30 Jan
2009
30 Jan
'09
1:36 p.m.
Mr Ian Primus wrote:
That's interesting! Did the thing work after being
restarted, or was the
data permanently altered? It doesn't take much to disrupt running software,
after all.
It was a temporary glitch -- I power-cycled the board and it worked again.
I remember one article that described an incredibly
creative, low cost
digital camera-like device. Instead of a CCD, the thing used an ordinary
DRAM chip with the cover pried off. The light would affect the cells of the
DRAM, and then the 'image' could be read by the computer. Of course, the
thing was incredibly primitive - the pictures weren't great, but it was an
ingenous hack, and a clever utilization of the light-sensitive nature of
these things.
"Kuckuck", by Martin Kurz --
<http://www.vampyr.msk.ru/electroniks/kuckuck.zip>
Interesting, even if you don't read German. The source code, schematics and
pretty diagrams explain most of it :)
Basically you fill the DRAM with "1" bits, then read it back out after a
predetermined time. That gives you an image. Take more than one image and you
can even get a greyscale image :)
--
Phil.
classiccmp at philpem.me.uk
http://www.philpem.me.uk/