Archive for August, 2009

That other little gem I mentioned….

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

This is the other military computer I picked up at War and Peace that I mentioned recently.

It’s been modified with a modern 7″ digital photo frame installed into it capable of doing photo slide shows, video and mp3. It also has a built in battery so doesnt even need to be plugged into mains.

It’s currently about 50% complete with the final steps being to finish moving the SD Card reader (currently using USB only), re-wire the unit so that mains or battery power can be used (mains only currently) and building a new IR unit which will take input directly from the original hardware keys.

It is working enough for now to display images and videos from USB and can be controlled using the original remote control and will be on display at the Salute show this weekend on the airsoft information stand.

Bates military computer with photo frame modification

Bates military computer with photo frame modification

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Some new toys….

Monday, August 17th, 2009

Picked these (amongst many other things) up at the War & Peace show this year, still have a bit more work to do, but got them up and running enough to play solitaire so far, and really, who ever uses a computer for doing more than that?

LX1 Wotan Liaison computer

486DX2 66Mhz Processor, 32mb Ram, 64mb flash memory card as hard drive. Running Damn Small Linux at 800×600 with 4bit color depth :)

Roadrunner prototype ANPR field computer

Roadrunner prototype ANPR field computer

Prototype computer for the Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) system, Pentium 4 processor, on a custom embedded motherboard with 512mb ram and 40gb hard drive running Windows 2000. All mounted into a pelican brand hard case.

There’s still some more work to do on them but hopefully I should have both, plus another little gem, up and running and on display at the Salute!* show at the end of the month.

*= Shameless plug: Salute is on at the National Show Centre, Swords, 29th & 30th August 2009

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