From: jlb31348@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Jim Brain) Subject: TECH: U of I PGSI update 10-20-92 Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1992 15:36:12 GMT Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana Aaaaarrrggghhh ! OK, here's the scoop. I sent the boards out to be made, but I have positives and they needed negatives. I had all views from one direction (loking at the board from the top), and they needeed views from each side. I had patience, now I have less. Anyway, they did OK on the front side of the board, but they had to flip the film over on the back side, and the thickness of the film made the light diffract as it passed over the board, so all the traces on the back side spill together. The guy gave me pass 1 to check out placement, and they will make a new positive of the back side (reversed), and make it up by Wed, he says. Who knows. I don't blame them, I just get frustrated. I have managed to free up a few weeks of nothing to do, so I am concentrating my efforts on my projects. Just to let you know what I do when I am not getting an eduacation, here I shall dispense the stuff: I do freelance work for the Ag Engineering Department. At the moment, I am writing firmware (HC11 based, of course) for a 3-D room positioning system I made over the summer. I think it is cool, but probably no-one else does. I also am working on my ECE 345 Senior Project Lab, a Voice Mail system (HC11 based, see a trend?). I am working on the PGSI software (ditto). I have these goodies to work around: ACM Vice President ACM Engineering Open House Chair (U of I college science fair) Tau Beta Pi Vice Pres Engineering Campus Tour Coordinator Eta Kappa Nu Test File Chair I just thought I would tell you, since some of you may be interested to know what someone like me does at the great U of I, but ignore if you think I am tooting my own horn (I am) :-) Another reason I tell you this. All three of my projects are closely linked software wise. If I work on one, I can carry that code all around. I am almost finished on the 3-D traverse, so I will be working on PGSI software this week also. I know this msg is long, but I want you to get your money's worth. I think I told you already that I have a 68HC11EVM board now, so things get done easier when I get to work on it. Someone tell me when the new issue of Midnight Engineering comes out, since I want to see our article. And here's the last article. Things are going smoothly on other fronts. The sticker has been drafted and is being done by our resident artist. It has a glove reaching into a monitor with a ray-traced sphere with the mandelbrot set mapped onto it on the monitor. We have a logo, but I just forgot it ( Don't you just hate that?) I will post it next week. The monitor is shown against a background of a circuit board. All in color! We'll see how much we will have to take out when we shrink it to it's final dimension. Off I go to work on my projects. The FAQ is still a gleam in my eye, but I hope to get it done this week. (Yea, right) Professor Reed of the C.S. department is my EOH advisor (science fair thing), and at our meeting last week, I tried to tell him about te PGSI thing we were going to show at EOH. He told me all about it and added that he had been reading the posts off this newsgroup. So HI Mr. Reed. I know this is childish, but I will do it anyway. Gosh, I hope he doesn't get upset. Quickie: Does anyone know who makes LEGOS. Phone number or address? Jim Brain -- Jim Brain, Power Glove Serial Interface Project Leader (for the summer) brain@cs.uiuc.edu Yes, my last name REALLY is BRAIN!