Things will start to get interesting when astronauts can create semiconductors in in space. I believe there are some demonstration technologies using ink-jet printers.

I would imagine it will be a long time before we can see the amazingly tiny devices that can be built on Earth, but I would expect that replacement electronics for communications and actuator drivers should be achievable in fairly short order. I would guess that replacement solar panel segments and power supply components (including batteries) would be on the menu as well.

myke

This week, I got a real WTF when dealing with Microsoft products and the amazing amount of redundancy that is possible in the company.

We have a robot product that we can communicate to using Bluetooth SPP and we are creating an application that can control it remotely. We originally went with a serial interface (after pairing, recording the "com#" of the device and then passing it to our application), this is somewhat cumbersome so we wanted to pair from our app and connect directly (saving the user from doing those operations manually).

Logically, this would be one set of APIs, but it seems there are five depending on the OS - the only ones that are common are for Vista/Win7. I would think that right here there are four teams that are redundant - pick a single, consistent API, add it in Service Packs for all supported OSes and assign one team to the job.

I would expect there are many more examples out there of similar inefficiencies that somebody within Microsoft should be able to answer with the ability to make things easier for developers and make developers available for squishing bugs.

Sorry about the rant, but standard IO interface APIs should be just that, standard.

myke

LOL.

Thanx for the tip.

I think I'll buy a Corvette that way.

myke

Digi-Key $3.48 and Mouser $3.49

Still could be something you can have a lot of fun with!

myke

I saw an interesting graph in Aviation Week some time ago about the energy density of batteries versus the same mass of hydrocarbon fuel. The article was in relation to the idea of creating (plug-in) hybrid airliners.

The batteries used in the 787 store four orders of magnitude less energy than the equivalent mass of jet fuel.

I'm mentioning this because it looks like these batteries would bring the difference up to three orders of magnitude.

Still a ways to go before batteries can compete against hydrocarbon/fossil fuels.

myke

It should have been used on the computer before submitting this article.

Disappointing,

myke

Hi Timothy,

Unfortunately, you didn't provide a lot of information in your post as to what the problems are.

As people have pointed out, there are a ton of USB to Serial solutions out there so having the modern hardware with the ability to communicate over RS-232 is generally not a problem (although, depending on the connections used, you might want to invest in a RS-232 breakout box and read up on RS-232 handshaking as many of the older devices do use hardware handshaking). I have a few hand wired 9 pin to 25 pin connectors with the CTS-RTS and DSR-DTR pins shorted together as they can simplify your life immeasurably.

In my experience, the biggest problem is retaining floppies & CDs with the original software on them (assuming that the developers are no longer supporting the product/are out of business). If the company is still in business, usually they're pretty good at providing updated software for their products. If they're not in business, then look to see if they were bought out by anybody. Chances are you'll find that the purchaser is still supporting the product, although it may be under another name.

Personally, the biggest issue that I see when I have encountered this type of situation is that the original programs are on floppies. If this is the case, you will need to find somebody with a Windows/95 machine that they're keeping together with spit, bailing wire, gaffer's tape and good intentions - you should be able to copy the program onto a USB key and then burn it on a CD/DVD for more permanent storage.

Once you have the program in a media that you can work with, you may have problems with the installation. You will probably have to create a virtual machine on your PC AND there may be 16 bit programs that you have to convert to 32 bit - here's a great resource that's saved me a couple of times: http://www.reactos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=10988

Finally, Google is your friend. Chances are the answers are out there for your particular equipment.

Good luck!

myke

Other than that?

I imagine it has some scientific value for showing how well a highly trained and experienced individual goes through a stressful situation, but other than that?

myke

Wouldn't the best answer for an individual be based on their driving habits and history?

If you tended to stay at the speed limit (or reasonably above according to traffic), were a defensive driver and were reasonably confident that you wouldn't cause an accident, wouldn't you want tracking on to show that it's the other guys fault?

Depending on your hubris level, the next step is a dashboard camera because clearly you are never going to cause an accident - right?

myke

That sounds *really* interesting - anybody know where the rest of the population can get Windows 3.1 licenses?

I doubt that Microsoft would be willing to release it into the wild - so where can we find them?

myke

Jörg,

With the recent controversy regarding assault weapons in the US and the plans to reduce clip sizes, I'm wondering if you would think your, um, devices would be more dangerous if they could shoot multiple objects rather than just one at a time?

myke

Interesting question and one I've thought about for a bit since the original question, from the other side came out.

I would say, bring in the team lead as an arbitrator. It's their job to direct the work and (hopefully) develop team members - this guy sounds like he needs a bit of development and level setting.

myke

Very insightful.

Somebody with points please mod the parent up.

myke