Since ages I had in mind to combine one of my graphic tablets with the old 15″ flat screen I still have lying around, in order to create a pressure sensitive flat screen - what Wacom sells under the name of “Cintiq” for up to 3000€. My last attempt, two years ago failed at writing the X mouse driver for the tablet I have. It’s an A3+ Kontron Digicad Vision. It’s large, and it features an excellent pressure and tilt sensor. Plus it comes with a full description of its communication protocol with the serial port. It was absolutely no hassle to send control codes and read out the data using a small C program. Where I gave up last time was at getting my self-written driver to actually get recognized by the XFree86 server.That said, time has passed, and I am sure that with Xorg everything will be better[tm] and easier[tm].

So, a few days ago, via hack-a-day I stumbled upon this great tutorial and my motivation was back again. I disassembled my flat screen instantly, and successfully stripped it from all its metal casing. Since the screen too is one of the early generation models, everything was well accessible and secured by simple screws and clips. I successfully found out that the backlight and display are almost metal-free - except for two rails on the top and bottom of the display which I am planning to remove as well.

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I’ve been playing with location-based services today. GSM-based localization told me unmistakably that my cellphone is closer to belong to the local bulky waste dump than to my work place. Then the hauptstadtblog comes along and reports about Berlin emergency services using cellphone localization to ease their work. I know now where they will be searching for my body.

Still, attaching a cheap used cell phone with a good standby time and a powerful battery to your belongings may be the cheaper alternative to buying a 450€ professional GSM device. Especially when you don’t need it.

I played through superfrog on my Amiga emulator today. Ah, the good old times.
Which reminds me that I should check sometime if our Amiga 500 still does the job.

..on sunday, we had planned to have a final short glance of the festival of lights. As it turned out, we were one day too late, despite the indications on their web site. At least, that’s what I understood from the neon installation by Maurizio Nannucci at the Altes Museum.