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 think the User pages are really cool though, and think you should make one if you haven't already. It's like social networking but without the bad bits.

I like making things in general - especially if I can go from having an idea to a finished "thing" in one evening. Most of my projects seem to be hacking LED matrix displays, but I've pretty much run out of them now and need to find something else to do.

Always happy to chat on Discord or Libera.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. Often trying to improve the Electronics Area.
• Napping with my cats.
• Amateur Radio, particularly AX.25 packet stuff - I helped start the Radio Group with Jason.
• 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. Let me know if you zwift, I'll race you (and you'll likely win!)

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
• 
  Solargraphy for Dec 23 to Jun 24
• 
  Studio Display
• 
  Tie Dyed Lab Coat
• 
  Satellite dish rotator
• 
  NOAA HRPT image
• 
  Snackspace Heaters
• 
  v2 of Train Departure Board
• 
  PDP-11 4MB RAM
• 
  Kitchen LED Matrix
• 
  Electronics Extraction
• 
  The smol matrix showing bodge
• 
  The smol matrix showing "Hi! abcdefghij wuff"
• 
  "Build an Arduino" workshop
• 
  Kenwood TH-D74e Repair
• 
  LaserDisc Repair
• 
  GPIB Addon for Glasgow
• 
  Geiger Counter in Studio
• 
  PoE Arduino development board
• 
  Tetrapod plush
• 
  LED ear plug
• 
  Flipdot Display
• 
  Flipdot controller

2025

• Hanover Flipdot Display controller
• LED plugs
• Tetrapod Plushies!
• Power over Ethernet (PoE) Arduino dev board
• Radiation Detector Gegier counter hooked up to Studio display.
• (In Progress) GPIB Applet for Glasgow Interface Explorer
• (In Progress) Philips VP406 LaserDisc Player Repair group project
• Kenwood TH-D74e Repair
• Build an Arduino - Workshop
• A new LED matrix
• Electronics Extraction
• LED Matrix Display for my kitchen
• PDP-11 Memory a reproduction of Peter Schranz memory card.
• version two of the train departure board

2024

• Snackspace Heaters
• Antenna Rotator for tracking satellites
• Jasmin Display board with Ethernet for the Laser and Studio displays
• Pager Transmitter MB7PNH
• A POCSAG Pager transmitter using an Adafruit Feather LoRa board
• Train Station Display, external blog post

2023

• A very stylish nixie clock
• The discord bot for Nottingham Hackspace
• ESPhome module for the Interstate75 RGB LED panel driver board
• A GitHub action pipeline for automatically building 2.11BSD releases
• An LED dot matrix clock, and an RFID powered catflap
• Bodge fix of a VAX4000 power supply

2022

• giving a cheap doorbell WiFi powers
• ESPhome support for the AdaFruit MagTag e-ink display. In theory should do grayscale but I only got b/w working
• a ridiculous deep drive into the innerworkings of a 10MB harddrive from the 1970s

Earlier

• 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.
• Screen printing (mainly the stencil making part)
• Risograph
• CAD so I can use the CNC router better
• KiCAD because I currently wirewrap everything

Things I want to do/make at some point

• Get the Studio Payphone talking to the Discord voice channel.
• Add video streaming to all the displays in the hackspace (as I did with my DIY matrix)
• Add a Geiger counter / radiation metric to grafana

Child Pages and Notes

• User:Asj/faves
• User:Asj/Notes_about_using_cnc_mill_with_openscad
• User:Asj/Notes_about_laser_cutting_solder_stencils
• User:Asj/Bulk_uploads
• User:Asj/Doing stuff with mediawiki api