In Other News... You'd think a quad-core ARM Processor with 2GB RAM less than 4 years old would still be fairly usable in a IPTV box; but even after I (quite cleverly, if I do say so myself) unfuckerized the FW that had been set to Chinese by abusing Google Translate's real-time photo translation, I found I couldn't get ANY of the usual streaming services to install the latest version (I suspect their DRM packages are probably too big to fit in 8GB ROM) as they return "Not compatible" errors on the Play Store. Worse, the few existing apps that still do anything are effing slow AF.
Just glad I only spent $10 on it, as it's pretty much eWaste after only 4 years.
I have discovered it WILL do one useful thing: It will do the active USB negotiation required to turn on the charge circuit in a PS3 controller. So as to be NOT a total waste, I'm going to make it my new PS3 charger (I don't exactly like the look of USB tentacles writhing about the front of my PS3 like it's the face of Chulhu); just plug a couple Mini-USB cables into it and drop it in the back of a drawer in the gaming cabinet. As you might imagine, I don't especially want to take a chance on it accidentally turning the WiFi back on and trying to connect to my home network, so I've separated out the solder joint to 3.3Vcc for the WiFi jellybean PCB.
Now, for something completely
Today, my $25 XEON processor for my $25 Intel Extreme MB/PSU/GPU combo arrived from AliEx... wrapped in ordinary effing EPP foam. FFS.
After discharging myself to the grounded collar of my soldering station, I removed the XEON straight into the MB. When my son's done with his schoolwork on his PC, I'll borrow his RAM and we'll see if there are by any chance any signs of life...
Allright... enough ruminating out loud...
mnem
*toddles off to ded*