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	{{{callsign}}}

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 with other members - I'm asjackson there

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
The Rail Departure Board in Metalworking being bit-banged by an Arduino R4
Rendering (cause it's not arrived yet) of Arduino shield for driving the Departure Board.

2024 A POCSAG Pager transmitter using an Adafruit Feather LoRa board https://aaronsplace.co.uk/blog/2024-03-30-adafruit-feather-32u4-lora-board-sending-pagers-pocsag.html
2024 Train Departure Board in Metalworking https://aaronsplace.co.uk/blog/2024-03-02-train-departures-display.html
2023 A very stylish nixie clock https://aaronsplace.co.uk/blog/2023-10-26-nixie-clock.html
2023 The discord bot for Nottingham Hackspace https://github.com/AaronJackson/nh-discord
2023 ESPhome module for the Interstate75 RGB LED panel driver board https://github.com/AaronJackson/interstate75-esphome
2023 A GitHub action pipeline for automatically building 2.11BSD releases https://github.com/AaronJackson/2.11BSD-Distribution-Builder
2023 An LED dot matrix clock, and an RFID powered catflap https://aaronsplace.co.uk/blog/2023-01-09-an-led-matrix-clock-and-rfid-catflap.html
2023 Bodge fix of a VAX4000 power supply https://aaronsplace.co.uk/blog/2023-07-09-a-better-solution-to-the-vax-4000-power-supply.html
2022 giving a cheap doorbell WiFi powers https://aaronsplace.co.uk/blog/2022-12-29-hacking-a-doorbell.html
2022 ESPhome support for the AdaFruit MagTag e-ink display. In theory should do grayscale but I only got b/w working. https://github.com/esphome/esphome/pull/4222
2021 a GPIB driver for 2.11BSD running on a PDP-11 https://aaronsplace.co.uk/blog/2021-09-26-2.11bsd-drivers.html
2022 a ridiculous deep drive into the innerworkings of a 10MB harddrive from the 1970s https://aaronsplace.co.uk/blog/2020-12-19-rl02-checks-adjustments-and-alignments.html
2019 Leak Stereo 20 tube amplifier repair and restoration https://aaronsplace.co.uk/blog/2019-09-10-leak-stereo-20.html
2020 A 12AX7 preamp https://aaronsplace.co.uk/blog/2020-05-17-12ax7-pre-amp.html
2019 bleh - phd thesis https://github.com/AaronJackson/thesis/
2018 A lisp interpretter 2.11BSD written in K&R C https://github.com/AaronJackson/bnlisp
2018 a quick and dirty GPIB adapter based on arduino https://aaronsplace.co.uk/blog/2018-04-03-gpib-arduino.html

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