LUGS or LUG-Camp first do already intended "behind the compiler" talk about assembler&co then "programming IO using parallel port", leading then to microcontroller HW access, real time, replacable, smaller, cheaper, less power, less heat decided to first show IO with multiple interfaces on parport interfaces LED tester, 7-seg, keypad, Atari joystick, RS232, PS/2 read up on LPT, c't 88-6p166 article, and online collection http://www.nondot.org/sabre/os/articles/CommunicationDevices/ decided to first make parport modules and test on existing K6-2/350 system try first code under OS, then standalone on PC LPT/COM/PIT/PIC, load by LILO started file collecting module specs in file Parport_IO_Modules 2005.06.10 Fri read article on circuit building techniques http://www.geofex.com/Article_Folders/protostyles/proto_styles.htm his "perfboard plus" technique with solder-through wire is what I intend he also calls it "PCB minus", as good, slow for mass prod, but flexible 2005.06.12 Sun went looking for LED data, standard berightness is ??cd @ 20mA assuming TTL 2.4-5V and -0.7V for LED about 3V, so 150ohm TTL only -2.6mA (flowing in) given, no flowing out, but 30..130mA short http://www.b-kainka.de/bastel57.htm gives working down to 1/10 current, 2mA sensibly do test, but only OC 7406 and MOS 140xx chips laying around, grrr plus a few SMD TTLs (including 7402) soldered on an old board sensibly use 3 7406s and then LEDs up to 5V, but parport no power for them better go for low-power LEDs, are made for 2mA, for battery powered devices surfing what circuits for attaching 8 7-seg LEDs look like, kim-1, mpf-1 seems anything from transistor on display common, and just R on segments via transistor on both, and TTL drivers, up to special integrated chips 2005.06.13 Mon reworked and extended LED tester info, looked up drive capabilities also looked into problems with LED+R themselves driving inputs and with inverse signals really needing LEDs up to +5V, not to GND LED tester is not really an IO module, separate file LED_Tester now nothing parport any more in modules, rename to just IO_modules 2005.06.16 Thu plan get parts for parport LED tester, no Rs, few LEDs this saturday over weekend experiment/optimise R values, get Rs and rest of LEDs on monday then have tester ready for wednesday when going to LinuxTag 2005 2005.06.18 Sat went an got parts for experiments, extension lead, parport LED tester convert my Atari DB9 joystick back to 9pin, with separate 9->25 adapter 2005.06.19 Sun made 1.25m parport extension cable, length so usable for desktop keeping rest 50cm cable as spare, for shorter notebook cable wiring planned for least crossed wires, in file Extension_Cable while at it soldered wires onto power jack, for using 13.5V/1A power brick done measurements for TTL direct driving LEDs to GND needed R values far smaller then expected, 74LS00 red 270 yellow/green 270 actual parport notebook exactly the same, 386 not tested (but is a 74LS374) k6-2/350 pc worse, large internal resistance, lower doesn't get us much 2005.06.20 Mon made LED tester, wiring and LED arrangement planned in LED_Tester 4 LEDs fail to work (data4, paper-end, select, /reset) no time to rewire joystick back to DB9 with adapter before LinuxTag so temporarily fixed it, resoldered broken off wire (which soon broke again) 2005.06.22 Wed using joystick and LED tester in x64 (C64 emu) shows LEDs act as switches result that games think all 5 switches permamently activated another reason to change to joystick on original input-only status lines 2005.06.27 Mon wrote an small iopl()/outb()/inp() based parport utility, file parport.c allows random playing with port bits and pins from shell or scripts port select, register select, command line parsing, write/and/or/xor, input parsing, read, formatting, on line help, debug 2005.07.04 Mon split this project from an other project where it was a subproject Logfile is reduced version from there, other files some from there produced an Makefile for fast compilation/install added -u support for un-inverting hardware inverts, so data as user sees it generated first time .tar.gz file, via Makefile wrote an man page, extended Makefile to compress and install it while doing so also improved the -h online help 2005.12.05 Mon rewired joystick, back to orig DB9 (and no breaks any more, as proper plug) and separate DB9->DB25 adapter, usable with any Atari wired DB9 joystick for this Pin docu in Atari_Joystick, new and old parport pinout decided to stay with new pinout, as linear wiring, and leave Rs on DB25 DB25m + Rs from existing + DB9m, DB9f on joystick while at it mended LED tester, resoldered R with unreliable contact 2005.12.07 Wed noticed that control /outen is falsely inverted by -u, corrected it expanded -h with '^' on all inverted signals, like '*' on internal FFs in -h and man page put -u direct after -d/c/s options, fit together renamed -u un-invert -> undo-invert, no rename to -i invert-correct 2007.10.19 Fri noticed that this stuff was not put onto net, added to projects page 2007.10.24 Wed update cable and LED tester texts to be actually readable, in particular tester moved IO_Modules to Sketches as unlikely to ever be made, better do uC stuff 2007.10.29 Mon went through todo section, tidying up plans for final version started code tidy up, better comments, installation and helptext Makefile better installation and explicit file list, against random cruft C code, helptext and man page improved security warning text 2007.10.30 Tue various code tidy ups, renames, eliminated unused stuff, more error tests -u (uninvert) changed to -i ([pre-|un-]invert), as both directions use it always zero or set mask, no need to test flag when operation on data -w/a/o/x ascii add \ codes such as \000 and \n and \\ for special stuff -r variants -q only data, normal 0xPORT.R data, -v labeled as now normal data is with format identifier, such as 0 or 0x or 0b, no name + value factored out output generation into output(), only get format string in main() split -t sets type for output, -r only outputs -u usecond time wait between multiple -w/a/o/x updated man page to new possibilities and show some non-obvious already possible ones while testing noticed that -a/-o/-x on controlregister fail /outen this is a hardware design bug, updated relevant docs to warn users wrote an README, INSTALL, FAQ, index.html doing todo