Soundblaster Audigy hack needed
Jeff L
I have a soundblaster audigy 2 ZS platinum pro card in my computer. This
card normally comes with an external box that has a bunch of additional
connections for aux in/out, midi in/out, SPDIF in/out, etc, but I don't
have the external box - I bought the card second-hand (and cheap) without
the external box because I had no use for it at the time and just wanted a
good sounding card for cheap. Well, now I've found a need for the digital
SPDIF out that would normally be provided by the external box. Since the
box connects to the card through a proprietary cable, I'm guessing that one
of the wires in this cable carries the SPDIF signal straight through to the
connector on the box...problem is I don't know which wire it is, and I
can't seem to find anything that looks like an SPDIF signal on any of them.
Does anybody know how I can tap an SPDIF signal from this card?
ObThermostaticWifeHack:
My wife, like most wives, doesn't understand how a thermostat works.
Despite my repeated attempts at explaining it to her, she still thinks that
turning the thermostat up to 90 will make the house get warmer faster
(kinda like turning the stove or oven to a higher setting makes the food
get hot faster...). Anyway, aside from the detrimetal effect this has on
the heating bill, I find it REALLY uncomfortable when I come home from work
and find that she set the thermostat to 90 and then left for the
day....sheesh. Sooooooo...I popped open the thermostat and took a look
inside - we have the old-fashioned bi-metal/mercury switch type, so the
hack was surprisingly simple. I glued a piece of cardboard in between the
frame and the mercury switch so that it keeps the mechanism from moving
beyond a certain point (which I calibrated to the 70 degree mark on the
dial). Now she can set the dial as high as she wants, but internally the
thermostat mechanism will never go above 70. So she gets the psychological
boost of "extra warmth" by setting it higher, without the nasty side
effects on me and our heating bill. And of course it can still be set to
any level lower than 70, just not any higher. Makes me happy, and she'll
never know the difference.
------
#include <signature.h>