Electronics much?

[Supernova]

I was just wondering (as I know there are several software nerds lurking around) if anybody here liked to fiddle with anything more on the hardware side of things.*

I bought a little LCD screen the other day, and got a little bored during this afternoon's triple lecture on data structures in the programming language "Scheme". So, having made my little lcd screen take text and output it I figured there were better things I could be spending my time with.

I give you...
Two player LCD Pong.


Using the "screen" command in a console I can have two people playing pong via my laptop using W and S for player 1, and O and L for player 2.


Note: forgive bad wiring, I didn't have enough room on this breadboard!

Powered by USB, sending data as two bytes over serial, the circuit uses an atmega168 with an FTDI chip (in the form of an arduino nano) using a modified LiquidCrystal library (the original didn't support 4 rows, only 2 ) to control the LCD (HD44780 compatible).


For a next project, I'm looking into persistance of vision.
Yes, I get bored easily

Anybody else with anything similar that I can steal ideas from?

* Next fiddling with hardware joke I see gets it's owner stabbed.

[S.COREA]

i saw one of those ee pcs in bestbuy the other day, those things any good?

ill most likely never use a desktop replacement laptop, if i ever get one its for mobility, which is exactly what that thing looks like i specializes in.

[heavy_the_hobbit]

Works make Hobbit's brain hurt. Make it stop!
lol jk. That's awesome Nova!

[Fester]

Nice Nova tasty and fun at the same time

[Toco]

im impressed nova seems i havent given u enough credit, i saute ur skillz

[Jonnywhy]

i saw one of those ee pcs in bestbuy the other day, those things any good?

ill most likely never use a desktop replacement laptop, if i ever get one its for mobility, which is exactly what that thing looks like i specializes in.

It's "Eee" btw...depends what you want to use them for, they're really light and wifi is a doddle on them. Very useful for using open office on as well. Depends if you think they are worth the price or not (I think the original versions are £160).

[Supernova]

Well, for the laptop I use it for taking notes in lectures (read: browsing the internets), and I do all my programming coursework on it (Java, C, C++) and programming non-coursework on it (Java, PHP, Wiring/Processing/Arduino). It's very useful to just be able to plonk it on a desk during free gaps between lectures and not have to find a computer to do my work. Also, I did a bit of travelling around the south of england this summer with an australian friend and it was really useful for browsing cheap bus tickets and letting her email her family whilst we weren't at home. Battery life on the new EEE PCs is about 7 hours which is pretty good as well.
It's also really useful when I need to demonstrate a program running to my lecturer without having to log onto a computer and bring them over - i.e I can just turn up to their office and get it marked.

What it's good for:
* Portability
* Much lower cost than a modern laptop
* Size
* Weight - I just carry mine around in a little backpack bag type thing and it's not realy noticeable.
* Battery life is decent
* Good connectivity (although mine doesn't have Bluetooth connectivity, the newer ones do)
* SSD drive makes writing / access speeds fast (not all "ultraportable pcs" have this, so check first)
* The backlight on the eee pc dims down to completely off which most laptops don't do (they only dim to maybe 1/2 brightness) which is good for battery life
* SD cards expand your storage capabilities - my eee pc has 20gb worth of hard drive space + an 8gb sd card.
* The OS that came with it booted into a useable desktop in 25-30 seconds.

What it's bad for:
* Lots of typing - I'm used to hammering away at my keyboard, so the small keys and soft presses (not much "action" in the keys as they don't press down very hard) makes my hands hurt after a while.
* Any processor intensive anythings - Ya won't be doing no 3DS max now ya hear?
* Things that need large screens (my display resolution is 1024*600)
* Low storage space - no mp3 / video collections please
* SD card write speed is so goddamn slow (due to the card, not the laptop)
* HD video - normal dvd is fine to play (divx, avi, mp4) but if you try decoding HD video it just doesn't like it.
* It doesn't have a CD Drive

And operating systems wise, I originally installed Ubuntu 7.10, used it for 4-5 months then wanted to try XP (8.10 was being released, figured I'd do a clean install and might as well try XP) and it was *horribly* slow on my 900mhz celeron CPU. Ubuntu seems to be much more optimised for lower spec computers (XP isn't really a processor heavy OS, doing one thing at a time was fine, but for instance running an installer, having firefox open and copying some files slowed it down a fair bit).
If you're looking into getting one then take a look at the Acer Aspire range - I have a friend with one which runs XP fine, and is currently running the latest beta of Windows 7.
If you're looking into a low cost laptop that does a little bit more processor wise then have a look at the old IBM thinkpads as well, as they're pretty cheap nowadays, though comparative in specs to the newer eee pcs / aspires.

[MountieXXL]

I got myself a HP nc4010 sub-notebook about a week ago... its cheap since its an old model, good keyboard, all the gimmicks like SD-Slot, WLAN and Bluetooth + beats netbooks in performance and screen size while still being very compact and easy to carry.

[BBloke]

Nice post Nova. I'd opt for an Eee with an Atom processor if you want a bit of power. Although they come with a price tag. I've seen laptops with some nice features in Currys for £250. Widescreen jobbies that have been worth an interest so if size is what you are looking for then that could be something to look at. Currys that is.