14 Jun
2009
14 Jun
'09
4 a.m.
On Jun 12, 2009, at 9:43 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
Ahh ok, I hadn't read the story. I think this has been discussed
before. I built a Nixie clock as a gift for my then-girlfriend,
using a quartz-windowed 8751 microcontroller. She once tried to take
a picture of it, and it promptly crashed. :)
Here are some pics; note the exposed microcontroller:
http://www.neurotica.com/wiki/Nixie_Clock_2
crappy ones)
usually for less than five bucks. If it is indeed a
viable erasure method, it's damn cheap to do.
Well, the story says the light disrupted the EPROMs. Consider the
distance between the flash and the unit in the story and the flash
would have to be bright beyond OSHA standards to effect erasure..
And the story refers to "rebooting" as a recovery method--impossible
if the EPROMs were truly being erased.
I suspect that what the story describes is more of a photoelectric
effect, like shining a bright light on a decapped DRAM. On the other hand, how bright can an eraser get? If I
were to
remove the innards of a 250W mercury-vapor bulb (leaving just the
quartz arc tube) and install that in an EPROM eraser (with suitable
ventilation), how long would it take to erase UV EPROMs? Would the
EPROMs survive?
I wonder if heat would become a problem before UV intensity.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL