Process Control Box

Process Control System

Why can’t computers use registers as RAM?

I’ve always asked this, and still need to remind myself why every now and then, so I’m posting this link to save myself the hassle of looking it up again in ten years haha.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3798730/can-we-have-a-computer-with-just-registers-as-memory

Disable middle click on Synaptics touchpads

I’ve just moved back to a Linux laptop, specifically Arch Linux, using XFCE4 on an HP Dragonfly Elite, after a few years trying Mac. Totally love it, the full Linux experience without trying to be MacOS.

One thing that did annoy me was the touchpad was set to have three “buttons” or click areas along the bottom. This meant if I went to choose a browser tab, sometimes I’d miss the left edge button and hit the middle button closing the tab. Annoying.

These are the steps I used to set it to be one longer Left button with no right button.

~ 🐠 yay -S xorg-xinput
~ 🐠 xinput
⎡ Virtual core pointer id=2 [master pointer (3)]
⎜ ↳ Virtual c…
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Home Office, Eastwood

iRack

I got this from Paramount Browns in Adelaide in the late 90s or something. It was $50 and a complete mess. It came with a bunch of what it previously housed – PLCs and other control stuff, but something had caught on fire and someone had belted it with a fire extinguisher!

Over the years I painted it black (it was 90s computer off white), added the tinted perspex, LED light strips, cooling fans, Raspberry Pi based climate monitoring and fan control, shelves, monitor mounts, and of course all the hardware inside.

The disappointing part was that the PLCs were all fine, but they were Honeywell and that company have a policy of only giving out manuals to initial purchasers, so I could…
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Arcade Restoration

I’ve added a gallery of all the pictures taken when restoring an original 80s arcade unit. I tried to reuse as many items as I could, the controller unit was hacked out of an old keyboard, I used a CRT monitor to try and keep the original look of the machine (drove out to the country to find one!), the speaker literally came from the side of the road, the motherboard, disk and power supply were out of some random old computer. The only bought items were the small amplifier module for the speaker and of course it needed new buttons and joystick.

The biggest thrill for me I think was when the coin mechanism was working again and wired in.

The pictures are pretty much in the order the

Lian Li 777

People seem to either love them or hate them. This is mine and I love it 🙂

One day I plan to mount it on a metal plinth, I just love unusual shaped computers (Seymore Cray has always been a personal hero), and with 12 disk bays, mega easy access, mesh sides for breezy cooling… what’s not to love!