tierra writes "Indiviuals writing their own games is one thing, but try building your own console. Russ Christensen, and his team put together in class, dive into the fun of using an old Nintendo system to house their customized XSA-50 Board. They also uses a XSA Extender to hook their personal console up to a monitor instead of a TV. They programmed Tetris and Space Invaders for their console using a system they call CASM."

Mister Buttons writes "There really haven't been any real technical reviews of the new Tablet PC operating system from Microsoft yet. Those marketing stories published on CNET and the like do little more than whet the appetite. Luckily it looks like someone finally took a close look at the Tablet PC. The folks over at AnandTech have a good tablet PC review up which includes information on both the hardware and software that the tablet PCs use. Maybe it's time to break open that piggy bank..."

spicyjack writes "After reading this story, I thought this submit would be appropriate. A German company called Dream-Multimedia-TV has come up with a schweet custom box targeted for the PVR/Satellite markets. How about a machine with a 250Mhz IBM PowerPC, 2 SmartCard readers, one CompactFlash slot, UDMA66 IDE, MPEG2 support with MPEG4 (DivX) support on the way, Ethernet, LCD display, SPDIF out, yada yada yada (zipped User's Manual). Oh, and it is built specifically to run Linux. Available right now. Commence hacking!"

PlatterMan asks: "The question of how to cope with backing up disk drives which are rapidly increasing in size, onto tape and other backup devices which aren't scaling in size as quickly isn't new to Slashdot. Neither is the use of single, raided, and removal disks as backup devices, this has been covered numerous times on Slashdot in e.g. here and here. One thing I haven't really seen discussed however is the feasibility of disk drives as medium to long-term archival media, say 5 to 10 years. Like many people I'm in the position of now having multiple machines with a combined data pool of about 220 Gig, and backing up these onto DDS or DLT tapes is slow and manual to do, and expensive in tape costs. So I'm looking to add a removal drive bay to my primary backup machine and pick up a bunch of large IDE drives, so that I can do regular disk to disk backups over 100 Meg Ethernet (and for my machines which are in cages, over the Net) pulling out and alternating the backup drives on a 3-way backup cycle."

dfelznic writes "There is a new wardriving utlity for Mac OS X 10.2 that can put the AirPort card into monitor mode and collect and crack WEP-enabled 802.11b networks. The application is KisMAC and it relies on the Viha driver to put the AirPort card into monitor mode. Both the application and the driver are in beta."

ike6116 asks: "According to Apple the 15" Apple Studio Display is still available, but when one clicks on Store and tries to select it with a system it is nowhere to be found. I ask you: Where have they gone to? Why have they left? Will they be back?"

Ian Chamberlain writes "Drobe, the leading RISC OS portal, has reported the release of Iyonix, the first desktop computer to use Intel's XScale processor. The XScale is now famous for its increasingly widespread use in PDA devices, used because of its low power consumption and high performance processing. The Iyonix runs a new 32bit version of RISC OS, the operating system orginally developed by Acorn, but now owned by Pace." The same site links to a pair of reviews (one translated from heise.de) of this machine. RISC OS is also what powers the solar PC mentioned a few months ago.

Migraine Man writes "Similar to the PPC-based Briq, the folks at Stealth Computer have introduced an Intel-based PC that's built into a 5.25" CD-ROM-sized enclosure. It's got a 1.0GHz P3, 256M RAM, 20G HD, 10/100 eth, CD-ROM, USB, FireWire, video, and sound. At USD 995, it's reasonably priced too. You could put three of 'em on a 1U rackmount shelf, or stuff several into a mid-tower and build your own desktop cluster. A summary datasheet is here. Very cool."

mnemonic writes "DigitalVideoEditing.com has posted its third Mac vs. PC comparison, dealing with performance in After Effects and Photoshop, graphics applications one might expect the Mac to be significantly faster in. It should be noted that the author, Charlie White, is a long-time PC supporter and disliker of Macs, though, as he shows, this preference is for as legitimate reasons as the ones devoted Mac users cite to disparage PC's. Ace's Hardware has another comparison that goes further in depth into the specifics of the G4, P4 and Athlon processors. As when comparing any two pieces of hardware, it's important to think not only of the relationship between performance and specification, but performance and price."

An anonymous reader writes "Science Blog is reporting a story from Sandia National Laboratory, best known for its nuclear weapons research. "Evacuating heat is one of the great problems facing engineers as they design faster laptops by downsizing circuit sizes and stacking chips one above the other. The heat from more circuits and chips increase the likelihood of circuit failures as well as overly heated laps. "Space, military, and consumer applications, are all bumping up against a thermal barrier," says Sandia researcher Mike Rightley, whose newly patented "smart" heat pipe seems to solve the problem. The simple, self-powered mechanism transfers heat to the side edge of the computer, where air fins or a tiny fan can dissipate the unwanted energy into air."

strredwolf writes "They need developers to port Mozilla to TrollTech's QT. The origional port is since 0.9.9 and hasn't been updated since. We need that Mozilla for the iPAQ or Zaurus!!!"

Glewtion writes "LaCie has release their "Big Disk" - a large capacity FireWire case (400 / 500GB) with decent specs. The only thing they're not clear on is the fact that there are two drives in the case...but that only seems logical. Looks like it's only available in Europe though, so here's a link to a French Hardware site's description of it (translation courtesy of Google). Pretty cool for a portable MP3 collection. Here's the LaCie page." What's not apparant is that this case has two drives in it apparantly. Very Slick.

Bender writes "The Tech Report has an interesting article comparing IDE RAID controllers from four of the top manufacturers. The article serves as more than just a straight product comparison, because the author has included tests for different RAID levels and different numbers of drives, plus a comprehensive series of benchmarks intended to isolate the performance quirks of each RAID controller card at each RAID level. The results raise questions about whether IDE RAID can really take the place of a more expensive SCSI storage subsystem in workstation or small-scale server environments. Worthwhile reading for the curious sysadmin." I personally would love to hear any ide-raid stories that slashdotters might have.

desau asks: "In the never ending quest to build a better MP3 player for my car, I've decided that I would like to be able to punch in letters via my IR remote. The only problem is that I can't find an IR remote with letters. I'm distinctly trying to stay away from the number pads with letters overloaded (such as phone pads) as they prove to difficult while driving. Also, it needs to work with the IRDA standard and work with LIRC. Anyone out there know where to look?"

Xochi77 asks: "As a Geek and a Backpacker, my laptop travels where ever I go, but now that I'm planning a trip through remote regions of South America and Africa, I'm starting to wonder where I'm going to get my power from. How has the Slashdot community dealt with powering high-tech gear in third world countries? I'm especially interested in alternative power sources, like solar cells and wind-up generators etc, but they will have to fit in my backpack!"

A user writes, "Apple has finally released IP over FireWire drivers for Mac OS X. It is now possible to connect two or more Macs together with FireWire cables and if needed, FireWire hubs."

Citywide writes "Ars has a very thorough technical piece up entitled Understanding the Microprocessor. It's pitched lower than many Ars articles (all of which are a bit over my head, to be honest), but that's why it's worth checking out: it explains the fundamentals is a very clear and useful way. And as the author notes, this kind of information is really crucial to get a grip on before Hammer arrives."

DaveAtFraud writes "Ace's Hardware has a nice introductory article to the animal that will not die: The Mainframe. Ever wonder why these things are still around and what makes them different from a PC or UNIX box? The article is IBM-centric so there's no discussion of say the CDC Cyber series but when most people don't even believe that mainframes exist anymore, what the hay, let's disabuse them of that notion first. Hopefully, the author will follow up with the additional promised articles that go into more technical detail but this is a good place to start. I wonder if they still make card readers, too?" This guide came out last month, but it's worth looking through, even just for the pictures.

An anonymous reader asks: "I just bought a Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer for Bluetooth for my Mac OS X 2.2 box. Like typical Mac fashion, it was entirely plug and play, no software required. However, I go to pair the mouse with the adapter in Bluetooth prefs and it asks me for a pairing password! Others on XP SP1 using integrated/third party adapters other than the one provided by Microsoft also report the same pairing password (on a side note, the MS adapter doesn't even pair with most Palms or Cellphones, what kind of standards following is that?). I called MS tech support and they gave me a weak 'It doesn't work on the Mac.' reply. So, has anyone managed to get this mouse to work on OS X, Linux, or XP (SP1 with a third party adapter)? Perhaps a cracked security password?"

Garfipus asks: "I have an Ericsson T60d cell phone that I use for cellular modem access. It works fine on a WinME laptop, but I'd like to use it on my PowerBook (and with a miracle, on my Newton 2100). I looked at the .inf file from the Sony Ericsson support website, and added the modem strings to a modem script under Mac OS 9, but it doesn't work. If I dial, the system doesn't see the modem and times out. A terminal emulator works, and allows me to issue commands. I can dial voice calls with ATDT, but that's about it. Any input on correct configuration settings for any non-Windows OS? I'd get a T68i (using that one is easy), but Cingular doesn't appear to support it."