Final One Week.

Final one week to complete my mini project. To create an Mp3 player~~!!
Surely it ain't gonna be anything like an iPod nor a Sony player, but at least it's way more meaningful and precious. *winks*

After a whole 12 weeks on the course, we've finally come down to the final stage. To access data from the SD card and send it over to the decoder and walla~ The Mp3 is ready to go.
But, sadly...after a couple weeks of putting things on hold for midterm tests and assignments, progress on the project had been slow. To be frank, this 'last' stage should have been over and done with by now. Hence, we're all pretty much struggling to race against the time now. However, I do believe we'd be able to complete it on time. No doubt! [Fingers crossed. ;)]

Fixing the hardware was kinda fun, and being exposed to the "Engineers' Haven" was one experience I'll cherish. Haha! The haven is non other than the Jalan Pasar. A place where you can find just about any electronics component. A place where you would shop more crazily than you would in a shopping mall. No kidding, we practically went in to every single electronics shop there. Some of us were even so obsessed of the place that they went over really often. Haha.
You'll be amazed with all the collection of components they have in every shop, and of how crowded the whole place is. I was personally amazed with the racks they have in each shop, and the little components inside them. Seriously looked like sampah. Haha! But then again, you know, I still like to see many, many little things all piled up together. =D Somehow, they looked cute. Just like this....a lil.

[Looked familiar this place? =D]

Since, wosiew [pronounced Wo-Siew, meaning Master Wo] mentioned that packaging doesn't contribute much to the final marks, we've decided to transfer everything to the veroboard only after the software part is done. So, this is how our lil product looks like for now.


I am not exactly fond of writing the software that goes with the whole project. Well, I do find C-programming interesting at times [bah~] but to an extent of this, it isn't such a good idea. Especially not with so many datasheets to refer to, so many points to be taken care of, so many unknown errors. The worst part of it all would be troubleshooting!
Especially when you think that everything is successfully coded and then suddenly you notice something wrong and the next thing you know, you panicken. You can no longer stay rational and all you do is blame the 'mysterious' display for acting weird.
Being the one who wrote the code, you will never [I repeat, NEVER] are able to pinpoint which line, or which command, is wrong. You would even look down at the obvious mistake and say, "There is nothing wrong so why won't the frigging thing works?!". And then, you'll get so pissed of, not able to think straight and waste most of the next hours just hoping to find error you don't think exists. Haha.
Ever worse was when you finally found out the SIMPLE mistake in the code. Cause that's when you feel like hiding yourself away for being so silly.

Well, no matter how silly I shall be, I will be. I just so gotta get this thing up and running. Wish me luck people! Shall resume FAT16-ing. Here we go!