School

I just finished up the semester and finals were rough, but I came out with great success. I really enjoyed a few of my classes. Namely, Computer Architecture, where I studied how the MIPS32 ISA was designed, and then implemented several hardware versions of it. The second best class was Digital Systems Design where I was introduced to VHDL and was able to, with a lab partner, design and implement a 16 microcontroller, with assembly language, assembler, linker, and loader! That was a very good learning experience. The best class though, and most definitely the most difficult was a mathematics class. Boundary Value Problems was all about partial differential equations which model basically every physical process we can measure. The heat, wave, LaPlace, and other conservation equations and methods to solutions were discussed in this class. It really opened my eyes to a new way of viewing physical processes such as the vibration of a rectangular membrane, or an in-compressible fluid traveling in a pipe where there is wall-friction in the inner walls.

Other Stuff

Last night, I modified an old ATX power supply to work as a desktop bench power supply. I basically opened the unit up, removed wiring I did not need, and routed out the wire I did need. Then I ran to a local RadioShack and bought a few things:

• LEDs with mounting hardware
• Switch (SPST)
• Project box
• 12 pin connector (male and female)
• Small pack of resistors
• 6 binding posts

I drilled all the necessary holes for the LED indicator, switch, binding posts and connector, and soldered/wired the project box components. I wired the mate to the connector on the ATX power supply end and *boom* I have a desktop power supply on the cheap. It generated +12v, -12v, +5v, -5v, +3.3v and GND nodes for use. Check out the pics below!

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