M2.NVM disk + PCI-E controller on FreeBSD

Modern laptops are quite expensive and hard to upgrade. While they are really handy to work in multiple places, they are not that efficient for advanced R&D activities like virtualization and massive software development combined (I/O speeds highly affects overall performance and compilation times). I was wondering if M2.NVM disk over PCI-E controller could work with my old desktop workstation giving additional performance benefit over standard onboard SATA attached SSD drive.

Old desktop PC only supports SATA drives. Switching to SATA SSD (electronics NAND Flash based Solid State Drive) in place of conventional HDD (mechanical drive) can boost I/O performance noticeably. We had 3.5″ (desktop) and 2.5″ (laptop) physical disk dimensions available so far. But new M2 SSD drives showed up, founding a new standard, with smaller form factor to be installed in embedded systems and lightweight laptops. M2 defines only a physical dimensions requirements, while disk itself can implement SATA (with average 500MB/s read/write speed) or NVM (with average 3000MB/s read/write speeds or better) interface.

So I have decided to try M2.NVM Samsung SSD 980 1TB drive over ICYBOX IB-PCI224M2-ARGB PCI-E 4.0 controller on my ASUS M5A97 R2.0 (last available BIOS 2603) that only supports PCI-E 2.0. I have several internal and external SSD SATA drives both in 2.5″ and M2 form factor. Having even basic M2.NVM drive over PCI-E controller seems to be more future proof purchase, for the same amount of money, it will be ready for possible motherboard replacement, and in bay benefit in additional performance gain over onboard SATA attached SSD drive. Operating system is Open-Source FreeBSD Unix version 13-STABLE, filesystem is ZFS (testing done with no compression and no encryption).

It turns out that PCI-E 4.0 card can work on older PCI-E 2.0 bus (for sure speed will be degraded in that case). Mainboard BIOS does not see the NVM controlleri in UEFI mode (TODO) so it is not possible to boot out of it without additional SATA drive with the FreeBSD bootloader / kernel first (TODO). FreeBSD can see and utilize both PCI-E Controller and the M2.NVM drive with no problem. Let’s see the data transfer speed results in numbers.

Average in-filesystem StressDisk large file write speed results:

  • Onboard SATA 2x WDEARS RED 2TB ZFS RAID0 STRIPE: 188MB/s.
  • PCI-E ICYBOX M2.NVM Samsung SSD 980 1TB ZFS: 410MB/s.

DiskInfo single drive summary results:

  • PCI-E ICYBOX M2.NVM Samsung SSD 980 1TB ZFS: O:1087557, M:1099090, I:1160432 kbytes/sec
  • Onboard SATA 3.5″ 2TB 5400RPM HDD WD20EFRX (RED):O:146521, M:116847, I:70159 kbytes/sec
  • Onboard SATA 3.5″ 2TB 5400RPM HDD WDEARS (GREEN): O:113811, M:87543, I:49209 kbytes/sec
  • External USB3.1 M2.SATA SSD disk enclosure: O:31503, M:31850, I:31900 kbytes/sec.

As we can see above, from user perspective in out-of-the-box configuration write speeds are 218% faster on NVM SDD over HDD RAID for large files (this may need some filesystem tuning). Weighted average disk access for NVM SSD is 1 115 693 KB/s, WD20EFRX is 111 176 KB/s, WDEARS is 83 521 KB/s. It turns out that WD RED HDD disks are 133% faster than WD GREEN HDD disks, while NVM SSD disks are over 1000% faster than WD HDD RED disks. On the other hand external USB 3.1 M2.SATA SSD disk has average 47 626 KB/s results. One last but crucial test will be added here containing the onboard SATA SSD drive, just to make sure and prove NVM dominance over SATA.

DiskInfo result for single 3.5″ 2TB 5400RPM HDD WDEARS (GREEN Series) drive attached to onboard SATA controller:

# diskinfo -tv /dev/ada2
/dev/ada2
        512             # sectorsize
        2000398934016   # mediasize in bytes (1.8T)
        3907029168      # mediasize in sectors
        4096            # stripesize
        0               # stripeoffset
        3876021         # Cylinders according to firmware.
        16              # Heads according to firmware.
        63              # Sectors according to firmware.
        WDC WD20EARS-00MVWB0    # Disk descr.
        XXX             # Disk ident.
        ahcich4         # Attachment
        No              # TRIM/UNMAP support
        Unknown         # Rotation rate in RPM
        Not_Zoned       # Zone Mode

Seek times:
        Full stroke:      250 iter in   7.135585 sec =   28.542 msec
        Half stroke:      250 iter in   5.288793 sec =   21.155 msec
        Quarter stroke:   500 iter in   7.540787 sec =   15.082 msec
        Short forward:    400 iter in   3.036829 sec =    7.592 msec
        Short backward:   400 iter in   2.956946 sec =    7.392 msec
        Seq outer:       2048 iter in   0.254515 sec =    0.124 msec
        Seq inner:       2048 iter in   0.199511 sec =    0.097 msec

Transfer rates:
        outside:       102400 kbytes in   0.899735 sec =   113811 kbytes/sec
        middle:        102400 kbytes in   1.169709 sec =    87543 kbytes/sec
        inside:        102400 kbytes in   2.080911 sec =    49209 kbytes/sec

DiskInfo result for single 3.5″ 2TB 5400RPM HDD WD20EFRX (RED Series) drive attached to onboard SATA controller:

# diskinfo -tv /dev/ada0
/dev/ada0
        512             # sectorsize
        2000398934016   # mediasize in bytes (1.8T)
        3907029168      # mediasize in sectors
        4096            # stripesize
        0               # stripeoffset
        3876021         # Cylinders according to firmware.
        16              # Heads according to firmware.
        63              # Sectors according to firmware.
        WDC WD20EFRX-68EUZN0    # Disk descr.
        XXX             # Disk ident.
        ahcich0         # Attachment
        No              # TRIM/UNMAP support
        5400            # Rotation rate in RPM
        Not_Zoned       # Zone Mode

Seek times:
        Full stroke:      250 iter in   6.653120 sec =   26.612 msec
        Half stroke:      250 iter in   5.172312 sec =   20.689 msec
        Quarter stroke:   500 iter in   7.808667 sec =   15.617 msec
        Short forward:    400 iter in   2.082164 sec =    5.205 msec
        Short backward:   400 iter in   3.350534 sec =    8.376 msec
        Seq outer:       2048 iter in   0.141464 sec =    0.069 msec
        Seq inner:       2048 iter in   0.139262 sec =    0.068 msec

Transfer rates:
        outside:       102400 kbytes in   0.698874 sec =   146521 kbytes/sec
        middle:        102400 kbytes in   0.876360 sec =   116847 kbytes/sec
        inside:        102400 kbytes in   1.459537 sec =    70159 kbytes/sec

DiskInfo result for single M2.NVM Samsung SSD 980 1TB drive attached to ICYBOX IB-PCI224M2-ARGB PCI-E 4.0 controller working on PCI-E 2.0 capable motherboard:

# diskinfo -tv /dev/nvd0
/dev/nvd0
        512             # sectorsize
        1000204886016   # mediasize in bytes (932G)
        1953525168      # mediasize in sectors
        4096            # stripesize
        0               # stripeoffset
        Samsung SSD 980 1TB     # Disk descr.
        XXX             # Disk ident.
        nvme0           # Attachment
        Yes             # TRIM/UNMAP support
        0               # Rotation rate in RPM

Seek times:
        Full stroke:      250 iter in   0.008369 sec =    0.033 msec
        Half stroke:      250 iter in   0.005510 sec =    0.022 msec
        Quarter stroke:   500 iter in   0.014519 sec =    0.029 msec
        Short forward:    400 iter in   0.010368 sec =    0.026 msec
        Short backward:   400 iter in   0.020456 sec =    0.051 msec
        Seq outer:       2048 iter in   0.032788 sec =    0.016 msec
        Seq inner:       2048 iter in   0.032863 sec =    0.016 msec

Transfer rates:
        outside:       102400 kbytes in   0.094156 sec =  1087557 kbytes/sec
        middle:        102400 kbytes in   0.093168 sec =  1099090 kbytes/sec
        inside:        102400 kbytes in   0.088243 sec =  1160432 kbytes/sec

DiskInfo resuls for USB 3.1 M2.SATA SSD disk enclosure:

 # diskinfo -tv /dev/da0
/dev/da0
        512             # sectorsize
        256060514304    # mediasize in bytes (238G)
        500118192       # mediasize in sectors
        4096            # stripesize
        0               # stripeoffset
        31130           # Cylinders according to firmware.
        255             # Heads according to firmware.
        63              # Sectors according to firmware.
        USB3.1          # Disk descr.
        XXX             # Disk ident.
        umass-sim0      # Attachment
        No              # TRIM/UNMAP support
        Unknown         # Rotation rate in RPM
        Not_Zoned       # Zone Mode

Seek times:
        Full stroke:      250 iter in   0.096377 sec =    0.386 msec
        Half stroke:      250 iter in   0.099408 sec =    0.398 msec
        Quarter stroke:   500 iter in   0.216023 sec =    0.432 msec
        Short forward:    400 iter in   0.190744 sec =    0.477 msec
        Short backward:   400 iter in   0.203053 sec =    0.508 msec
        Seq outer:       2048 iter in   0.769551 sec =    0.376 msec
        Seq inner:       2048 iter in   0.769675 sec =    0.376 msec

Transfer rates:
        outside:       102400 kbytes in   3.250481 sec =    31503 kbytes/sec
        middle:        102400 kbytes in   3.215029 sec =    31850 kbytes/sec
        inside:        102400 kbytes in   3.210055 sec =    31900 kbytes/sec

DSO QUAD MINI SCOPE ACCU REPLACEMENT

If you are happy user of DSO QUAD pocket oscilloscope from Seeed Studio [1] then probably after all those years you need to replace the accumulator. Because stock model PL384070 3.7V 1000mAh is not available anymore you can safely use CL404070 3.7V 1300mAh that is only 0.2mm thicker but it also fits the scope very well and you gain 30% capacity. You only have to solder the plug from the old accumulator. Enjoy :-)







[1] https://www.seeedstudio.com/DSO-Quad-Aluminium-Alloy-Black-p-1034.html

Panasonic Toughbook WWAN modem unlock

If you have Panasonic Toughbook laptop with no LTE/4G cellular modem and after you attach internal modem but it is still not visible in BIOS Setup nor in the Operating System, go to the Main / Optional Kit Configuration, use toughkit password, then set Wireless WAN ID = 15 (in case you use original Sierra Wireless EC7305 device). WWAN card should be now available both in BIOS Setup and Operating System USB port. Enjoy! :-)

binary file hexdump

Sometimes you need to quickly create a hexeditor like dump of a binary file. HEXDUMP is your friend. It may be a standard Unix application or Python module.

Unix hexdump use example:

hexdump -Cv file.bin
00000000  12 01 00 02 ef 02 01 40  28 0d 04 02 00 10 01 02  |.......@(.......|
00000010  03 01 12 01 00 02 ef 02  01 40 28 0d 04 02 00 10  |.........@(.....|
00000020  01 02 03 01 09 02 82 00  04 01 00 80 fa 09 02 82  |................|
00000030  00 04 01 00 80 fa 09 04  00 00 02 08 06 50 07 07  |.............P..|
00000040  05 82 02 40 00 00 07 05  02 02 40 00 00 09 04 03  |...@......@.....|
00000050  00 02 03 00 00 06 09 21  00 01 00 01 22 21 00 07  |.......!...."!..|
00000060  05 81 03 40 00 01 07 05  01 03 40 00 01 08 0b 01  |...@......@.....|
00000070  02 02 02 01 04 09 04 01  00 01 02 02 01 04 05 24  |...............$|
00000080  00 10 01 05 24 01 03 02  04 24 02 06 05 24 06 01  |....$....$...$..|
00000090  02 07 05 83 03 10 00 20  09 04 02 00 02 0a 00 00  |....... ........|
(...)

Python hexdump use example:

python -m pip install hexdump
python -m hexdump file.bin
00000000: 12 01 00 02 EF 02 01 40  28 0D 04 02 00 10 01 02  .......@(.......
00000010: 03 01 12 01 00 02 EF 02  01 40 28 0D 04 02 00 10  .........@(.....
00000020: 01 02 03 01 09 02 82 00  04 01 00 80 FA 09 02 82  ................
00000030: 00 04 01 00 80 FA 09 04  00 00 02 08 06 50 07 07  .............P..
00000040: 05 82 02 40 00 00 07 05  02 02 40 00 00 09 04 03  ...@......@.....
00000050: 00 02 03 00 00 06 09 21  00 01 00 01 22 21 00 07  .......!...."!..
00000060: 05 81 03 40 00 01 07 05  01 03 40 00 01 08 0B 01  ...@......@.....
00000070: 02 02 02 01 04 09 04 01  00 01 02 02 01 04 05 24  ...............$
00000080: 00 10 01 05 24 01 03 02  04 24 02 06 05 24 06 01  ....$....$...$..
00000090: 02 07 05 83 03 10 00 20  09 04 02 00 02 0A 00 00  ....... ........
(...)

fastboot too old problem

If you want to perform stock factory flashing of a Nexus device and you encounter “fastboot too old” error message, that means you need to update your local fastboot application to a newer version. One additional word would make this interesting error message self-explanatory..

JTAGulator

I just did a self-assembly of JTAGulator. This simple and amazing device indeed works and shortens JTAG pinout search from days to seconds. AMAZING! I have some spare devices to sale cheap in EU, if you want one let me know! :-)

JTAGulator is an open source hardware tool, created by Joe Grand / Grand Idea Studio, that assists in identifying OCD connections from test points, vias, or component pads on a target device. All you need is a target device, bunch of tap wires / cables, USB-Mini cable, and serial terminal to operate JTAGulator.



On-chip debug (OCD) interfaces can provide chip-level control of a target device and are a primary vector used by engineers, researchers, and hackers to extract program code or data, modify memory contents, or affect device operation on-the-fly. Depending on the complexity of the target device, manually locating available OCD connections can be a difficult and time consuming task, sometimes requiring physical destruction or modification of the device.

LibSWD-0.7 RELEASE

It is my great pleasure to inform you folks that, almost after four years, I did a new release of LibSWD-0.7 [1], a low-level embedded systems access open framework. Special thanks goes to Andrew Parlane of Carallon Ltd [2] for his much appreciated contributions! Well now I feel like I need to invent some nice small device based on ARM Cortex-M0 CPU :-)

[1] https://github.com/cederom/LibSWD
[2] http://www.carallon.com/

PIP and Python Modules inside Blender

If you want to install additional Python [1] modules inside your Blender [2] environment, you can install PIP using this recommended script [3], then use PIP to install all modules that you want. Note Blender’s Python Virtualenv location is /path_to_blender/blender_version/python/bin/python and you need to use this particular interpreter to launch the script.

[1] https://www.python.org/
[2] https://www.blender.org/
[3] https://pip.pypa.io/en/stable/installing/

Google Books Text-To-Speech

Google have implemented my idea to make Google Books TTS work like an audio player – it can now work in background and being controlled with bluetooth headset – so I can play, pause and rewind paragraphs of the book read by speech synthesizer just as it was music. This is soo fantastic!!

I have been proposing this solution to Amazon to implement in Kindle for Android, but for years they did not listen. I have switched to Kindle application after Amazon bricked my Kindle3 3G reader with a software update (and all other devices worldwide). Now I just wait until Google Books allow to import my Kindle library, and I will never go back to Kindle. Greedy loses twice.

Is Blend4Web a Blender Game Engine replacement?

You just need to see this awsome Mars Curiosity [1] simuluator [2] made by NASAJPL [3] with Blender3D [4] Blend4Web [5] HTML5 [6] WebGL [7] Free and Open-Source Software :-)

Screen Shot 2017-01-15 at 15.25.15

[1] https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl
[2] https://eyes.nasa.gov/curiosity
[3] http://www.jpl.nasa.gov
[4] https://www.blender.org
[5] https://www.blend4web.com
[6] https://www.w3.org/TR/html5
[7] https://www.khronos.org/webgl

Blender 3D and DS4 PS4 Bluetooth controller

Blender 3D can work with DualShock4 Playstation4 wireless controller over Bluetooth [1].

[1] http://www.blendswap.com/blends/view/78315

Cura Configuration Reference Manual

Starting up the Configuration Reference Manual for Ultimaker CURA 3D printing Open-Source software :-)

https://github.com/Ultimaker/Cura/wiki/Cura-Configuration-Reference-Manual

Android Open Source and Hardware Obsolescence

Why only NEXUS devices are sensible choice for Advanced Android Users and Developers? Because NEXUS device vendors provide source code and device drivers.

This makes is possible to re-compile and re-create any customization of the Android by advanced users and developers. The most popular among them is CyanogenMod based on AOSP (Android Open Source Project).

Why is such customization really necessary? Because Vendors does not keep up with the Android development, their releases are flawed, contains unwanted modifications, quite often development is abandoned just after product release.

I know that Drivers Development is time and money consuming task for Vendors. Still, providing source code for device drivers would make it possible to run alternative and/or customized OS, also prolong device life for second-hand users in poor countries. Vendor sells the device anyway and Users can make fixes and customization. Why this Win-Win scheme is so hard to achieve in reality? Is really enforcing sales with mass garbage so important?

Sony Xperia Unlocked Mobile Firmware Restore

Sony Xperia phones are my favorite. Very good and durable electronics, amazing photo camera, nice utilities on top of standard Google Android OS. I have also always respected Xperia for allowing users to unlock their phones for Open-Source Firmware Customization on this amazing hardware..

xperiacompanionfail

Unfortunately, Sony seems to have this habit to make a bad decisions, so amazing hardware is not always followed with a good software. This is why Open-Source Customization is so important. I have already found several nice devices with a really bad firmware. What is more, this corruption seems to spread, and Sony blocks factory firmware restore for an unlocked devices with their official Xperia Companion utility. This means unlocking a device does not only Voids a Warranty, but also silently makes it Impossible to Go Back to a Stock Firmware! This is really bad idea.

emma

Luckily smart people tends to predict and help each other out. Developer team of Sony Mobile released EMMA utility (nice name by the way) that allows you to re-flash mobile that is unlocked in case something goes wrong or you simply want to get back to a stock firmware.

Open-Source Firmware Customization will become a standard, even for large enterprises, with mutual benefit to their customers, because looking at the big picture we are part of the same eco(no)system..

CeDeROM CASING for M24LR-DISCOVERY

As an exercise, I have just designed (using FreeCAD) and 3D-Printed (using semi-translucent PLA material) a casing for M24LR-DISCOVERY (CR95HF NFC Reader). Let me know if you need one :-)

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Sony Xperia Service Menu

You can enter Service Menu on Xperia devices with code:

*#*#7378423#*#*

Xperia Android Bootloader Unlock

It is very kind of Sony that they created an easy way to unlock Bootloader of Xperia Android Smartphones. You can now customize your phone firmware and OS :-)

http://developer.sonymobile.com/unlockbootloader/unlock-yourboot-loader/

Google Android Nexus Device Un-Brick

GoogleNexus

If you happen to brick your Google Nexus device you can always use stock ROM images [1] to revert it to a default and operational state. Package contains not only OS but also bootloader and radio firmware images!

I have bricked my device by installing custom firmware that messed partitions layout inside a Flash Memory. I have seen lots of people having similar problem of endless bootloader-loop. There is no need to send a device to a service when bootloader is operational. All you need is a stock firmware image from Google [1], USB cable, and fastboot utility from Android SDK. If you happen to damage a bootloader, then hardware manipulation at low-level is necessary over JTAG, I can help to recover your device in that case.. no worries :-)

[1] https://developers.google.com/android/nexus/images

Dualshock4 PS4 Controller Bluetooth Pairing

dualshock4-bluetooth-pair-cederom

There is one simple way I have discovered to pair with Dualshock4 Playstation4 controller using standard Bluetooth Pairing Procedure. Make sure controller is turned off, then press and hold SHARE button, then press and hold PLAYSTATION button until LED starts to blink (two short white blinks every few seconds). You can now discover and enjoy your Dualshock4 controller with any Bluetooth (HID) enabled device. No cables and no additional applications necessary! :-)

Dualshock4 is a really nice high quality and precise controller that can be used in many more interesting applications than only playing games. It is compatible with Bluetooth HID and USB HID standard. It contains 2 analog joysticks, 2 analog sliders, 13 buttons, touch-pad, accelerometer, vibrator, audio speaker with headset port, RGB LED, micro-USB port, and external expansion port..

Unfortunately, lack of self-compatibility seems to be a strong disadvantage of Playstation platform. Not only because PS4 does not run old software. Dualshock4 seems to have different way of handling button events as compared to Dualshock3 (default Playstation3 controller). It has some sort of auto-repeat feature (like PC BIOS keyboard) instead of button change events (like MIDI). This renders Dualshock4 unreliable on Playstation3 platform because of massive control glitches. Also DS4 PS button does not produce system menu on PS3, so you cannot use it as the main controller replacement. Sadly, it is impossible to use DS3 controller on PS4 as well. Hopefully, switching CPU to AMD64 and OS to FreeBSD could bring more self-compatibility to Playstation in future..

LibSWD 0.6 release

I am happy to announce a new release of LibSWD-0.6! Most important feature of this release is the standalone Application with an example of Command Line Interface (CLI), FTDI driver and ARM Cortex-M3 Core Debug and Flash support demonstration. Please report issues via Ticket System. Have fun! :-)

KT-LINK FT2232H based interface on FreeBSD

I have created a simple patch for FreeBSD Operating System to detect and support FT2232H based KT-LINK interface. FTDI chips are already supported using uftdi driver and they can provide various serial and parallel protocols over USB such as RS232, JTAG, SWD, SPI, I2C, 1Wire, etc. My patch allows to use RS232 port on the KT-LINK which in conjunction with Minicom terminal software allows to talk to the Serial Console Port on various embedded systems. KT-LINK is really nice inexpensive (50EUR) and versatile tool for embedded system developers, now it became all-in-one tool on my FreeBSD box :-)

http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=175893

OpenOCD and LibSWD integration complete

Patches that integrate LibSWD with OpenOCD has been already sent, so the platform independent Serial Wire Debug in Open-Source becomes a reality! Mr. Gerrit takes care of the source code review part, while Mr. Jenkins takes care of proper binary build for various platforms and operating systems. This is the right moment to make use of developers mailing list for feedback, asking questions, blaming, testing, adding new features and voting to accept the patches, so the code becomes an integral part of the OpenOCD release! :-)

Orange Labs provided R&D environment for initial stages of the research. Warsaw University of Technology made this possible as part of my MSc and PhD thesis. Krzysztof Kajstura designed and provided his generic KT-LINK (FT2232H based) interface to work with. David Brownell first introduced the Transport layer in OpenOCD in 2010 to split Target from JTAG. Simon Qian was working in parallel on his own SWD implementation for a Versaloon interface (as part of intelligent firmware). Øyvind HarboePeter StugeSpencer Oliver, Rodrigo Rosa helped me on GIT usage and OpenOCD internals,  Freddie Chopin helped me a lot with commited patches to match OpenOCD coding standards, Akos Vandra helped me to test functionality as the program was created… and my other friends should be also noted here for their support :-)

Power of the few outweights power of the many! Thank you for your support! :-)

First steps of LibSWD and OpenOCD

The LibSWD and OpenOCD has just made its first steps into flash memory access and writing program code to the ARM Cortex-M3 based Stm32Primer2 device using cheap and generic FT2232H‘s based JTAG/SWD KT-LINK interface :-) The current connection speed is around 10sec/1kB but still I have some ideas on how to improve it, even with the USB bottleneck. The LibSWD is platform independent, so it can drive any other type of hardware (RLink, GPIO based, Parallel Port, etc), also it can be uploaded into dedicated hardware dongle if necessary :-) Feedback and testing are welcome :-)

You can get the code from remote GIT repository at http://repo.or.cz/w/openocd/libswd.git. The project implementation details and history is at http://stm32primer2swd.sf.net/.

%telnet localhost 4444
 Trying 127.0.0.1...
 Connected to localhost.
 Escape character is '^]'.
 Open On-Chip Debugger
 > halt
 target was in unknown state when halt was requested
 > flash probe 0
 device id = 0x10016414
 flash size = 512kbytes
 device id = 0x10016414
 flash size = 512kbytes
 flash 'stm32x' found at 0x08000000
 > stm32x mass_erase 0
 stm32x mass erase complete
 > flash write_image toggle.hex
 wrote 1936 bytes from file toggle.hex in 18.636387s (0.101 KiB/s)

KT-LINK interface driver for UrJTAG

I have sent patches with KT-LINK interface driver (FT2232H based, full-featured, low-cost, SWJ capable design by Krzysztof Kajstura) working in JTAG mode for UrJTAG low-level access software utility with GNU license. I have also created a dedicated fork of UrJTAG for LibSWD integration, which is open and available at http://repo.or.cz/w/urjtag/libswd.git. When the job on LibSWD error handling is finished and fully functional with OpenOCD, I will make a release of LibSWD that will be also integrated with UrJTAG using git submodule mechanism just as in my OpenOCD+LibSWD fork :-)

Serial Wire Debug for ARM

I have started my works on implementing the Serial Wire Debug (kind of JTAG alternative for ARM-Cortex Cores) for Open-Source OpenOCD and UrJTAG utilities. You can watch the progress at:

http://stm32primer2swd.sf.net

Project type: Open
Status: Work in progress…

Chłodzenie wodne komputera

Bardzo często zdarza się, że chłodzenie wiatrakami jest głośne i uciążliwe. Tej wady nie ma chłodzenie wodne, które zapewnia praktycznie niesłyszalne odprowadzanie ciepła z elementów aktywnych kopmputera, co też było celem tego projektu.

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HP MIC MOD

Just a little hardware hack to add internal microphone to a laptop that was missing this nice and useful function :-) Small microphone was used, taken out from the broken cellphone, plus some wire, soldering and patience.

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USB Przedni Panel

Posiadacze starszych obudów ATX, na przykład niezniszczalnego Enlight’a, mogą czuć się trochę “do tyłu” jeśli chodzi o wygodę użytkowania, głównie z powodu braku wyprowadzenia na przód obudowy gniazdek multimediów/USB. W tym projekcie pokażę jak łatwo i za darmo można wykonać przedni panel USB.

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Własne Sterowniki do Matlab

Tworząc nowe urządzenia czy systemy o dużym stopniu zaawansowania, musimy posiadać mechanizm weryfikacji wyników, którym może być MATLAB. Aby przesyłać dane do matlaba, można wykorzystać gotowe toolbox’y które obsługują jedynie standardowy sprzęt lub samemu napisać sterownik własnego urządzenia – co daje większe możliwości w dostosowaniu metody do potrzeb, nie wymaga też żadnych dodatkowych licencji.

Typ: Otwarty
Status: Zakończony

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BX MOD

BX MOD to sposób na uruchomienie procesora Intel z rdzeniem Tualatin, na płycie głównej Slot1 z chipsetem i440 BX. Okazuje się, że dosyć łatwo można obejść zmiany w wyprowadzeniach nowych procesorów, modyfikując dobrą przelotkę Slot1<->FCPGA. Erio – dzięki za informacje o możliwości takiej modyfikacji!

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