It's been a long, slow winter. It's cold; that means I'm handling wood for the furnace, the opportunity for work is less, and it's just so cold to work on the trailer.
There are, however, two changes on the horizon:
1. New power supply. The old one was very strictly 12.0VDC, the new one should work from 6-30V, so the computer will be up while the power's off, and almost certainly part of the time after un-dock. I really look forward to exploring that.
2. Non-USB dongle for the sensor network. This means the process control stuff can run as a non-root user, making software packaging easier and more secure.
I'm really hoping to get to this, but today I have to scrounge up money for medicine. :(






I thought my daughter was kidding me when she brought home a turntable. Sure, we have a bunch of old records we really can't replace, but ripping vinyl to disk is costly and/or annoying.
Once you have an onboard computer, how do you make it connect with the outside world? That's the sensor network. The core technology is from Dallas Semiconductor and is called the "1-wire" system.