Entries tagged 'author:steeph+lang:en' (Page 23)

Project Idea And A Little Story: High Power PC Cooled Completely Passively With Heat Pipes And A Large Surface Aluminium Case And My First Online Post Ever

Entry created on 2021-06-02 Authors: steeph (376) Categories: Bulletin Boards (2) CPU Cooler (2) CPUs (5) Case Modding (11) Computer (78) Cooling (2) DIY (17) Heatsinks (2) Personal (13) Projects (41) Useless Memories (5) Languages used: en (257) Topics: Projects → Case Modding (9) Projects → Ideas (8) edit

Here is another project idea that I'll probably never realise. It's not really an ingenious idea or a new concept. But there is a reason for why I can't forget about it.

In the very early 2000s, when I started to tinker with PC cases and also made my first steps in web communities, I thought about how I could reduce the noise my computers made without running chips at dangurously hight temperatures or forgoing performance. I've read about heat pipes in some case modding community. And I thought why not take it to the extreme to move heat quickly not just to a larger heat sink than the CPU sockets could safely hold (Motherboards didn't have cooler brackets back then.) but to a heat sink or several heat sinks that cover the majority of the case's surface. When the first commercial CPU coolers with heat pipes came on the market, targetet at computer tinkerers, but still nobody in the community seemed to attempt to make a case with a huge heat sink on the outside of the wall to cool even a 2 GHz Pentium 4 with its 75 Watts TDP passively, I decided to register in a small case modding web forum and present my idea to see what might be wrong with the concept. I was actually younger 20 years ago than I am now and I had never before tried to get myself out there in such a way. I thought it was a rather good idea. But I wasn't sure how much surface and aluminium mass I needed and wether it was realistic to cool a powerful CPU passively that way. Trying to cool a Pentium 4 only passively sounds like a stupid idea after all.

So I created a post on said web forum that I've never read before, presented my idea and asked for opinions. I got a few answers and everybody seemed to think it was a stupid idea. One respondant didn't seem to get my idea but still seemed to think it was stupid. One person seemed rather friendly in comparison and asked if I could explain the idea in more detail. I felt bullied by the negative answers, I felt mocked by being inline quoted (which I don't think I had seen before) and I felt that my ideas were generally worthless since I wasn't one of those hobbyistic experts that actually know stuff and are able to answer questions asked in a web forum. So rather than explaining my idea in more detail as requested, I searched for a way to delete my post, didn't find one and asked in the same thread how I could remove it.

I didn't find the post when i searched for it a few years ago. Like most small web forums it has probably gone offline with nothing or almost nothing in a web archive. But with the experiece that I have today I suspect that I didn't explain my idea very well and the other forum members didn't realise that I was a very insecure child. I also realised many years later that it wasn't a bad idea. I even saw a computer case that implemented the same idea being sold at some point. I don't know if many people bought this. But at least somebody other than me seemed to think it made sense and could even be commercialised. This redeemed my idea in my mind and I started to think about making such a case again. But I don't have the need for high-power CPUs and didn't want to invest money into another project that I wouldn't ever finish once the initial exitement would be over by buying huge heat sinks and heat pipes. So I've added it to that huge imaginary list with projects that I like to would have done but likely wouldn't finish and conclude my decades long considerations and my decision to conclude them by writing this entry.

Done.

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SBWG 0.8.10

Entry created on 2021-05-24 Authors: steeph (376) Categories: Bash (31) Code (31) Computer (78) Linux (36) Projects (41) SBWG (18) Scripts (28) Software (53) Languages used: en (257) Topics: Projects → Code → Bash Scripts → SBWG (16) edit

So, I'm still making slow process with SBWG. I had more fun with it when I was out and implementing new features. But I find it important to finish version 1.0.0 with the currently defined set of festures and goals, which include finishing documentation, testing and code hardening, which are less fun for me.

I've always treated the third level of the version number (x.x.thisone) as a means to declare a new version done when I feel like having achived something. So today I declare version 0.8.10 as done. There really isn't much left to do to meet my milestones for v0.9.0. And from there on it will only be testing and possibly a little bit of code improvements to get to my set goals for v1.0.0.

I'm looking forward to this not only because I'll like the feeling of having achived a goal, but also it will mean that I'll be free again to introduce new features. I still have more ideas than necessary about what to do with SBWG.

But right now I'm enjoing the fact that I'm able to make myself believe that it's okay to move on as slowly as I want and let my colloquial executive dysfunction do its think without impacting my feeling of self-worth oo much.

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Project Idea: Liquid Clock

Entry created on 2021-05-24 Authors: steeph (376) Categories: Clocks (2) Projects (41) Water (1) Languages used: en (257) Topics: Projects → Ideas (8) edit

I've had a few ideas about unconventional types of clocks that could be built that don't work with the two well-known principles of a digital number display or an analogue display of rotating hands. I believe that with enough practice/training one could learn to read very different kinds of clocks by just looking at them shortly.

One of these ideas involves liquids. It's a quite unnecessarily complex way to display the time but it would probably be relatively easy to learn to read this one. I highly doubt that I will ever build a clock like this. So I'm writing down my idea in the hopes that I'll then be able to stop thinking about it every other day.

Without trying to be compact, the clock would be made of several pumps and transparent tubes mounted on a board. The main part of the display (the part you'd use to tell the time) would be three vertically oriented tubes mounted next to each other, each with an open top (or an air valve to keep dirt out). Below them there would be a small tank that contains a colored fluid. This fluid would be transported by a pump to one of the tubes at the top. One tube would display hours, one minutes and one would be used for seconds. At the full minute, the third tube would be emptied by the pump. Then a equal amount of the colored liquid would be pumped up the tube until the next minute is up and it's emptied again. The same principle would apply for the second tube: It slowly rises at a constand speed and is emptied at the full hour. You can image how the first tube would be filled. It would either be emptied every 12 or every 24 hours, which I would prefer.

On the board one could mark certain points of the tubes (like every hour the the first one, every minute for the second one, ...) to make it easier to tell the exact time.

There could be one pump and some valves to control with tube will get how much fluid. Or there could be three independent pumps, one for each tube.

That's actually a much simplified version of my initial idea. You could (at least in theory) build a closed loop that contains as little air as possible and does not have the risk of ingesting dirt over the time. In the reservoir/equalising tank there could be two separate fluids, e.g. red water and blue or transparent oil. Those two fluids would stay separated in the equalising tank and either of the fluids could be fetched at will by pumping from a low or high place of the tank. This way much more elaborate patterns could be created in theory. But if the board had a color with hight enough contrast to the fluids colour, that should be enough to be able to tell the time and it would be less error-prone to do it the simple way.

That's it. Unnecessary, never-to-be-built, just an idea.

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Bash script to burn your CPU easily

Entry created on 2021-05-16 Authors: steeph (376) Categories: Bash (31) CPUs (5) Code (31) Computer (78) Scripts (28) Software (53) Languages used: en (257) Topics: Projects → Code → Bash Scripts (23) edit

When making my own CPU cooler or testing some other stuff I sometimes need to create as high of a CPU load as possible. After typing while true; do true; done for the one-too-manyth time I finally decided to create an alias for that. But that didn't feel neat enough. So I made this simple Bash script.


#!/bin/bash

if [ "$#" -ne "1" ]
then
  echo "I need one argument and one argument only: Number of threads to start."
  echo "Hint: You have $(nproc) CPU cores."
  exit 1
fi

if [[ "$1" =~ ^[0-9]+$ ]]
then
  n="$1"
else
  echo "Argument needs to be a number: Number of threads to start."
  echo "Hint: You have $(nproc) CPU cores."
  exit 1
fi

trap "pkill -P $$; exit 0" SIGHUP SIGINT SIGTERM

while [ "$n" -gt 1 ]
do
  while true; do true; done &
  n=$((n-1))
done
echo "Started $1 threads to burn your CPU."
pidof -x "$(basename -- $0)"
while true; do true; done

Download

For a simpler script, you can also just use this three-liner without any arguments to stress all CPU cores:


#!/bin/bash
yeah() { while true; do true; done& }
threads=$(nproc)
for i in $(seq 1 $threads); do yeah; done

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Entry created on 2021-05-09 (edited 2021-05-15) Authors: steeph (376) Categories: Alcohol (1) Thoughts (73) Languages used: en (257) edit

I'm drunk. Sorry.

Edit: I hardly remember making this entry. But my guess is that I had a subjectively good reason. So I'm leaving it here even if I don't know what it is referring to. (I don't even know how sorry I was.)

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Bash script to quickly open and close a wifi hotspot

Entry created on 2021-05-15 Authors: steeph (376) Categories: Bash (31) Code (31) Computer (78) Scripts (28) Software (53) WiFi (1) Languages used: en (257) Topics: Projects → Code → Bash Scripts (23) edit

I needed a wifi hotspot to test some phones. So I looked up how to create one quickly and learned about nmcli. It wasn't quick and easy enough for my taste. So here is how I do it from now on.

The Bash script maintains only one connection (named quick-hotspot). You can't create multiple connections or access points with it. Not intentionally, but also not accidentally because you forgot that you still have a hotspot enabled from the last time you needed one. (I know I would at some point.)

Examples:


hotspot # Creates and enables a hotspot with a random name and a random 8-digit password.
hotspot down # Disables the hotspot if it was enabled.
hotspot ⊿ⴼͳΞⵖⵡ∃ doctorwho # Creates and enables a hotspot with the SSID "⊿ⴼͳΞⵖⵡ∃" and the password "doctorwho".
hotspot . password # My use case: quick and short and I don't want to type a complicated password on the phones. SSID: ".", PW: "password"
hotspot down # Deactivates the hotspot regardless of the SSID you used.

If you activate a hotspot while one is already active, it just changes the SSID and password so that no two connections created by this script are ever active at the same time. I'm sure there already is a program that solves this better. But it was fun for me to create and I felt like sharing.

Click here to download the bash script.

Content:

#!/bin/bash

# Quickly create and activate a WiFi hotspot - optionally defining SSID and password - and deactivate it again when you don't need it anymore.

usage() {
  echo "Usage: $(basename $0) ssid passphrase"
  echo "       $(basename $0) down"
  echo "       $(basename $0)"
  exit 1
}

activate() {
  # If the connection "quick-hotspot" doesn't already exist...
  if ! nmcli connection show | grep quick-hotspot; then
    # ... then create it.
    nmcli connection add type wifi ifname '*' con-name quick-hotspot autoconnect no ssid "$ssid"
  else
    # ... else change the SSID of the existing connection.
    nmcli connection modify quick-hotspot ssid "$ssid"
  fi
  # Make the connection an access point
  nmcli connection modify quick-hotspot 802-11-wireless.mode ap 802-11-wireless.band bg ipv4.method shared
  # Change the password
  nmcli connection modify quick-hotspot 802-11-wireless-security.key-mgmt wpa-psk 802-11-wireless-security.psk "$pw"
  # Enable the connection
  nmcli connection up quick-hotspot
}

case $# in
  0)
    ssid=$(</dev/urandom tr -dc A-Z] | head -c8; echo "")
    echo "SSID: $ssid"
    pw=$(shuf -i 10000000-99999999 -n 1) 
    echo "PW: $pw"
    activate
    ;;
  1)
    if [ $1 == down ]; then
      nmcli connection down "quick-hotspot"
      exit 0
    else usage
    fi
    ;;
  2)
    ssid="$1"
    if ! [ ${#2} -ge 8 ]; then
      echo "$(basename $0): Password needs to be 8 characters or longer."
      exit 1
    else
      pw="$2"
      activate
    fi
    ;;
  *)
    usage
    ;;
esac

My Atrocities to Vintage Hardware and Software

Entry created on 2020-04-02 (edited 2021-05-15) Authors: steeph (376) Categories: Computer (78) Guilt (1) Hardware (16) Personal (13) Retro Computing (6) Retro Tech (6) Software (53) Vintage (3) Languages used: en (257) edit

I've thrown away a lot of stuff over the time that I mourn now. This is just to say: I'm sorry!

I feel bad when I think back and remember some things that I had collected, didn't value back then, but miss now. I had a lot of computer hardware that wasn't worth anything at the time. (Like 386 and 486 stuff in the 2000s.) I'd love to play with some of the stuff today sometimes. I think it was a waste to throw them out knowing that nobody will ever use them again. There was also an IBM PS/1 in good condition. That would be a very nice thing to own for a retro computer fan today. (It already was back then.) I also had years worth of c't magazines that I had a subscription for for a while. I had my reasons. I didn't have room to store so much stuff. But still. Maybe I could have kept just a few more things.

Even worse is that I've thrown away quite a few floppy disks with very rare software. The things I wrote back then are one thing. Nobody has a copy of these programmes I'm sure. The collection of Prologue OS software is another. Prologue was a French UNIX-like (yes, I said UNIX-like) OS for industrial applications. As far as I know there is no successor in development or still supported. It's a piece of computer history that, due to the relatively small regional spread, is not at the forefront of vintage software archives. In fact I've never seen any software for Prologue nor a version of the OS itself anywhere on the internet. The collection contained multiple versions of the OS from I don't know how long of a time span and a range of applications. The source code for many applications was also there (because of a familial connection to the author). At least some of the floppies likely contained the last copy in existence of software that was once very important in the daily work of some people.

I'm sorry!

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SBWG 0.8.9

Entry created on 2021-05-15 Authors: steeph (376) Categories: Bash (31) Code (31) Computer (78) Linux (36) Projects (41) SBWG (18) Scripts (28) Software (53) Languages used: en (257) Topics: Projects → Code → Bash Scripts → SBWG (16) edit

Lately I'm making only slow progress with SBWG. I'm determined to make this something that I'm comfortable with sharing as 1.0.0 online. Something that works and could arguably be called a somewhat finished peace of software. That doesn't mean that the todo list won't be huge at the point I change the version number to 1.0.0. But it should be in a relatively good state for what I've decided it will encompass at version 1.0.0. "Relatively" because it's still also a learning project and I would write many things differently if I started over, which means I'll have to rewrite them at some point to be satisfied with SBWG.

So, the goal and roadmap is set for v0.9.0 and v1.0.0 and a large part of what is still to be done is documentation and other things I don't enjoy doing as much as starting to implement new features. I'm holding back on working on things that are not on that roadmap so that I don't introduce new bugs and the need of further testing. First I want to improve what SBWG can already do.

That means that there won't be many interesting changes in the coming weeks (or maybe even months). Today I've decided to call what I've currently got version 0.8.9 and publish it on the project page.

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