[HN Gopher] Dip Switch USB Stick ___________________________________________________________________ Dip Switch USB Stick Author : tambourine_man Score : 61 points Date : 2022-02-03 20:58 UTC (2 hours ago) (HTM) web link (twitter.com) (TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com) | gkhartman wrote: | One of my favorite things in life is the the feeling I get when I | open something up to find a pcb populated with dip switches (or | jumpers) that are clearly labeled on the pcb. This practice has | most likely disappeared to save pcb space, but it feels great | when you don't have to grep config files or search for a long | lost manual pdf. | mark-r wrote: | This would have backfired on one project I worked on. Near the | end of the project I was asked to document the working of the | DIP switches. I discovered that the settings were too complex, | I couldn't document it in any way that would make sense to a | user. But then I realized that they were being interpreted in | software, and it was my software - I could make them do | anything I wanted! So I wrote the documentation the way I | thought made sense, then changed the software to match the | documentation. If the switches had been labeled on the PCB it | would have been too late for that. | loudthing wrote: | This seems super pointless but fun. | bobsmooth wrote: | Good excuse to use the pretty rainbow switches. | sen wrote: | The best projects are. | duxup wrote: | I would have preferred jumpers... but I'll accept this. | jpm_sd wrote: | This is so weird, I love it | zw123456 wrote: | Back when I was very first learning to use the USB driver for the | PIC MCU I made something similar except it was even dumber, it | was just one push button and one LED. I showed it to a few | buddies and same thing, they started thinking of all kinds of | funny use cases for it, like a USB controlled light switch or | whatever. | | But seriously, the PIC USB driver, super simple to use and very | useful for many real useful purposes. | progre wrote: | If PIC programmers/debuggers didn't cost about the same as a | months rent, or at least didn't use proprietary Windows-only | drivers... I love PIC stuff too but jesus they make it hard to | choose their stuff for hobby work. | mark-r wrote: | Yes, JSON or XML would probably be overkill. How about a simple | text file with a sequence of 8 '0' or '1' characters? | Minor49er wrote: | Nah, it would be best to use a custom piece of hardware that | occupies a USB slot to store that data instead | | Jokes aside, it's a fun and cool project to learn about | microcontrollers | mark-r wrote: | I was thinking of putting the text file on a USB memory | stick, so you could continue to waste the USB port. You could | probably pick up an old obsolete one for less than the BOM of | this project. | sigmonsays wrote: | fun stuff... use cases? | | here is a couple... | | 1. profile location switching. pin 1 on/off = work/away - switch | system configs appropriately. 2. desktop workspaces, flipping pin | 2 on enables workspace switching. pin 3 and 4 control workspace | number. | | What else? | hatware wrote: | Could be useful with home assistant in a lot of ways, though | your use cases kind of cover them. | bobsmooth wrote: | This could be useful for conferencing on the go. Toggle | switches for webcam, mic, mute, uhh...different channels? | adamrmcd wrote: | A form of 2FA authentication? (Something you have + something | you know.) | | Simply set the value to match a rotating 8-bit token and plug- | in to login :) | c0nsumer wrote: | With this sort of switch you have to worry about the lifecycle | of the switch. They aren't meant to be toggled routinely. For | the mentioned DIP switch | (https://www.farnell.com/datasheets/5461.pdf) it's basically | assured it'll be fine through 1000 cycles, and likely dead at | 10,000. | | 1000 cycles is only ~3x/day for a year. | elihu wrote: | addblock on/off, javascript on/off, vpn on/off, qwerty/dvorak, | default editor is vim/emacs, indentation is tabs/spaces, the | dress is blue and black / white and gold, fund police/defund | police, those are/aren't the droids we're looking for | tenebrisalietum wrote: | Integrate with Linux bootloader / boot process. | | pin 0 on = normal boot, pin 0 off = single user mode. | | pin 1 on = GRUB interactive screen enabled, pin 1 off = GRUB | interactive screen disabled. | netsharc wrote: | helpm33 wrote: | I had something like that hanging off a parallel port in a PC | in 1990; it read the status bits of a printer port and booted | accordingly. Could still do it today, via a $1 USB serial | port's status bits. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-02-03 23:00 UTC)