I must have had a moment... Not a senior moment but a complete senior week!!!
As most of you know, I work with mobile cranes.... Some years ago I wrote a very good crane simulation program in dos!!
It worked very well and seemed to be "one of the best" simulators I ever did... I have tried to port it to windows, but as I need access to the parallel port.. Unless I use a OCX driven port tool ( written by someone else without the full support I need ) I cannot replicate it!!
Here's the thing.. I have several panel PC's I bought a while back...
Loaded Dos onto one, Loaded an old Borland compiler I use, Found the program, compiled it and tada!! we're trucking.
All of a sudden the screen went black!! Quick check and it seems the CCFL invertor has gone south!!
Pulled it to bits tested the invertor and it started to smell !!! ARGH! the invertor (used) to be 5v input in my rush I fed 12v into it... Then only to realize that the invertor was the "dimming" type and all that had happened is the 5v PWM signal had fallen out!!!
So in haste I pulled another panel PC out of the box... hooked it up to hasty----- BANG---- ARGH!! I mixed the 12v and 5v again.. Another £400 down the drain... I contacted the shop I got the panel PC from and the could provide me with a new motherboard for £89... Next day I opened the new motherboard... Checked to see it will be okay.... Turned the panel PC upside down, undid the screws holding the motherboard in place... One was a little tight----- CRACK---- ARGH!!! the LCD snapped...
Should have stayed in Amsterdam £889.00 lighter and no simulator!!
As most of you know, I work with mobile cranes.... Some years ago I wrote a very good crane simulation program in dos!!
It worked very well and seemed to be "one of the best" simulators I ever did... I have tried to port it to windows, but as I need access to the parallel port.. Unless I use a OCX driven port tool ( written by someone else without the full support I need ) I cannot replicate it!!
Here's the thing.. I have several panel PC's I bought a while back...
Loaded Dos onto one, Loaded an old Borland compiler I use, Found the program, compiled it and tada!! we're trucking.
All of a sudden the screen went black!! Quick check and it seems the CCFL invertor has gone south!!
Pulled it to bits tested the invertor and it started to smell !!! ARGH! the invertor (used) to be 5v input in my rush I fed 12v into it... Then only to realize that the invertor was the "dimming" type and all that had happened is the 5v PWM signal had fallen out!!!
So in haste I pulled another panel PC out of the box... hooked it up to hasty----- BANG---- ARGH!! I mixed the 12v and 5v again.. Another £400 down the drain... I contacted the shop I got the panel PC from and the could provide me with a new motherboard for £89... Next day I opened the new motherboard... Checked to see it will be okay.... Turned the panel PC upside down, undid the screws holding the motherboard in place... One was a little tight----- CRACK---- ARGH!!! the LCD snapped...
Should have stayed in Amsterdam £889.00 lighter and no simulator!!