Analog Tachometer PC Mod 222
greenape147 writes: "BurnOutPC has this review of a tachometer modification for your PC. The tachometer, made and sold by Xoxide, works via the serial port and displays the CPU utilization in RPM's! The classical look of this external tachometer is really nice to see after the "window phase" everyone seems to be going through. Not to mention the fact that analog meters are so fun to watch. Currently supported in Windows NT/2000/XP, a GNU/Linux driver is in the works."
Is there an open sdk for constolling it? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Is there an open sdk for constolling it? (Score:1)
Would be neat to do different things with it though, like bandwidth monitoring or use it as an actual tach for racing games.
Re:Is there an open sdk for constolling it? (Score:2)
Periodically write the occupancy to the parallel port, which could have a super-simple (tm) R2R digital to analog convertor (appropriately built for the low voltage requirement) hooked up to an analog meter.
Last time I was experiementing with lpt ports, 10 years ago, the data was held on those lines until the next byte comes through, so no latch should be required.
Cheating? (Score:4, Funny)
"Oh, this baby's practically brand new..."
Re:Cheating? -Tach not odometer (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Cheating? -Tach not odometer (Score:1)
Re:Cheating? -Tach not odometer (Score:2, Interesting)
Not when it comes to miles per hour. Also, we drink pints of beer. This possibly isnt relevant in the states, where you apparantly get funny looks if you drink more than 2 pints in a day, for some reason.
Drug sales are a curious mixture of both. Think thats something to do with harmonisation with Europe!
Re:Cheating? -Tach not odometer (Score:5, Funny)
Drug sales are mixed on this side of the pond too. Pot is always measured in standard, coke is always measured in metric.
My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that's how I like it!
Re:Cheating? -Tach not odometer (Score:4, Funny)
My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that's how I like it!
Wow, that's what I call a real gas guzzler. I thought my SUV sucked fuel, but it gets around 270,000 rods per hogshead. Well, unless I'm pulling my trailer, then it drops to about 141,000, but what do you expect, I mean the trailer weighs like 500 stone and has a pretty large front sail area.
What kind of vehicle are you driving, anyway? I mean, I think an M-1 Abrams tank gets around 6000 rph.
Re:Cheating? -Tach not odometer (Score:2)
Re:Cheating? -Tach not odometer (Score:1, Funny)
or 3.5 grams. then theres 28 grams in an ounce, or is there 30? depends. its 100 in holland, apparantly! how many ounces in a 9 ounce bar? 9? wrong - more like 8.5. I`m sure most deaths from drug dealing arent from people being deliberately ripped off. its just all the converting to/from standards!!
Re:Cheating? -Tach not odometer (Score:1)
Smallest common measurement is a 'teenth, then an eighth, quarter, half, ounce. Then it goes odd with a 9bar, followed by a KG.
But...when buying skunk, it's usually grams.
Metric vs. imperial (Score:1, Redundant)
There are currently three countries that have not officially switched over to the metric system (depending on your definition of "switched over" -- try driving in England if you don't want to use MPH). They are USA, Liberia, and Myanmar (also known as Burma). This makes the US the only industrialized country to not have officially adopted the metric system.
However, anecdotally (because I didn't grow up in the US, so can't confirm this from personal experience), I understand that you will often find the metric system being used in education, science, etc. For example, I know someone who was a chemistry major at Penn about 40 years ago who had to use the metric system for everything during her studies.
Re:Metric vs. imperial (Score:2)
>There are currently three countries that have not
>officially switched over to the metric system
>depending on your definition of "switched over"
>-- try driving in England if you don't want to
>use MPH). They are USA,
Depends upon your definition of "officially." We've "officially" switched many times, it's just that we're not going to let some central government push us around on the issue.
The first round wad during the Jefferson administration, when he issued an executive order to put us on that silly semi-10 based system. We didn't due it then, and it doesn't look so hot to us now, either . .
Just look at how much trouble it's caused--playing with those silly french units has already cost us at least one mars probe . .
hawk
OT: .mil is metric.. (Score:1)
The US Armed Forces uses the metric system [army.mil], as well. So even grunts in the field deal with meters and liters and such. I guess it helps greatly, since they spend a lot of time deployed in places that also use the metric system...
Re:Cheating? -Tach not odometer (Score:2)
Unless I'm totally off (which is usual), an odometer is really a tachometer, for it measures (sp?) a car's wheel rpms, perhaps with an added last stage to sum revolutions up until they make a mile and them zeroing them again.
Yes, you're totally off. A tachometer measures rotations per unit time. An odometer measures accumulated rotations. A tachometer is much more complex than an odometer (an odometer is just some gears and wheels).
Oh, the humanity! (Score:4, Funny)
What they really need is a miniature version that fits into a 5.25" drive bay, without the need for major case surgery.
Re:Oh, the humanity! (Score:1)
Re:Oh, the humanity! (Score:2)
Yeah. In Iowa you're a geek if you know how to insert a floppy disk (or even know what a floppy disk is). But heay, at least that's better than Alabama where you're a geek if you have electricity and indoor plumbing
-
Re:Oh, the humanity! (Score:2)
Other definitions of the word "geek" [dictionary.com]
Re:Oh, the humanity! (Score:2)
Remember Gateway2000's earliest ads?
COMPUTERS FROM IOWA????
Re:Oh, the humanity! (Score:2)
As somebody who has his own tablesaw, power drill, anvil (I do armorwork), etc, it amuses the heck out of me every time I read the "modboy" sites.
You can always tell them - they're the ones that include four pages at the start on how to use a Dremel. A DREMEL! It's just a dremel, you just -use- it!
Bump the idle up? (Score:1)
Or would it be the other way around, and I'd redline every time the BSOD pops up? Maybe thats when I miss a gear, I know that messes up my RPM's big time.
already slashdotted :( (Score:1)
Anyone get a mirror ?
Re:already slashdotted :( (Score:1)
sitting on that oh so informative IE error,
telling me the site has gone byebye, is not to
be found, I might have mistyped it etc..
Ah well, probably the guys are sitting looking at the revs on their webserver, going 'whoaaah'
Re:already slashdotted :( (Score:1)
Schweete! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Schweete! (Score:2)
I think this would be a good use for those "Tokyo-by-night" guages, with LEDs instead of moving needles. That way you wouldn't hear the sound of needles beating against the stop post when the values fluctuated...
steveha
Gah! (Score:3, Funny)
Add a turbo or nitrous oxide, overclock or supercool. Not these useless mods.
P.S. It is RPM, not RPMs, and expecially not RPM's.
Re:It's not RPMs (Score:5, Funny)
573
Dunno about the rev/min, but my PC has 573 RPMs.
Re:Gah! (Score:1)
Re:Gah! (Score:2)
If you're going to be a grammar/spelling Nazi, at least get it right. "RPM's" is a possessive form which doesn't make any sense at all in this context. "RPMs" is a plural form...still incorrect in this context, but at least it doesn't shout "ignoramus" as loudly as "RPM's."
Re:Gah! (Score:2)
RPM = Revolutions Per Minute
The plural is built in, thus no need to tack a "s" on the end.
RPM vs RPMs vs RPM's vs RsPM (Score:2)
Agreed, Commander Pedant.
And with baseball season coming up, you should be starting up your compaign to get all members of the press and game announcers to remember that Runs Batted in are RBI, not RBIs (and "expecially" [sic]) not RsBI!
Idea I researched last year... (Score:4, Interesting)
On Windows something like this is quite simple, as all of the information is available in HKEY_DYNAMIC_DATA (think that's the one). A driver for it would simply need to poll the value(s) of interest and output them to the serial port.
On the hardware side of things a simple D/A converter could be used to convert the data to a position for the gauge. Perhaps add some memory or a random function to it so that it would maintain a level or have a nice little "bounce" to it.
Note that ANY dynamic information could be displayed on it, not just processor usage. I thought about getting one of those old rotary switches and mounting it next to the guage, allowing me to select different things to watch on it. After all, processor useage on my system is rather unexciting - it's been pegged at 100% for over the last year. You could track disk useage, netword throughput(really useful), or any number of other values. For a listing of them look in the "Performance Monitor"(?) application on windows 9x/Me.
Re:Idea I researched last year... (Score:1)
How tachometers work... (Score:1)
I have a spare tachometer in my closet actually, so maybe I will give it a try myself...
Muerte
Re:How tachometers work... (Score:2)
If it's RS-232, a serial port should be spitting out a 12V (±12V, actually) signal already. IIRC, a serial signal can go up to ±30V.
Re:How tachometers work... (Score:2)
I can't remember if the crankshaft makes one turn or two for every rotation of the distributor but either way the faster the engine is turning the more pulses per unit of time. These pulses are fed to a capacitor which smoothes them out into a "steady" DC which rises and falls as engine speed does.
The tach is basically a DC voltmeter that reads that voltage level on the capacitor. Some tachs have a switch or jumper to change capacitors or change the resistance in a resistor-capacitor combination so that you can set them for either an 8 cylinder or 6 cylinder engine (for 4 cylinders set it for 8 and divide the reading in half).
Re:Idea I researched last year... (Score:2)
just increase the rate of your pulses out the port (parallel port would be a better use, or a pic on the serial port generating the pulses based on a binary number so you dont need to use 30% of the processor to display useless information.)
this is very easy to anyone that would want to do it under linux and can program a 16f84 Pic.
Re: 1 Pulse = 1 RPM [NOT] (Score:2)
Only the cheap aftermarket tachs like sunpro use a cyl-1 spark detector.
Re:Idea I researched last year... (Score:2)
Re:Idea I researched last year... (Score:2)
Other external monitoring tools? (Score:2)
How about a cpu temperature gauge for overclockers.
or
A cpu odometer to give a running tally of exactly how many clock cycles it has done over its lifetime.
Coming soon to a ThinkGeek ad near you.
Re:Other external monitoring tools? (Score:1)
Or just Athlon owners who live someplace warm.
A cpu odometer to give a running tally of exactly how many clock cycles it has done over its lifetime.
That would be cool. I'd estimate normal workplace use at 1GHz * 9 hours * 1% average usage * 260 days =~ 850 Gcycles/yr. So you'd probably want to measure it in Mcycles, so you can see the numbers move.
Re:Other external monitoring tools? (Score:2)
Re:Other external monitoring tools? (Score:1)
Re:Other external monitoring tools? (Score:2)
Re:Other external monitoring tools? (Score:2)
LCDs, VFDs, and lcdproc (Score:2)
(Ok, I just want to say, I think hooking up analog gauges is a neat idea, and I wholeheartedly approve of the "riceboy" mentality. With that out of the way...)
None of this stuff is really new. A shitload of monitoring tools like this, have already been thought up and implemented. People why are interested in these sort of things, should look into getting something like a Matrix Orbital LCD or VFD [www.matrix-orbital] (or one of their competitors) hooked up to a serial port, and the lcdproc server software [omnipotent.net].
lcdproc clients have been written for all kinds of things, and idle monitors, temperature displays, etc are all old hat. Last year, I had a very embarrassing incident where my home fileserver's RAID5 was running in degraded mode for 6 months(!) before I noticed, because I never bothered to read logs (just goes to show what a shitty admin I am). So I thought, "never again" and darn near effortlessly wrote a little python program that displays my RAID status on the box's VFD. If my one of my RAID's partitions ever goes out again, then the usual "RAID Ok" that flashes on the front of my box every few seconds, will be replaced with something scary-looking, and I'll know.
LCD/VFD displays are a lot more versatile and general-purpose than analog stuff, the sky's the limit to what you can do with these things, and lcdproc makes them so easy to program. Every box should have one! :-)
"Linux" driver, not "GNU/Linux" driver (Score:4, Funny)
Re:"Linux" driver, not "GNU/Linux" driver (Score:2)
Not necessarily. Just to name the first example I can think of, the parallel-port printer driver (lp) is in kernel-space. It just uses the low-level parport hooks. I would guess that this would be kernel-level too, as that would also be more expandable (other things, like CPU temp, etc, that it's easier to get from inside the kernel, unless you want to mess with
Re:"Linux" driver, not "GNU/Linux" driver (Score:2)
Fluctuation (Score:4, Interesting)
CPU usage fluctuates from near zero to 100% depending on what your box is up to, and a subsecond basis. Surely this'd only be good for a machine with a fairly constant load?
Re:Fluctuation (Score:1)
If you did, like, 5 or 10 seconds, you'd have a good idea of what was going on without the needle constantly slamming into the limits. (If you think about it, on the lowest level, CPU usage is either 100% or 0% all the time...)
Justin
Re:Fluctuation (Score:1)
Re:Fluctuation (Score:1)
YMMV (Score:4, Funny)
"Your Mileage May Vary" now doesn't it?
One small flaw... (Score:5, Insightful)
Namely - aren't most modders and overclockers running the distributed.net [distributed.net] client, or some similar background task, which keeps our CPU utilisation at 100% all the time?
I could draw a tachometer on the front of this PC, and it'd be 100% accurate :-).
Re:One small flaw... - nope: just drop nice part (Score:1)
Re:One small flaw... (Score:1)
It only goes to 8! (Score:5, Funny)
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Academy/9177
Re:It only goes to 8! (Score:2)
Oh, and the show was pretty cool, too. I knew I was in for a good time when I saw the midgets hanging around the back stage door. During the show, they were dressed as delivery guys and brought in the Stonehenge triptych hanging from a wheeled clothing rack, and had David St. Hubbins sign for it mid-song.
burnoutpc's tachometer (Score:2, Funny)
HP and toptools (Score:1)
Slashdotted, Google to the Rescue (Score:1)
Here is the google cache for the linked article in the submission. [google.de]
How to build your own? (Score:2)
whatsoever about car electronics; I don't even
have a car.
But I like this idea. Is it possible to build such
a unit oneself using a standard analog RPM display?
Re:How to build your own? -Car tachs are expensive (Score:2)
Andre060
some follow-up mods (Score:4, Funny)
If this keeps up, it won't be long before you start seeing aftermarket replacement chips to improve your computer's performance... oh, wait...
Re:some follow-up mods (Score:1)
Re:some follow-up mods (Score:1)
The Turbo button always kinda frustrated me, but it made a light go on and off, so the entertainment from that negated the frustration.
Re:some follow-up mods (Score:1)
Try playing any 286 game on a Athlon or P3 and you will see the problem.
turbo switches (Score:2)
Early games relied on loops and instruction execution for timing--they knew how long something would take, and how much time had elapsed b y where they were in the code. Double the clock, and things ran (roughly) twice as fast, making interactive games hard or impossible.
I'm not sure this made it into the 286 perio, but if someone figured that that was as fast as desktop/home machines were going to get . . . (i.e., believed the line that the 386 was only for servers, ever . .
hawk
Re:some follow-up mods (Score:2)
.anacron
Re:some follow-up mods (Score:2)
"Oh no, redline! Better turn the fan up to high!"
Shifting (Score:1)
I have this vision (Score:2)
I can finally get back at all those old folks I work with who scoff at me when I say that tweeking your computer is the same thing they did 30 years ago when they messed with their cars.
What would be nice... (Score:4, Interesting)
I wonder if there's a USB device class for this sort of thing?
ls
Re:What would be nice... (Score:2)
Yah, and with 2 needles and OS X support for dual-processor PowerMacs. Vroom.
Might be a bad idea (Score:2)
What will they think of next? (Score:1, Redundant)
Next thing you know, Kelley Blue Book [kbb.com] will be adding computers to their price lists.
Deja vu all over again (Score:5, Interesting)
Old-timers among us still remember the days when mainframe consoles had lamps indicating the mode the processor was operating in. The old Univac machines used to have a green indicator for "guard mode" (unprivileged user mode) which was typically quite dimly lit but would flash into prominence when a compute-intensive task was active - or when a program was wedged in a tight loop. After you'd worked with one of these machines for a while, you got used to the behaviour of the lamps and of the rows of Blinkenlights on the maintainance panels and took notice if the patterns looked abnormal: quite often this was your first warning that something was going wrong that would need investigation later.
To return somewhat to the topic, I remember working in the late 1970's on an prototype of the first of these mainframe systems that lacked the customary indicator lamps. I was puzzled for a while by a cheap analog 'Vu' meter balanced on top of one of the cabinets, with a few components soldered to its connectors and a couple of wires trailing back inside: one was clipped to the frame, the other to one of the many wire-wrap pins on the processor back-panel. The meter didn't seem to do anything, but all became clear when I was running a compilation a day or so later: the meter reading went up to 80 percent or so for seconds at a time. Yes, an ingenious engineer had worked out how to fit a guard-mode indicator to the new range machines; sadly, it never made it to the production models and a little piece of computing history came to an end.
Of course, today I run the Windows task manager so I can tell when the braindead browser on this company-issue PC is wedged and must be killed and restarted. So much for progress.
Re:Deja vu all over again (Score:2)
The lamps may be LEDs now, but not much has changed. I've got all my servers in one place next to each other with teh networking gear nearby. All blikenlights in clear view. I run web services, email, etc for a number of folks so I have pretty regular traffic. Its amazing how you quickly associate blink patterns and sounds. I can tell when my raid array (Deathstars) hits a bad sector (which is too often), the network lights tell a lot - I can tell by my switch which server is getting hit the most, etc If I hear an unusual sound from disks or notice odd blink pattersn - I often investigate looking for intruders ;)
Now if all my web servers had teh triple gauge combos on top showing CPU load, Network load, and Temp - that would be WAY too cool.
So many ways to waste what little time I have to do stuff like this!
Re:Deja vu all over again (Score:2)
It would have been very interesting to watch the lights during, say, garbage collection in BASIC.
It would still be fun to have something like that on a grander scale, perhaps docked near my CPU meter in my GNOME desktop.
While I never got the LEDs gadget, I did take an AM radio and set it up on top of my computer, volume turned down low. The RF interference made a distinct sound, which changed pitch when something different happened. If the computer went into an infinite loop, you could hear it. I got tired of the noise, though, so I don't do this anymore.
steveha
Just like my car! (Score:1)
That's nice, but... (Score:4, Funny)
Check out the picture [yimg.com] :)
Re:That's nice, but... (Score:2)
PC Club was selling those the last time I built a couple of machines...they might still have 'em. Wocka wocka wocka wocka...
Fun times... (Score:1)
burnout or burnouts? (Score:1)
Sorry, It just bugs me. (Score:2)
ARRRRRGGGH, thats so *much* fun to watch.
Or perhaps you meant "their more funner too whatch".
Anyway, It is a cool hack, but kind of ass backwards. When the rpms are up you should get
better response. Not likely when the load is up.
I have the l33test mod of all... (Score:2)
C-X C-S
Ok here's the consensus (Score:2)
Think I found a weekend project next time it's raining.
Re:Ok here's the consensus (Score:2)
red zone, red zone, all the time (Score:2, Insightful)
While you might think it would be cool to have your tach pegged in the far red all the time, my first milisecond-scale reaction would be "Broken gauge", and my second milisecond-scale reaction would be "I just lost all my oil while driving at high speed and my engine will seize up in three... two... one...".
Either way, I'd have that little viceral moment of panic each time I looked at the thing.
Old GE-635 had one of these per CPU (Score:2)
BTW... each processor was the size of a bunch of concatenated refrigerators. Memory, in 64MW chunks was in separate similar sized boxes.
Hey... mod me up... us ancient fogies need all the help we can get
Something is missing... (Score:2)
I'd have:
Tach as shown above
coolant temp gage (for monitoring processor temp)
Fuel gage for UPS battery life
Speedometer (for network traffic)
Now if this was on a windows box,
The obvious solution would be to replace all gages with idiot lights and fuzzy dice.
;)
Build your own remote-controlled analog meter (Score:2)
You can control it remotely from a command-line program and use it to display your web server load, ebay price, whatever. (Hey, it could be a Web Service or maybe even a Gnome widget!)
See pictures and instructions at http://graflex.org/klotz/meter
How (I think) it's done (Score:2)
When your car is running, the on-board processor (or, if you've got an older model, the points) is firing off a 12 volt signal 4 times per engine revolution (for a 4 cyl). The trigger tells the coil to fire it's juice to the spark plugs. (OK, actually, it causes a field collapse, but that's not important now!) That 12 volt trigger is what a tach normally reads. 1000 RPM = 4000 12 volt triggers per second. 8000 RPM (XOxide's tach max) is 32k triggers per second - closing on as fast as older com ports can go.
OK, now wire up that trigger connector on the tach to the CTS (or was it RTS?) on a com port. Now a small background process that reads the stat you wanna display then opens the com port the appropriate amount of times per second should do it.
I think I've got an old tach laying around somewhere...
Re:Useless for my DUAL MP1900, When will offer (Score:1)
Re:Meanwhile, back in reality. (Score:2)
More deservingly? You've got to be fscking kidding me. Are you saying I'm less deserving of my money because I earned it myself? Nobody decides who is more deserving of my money but me, and here's my position: *I* am the most deserving of my money. Why? I EARN IT.
Deserving is defined as follows: To earn by service; to be worthy of (something due, either good or evil); to merit; to be entitled to; as, the laborer deserves his wages; a work of value deserves praise.
So, tell me again how a charity is more deserving of my $50 than I am? The charity didn't earn it by service. The people whom the charity are giving it to didn't earn it. There was no work of value by anyone but me, so how can anyone but me deserve the money? The answer is, they don't. It's very nice if you're willing to give them money out of the goodness of your heart, but they don't deserve a single dime. Period.
The USA was once full of people who worked their asses off to own nice things. Now it's full of people who don't do shit yet believe they are deserving of a luxurious American lifestyle. Their front-men are people like you, and the people who believe this "I deserve what you earned" mantra are part of what is tearing our country apart.
In closing, take your anti-American bullshit elsewhere. We don't need it here.