Something Unreal

I was recently with a friend who runs a server which is a lot more impressive than mine, so I thought I’d show it off. It also sounds like a jet engine.

[Watch in HD]

For a start, it’s actually in a rack-mount case (2U), with ~17TB total disk capacity and 20GB of RAM (it usually has about 24, but he had to remove some to use in another machine, hence the sticks of RAM lying on top of the case). It’s running a few VMs for people (with Arch Linux as the host), acting as a NAS, and doing a few other things like running some IRC bots, but he shut it down and rebooted it so that I could hear the fans rev up. =D

Wow! It’s been a long time since my last video of my Bleeper Music Maker program playing music. This time I DIDN’T make the music – it’s just playing a MIDI which someone else has made and released here.

[Watch in HD]

This is the theme for when you’re fighting Satori (stage 4′s boss) in the 11th Touhou game (Subterranean Animism). I’ve increased the tempo, though, to try to make it sound more lively (my program plays 1-bit music, which is as basic as a waveform can get, and so long notes can sound very boring/tedious/headache-inducing).

My Bleeper Music Maker program is freeware, and you can grab the latest version of it and see more info on it here.

Also, I think I’ll be using this LED display in a lot of videos… if I can find a way to make it look less unstable/juddery on the camcorder. =/

I was lucky enough to be shown around the building of a company which deals with surveillance and programming. This is the workroom of a person whose job it is to recover data from corrupted disks.

Also, this is the first video I’ve uploaded from my new high-def camcorder.

[Watch in HD]

My router fried itself a couple of days ago, so no-one will have been able to access my server during that time.

I’m sorry for the inconvenience, but it’s all okay now (and I actually have a better router, so it should stay okay).

Firstly, Sota’s made an awesome touchscreen effect by using a Wiimote (which can pinpoint the position of an infrared light) and putting an infrared LED and switch into a pen. It’s really cool, and thankfully, he’s made a video to share the awesomeness.

Secondly, I’ve uploaded our remix of Shikieiki’s theme, “Critical Judgement”, to Bemani Style – here’s the download link. It will probably be faster to download from here.

My brother’s new engine being controlled from a laptop. He made a little makeshift frame for the engine, the starter’s battery and the microcontroller. There is a program he made in VB6 on the laptop, which sends commands to the microcontroller via a serial cable, which controls a Futaba servo, which moves the throttle on the engine via a paperclip, which spins the propellor and spinner up to 17,000 RPM.

We’re just messing around here. =D

He intends to buy a plane chassis and RF transmitter/receiver to make a full remote-control plane in the near future – as soon as he has the money.

I apologize for the low video quality – I was recording with my PSP, and had to reduce the video quality because the memory stick was almost full. The video still ended due to it running out of space, though.

The engine is a Thunder Tiger GP42.
The microcontroller is an SSC-32 made by LynxMotion (yep, we use these in so many things).

…And to anyone who’s seen our “singing motor” videos – well, I’d love to do it, but he won’t let me. -_-

Well, it’s about time. It still has no integrated MIDI player (it will happen eventually), but it has several bug fixes which I’d been putting off for many many months, and a couple of new things.

(Click for full-size view)

Here’s the usual download place! ^^

The main changes (in no particular order):

1. Bug fix: Program no longer stops responding to all input if you set the Note/Silence Ratio to 100% when using the PC speaker. This bug was only introduced in the last couple of releases, but it’s gone again now. Thanks to Sota Systems for reporting that.

2. When using synchronized play between 2 (or more) instances of Bleeper Music Maker on the same computer: – a. …when some use FMOD and some use PC speaker, synchronization should be much better, especially on CPUs with no hyperthreading. – b. …when they all use FMOD, synchronization should be perfect.

3. Mods which require a serial port are now disabled on program startup if your computer has no serial port, to avoid any potential errors.

4. “Cutoff” slider in “Voice Internals” window is now removed (previously, it made the program crash). Thanks again to Sota Systems for reporting it.

5. Bug fix: BMM files made using the program on a non-English version of Windows should no longer cause the program to crash when running on other versions of Windows. If you have such an error-inducing BMM file, please open it in a text editor and replace True and False (in your language) with 1 and 0, respectively.

6. The position displays are now set to not update by default (“Do not update” is ticked), so that people shouldn’t suffer from any stuttering (due to too much CPU usage) from the moment they start using the program. Of course, you can un-tick it if you like, but I’ve done this to avoid people instantly saying “It sounds terrible”.

6. Option to have notes entered from an external MIDI device only be played once each, instead of repeated for as long as you hold down the key.

7. Bug fix: If you use synchronized play when nothing is in the music list, the “Start waiting” button won’t stay in a disabled state any more.

8. New circuit-bent mod.

Lights flashing to the notes in StepMania files. They’re controlled by a program which I made which reads SM files and plays through the notes (it’s the same program which controlled the servos in my previous video where the servos pressed the arrow keys for StepMania).

Some people who saw my previous video may know that I (accidentally) killed the microcontroller on the same day that I made the video. My brother’s kindly letting me use his in the meantime. I ordered a new one two weeks ago today, and it still hasn’t arrived. Aaaah, SSC-taaan! >_<

Technical rubbish:
The main microcontroller is an SSC-32.
The bulbs are each 2-Watt 21-LED 12-Volt bulbs, producing the same amount of light as a 25-Watt halogen bulb.

I intend to make a guide on how to make this, some time.

EDIT: Oh, YouTube’s messed up the sync again.

My latest project, and this is a mere prototype. A computer plays StepMania CVS 4, controlling servos to press the arrow keys according to step sequences in StepMania files. Lots more info and quite a bit of showing off in the video.

It plays “Overdrive” (for the sake of avoiding typing a really long title which I can’t translate) by IOSYS, and even gets a toasty on “Piano Variation for Remilia Scarlet”.

EDIT: Wow, this video’s quality really disappeared somewhere along the line.

For the technically-minded, I’m using an SSC-32 (microcontroller), and 4 Hextronik 5gr (HXT500) micro servos. The program was made with Visual Basic.

This is what happens when you remove the screws holding the platters to the spinning axle. The metal surfaces rub against each other, producing this sound like some wailing creature.