User:Asj

Asj
Name	Aaron Jackson
Date joined	{{{datejoined}}}
Manufacturer	{{{manufacturer}}}
Model	Human with upgrades
Website	aaronsplace.co.uk
Mastodon	@asj@hachyderm.io
Discord	asjackson
Callsign	M6PIU

Unlikely to keep this updated (it's a wiki after all). Website is aaronsplace.co.uk

I like making things in general - especially if I can go from having an idea to a finished "thing" in one evening.

Always happy to chat on Discord or Liber.Chat (IRC) with other members - I'm asjackson on both

Timeline

• Born
• School school school
• Worked as a PHP developer for six months before realising it was boring
• Went to Bangor Uni to study computer science
• Went to Uni of Notts to study PhD in computer science https://aaronsplace.co.uk/research.html
• Got bored of trying to publish in a field as crowded as AI/ML, got bored of working on application based research rather than something useful, started doing research computing support at Dundee University for a health informatics group.
• What happens next???

Interests

• Fixing and Poking PDP-11s and VAXen.
• Electronics - I like analogue stuff but always need to learn more.
• Napping with my cats.
• Amateur Radio, particularly AX.25 packet stuff
• Cycling, although I've definitely lost a lot of fitness over the past few years and now struggle to motivate myself to go on long rides

Projects

While finding photos of things I've built, I realised I mostly use the space to fix things. Also I have a lot of projects which have stalled. Hopefully the list will grow eventually. 😅

• 
  LED Dot-Matrix Clock in laser cut case, NodeMCU behind the scenes
• 
  Nixie clock, laser cut case, machined brass feet
• 
  Laser cut ear plug storage
• 
  Bodge fix VAX 4000 PSU, new +/- 12v module
• 
  DEC RL02 Spindle ground
• 
  DEC RL02 Spindle bearings replacement
• 
  Replacement PDP-11 BA11 backplate
• 
  Tektronix 604 refurbishment and new screen protector
• 
  Railway Departure Board
• 
  Departure Board Arduino Shield
• 
  Pager Transmitter for Nottinghack
• 
  Boards for Pager Transmitters
• 
  Laser Display Arduino shield
• 
  Studio Display
• 
  Tie Dyed Lab Coat
• 
  Satellite dish rotator
• 
  NOAA HRPT image

• 2024 Antenna Rotator for tracking satellites
• 2024 Jasmin Display board with Ethernet for the Laser and Studio displays
• 2024 Pager Transmitter MB7PNH
• 2024 A POCSAG Pager transmitter using an Adafruit Feather LoRa board
• 2024 Train Station Display, external blog post
• 2023 A very stylish nixie clock
• 2023 The discord bot for Nottingham Hackspace
• 2023 ESPhome module for the Interstate75 RGB LED panel driver board
• 2023 A GitHub action pipeline for automatically building 2.11BSD releases
• 2023 An LED dot matrix clock, and an RFID powered catflap
• 2023 Bodge fix of a VAX4000 power supply
• 2022 giving a cheap doorbell WiFi powers
• 2022 ESPhome support for the AdaFruit MagTag e-ink display. In theory should do grayscale but I only got b/w working
• 2022 a ridiculous deep drive into the innerworkings of a 10MB harddrive from the 1970s
• 2021 a GPIB driver for 2.11BSD running on a PDP-11
• 2020 A 12AX7 preamp
• 2019 Leak Stereo 20 tube amplifier repair and restoration
• 2019 bleh - my phd thesis
• 2018 A lisp interpretter 2.11BSD written in K&R C
• 2018 a quick and dirty GPIB adapter based on arduino
• 2017 fixing a PDP-11/23+ power supply

Quite fun digging those out and reminding myself what I've been up to over the past few years.

Things I want to learn about

• Amaranth HDL for programming FPGA, had some success with the built in simulator, waiting for real fpga to arrive. https://amaranth-lang.org/docs/amaranth/latest/
• Screen printing (mainly the stencil making part)
• Risograph
• CAD so I can use the CNC router better
• KiCAD because I currently wirewrap everything

Child Pages and Notes

• User:Asj/faves
• User:Asj/Notes_about_using_cnc_mill_with_openscad
• User:Asj/Notes_about_laser_cutting_solder_stencils