Hardware to run FreeDOS

In my earlier post, I stated that I intended to run FreeDOS directly on bare hardware, meaning, without virtualization.

Using the FreeDOS 1.3 Live CD, I tried a different systems at my disposal. Most modern ones failed, one way or the other.

An IBM 380Z laptop booted the CD fine, however, only the center of the screen was used. The system would work, however, the experience would be disappointing since the real estate of the screen is severely underused. The mouse-nipple, or however the red thing in the middle of the keyboard is called, worked find under FreeDOS.

My HP/Compaq nx6110 booted the live CD fine, screen fully used. The touchpad did what it was supposed to do, right away. This could be the perfect candidate for running FreeDOS on bare silicon. However, this laptop is my goto-PC for Debian/LINUX. So, for now. FreeDOS will live in qemu on this one.

Actually, the first hardware I tried FreeDOS on was one of my Acer ASPIRE ONE 110 netbooks. One that I had given an HDD years ago. Here is a link to a post on my RF related blog, concerning the HDD in the Aspire ONE netbook. To the time, I had not thought about an IT related blog, so, it was called "off-topic", seen the radio-frequency electronics content of my other blog.

Here is the netbook during the install of OpenWatcom FORTRAN on FreeDOS.

Acer ASPIRE ONE 110

The install files are on the USB thumb-drive on the right hand side of the netbook.
While the device is equipped with Ethernet, I had not set up or tested networking by the time of writing this post.
The touchpad on the Acer does not work with FreeDOS yet. I tried various options with the USB-mouse-driver, all of the attempts ended in crashes.

As a pure DOS computer, the netbook does a great job.
Several programming languages are available, through the FreeDOS-CD and also by installation using the USB thumb-drive and a USB floppy drive.
My old DOS version of Maple V runs just fine and so does a MathCAD student edition I happen to own.

Unfortunately, the Aspire ONE does is not fully supported in FreeDOS what APM is concerned. However, dictating processor speed does work fine.
I created the following aliases in fdauto.bat

alias slow=fdapm speed1
alias fast=fdapm speed8

Those commands set the processor speed to 1/8 and 8/8 (full) processor speed. In the case of the Aspire ONE, the native processor speed is 1.6GHz. Running the netbook at 1/8th of that, will still deliver a very decent 200MHz. This is plenty of fast for a DOS computer.

In fact, when editing code, I set my netbook to run at lowest speed. Only when I compile and run my programs, I will ramp the CPU up to max.

In conclusion, the Acer ASPIRE ONE 110 is the perfect DOS machine, I never was able to dream about.
In my nest post, I will compare the ASPIRE ONE to machines of that past, which I still own today.

Connecting JBL Flip 4 Speaker to a Chromebook

If you follow my other blog, you might know that I lately obtained a pair of JBL Flip 4 speakers. There were a few drivers behind that decision, first of all the sublime sound quality and secondly that a pair can form a stereo pair. While that was all find with my phone, my Chromebooks, while connecting, had troubles accepting the devices as audio sinks.

For convenience, I gave those things names, as this is possible in the JBL Connect App on Android. Maybe that was the cause of all troubles, I don't know.
The speakers, while working fine, refused to present the settings option on the JBL Connect App at some stage. Also, it turned out to be a hit and miss game when connecting the speakers up into a stereo pair.

So, I decided to reset the speakers to factory setting. This is done by pressing the "+" and "play" bottom, while the speaker is powered on, until the speaker powers off.
Of course, this removed my fancy naming scheme. Well, so be it!

As a result, the speakers are now recognized by my Chromebooks.
So, If you have trouble connecting your JBL speaker to a Chromebook, you might want to try to reset your speaker to factory settings.

As a side remark, you will still need your phone to setup stereo mode. Once that is done, you can connect with the Chromebook and enjoy a clean and neat stereo stage setup by really small Bluetooth speakers.

Reversing Distance Sensors

The previous photos clearly show one feature of the Vito van: no windows in the cargo part of the van. Well, yes, that's what I opted for in the first place. However, reversing is somewhat slow and one need to be extremely careful. The previous owner managed to get a severe dent in the right rear door.
Actually, even changing lanes also needs extra attention, but that's another topic all together.

Reverse parallel parking in front of my house is relatively easy, since I got a nice maple tree in my front yard, which is a perfect visual beacon when looking through the mirrors whilst reversing.
However, some more info would be such a good thing.

Hence, I decided to order an aftermarket distance sensor system. Initially I thought about a camera, however, there seem to be limitation to those cameras. So, a sensor system it is!

After having looked at tons of reviews, I decided go order a relatively simple one from conrad electronics:  Parking aid (corded) Rear acoustic, visual CE

The scariest bit was to drill the holes in the rear bumper. I wanted to remove for doing said task, however, I was unable to loosen the screws, hence, I did it blindly. And yes, I could have oped for marking everything properly and stuff... but that's not me. Holes are in, so so, but who cares?

The hardest thing turned out to find a route for the sensor cable to the inside of the vehicle. For now those cables are just routed from under the rear bumper, over the same and through the left rear door. 
I figure, I will just created a passage through the rear bumper as to better hide the cables. Never the less, those cable will be are routed between the rear door and the door frame.

Photographs will follow! So, stay tuned!

UPDATE:
The pictures I promised. The solution is not pretty, as stated above, but, it get's the job done!

the 4 sensors - the dent in the right door was achieved by a previous owner

cable routing - small hole in the bumper, right at the red electricians tape is

Your Own Cloud Server - Owncloud on a Low Power Server

Modern everyday "computing" (referring to computer usage) is done on low power devices, such as smartphones and tablet PCs.
 Many of such devices and their applications (aka apps) depend on the availability of "the cloud".
"The cloud" brings its very own challenges and difficulties. Many cloud service, in particular the gratis ones, claim ownership of the data given to them. In addition to that kind of problem, the space offered by such services is usually rather limited. Of course ... one can get more, when paying some sort of subscription fee. Fair enough...

However, there is an alternative: running your very own cloud service.

Let's take some considerations to design a system for a private cloud service:

1. low energy consumption
2. high capacity
3. availability
4. data safety
5. low cost
6. available clients

With the present technology, I figure one cannot obtain all the wishes with using just a single computer. However, I believe that a simple system can be set up to fulfill all the requirements of the considerations. Actually, I did just that, for my very own personal cloud.

And here is how I did it, and what I used.

The Cloud Server Hardware
For serving the personal cloud, a computer is needed that runs essentially 24/7. The power consumption of which will finally dominate the energy bill for the system. Also, I wanted this particular server to be really silent, since I do not have the space for a dedicated server room.
My decision was to go for an GigaByte BRIX with a Celeron N2807. This device is passively cooled, very cheap and takes 2.5" HDDs. I decided to give the BRIX 4GB of RAM and a 500GB TOSHIBA HDD, making it a very quiet little box with a decent capacity.

The Cloud Server OS & Software
For the OS I decided to go with ubuntu server 14.04.1 LTS. Ubuntu is not my first choice when it comes to operation systems, in particular due to the built-in spyware (e.g. Zeitgeist), however, when it comes to hardware compatibility, ubuntu is the leader of the pack. Using a contemporary device as the BRIX therefore urges for the decision to use ubuntu. Also, I think that stuff like Zeitgeist is not present on the server edition of ubuntu (not sure though). To make life easy, I use webmin on the headless server,
Turning towards the cloud server. I am aware of only one server for which cloud clients exist for essentially every system available: owncloud.
The documentation available for ubuntu server and owncloud is good enough, so that I wont comment any further.

Availability
That's a topic that splits in 2 easily.

1. the server needs to run 24/7, we already had that topic....
2. the server needs to be reachable from anywhere

For the second point I would like to point towards dynamic DNS.  Should you have your very own domain, this will of course not affect you. I use a dynDNS called noip, which is for free under certain circumstances.

Data Safety
Now we are touching a topic that is not as easy as it sound. How safe do you want your data to be? How much of your data do you need to be really safe?
Since I can't answer any of questions alike for anyone else but me, I would like to share my very own approach to the problem.
In my home, a file-server backs up all data on a RAIDZ (Zetabyte FS RAID). For the purpose I run a 6 core AMD FX6100 based, 4 x 1TB HDD machine. This particular machine, running FreeNAS, was originally housing my cloud-server. However, AMD processors are known for being somewhat power hungry, hence, this server runs a few hours a week only.
For data safety, I backup of all my computers, including the BRIX, on this file-server. Such backups can be easily configured for the cloud-server, using webmin (NFS is your friend!).

The Costs
Finally, the last topic. The BRIX is the cheapest computer I ever bought... I believe. In average this thing runs on 5 to 8 Watts.

Clients
Owncloud.org offers clients for Windows, OS-X and Linux for free.  Further, paid apps are available to connect Android and IOS devices to owncloud severs. There are some 3rd party Android apps available for free...

Conclusion
Running your own cloud service is an easy thing, which comes essentially for free. Volume is not an issue any longer, add as much space as you need! The BRIX comes with a USB3 port, hence you can plug as much storage as your heart desires into the device...



BIOS photos (BRIX)
on demand, I shot some photos (literally) of the BIOS settings I believe being relevant (no particular order):

I hope, those help...


UPDATE:
Wolfram Webers found that his BRIXs wont boot using ubuntu. However, Wolfram made a successful attempt installing CentOS7. Actually, I might just give that a try too! Thanks Wolfram!


UPDATE:
Wolfram Webers wrote on google+:
It was grub, of course. And here's my solution that works at least for Debian 7.8:

GRUB_DEFAULT=0
GRUB_TIMEOUT=5
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="crashkernel=auto vconsole.keymap=de vconsole.font=latarcyrh eb-sun16 rhgb quiet"
GRUB_TERMINAL_OUTPUT="console"
GRUB_DISABLE_SUBMENU=true
GRUB_DISABLE_RECOVERY=true

Again, thank you very Wolfram! I am sure that this help other who wish to build such a little own-cloud server.

Cheap Android Tablet Going Strong

Friday, September 16, 2011

Cheap Android Tablet Going Strong

Some time ago, I reported about a very cheap Android Tablet (from kijkshop), which I used regularly for this and that.
The table came with some port accessory, which holds two regular USB ports and an Ethernet connection. Writing this, I am presently using the tablet via Ethernet (thus no WLAN) with a wireless keyboard attached via USB for convenient typing. The port accessory actually seem not to have functioned when I got the device first. However, in the course of time, I really could not believe that a design fault was the cause. Well, the was a design fault, not in the electronics though. The plastics chassis appeared to be too large and had to be sanded down in order to allow all pins to make contact. Seen that the tablet costed € 100.-, I should have bought a second one, since said shop stopped selling those devices.
Still, I have not mentioned any details about the product...
it is an iLC 7" tablet PC using an ARM 800MHz processor with 256MB RAM
the OS being Android 2.2 (Android Market installed) on 4GB flash storage, allowing for a microSD card
the device is further equipped with WiFi, stereo speakers, a headphone connector and a built-in microphone
finally, there is the port accessory, providing 10baseT and 2x USB
All in all, the gadget look comparably cheap, matching up with the proce somehow. At times the device's response is somewhat sluggish. Would I buy the gadget once again? YES!

Some time ago, I reported about a very cheap Android Tablet (from kijkshop), which I used regularly for this and that.
The table came with some port accessory, which holds two regular USB ports and an Ethernet connection. Writing this, I am presently using the tablet via Ethernet (thus no WLAN) with a wireless keyboard attached via USB for convenient typing. The port accessory actually seem not to have functioned when I got the device first. However, in the course of time, I really could not believe that a design fault was the cause. Well, the was a design fault, not in the electronics though. The plastics chassis appeared to be too large and had to be sanded down in order to allow all pins to make contact. Seen that the tablet costed € 100.-, I should have bought a second one, since said shop stopped selling those devices.
Still, I have not mentioned any details about the product...
it is an iLC 7" tablet PC using an ARM 800MHz processor with 256MB RAM
the OS being Android 2.2 (Android Market installed) on 4GB flash storage, allowing for a microSD card
the device is further equipped with WiFi, stereo speakers, a headphone connector and a built-in microphone
finally, there is the port accessory, providing 10baseT and 2x USB
All in all, the gadget look comparably cheap, matching up with the proce somehow. At times the device's response is somewhat sluggish. Would I buy the gadget once again? YES!

Inexpensive Small Computer

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Inexpensive Small Computer

Remember when I was writing about a "grabber viewer gadget" some weeks ago?
Well, the thing can be used for more, apparently, since it most likely was not build for grabber-viewing anyway ;-)
First, lets have a look what a minimal setup can look like...

ARCHOS 7 HT

The cost of the total setup is about €150.- for the ARCHOS 7 HT (8GB SSD, microSDHC, WiFi), €20,- for the wireless mini keyboard and €5.- for the USB gender-changer. The USB cable and the power supply are provided with the ARCHOS.

The only thing one has to do is to enable the USB HOST MODE in the ARCHOS' configuration menu. As soon as a pointing device is recognized, a mouse pointer is shown on the screen.

Amongst USB accessories I tested were a Micro Hub, a card-reader, thumb drives, a keyboard with built-in Hub, mice.

There seem to be ways to toggle to an alternative window manager. Android is perfect for touch-screens, operation, however when used with keyboard and mouse, the advantages of Android don't really help.

Grabber Viewer Gadget

Monday, February 7, 2011

Grabber Viewer Gadget

This is actually a little bit off topic. For various reasons, I decided to buy a tablet gadget. Several options were thought through:

iPad: too big, too expensive, no USB, no memory card
Galaxy Tab: GPS, too expensive
Archos 5: 160GB HDD, 3G, GPS, screen too small
Archos 70: 250GB HDD, no memory card, sold out :-(
Archos 7: cheap, just 8GB storage, nevertheless: bought

Yes, initially, I opted for the Archos 70, in particular for its 250GB HDD. However, the Archos 70 was sold out... Moreover, the Archos 70 carries ballast I don't need, such as a webcam and BlueTooth.

So, there we go, the Archos 7 home tablet it is (for the time being). Why am I posting this on my RF blog anyway? Very simply said. This gadget allows me to observe grabbers conveniently when being in reach of an accessible WLAN. The Android 2.1 GUI allows for putting URLs on a virtual desktop for easy access. Hold the device vertically, i2NDT's compendium fits perfectly on the 7in screen, hold it horizontally, an individual grabber spectrum will fill the screen for comfortable observation.

The Archos 7 home tablet is big enough as to not being fiddly to operate (virtual keyboard size), yet small enough to carry about.