Month: October 2006

WinPic800 + Willem Programmer + Linux

I’ve just solved one of the last problems that had me booting into Windows every so often – being able to program Eproms and Pics.

I’d never had much luck running WinPic800 or the eprom software under wine on linux. Now with the updated version of wine I’ve found I can. Yay!

The following is taken from several websites and usenet postings – I’ve not seen all the info in once place, so I’m putting it here.

1) Install latest version of wine – at time of writing this is 0.9.22 (I make no promisses this will work with earlier or later versions of wine)

2) Run winecfg and selected Win98 as the emulated windows version. Later versions do not allow direct port access that the programmer software uses.

3) Run regedit and add the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/wine/VDM/ppdev/

4) Add a new string value to that key (type REG_SZ (this is the default anyway))

378 /dev/parport0

5) Make sure you have the ppdev kernel module loaded (it usually is by default)

6) [nasty evil hack] chmod 777 /dev/parport0

7) Test out the software.

Joblessness

Last week I joined the ranks of the great unwashed. Not that this has actually stopped me from going to work – I mean I have a job, I’m just not getting paid for it. If nothing else, going to the lab gets me somewhere warm, and stops unwise self experimentation on the effects of a diet composed entirely of twix bars.

I’m applying for jobs all over the world now. London, Holland, Germany, Singapore.

Singapore? What the fuck? I don’t speak the language, I’d never get any work done as I’d be in a restaurant all day and I’d never survive the flight over. What was I thinking.
I wonder if they import twix or double decker bars.

Oh. And Antarctica. I think you get to travel by sea for that one.