In post https://www.henriaanstoot.nl/2022/11/25/disk-troubles-or-missing-old-skool-hardware/ i mentioned the serial connectors i’ve bought to connect the Laser XT to my Workstation to transfer files.
The null modem i’ve made is like mentioned on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_modem
I’ve used the loopback handshaking using 3 wires. ( Only using a DB25 and a DB9 on the other end )
So i configured the Linux side as follows.
I’ve tried two usb to serial converters.
Both when trying on windows 10 are not supported any more
Dec 14 17:34:40 zspot kernel: [ 1082.299607] usb 1-4: pl2303 converter now attached to ttyUSB0
sudo stty -F /dev/ttyUSB0 9600
Then i start dosbox. To enable a com port i have to enter:
serial1=directserial realport:ttyUSB0
Starting Norton Commander and selecting COM1
After a few seconds i got this ..
What else is there to check? At least i’ve still got the Flux Engine!
I never look in the mirror, so why do i need one? The mirror foil was already ugly in the corners. There were bumps. Never finished a proper interface
This one was made using a touch screen, so there are always fingerprints you could see
I’m going to use the display for an in-house small Escape Room idea i have.
Only the time part still worked, but i could not find the right cables for the touch part. The buttons displayed are meaningless anyway 🙂 Just a mockup
Mirror part was done using a Safety/One way mirror foil. Cut a part as large as you screen, spray a little water and stick it on.
At some point i displayed Dashticz on there. Apparently i started playing with a magic mirror setup in 2015, according some timestamps of code on my fileserver.
I wanted to learn Bella Ciao on my Concertina. I find the sound of the Concerina fitting the tune. So i used vi and conversion tools to create a pdf for my concertina tunebook.
(While being popular nowadays because it was used in La Casa de Papel (Money Heist). It has a interesting history) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bella_ciao
X:
T: Bella Ciao
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
K:C
Zz EAB | cA-A z EAB | cA-A z EAB | c2 BA c2 BA |
e2 e2 eede | ff-f2 z fed | | fe-e z edc | B2 e2 c2 B2 |
A4 z z de | ff-f2 z fed | fe-e2 z edc | B2 e2 c2 B2 |
w: "repeat\ from\ beginning"
A4 z EAB | cA-A z EAB | cA-A z EAB | c2 BA c2 BA |
e2 e2 e2 de | ff-f2 z fed | fe-e z edc | B2 e2 c2 B2 |
A4 z EAB | cA-A z EAB | cA-A z EAB | c2 BA c2 BA |
e2 e2 eede | ff-f2 z fed | fe-e2 z edc | B2 e2 c2 B2 |
A4 z ede | ff-f2 z fed | fe-e2 z edc | B2 e2 ^f2 ^g2 | a4 Zz |
I’ll probably automate this, for example include this in the tunebook generator. Something like : “If abc file in subdir create pdf to include”
# Reads every file in abcsources and writes filename.pdf in current directory
ls abcsources/*abc | while read abc ; do abcm2ps -x -O - "$abc" | ps2pdf -sPAPERSIZE=a4 - "$(echo $abc | cut -f2 -d/ | sed 's/abc/pdf/g')" ;done
These are my lists, but i’m open for discussions/questions Work in progress
Actors
Tom Hanks
John Lithgow
Dennis Lee Hopper
Jack Nicholson
Clint Eastwood
Dustin Hoffman
Rutger Hauer (RIP) .. see “De kijk van Koolhoven” why
Art
H.R. Giger
M.C. Escher
César Manrique
Comics ( Details from André Franquin, Dark Humor Koen Hottentot, Don Lawrence, Don Martin ) to name a few, they are spot on
One of my comic collections – Don Martin
Classical Music
Paganini
Ludovico Einaudi
Composers
Ennio Morricone
Hans Zimmer
John Williams ( with a remark ) Some of the Starwars Suite was taken from already existing music ( See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN3vl-JnUF8 ! ) Gustav Holst – The Planets Suite – Mars part for example
Folk/pipers (composers)
Gordon Duncan (RIP)
Fred Morrison
RS MacDonald
Paddy Keenan
A (bad) comic i drew about Gordon Duncan in 2012
Opera
Bands (non folk)
Rammstein – I know, seems like a obvious populair choice. But hear me out.
I like classical till metal. But it has to be musically interesting.
Most (non-german) people don’t listen to the lyrics, i did not either. I found the music okay. Then i started to listen to the lyrics.
The lyrics are surprisingly deep. Layers in the text, word jokes like: Du… (you) Du hast… (you have, but sounds like hasst .. You hate) Du hast mich… ( You have me, or sounds like you hate me) Du hast mich… Du hast mich gefragt… (You have asked me)
Although people think they are fascists or far-right. Coming from the punk scene, they are kind of the opposite.
Everything they do has a meaning, but sometimes you can “paste” different stories about the song.
Listen to Ohne Dich, and then see the Music Video.
Have a good listen to Germany, and Man gegen man. There are others better in explaining .. see:
And a AI generated Music Video .. perfectly matching the Lyrics
Bonus: Check out this YT channel, all kinds of musicians .. transcripted (is this a word?) by this dude.
I previously had these smartplugs flashed with EspEasy (I hate cloud enabled devices) I will post something about flashing these and others. Maybe … because you can find a lot of information on the internet. But i’ve used several tools, and made tools for this process. ( Raspberry Zero mobile tool and 3D printed PCB holder for example)
Well ..
I was using these devices in our previous home using curl commands and on a main wifi network. So i have to change the SSID and migrate from Espeasy to ESPhome so i can use these devices with Home Assistant.
Step 1 : Start in Access Point mode and migrate to my current Wifi Iot network.
Using my phone i made the necessary changes.
Goto HomeAssistant and ESPhome (you need to install this first via HACS) Press the green + Add device and give it a name
Next select the device type (Sonoff S20 in this case)
Press install and select manual download
Above will compile a binary for the Sonoff device.
Go back to your Sonoff interface and go to the tools tab. We can reflash the device without connecting this with wires to our computer.
Press Firmware load and select your downloaded binary
Back in HA it should say “online”
Pressing edit gives us a config page. Nothing works .. yet We need to add some yaml entries. ( use https://esphome.io/devices/sonoff_s20.html )
binary_sensor:
- platform: gpio
pin:
number: GPIO0
mode:
input: true
pullup: true
inverted: true
name: "Sonoff S20 Button"
- platform: status
name: "Sonoff S20 Status"
- platform: gpio
pin: GPIO2
name: "Sonoff S20 Sensor"
switch:
- platform: gpio
name: "Sonoff S20 Relay"
pin: GPIO12
output:
# Register the green LED as a dimmable output ....
- platform: esp8266_pwm
id: s20_green_led
pin:
number: GPIO13
inverted: true
light:
# ... and then make a light out of it.
- platform: monochromatic
name: "Sonoff S20 Green LED"
output: s20_green_led
BeforeAfter
Now press install
Now we can use wirelessly to upload the config
After this the device can be discovered by HA
Click add, and use the encryption key found in the yaml config to add
And found this! The fluxengine https://github.com/davidgiven/fluxengine
An open source project using a small controller board. “Flashing” some software on the board and soldering a pinheader was easy. When connecting a flat cable and a floppy drive, you end up with a device which can read many formats. Including dos 1.44/720 and amiga.
Nice package it came in
Using the power from a sata/ide harddisk adaptor
Reading and writing a MSDOS disk, no problem. Imaging an amiga disk .. easy!
You need to compile some software, but it was well documented
For a while i’ve been using the wireless shelly button for all kinds of notifications. Most of the time i like to use it as a kind of alarm/need-help-now button.
The f*ckin’ awesome button i’m talking about (pictured above) is a small (45x45mm 16mm height) button, which can connect to your wifi and send MQTT messages. It even has a strap thingy to attach it to your keychain,
Four types of messages:
short press
2x short presses
3x short presses
and long press
When using pushover, you can push alarm and messages to your android (even overriding mute/silent if you configure it that way!)
Configuring the button: https://www.shelly.cloud/documents/user_guide/shelly_button_1.pdf
I have several ip cameras which monitor movement in and around our home.
I’m using Zoneminder and other home automation systems but i want to scan through a bunch of files uploaded by the security cameras to my secondary fileserver.
So what is interesting?
Major movement compared to a base image
Movement compared to a previous uploaded image
Setting a threshold when to output information (note the 65% mark)
Looking at the output we see: At 76% of the captured images (image 1438) the threshold was above 3000 and the minus gives us the information of the difference between this image and the previous, the X marks the difference between current image and the baseline. | percent | image number | filename | difference | graphbar
Bash script:
#!/bin/bash
threshold=3000
baseline=$( ls SDAlarm*jpg | head -1)
previous=$( ls SDAlarm*jpg | head -1)
total=$( ls *.jpg |wc -l)
echo "Number of files : $total"
nr=1
ls *jpg | while read; do
graph="....................................................................................................."
diff=$(compare -verbose -metric MAE $baseline $REPLY /dev/null 2>&1 | grep all | awk '{ print $2 }' | cut -f1 -d. )
prevdiff=$(compare -verbose -metric MAE $previous $REPLY /dev/null 2>&1 | grep all | awk '{ print $2 }' | cut -f1 -d. )
line=$( echo "100 / $total * $nr" | bc -l | cut -f1 -d.)
line=$(( $line + 1))
#echo -n "$line | $nr | $REPLY | "
#echo $diff
draw1=$(( $diff / 100 + 1))
draw2=$(( $prevdiff / 100 + 1))
graph=$(echo $graph | sed "s/./X/$draw1")
graph=$(echo $graph | sed "s/./-/$draw2")
if [ $diff -gt $threshold ] ; then
printf "| %4s %% | %3s | %30s | %5s | %102s \n" $line $nr $REPLY $diff $graph
fi
nr=$(( $nr +1 ))
previous=$REPLY
done
Want to see only difference with previous image?
change:
if [ $diff -gt $threshold ] ; then into if [ $prevdiff -gt $threshold ] ; then
"If something is worth doing, it's worth overdoing."
