Was given a Designjet 600. It should work, but have not tried it yet. Found the driver for it, got cables (too short) and will try to set it up this week. I have really wanted one of these for a while but have been hoping to get a free one.
We were given a Magellan Sportrak gps by my stepfather. He had a hard time making it useful for himself, mainly because of the menu system and the innate lack of functionality of the device for your average guy. It is about 3 or 4 years old and noticably dated. No SD card and only about 4 meg of memory onboard to upload maps to. He bought a new gps that should be easier to use and enjoy, and gave me his old one.
Of course I was very excited about this, I had been wanting one for quite a while but really had been put off by the cost to get something that was basically locked up by the companies making them. It sure seemed like they were preying on their customers by reducing the functionality of the devices in order to offer basically the same unit with the extra features for extra money, features that I thought should be in the basic units and for all practical purposes cost the makers little or nothing more, yet were cunningly held back for the sole purpose of squeezing more coin from their "Marks". When the features or functionality did reasonably cost more they appeared to gouging their customers where they could. The situation seems to have changed a bit. I think it is the competition that is out there now.
You are probably thinking, "if you think is sucks so much, you don't have to use one"
EXACTLY, and so I didn't for quite a while! Until I go a free one! I will point out that where there used to be just a couple big names, there are many now. Big names that are still big, but probably would have locked out much of the competition if they had not been so blatant with their contempt for their customers.
One example is that the software that they charge another $100 for is copy protected by not allowing you to run the program without having the data cd in the drive, and by licensing that does not allow you to backup the cds (as well as actually not allowing you to copy it). (also you have to buy the cable to connect your gps to your computer separately for $15 to $30 more) (Or make one like this guy)
Tough luck if you want to have the software on you laptop and it has a external cd rom drive that you don't want to lug around.
Anyway enough of that for now.
I decided that I would never buy Magellan software or products until they shaped up with this lousy attitude. Fortunately there is a bunch of competition eating into their butts. Also I can go to competing software products, which brings us to:
Freeware? There is freeware that will work with the Magellan but the two I have seen look like they are limited teasers for their for purchase only versions.
I have not tried them yet.
EasyGPS is touted as for geocachers etc, it is the freeware version for ExpertGPS http://www.easygps.com/resources.asp
GPS Utility from the UK, freeware with $55 registration fee to make the shareware version that gives much more functionality and usefulness. http://www.gpsu.co.uk/
FOLLOWUP Tried EasyGPS and it locks up on my computer. GPS Utility, will download the waypoints, and tracks. I was able to view the tracks and waypoints but didn't go much further. It is supposed to be able to import scanned images of maps, and scale them. That sounds neat but I didn't have a whole lot of time with it.
I got a AT&T BIS-34D. It was a in a whole pile of stuff I bought from a guy I see at TSs all the time. He was having his own TS to clear out space and gave me a great deal on the afore mentioned pile of stuff, he even gave me 2 AO spencer he-ne lasers (Model 3100) that he was going to bring to the dump because he was worried someone might hurt themselves with them. They can be dangerous because of the high voltage circuit and not just from the laser light.
As a side note the laser tubes probably wont work because of the age and construction according to this site (search for 3100). Interestingly the output is probably in the 2-2.5mw range which is fairly low by todays standards compared to LED lasers. They are more a novelty at this point.
I basically bought everything I was interested in a huge heap for a "get it out of my basement" price.
Anyway I got the phone because it had dozens of leds on it and S and N and I could take it apart and maybe make a blinky project or a led light sweeper out of the leds. I did notice that it had a LCD display but having taken a few devices with LCD displays apart, I didn't expect it to have a display I could use. This one proved me wrong.
I think you can probably find this display for pretty cheap, still I find it very cool to be able to take "junk" and find stuff that I can make things out of. The real fun is in making new things out of "junk".
I went back to figure out how I had made the LCD display work in May and I really had done a poor job, and had to re figure it out so I am going to try to make a better go of it this time.
Why was I happy to find this LCD? First, the Hitatchi HD44780 driver standard for LCD displays is well known, documented and works well with microcontrollers. It takes 4 output pins if you can spare them. I use picbasic pro and it uses a command called LCDOUT that will send text you put in "" to the lcd.
Look under LDCOUT for the description in melab's manual for more detail, or the code at the end of this post:
These are the settings in IC Prog I used. IC Prog is the application that I use to program the PIC, the settings are important for the oscillator and fuses. I am using IntRC I/O which is the setting to use to specify the internal oscillator.
This is a video of the lcd running. Not my best work but gets some of what I was trying to document across.
The picbasic pro code I am using is basically the lcdout demo code.
'***************************************************************************** '* MICROCODE STUDIO TIPS * '* * '* (1) : To get context sensitive help, move your cursor to a PICBasic * '* : command and then press F1. * '* (2) : Program assumes the PIC is running at 4MHz. To change the default * '* : setting (for example, to 20MHz) simply add DEFINE OSC 20 at the * '* : top of your program. * '* * '* This sample program is supplied courtesy of microEngineering Labs Inc * '*****************************************************************************
' PicBasic program to demonstrate operation of an LCD in 4-bit mode ' ' LCD should be connected as follows: ' LCD PIC ' DB4 PortA.0 ' DB5 PortA.1 ' DB6 PortA.2 ' DB7 PortA.3 ' RS PortA.4 (add 4.7K pullup resistor to 5 volts) ' E PortB.3 ' RW Ground ' Vdd 5 volts ' Vss Ground ' Vo 20K potentiometer (or ground) ' DB0-3 No connect
Pause 500 ' Wait for LCD to startup
loop: Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen ' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display Lcdout "Greeting" ' Display Hello lcdout $fe,$c0,"s Human" 'Display second half of 1x16 line Pause 1500 ' Wait 1.5 second
Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen ' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display Lcdout "We Come in Peace" lcdout $fe,$c0,"in Peace" Pause 1500 ' Wait 1.5 second
Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen ' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display Lcdout "WEAPONS POWERING" lcdout $fe,$c0,"POWERING" Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second
Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen ' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display Lcdout "*" Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second
Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen ' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display Lcdout "WEAPONS POWERING" lcdout $fe,$c0,"POWERING" Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second
Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen ' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display Lcdout "**" Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen ' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display Lcdout "WEAPONS POWERING" lcdout $fe,$c0,"POWERING" Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second
Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen ' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display Lcdout "***" Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen ' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display Lcdout "WEAPONS POWERING" lcdout $fe,$c0,"POWERING" Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second
Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen ' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display Lcdout "****" Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen ' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display Lcdout "WEAPONS POWERING" lcdout $fe,$c0,"POWERING" Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second
Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen ' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display Lcdout "******" Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen ' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display Lcdout "WEAPONS POWERING" lcdout $fe,$c0,"POWERING" Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second
Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen ' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display Lcdout "*******" Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen ' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display Lcdout "WEAPONS POWERING" lcdout $fe,$c0,"POWERING" Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second
Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen ' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display Lcdout "********" Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen ' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display Lcdout "WEAPONS POWERING" lcdout $fe,$c0,"POWERING" Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second
Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen ' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display Lcdout "********" lcdout $fe,$c0,"*" Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen ' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display Lcdout "WEAPONS POWERING" lcdout $fe,$c0,"POWERING" Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second
Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen ' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display Lcdout "********" lcdout $fe,$c0,"**" Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen ' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display Lcdout "WEAPONS POWERING" lcdout $fe,$c0,"POWERING" Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second
Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen ' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display Lcdout "*" Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen ' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display Lcdout "WEAPONS " lcdout $fe,$c0,"FAILURE" Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second
Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen ' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display Lcdout "*" Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen ' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display Lcdout "WEAPONS" lcdout $fe,$c0,"FAILURE" Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second
Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen ' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display Lcdout "*" Pause 1500 ' Wait .5 second Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen ' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display Lcdout "UH OH" Pause 1500 ' Wait 1.5 second
Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen ' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display Lcdout "WE COME" lcdout $fe,$c0,"IN PEACE" Pause 2500 ' Wait 2.5 second
Got this book, "Making Things Talk" by By Tom Igoe. Split the cost with Pete, he had it first and when I got it I asked him if it was any good. He said "yeah" in a kinda noncommittal way and would not elaborate. I think maybee he didn't read it or the monkey on the cover intimidated him. I really don't know. Anyway it was recommended on the sparkfun.com site and I like the site and the tutorials have been good and I respect the guys that do the site so if they recommended this I thought that meant something. I just started reading it and it is interesting so far. It is about interfacing electronic stuff (hardware objects) to this and that. Like controlling stuff with your computer and wireless networks, but cool. I will know more after I get into it. What I really want to do is make stuff that communicates with my computer and controls things.
Made a "Cylon Eye" Led Sweep circuit last night. It is basically the one from http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/CylonOLantern.
Did a bunch of point to point soldering, it was fun for the novelty of it. I won't bother describing it in detail because it is very well explained by the the evilmadscientist link and the 555 and 4017 IC data sheets.
