Path: utzoo!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!eleazar.dartmouth.edu!gregorio
From: gregorio@ELEAZAR.DARTMOUTH.EDU (Joseph C. Gregorio)
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
Subject: FTP request e
Summary: Stupid question of the day
Keywords: ftp phrack blah bleah stupid kid
Message-ID: <25016@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU>
Date: 10 Oct 90 04:39:18 GMT
References: <10035@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU>
Sender: nobody@rutgers.rutgers.edu
Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
Lines: 48
Approved: nobody@rutgers.rutgers.edu


Hi,
  could someone please point me to a ftp site for PHRACK... thanks..

Now for the OB-hack:

Project:
   build an analog to digital converter that outputs the average
of 100 samples on LEDS. use an 8032 controller.

Problem:
   The only 8-bit port on the controller has it's high bit busted.
Not on the outside, but somewhere between the outside world and
the chip itself. [ dont ask how long it took to determine this !! ].
The other ports are used for RAM ( the averaging area), the 
ROM ( program storage ), and the input from the AD converter.
Coming from a small state university money is scarce, and working
chips even more so, I decided to do a little hack,
besides it was 2 AM on a friday night and the
alternative was to give up and wait to get a new chip on monday. 

Solution:
   Since I was only using 100 bytes in RAM, I had all those
address lines free, and I was already latching them, so the idea:
Test to see if the high bit needed to be set when writing to the LEDS, 
if it did, write to a high enough address in memory, then just take
the high bit input for the LED from the memory address latch. simple.

Moral:
   The only thing worse than a programmer with a soldering iron is
a hardware person with software patch.

Footnote:
   My lab partner nearly killed me for pulling this one off and the
LAB assistant nearly refused to sign the lab off because of 
my hack. ( She is currently a glorified type-setter at GE. Life is
it's own revenge. Hi Lynn! :-)) 

                                      -joe

PS - I hope you didn't become so distracted reading this marvelous
little tidbit that you forgot that you were going to 
e-mail me that FTP address. 

joe.gregorio@mac.dartmouth.edu
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