My third book is released! Learn what you'll need to know in order to become an embedded engineer.

Check out my second book; learn practical stuff about building robots and control systems around Linux PCs and the Atmel AVR.

My first book gives you all the intro you need on developing 32-bit embedded systems on a hobbyist budget.

Diary Segment: 2007, June 16-30

Entries are shown in chronological order; scroll down to see later material.

June 27, 2007

Once again, a long delay since the last update. A host of miscellaneous news, as usual. Probably most important is that I've really brought my workbench to a place I like. Besides the lab power supply, you can see my DSO (Tektronix 210; old but good), a 4MHz function generator, and a 500MHz spectrum analyzer. I also have my Tek 2445 4-channel analog scope sitting under the desk; I don't often use it these days. The shelves above my desk hold my emulators and a few components - again, I don't keep much in stock any more.

You'll observe the MacBook on the right-hand side of the desk; that's my latest piece of retail therapy. Apple certainly makes some nice machines these days. It's in a red Speck cover supposedly designed to ward off scratches; well, rest assured, this case is useless for that purpose, because it's made of hard plastic. Dust gets in between the computer and the housing and leaves you with a kind of sandblasted look on the computer exterior. Less than two weeks old, and the computer already shows signs of wear. It would definitely have been better off without the hard case.

No work has been done on the Scout since the last update. I have the intake manifold off the parts Scout and that's about as far as I've got. This is a bad situation, because now the elements are penetrating that spare engine. I need to zip it up as soon as possible.

Probably the only good news is that Elsevier has decided to republish excerpts of my first book in a new desktop reference series they're doing. Also, my PS3 arrived back safe and sound, but reinstalling Linux proved to be exceptionally difficult. I'm not sure what Sony broke, but I only managed to get it working again yesterday.