It was an interface that launched a thousand hacks. Near trivial to program, enough I/O lines for useful work, and sufficiently fast for a multitude of applications: homebrew logic analyzers, chip programmers, LCD interfaces and LED light shows, to name a few.
Today the parallel printer port is on the brink of extinction (and good riddance, some would say). Largely rendered obsolete by USB, few (if any) new peripherals even include a parallel connector, and today’s shrinking computers — nettops, netbooks, media center PCs — wouldn’t have space for it anyway. That’s great for tidy desks, but not so…

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[Dennis] has created a well-documented and very beautiful clock in his latest project. This clock stands out from the other clock projects we have covered with its unique display. The seven segment LED displays mounted on a sled that moves them back and forth behind an array of fiber optic lenses, effectively taking the display out of focus at certain points. Currently, a Dorkboard controls the sled, moving it at random intervals. The case is machined and polished aluminium, the top buttons are ball bearings.

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MUMBAI: Bank of Rajasthan has announced a strategic tie-up with Hero Honda Motors Ltd. The company has entered into this tie up with the aim to offer retail financing facilities to two-wheeler customers at lower interest rates. This tie up will enable the customer to avail the loan on an interest rate, which has been reduced by 150 basis points coupled with a concession of 50% on the processing fees. The two major players have tied up to simplify the purchase of two-wheeler for both the urban as well as the rural customers with the network of 463 branches…

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[Tixlegeek] used a Motorola 68HC705J1 development board to remotely control his home through his cellphone. The video above, as well as [Tixlegeek]’s website, is in French, though the video has been captioned. The development board (called the ERMES125) is controlled by a PIC externally. It has an array of LEDs, and apperantly a few high voltage relays. The PIC is connected to a laptop through a serial interface. The laptop is running a small web server, which uses CGI to control the PIC from a webpage. This system allows [Tixlegeek] to log onto the webpage from his web enabled phone, click a few…

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For some, a peggy 2.0 is pretty cool, but simply not impressive enough. [MonsieurBon] felt this way and simply built a larger LED rig for his peggy2.0.  It still uses the brains of the peggy, but the LED array is a custom built cabinet, using ping pong balls as diffusers. Another interesting modification is that they added a midi port to the setup to generate music based on what LEDs are lit. They say it creates some nice background generative music during the game of life. You can see a video of the system in action after the break.…

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Intel Matrix Storage Manager provides software support for high performance Serial ATA RAID 0 arrays fault tolerant Serial ATA RAID 1 arrays high capacity and fault tolerant Serial ATA RAID 5 arrays and high performance and fault tolerant Serial ATA RAID 10 arrays on select supported chipsets using select operating systems It also provides support for Intel Rapid Recover Technology AHCI Native Command Queuing for increased performance matrix RAID for two RAID volumes on a single array and an improved user interface for enhanced usability This is the software that enables Intel Matrix Storage Technology nbsp

Globalize Your Website The Internet has unlocked a wide array ofmarkets and knocked down barriers that previously preventedmerchants from marketing their products on a global scale. Thereare a number of ways to ‘globalize’ a website and broaden abusinesses general appeal to an international audience.. Payment Options – vary from country to country, thereforeoffering flexible payment options are important. While PayPalmight be a good option for consumer-oriented products, thisservice is not widely used by businesses and is only availableto customers in specific countries. In order to attract globalcustomers, businesses must provide a variety of payment optionsthat customers, in different countries, are…

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[Jack Gasset] sends in the logic analyzer he’s been working on. The logic analyzer boasts an impressive array of features, it can sample 32 channels at 100MHz, 16 channels at 200MHz, SPI, UART, I2C and more. The analyzer’s maximum sample size is 4K for now, and it supports RLE to reduce the memory consumed. The analyzer connects to a java client on a standard PC via USB. The open source hardware based on a Xilinix FPGA can be purchased pre-assembled for $100 which makes it a direct competitor for the Salea logic analyzer we reviewed earlier this year.

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