I ran across this nice Image Viewer called...appropriately enough, ImageViewer.  It's got a nice interface and does things the standard winblows inage viewer won't do.  Here's his blog/development page.  He's even open to ideas, so if you think of a feature it needs he'd appreciate you mentioning it.  Here are a couple small screen captures (you can see the big ones on his blog).

With brand new chips a whole lot of problems are ruled out.  After having some odd issues with a clock project...

...I finally figured that it might be a good idea to test on another breadboard.  Apparently that was an issue.  Then, because I had an issue with the speed of the onboard clock I checked the datasheets and found the issue...but in checking for that I realized that in my software (ponyprog) the fuse bits are for some reason read...INVERTED.  Explains the funky behavior I've had on other projects.  So anyway, I've got my new chips...I've got the test chip here set up (I think) to run at 16mhz with it's internal clock...so I think I'm good to go. 

Well, after fiddling around for a while and thinking about various methods, I finally settled on using a single timer compare interrupt that points to a jump vector (INC R30/IJMP, and the last routine it jumps to resets R30 to the first vector again.)  Basically all this code does is accumulate ONE morse code into a byte.  Next I guess I need to work on talking to the PC's keyboard port and just have the one interrupt send it to the buffer for sending to the keyboard.  I'll also look into it using the mouse port and maybe some special codes to deal with mouse X/Y.  This is of course assuming I don't just get tired of screwing with it...curse this lazy streak of mine :D

And now...I'm going to take a nap...hopefully this post isn't full of errors because I'm too tired to go back over it.  Poit out...

WOW, THAT was annoying.  So in order to do a current and man future projects...I decided I should "learn" how to use the AVR timers.  But the datasheets are kind of...long winded.  I mean they're REALLY long.  Consider this, the 16bit timer I was looking at has four 16bit registers.  One's the timer it's self, that's a no-brainer.  It counts.  The other 16bit registers just hold values that are used to compare to that counter.  That's pretty straight forward too.  Next, there's a byte that holds the interrupt flags that make the processor do something special when say... the timer equals one of the counters...AND, a "mask" byte that's used to turn on/off the processor's attention to those flags.  By the way, the interrupt/mask take up 2 pages in the datasheet.

Core2Duo: Well, I finally got a Core2Duo (E4300).  WOW!  It only manages about 2.5ghz and at that speed it's about 70% faster than my old P4 dual core.  I'd been worried that I might not even get the bus speed up to 1066 (standard for the E4300 is 800mhz) but yay, got a bit over.I still need to get new RAM and a PCI Express video card to shed the last of my legacy hardware of course.  On the bright side, when I do I'll probably get nearly 1ghz more out of the CPU.  It's amazing how fast C2D's can go.  AMD has just been obliterated.  About the best you can get an Athlon X2 to do is 3ghz, maybe 3.2-3.3 if you get a really good one.  Lots of the C2D's on the other hand hit 3.3ghz, a few managing 3.7 or more with good cooling.  That would be impressive enough by its self, but the C2D also does 33% more instructions per clock cycle than the AMD.

Well, I'm sick and tired of this crazy bullshit with bots trying to create new users on my blog.  WHAT THE FUCK???  So that's it, nobody can even apply.  You want an account, you ask me (not that the site has ever been about getting comments from anyone).

 As for the TV output stuff...slowly working out how I want to do it.  I'm probably going to try to actually sell the stuff when I'm done so...there won't be any guides or code.

 And for a nice random thought.  It's pathetic to see people failing repeatedly to make a pretty simple device.  We don't need devices that are SPECIFICALLY ebooks.  most people don't need freaking palmtops.  What we are in dire need of (if people want to move to a "paperless office") is a plain device without a lot of bells and whistles.  A reasonably sized pad with pen input, black and white graphics and in one of several sizes that are generally similar to the PAPER we use now.  We need a 8.5x11ish sized pad, we need a 8.5x14 sized pad, we need a 6x9ish sized pad...and we need folding, double screen versions of those devices.  The designers need to work on core functionality to start with.  YOU WRITE ON IT!  It doesn't translate your handwriting, it just stores the writing. You can doodle on it like a normal notepad.  You can turn virtual pages with a simple flick of your finger across the bottom or to...and it can display, transport and do only very basic editing of documents.  Make them cheap and simple and people will actually use them in offices.  Otherwise $1 notepad will beat out your $200, 3x4 inch palmtop screen every time.

Just a quickie update.  Lately I've been trying to output a video signal from an MCU.  I finally wrote (from scratch) a piece of code to do it.  Took a lot of tinkering.  I'm not sure if it'll work with other TV's.  But hey, the important thing is I finally got it working.  Anyway, here's a pic

Since it's been downloaded a couple hundred times from some external link, I thought I'd "officially" post this demo someone sent me.  It's really amazing what it does in just 170k.  So download debris.exe and check it out.

...and the file is apparently from here (lots of cool...and very small...demos)

Someone sent me a link to a conspiracy theory page.  At some point I got around to the standard World Trade Center, building 7 thing.  Let me point out...nothing says conspiracy theory like having building 7 collapse.  Of course, most of you probably misunderstood that.  Let's just go over the basics real quick.  So far as most Americans are concerned, buildings 1 and 2 were all there was to the world trade center.  Most people probably didn't even know there was anything aside from the towers.  Even if they did, the towers were the only remarkable part.  Now, there's no problem for most people in seeing that a jumbo jet full of fuel can fuck up a building.  Sure, there are people who mistakenly think steel shouldn't melt (and I'm looking at you Rosie)...I mean what, you think it stays at 100% of it's strength right up to the melting point and then suddenly turns to liquid?  Steel gets weaker as it heats up.

Well, nothing much has been going on lately.  I've got an external drive enclosure for one of the little hard drives I have laying around, a fairly good heatsink, a gigabit ethernet adapter so all the computers are back on gigabit...but that's about it.What I'm waiting for is the next Core2Duo processor.  I'd THOUGHT that the E4300 would be the chip I was waiting on.  Turns out it's not really supposed to be a "bargain" chip, just a reasonably priced one.  By the way, if you're looking for a CPU with high overclocking potential, the Intel E4300/E4400 are a great way to go.  Sure, they're kind of "wimpy" at 1.8 and 2.0 ghz respectively but that puts them at about the same speed as a dual, 4ghz P4...and with a lower bus speed they're ideal for overclocking.  Just bumping them from 800mhz to 1066mhz (standard bus speeds) nets you 2.4ghz and 2.66ghz respectively.