Neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerd!
Sep. 8th, 2006 11:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maxcelcatThis week on Nerd Corner, I was at work playing with an RFID reader which runs a Linux kernel.
(RFID = Radio Frequency Identification. Linux = Unix-like open source operating system. Kernel = the actual operating system itself.)
The reader is made by a mob called Alien (I kid you not) and runs it's own little XScale processor, like a portable device.
(XScale = Low-power CPU made my Intel, matched the instruction set of the x86 series (I think). Portable device = PDAs, smart phones etc. Instruction set = Ah, this is getting out of hand!)
Anyway, I managed to boot it into a Linux shell, and went poking around from the command line. That was interesting. I even created myself an account on it. I had to guess the password initially, but that only took me about five goes.
It turns out the device is a clever little thing - had a fairly well featured Debian Linux installation, including text editors and everything. It was also running some kind of web server, so you could go to it's IP address and talk to the reader over the web. Very cool.
All together now...
Neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerd!!!!!
(RFID = Radio Frequency Identification. Linux = Unix-like open source operating system. Kernel = the actual operating system itself.)
The reader is made by a mob called Alien (I kid you not) and runs it's own little XScale processor, like a portable device.
(XScale = Low-power CPU made my Intel, matched the instruction set of the x86 series (I think). Portable device = PDAs, smart phones etc. Instruction set = Ah, this is getting out of hand!)
Anyway, I managed to boot it into a Linux shell, and went poking around from the command line. That was interesting. I even created myself an account on it. I had to guess the password initially, but that only took me about five goes.
It turns out the device is a clever little thing - had a fairly well featured Debian Linux installation, including text editors and everything. It was also running some kind of web server, so you could go to it's IP address and talk to the reader over the web. Very cool.
All together now...
Neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerd!!!!!
