I scored a few DMF-50573NB-FW 480×80 pixel graphic LCDs off trademe for $NZ5 each.  However, the documentation around on the internets for this particular variant of the Optrex DMF family seems to be sparse. So here is the information that I have gleaned from the looking at the devices themselves, datasheets for other LCDs in the family, probing with a multimeter and general experimentation. No guarantees as to the accuracy of this data, but so far it has worked for me.  If anyone has a datasheet please link in the comments .

(continue reading…)

I bought an Ensoniq Control 16 off Trademe cause it was going for fairly cheap relative to new control surfaces.  The problem with the Control 16 is that it is designed to only work with a proprietary PCI card from PARIS.  So I am planning on reverse engineering it and building a USB adaptor.  First things first, though, it needed to be disassembled so I can reverse engineer the circuit.  Here are some pix for those who are interested.

(continue reading…)

NOTE: This page is now outdated, please go to http://www.electricrock.co.nz/blog/microchip-c30/

Microchip’s C Compiler for PIC24 MCUs and dsPIC DSCs (herein referred to as C30) is a GCC derivative and therefore the sources are freely available to build it on any platform.  However, the documentation for getting a working setup seems to be sparse.  This blog entry details the steps I followed to install it under Ubuntu 9.04, mostly gleaned from  http://embeddedfreak.wordpress.com/2008/10/10/compiling-mplab-c30-v311b-under-linux. There are some small changes from the embeddedfreak version, I am using v3.12 of the compiler (the most recent version at the time of writing) and I will provide details of how to setup the non-free part.

(continue reading…)