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Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Fwd: $25 Linux PC 'Raspberry Pi' to Go in Production Early Next Year ~ Ubuntu Vibes

Sunday, December 25

$25 Linux PC 'Raspberry Pi' to Go in Production Early Next Year

Much awaited credit card size $25 computer Raspberry Pi is about to go in production early next year. First run beta devices are currently being tested. If all goes well, you will be able to purchase it in January.

If you don't know, Raspberry Pi can plug into your TV and a keyboard. It can be used for many of the things your desktop PC does, like spreadsheets, word-processing and games. It also plays high-definition video. The device will come with an ARM processor, a USB hub, an HDMI out, a 3.5mm jack and will support Linux out of the box.

Debian, Fedora and ArchLinux will be supported from the start and more distributions will be added later on.

Go there and See Video in Page too...

http://www.ubuntuvibes.com/2011/12/25-linux-pc-raspberry-pi-to-go-in.html

The Raspberry Pi is one little Board - Computer that I am really looking forward to!:) I would love to experiment with different light weight Linux Distros on it. It has Video Outputs for TV's (Composite Video or RF, not sure) and HDMI too. And since it already has been tested with Fedora Linux. I would be right at home, setting up a PC or maybe a Media - TV Watching PC with the Raspberry Pi!:)

Don

Raspberry Pi presents the $25 PC at ARM TechCon 2011

Video Link...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=X9cmxoSmOxU

Uploaded by Charbax on Oct 26, 2011

They plan mass production and deliveries by January of the $25 ARM Powered PC. It's basically a Broadcom ARM11 based SoC on a PCB with USB host, Ethernet, SD Card slot and a HDMI output.

Category:

Science & Technology

License:

Standard YouTube License

Raspberry Pi $25 PC: Raspberry Pi Foundation; YouTube - Raspberry Pi - the £15 computer; Questions remain over $25 Raspberry Pi - TECH.BLORGE.com

by Nitesh Labels: ARM, Hardware, Linux, Raspberry Pi

Sunday, January 8, 2012

FreePlay 555 Coin Circuit | Zitt's Blog

FreePlay 555 Coin Circuit

Posted on January 5, 2012 by Zitt

My Sega Star Trek Captain’s Chair is destined to be present at the 2012 Texas Pinball Festival. As a result; the game needs to have a FreePlay feature (IE a way for the public to play the game without needing quarters). I know Sega Star Trek has a freeplay rom hack available; however, at this moment, VectorLabs isn’t supplying freeplay roms with their devices. I haven’t spent enough time with the multi-vector boardset to determine how easy/hard it would be to convert to Freeplay. As a result; I wanted a simple inexpensive way to credit up the machine when the user pressed the Start button (1UP).

I toyed with the idea of using a cheap 8pin ATMEL microcontroller; but decided a simple 555 timer could be developed to do most of the heavy lifting. In the end I decided to go with a dual 555 timer (NE556) in a cascaded mono-stable configuration. The circuit features:

PowerOn Reset to “credit up” a single credit when power is applied to the machine. Jumpered feature.
Ability to drive COIN_NO signals
Ability to “interrupt” COIN_NC
Can be alternatively stuffed for AC power supplies (6.3VAC GI circuits in Pinball Coindoors).
Jumper configuration to “disable” circuit.
Barrier Diodes to help prevent “installation error”.

I have decided to release this design under to the public under the TAPR Non-Commercial Open Hardware License which indicates:

You may make products based upon this design, provided you do not make more than ten units in any twelve month period for your personal use.

Schematics...

Read More...
http://pinball-mods.com/blogs/?p=155

Sounds like a great way to go. Now if I just had that Elvis Pinball Machine, that my Sisters family had, back when the kids were growing up... I was allot of fun to play, when we would get together on the Holidays:)

Don

Using 555 timers to add “free play” functionality to classic arcade machines: Using 555 timers to add “free play” functionality to classic arcade machines - Hack a Day; FreePlay 555 Coin Circuit | Zitt's Blog

Friday, January 6, 2012

Constellation

About Constellation

Constellation is a platform for research projects that use Internet-connected computers to do research in various aerospace related sciences and engineering. You can participate by downloading and running a free program on your computer.

Constellation is supported by

Rechenkraft.net e.V. (German)
DGLR Stuttgart (German)
Selfnet e.V. (German)
shack e.V. Hackerspace Stuttgart (German)

Server is powered with Dotsch_UX operating-system and apps will use Java and still to be announced programming and scripting languages.

Constellation Details

Constellation is a platform for all kind of aerospace related simulation. Currently we are working on ...

TrackJack: trajectory optimization of launchers, satellites and probes (subtask for DGLR-Group HyEnD - Hybrid Engine Development)
On The Moon: simulation of Moon's near-surface exosphere
Extreme Machine: analysis of dynamic systems of exploration-rovers

If you want to join our development team or if you have an simulation idea just contact us!

For further information visit About Constellation

News

How to be involved? Overwhelming 28c3 response
Hi everyone,

we received some emails after the 28c3, where you asked us how to be involved.

There are quite some ways.

A:
You can participate in the distributed ground station network and help building it. There is a special email list constellation@lists.shackspace.de

B:
You can propose your own project and we would love to let it run on Constellation. So when you need massive computing power for your aerospace simulation or want to build your own sensor grid, just ask us via email (constellation@aerospaceresearch.net) or in our forums.

C:
Or you can just be generous and passively donate your idle PC time to our project by joining it. This project uses BOINC. If you're already running BOINC, select "Attach to Project". If not, download BOINC.
When prompted, enter http://aerospaceresearch.net/constellation/ .

So there are some ways to do some good for the (science) community, you just have to pick one.
We're really eager to receive more comments.

And here are some FAQs http://shackspace.de/wiki/doku.php?id=project:hgg:faq

What an overwhelming response to our project presentation on 28c3. THANK you, but you have to thank yourself, because it's the community that makes this platform run!

Questions?
Just send us an email, follow us on twitter.com/ARDNnews, like our site on facebook.com/AerospaceResearch.net

Andreas 31 Dec 2011 13:01:30 UTC · Comment

Read More...
http://aerospaceresearch.net/constellation/

Cool Project!:) I use to run BOINC for SETI@home at Home and a couple of Health Research Projects on Rosetta@home. It was easy to setup on a Windows XP System. This was long was long before I go into Linux OS's, which I have been running exclusively for 6 years now... Fedora and Debian are my favorites. I believe I tried out BOINC for Linux a few years ago, if I remember fight. But, I have been running my Web Sites on a Home Server for a couple of years now and can't spare the Band Width for BOINC right now. I think this would be an interesting Project to add to BOINC if you are running it though...

Don