Argh!

This was a full table with my brew worksheet and brew-day log. But the raw HTML editor ate my post, so now I have to redo the whole thing. Here's part, and you'll get the rest when I get back to my paper brew log.

Just to make sure that I know what I’m doing, here are the requirements that I’d like to meet with the control panel.

• Must have the same form factor as the original front panel. By my measurements, that means 3.5 inches by 2.20 inches.
• 16-key keypad.
• 2 LED digits. 
• Serial port to connect to PC using a BUB USB board.
• Power for the Membership Card should come from the USB port, but there should also be a simple way to hook up an external power supply.
• When the serial port is connected the front panel should be able to understand the simple command language that I developed for the serial port adapter.
• If the serial port is not connected the front panel should act like a hex keypad connected to port 4, and do the standard DMA load.
• Should have expansion connectors so that additional boards can be stacked.

So keep those in mind as I’m working on the front panel. Hopefully I’ll be able to make all of these work.

“Bee Dee” on the Yahoo COSMAC ELF group suggested that we document the progress of our various ELF2K and Membership Card projects with photos and videos to share on the Web. I’m not so much with video, but I can take a picture or two and write up what I’m doing.

I’ve been working on improving the serial port adapter that I build using a Picaxe 20X2. I showed the new version to the group on the mailing list, and suddenly I had a new idea to work on. I was inspired by a posting on the mailing list by Lee Hart – replacing the stock front panel of the Membership Card with a new keypad and LED digit display controlled by a Picaxe microprocessor. It sounded like a good idea to me, that is if I could get everything to fit on the small footprint offered by the Membership Card.

I’m going to be writing up my progress as I go along, providing a screen shot or photograph or two, and hopefully sharing what I learn. Right  now, I’m thinking that I’m going to have to jump through these hoops:

• Figure out if I can get a Picaxe 40X2, a 16-key keypad, and two LED displays on a board the size of the Membership Card.
• Come up with a tentative assignment for the input/output ports on the Picaxe.
• Build a version of the circuit on a breadboard to make sure that it works.
• Write software to make the whole package work.
• Layout a PC board and get it manufactured.
• Build a prototype and see if I got it right.

Hopefully I’ll keep engaged on this project until I get it done. Making a commitment to writing it up should help with that.

Since we the fireworks in the neighborhood were keeping us up anyway we decided that hauling the ‘scope out wouldn’t be a bad thing, it would give us something to do until after midnight when the booming fades away.

I spend some time with the Sky and Telescope star chart tonight looking for something interesting to see. There is an article in there about double stars, so that’s what I decided to look for.

The seeing tonight was the best that I’ve seen, clear and crisp views of the stars. Unfortunately, my star hopping wasn’t good enough to find 95 Herc, the particular double that I was looking for. I did see M13 as I was sweeping the sky, so that’s something.

The best part of the night was looking at Mizar and Alcor. First with the naked eye, where they are visible (to me, anyway) as a single point of light. Next, the 7x50 binoculars show them clearly as a double star with a third star going along for the ride. Then finally I pointed the 76mm reflector towards them and we could see Mizar’s close companion.

I know that Mizar and the close companion are actually a double-double system, but it was fun to see the way the view changed with different optics, and to see the kids figure out what they were seeing.

Dana’s parents went out on Saturday to take advantage of the short crabbing season that we’re having here, so Dana and I decided to take our boat out and meet them on the water – hoping that a crab or two might fall off their boat and into our.

Originally we thought that we would take our kids with us, but they decided to go with Ron and Sue on the Salty Lady. Dana I ended up taking Odyssey out by ourselves again.

It was almost a pleasant day out on the water, except for the lack of wind. Mostly we drifted around, running the motor whenever we needed to dodge a crab pot that the current was setting us toward. We did stop for  a while to talk to Ron and Sue and the kids.

Here’s today’s complaint – people who run at speed past boats at anchor. Three or four times while we were tied up to Salty Lady some jerk came spinning by at speed only a 10 or 20 yards away. Odyssey and the Lady would bob like corks, trying to tangle their railings, and Dana and I would be fending off with both feet and a hand to keep us from smashing together. Just because you can run your boat fast anywhere you want doesn’t mean that you should…

We pottered about, heading in about 5:00 p.m. The current was running fast up river; I had to try three times before I could get us close enough to the dock for Dana to get out. Made a few people nervous, but didn’t hit anyone.

On the way home we swung by the marina where the kids were and dropped off a cool chest. Two crabs came home with Joe and Kate. Made a great dinner with fresh greens from the garden.

Dana and I went sailing for the first time this year on Sunday. It was quiet, relaxing, exhilerating, and exhausting -- just like a day on the water should be.

It was just Dana and I again, Katie had a bad head cold and Joey had some homework that he wanted to work on, though he did help me put the lines on the boat again. He's downright useful a that sort of thing nowadays. Load, pack, hook up, and go took about an hour, but I wasn't hurrying.

Towing the boat is remarkably stressful since it jumped off the hitch last year. Everytime I go over a bump I glance in the rearview mirror to make sure that Odyssey is still with us. The leaf springs on the trailer have a loud squeak in them, that didn't help to hear as the trailer settled back down after a bump.

The toughest challenge to overcome this trip was figuring out how to pay for launching and parking. We thought we had to pay for launching and parking ($11), but it turns out we only had to pay for launching ($8), the first 24 hours of parking are included. Unfortunately, we didn't bring change for $8.00, and the machine doesn't give change. Through fits and starts, we finally managed to give the machine the $8.00 we needed to for our launching ticket, after we managed to give it (and lose) $10.00.

In we went, and off sailing we went. The wind was, as usual, fluky. Stiff, soft, and non-existent by turns. It always pleasant though, out on the water, so we had a good time.

Still here. Still alive. And now coming to you via the magic of the mobile and connected Web.

The company bought us all Windows 7 phones -- partly to seed the market and partly because they know that if they give us a way to work all the time, we will. Verizon was late to the party, but I finally got my new phone this week.

I'm not sure if it saves me time or if it makes me more productive, but it does make it easy to be spontaneous. Take this post for example, wouldn't be making it without the new phone. And the geocaching application makes it easy to find a cache whenever you have time -- no need to plan ahead, just map the cache nearest to where you are and grab it.

Could be that is the benefit of the new 4th generation phones -- they put the Web in your hand so you don't have to think about it, it's just there.

One of the members of the Yahoo COSMAC ELF mailing list bought a Dage Scientific MC-3 on eBay. He wanted to know more about it, so I wrote up an article so that there is some information out there on the Web about this 1802-based microprocessor development system.

The article is here: Dage MC-3.

One of the problems with storing Odyssey outside and uncovered during the winter is that the deck gets covered in dirt and green gooky stuff – and when it rains that gunk flows down the side of the boat. I’m not sure why, but the stuff running down the sides of the boat leaves streaks, streaks that don’t wash off in the spring.

Today I went out to start cleaning the hull. I made up a bucket of my favorite washing soap (Purple Power) and got out a scrub brush. I started at the stern on the port side and worked my way forward and around, scrubbing the bulwark and rubrail with the brush to remove the caked on gunk, and then working my way down the side to the waterline (I don’t go below the waterline, Odyssey still has a layer of ablative anti-fouling paint that I don’t want to scrub away). The gunk came off, but no matter how hard I scrubbed I couldn’t get those streaks to come away.

Most years it isn’t a big deal, Odyssey isn’t the prettiest sailboat out there, and a few streaks on her side don’t make her any less fun to sail. But today the streaks were bothering me – they were darker than usual, or there were more of them. Not sure, but it bothered me anyway.

Up in the den I have a copy of Don Casey’s Sailboat Hull and Deck Repair, and the chapter “Restoring the Gloss” answered my questions. Compounding the boat, or, more aggressively, sanding the gel coat. Out in the barn I found a package of 320-grit wet sand sandpaper. A plan was born.

Right in the middle of the worst streaks on the port side I started wet sanding the hull. A couple of minutes later I found, much to the dismay of my elbow, back and shoulder, that it worked. The streaks were gone, the gel coat was shiny, and I had the rest of the boat to finish.

Dana came out to talk to me while I worked, so I wasn’t completely absorbed in the sanding, but she went back inside as the rain started to come down harder. For a time I didn’t need to run water on the hull as I sanded, the rain provided all the flow I needed to keep sanding.

After an hour or so of work I was able to step back and admire hull that looked remarkably good. Not perfect by any measure, but a whole heck of a lot better.

Unfortunately, now that I’ve sanded the hull I need to get some wax on it to protect if from additional staining. And with the weather forecast to keep raining for days, I’m not sure when I’ll get a chance.

Last week I let the COSMAC ELF mailing list know that I had made a serial port adapter for the Membership Card. I’d been planning on creating an installation package for it, but the announcement was what Scott used to call a “forcing function” – once I announced that I had the software, I pretty much had to create a package and send it out.

So, here it is: Membership Card Serial Adapter

I want to thank Herb Johnson for his reviews of the first packages that I created, and to Lee Hart (of course) both for creating the Membership Card and for saying in a post “The genius of Chuck's work is his software.” I know it’s just a figure of speech, but it’s a real ego boost to have someone whose work that you admire to call your work "genius."