general-chat

[wispy heron]

They are spoked wheels, so if you wanna change wheel size you can replace the rim and spokes to get different sizes (which is also why the governors tend to be software controlled, different sized wheels have different rpm for different speeds, so they want to give the ability to use smaller rims at high rpm)

Also, if you get e-bike wheels, that means you can take the wheels to a bike shop to have the retrue the rims & spokes if you get a wobbled, replace spokes & rims, adjust the dishing. Trueing a wheel on my own takes many hours when it takes a bike shop like ten minutes since they actually have a truing stand that fits bike wheel axles.

[solar hamlet]

@zealous umbra by the way, with you being a teacher, have you ever had a chance at looking at the PewPew devices?

[raw jasper]

Evening everyone

[modest knot]

realistically, what is the difference between the adafruit 16 channel pwm servo driver, and, the knockoff versions that are exactly the same formfactor?

[old beacon]

i have an esp32-s2 anyone know what 12x 12 led canvas screen i can buy that is compatible with python and the board?

[late fulcrum]

They'll generally be pretty similar, but sometimes the knockoffs can have less power supply protection/filtering, use counterfeit chips, or just generally lower quality control.

[modest knot]

so for something that is gonna end up being a throwaway project anyway... knockoffs are ok, but if you want it to work long term... go with the branded one (like most things)

[late fulcrum]

Also, it depends on your tolerance for possibly having to debug weird behavior, but yeah, that's about it.

[modest knot]

can you recommend a brand to buy micro servos from the blue 9g ones... bought a bunch of cheapo ones... several were DOA, several more D'ed after light usage

[late fulcrum]

There's always the obvious ones like AdaFruit and your local hobby store. There's also BuddyRC, ServoCity, Pololu, etc. and midrange suppliers like HobbyKing.

[oak abyss]

heya, is there any LED ring I can use that has headerpins ? i'd like to my ultimate finish want a LED ring above an RFID reader 🙂

[late fulcrum]

You could solder header pins to most LED rings if you liked

[frigid tiger]

Would it make sense to replacement batteries from phones for use in a different project

What I like about those are their compact size

[tardy badger]

Multidimensional signal processing breaks my brain. You can’t sketch analogously the region of convergence which means it’s hard to visualize. This is because it’s in 4-D space, or what’s called the complex-Cartesian space.

https://tenor.com/view/panic-gif-24375330

My brain trying to visualize 4D space ROC for 2-D signals

Oh thank goodness we can take the magnitude of the 2-D signal z transform to get a 2D unit surface

[raw jasper]

Speaking of signal processing, do y'all have a good book/resource suggestion on implementing (fixed-point) math operations (exp, sqrt, sin, cos, and co.) on FPGAs?

Full disclosure: The thing I need this for is not a personal project (in case that's an issue)

[tardy badger]

Depending on the FPGA you’re using, it might have DSP blocks/slices in which you could definitely do integer based DSP operations for math.

How experienced are you with FPGA?

[raw jasper]

I'd prefer to be able to utilize combinational logic slices in my implementations too

[tardy badger]

https://www.fpgakey.com/tutorial/chapter67 this chapter on fpgakey is on fixed point math, might be helpful getting started

[raw jasper]

Hmm... That's a bit tough to answer. I've made some designs some years ago, on the simpler side. Is there anything specific you'd like to ask about?

[tardy badger]

More or less gauging experience to provide a better answer.

Either way, fpgakey is pretty comprehensive so you should be able to fill any gaps with it

[raw jasper]

I did not know about that site; Most of my knowledge comes from paper books and the docs that come with the EDA tools the vendors ship. Thanks for linking it!

Speaking of.. I remember some years ago xilinx had a big PDF with all the elements their synthesis program supported, along with HDL examples that could elicit them. Does that still exist for the current iteration of Xilinx EDA (Vivado)?

(Last time I used FPGAs, the Xilinx tool was called ISE)

[tardy badger]

I think it still exists?

Vivado users guide

[raw jasper]

I should look for it. In ISE I remember it being a different document than the user guide

[tardy badger]

https://www.xilinx.com/content/dam/xilinx/support/documents/sw_manuals/xilinx2021_2/ug910-vivado-getting-started.pdf

Should have most of what you need. VHDL is pretty standard across platforms so any VHDL reference should work for the basics and various libraries

[raw jasper]

This link fails for me. I guess the relevant xilinx server is down atm

[raw jasper]

That's certainly true! :P

[tardy badger]

I’m reworking all my FPGA knowledge around open source tools so I’m moving away from vendor tools 🙂

[raw jasper]

I thought the open source ones only worked for the lattice IceStick (or whatever it was called), which is... fairly limited

[tardy badger]

Nah, I think the cover Xilinx now

https://github.com/gatecat/nextpnr-xilinx

[raw jasper]

O_O Wow, I had no idea. Perhaps I could have avoided the 40GB vivado download!

It does say experimental though

[tardy badger]

Yeah, it’s work in progress but definitely promising 🙂

[raw jasper]

yup!

Thanks for the links!

[glossy knoll]

Oh that's cool, I had no idea either!

[tardy badger]

Yeah definitely!

[glossy knoll]

Also, that logo

[tardy badger]

Yosys is really awesome in many ways 🙂

[lusty fossil]

The size of my favorite frozen mac shrank 20%. Guess what didn't shrink 20%

[raw jasper]

...the price, I guess

[lusty fossil]

Yuuup

[raw jasper]

Is your hand OK?

(Sorry, I just got concerned)

[tardy badger]

My stomach?

[late fulcrum]

Yeah, corporate profits have been increasing rapidly, people went along with it due to supply chain issues for a while, but they're getting tired of being fleeced and slowly realizing the price increases are largely artificial cash grabs.

[lusty fossil]

It's a story. Injured at work. 4 stitches, possible tendon involvement. Urgent care doc says I need to see a surgeon for evaluation, but we only have 10-12 days to fix if we need to. Injured on a Friday, Worker's comp insurance gets their paperwork done 7 days later. Surgeon's office calls me the following Tuesday, earliest appt is 9 days later.

So who knows if it's ok!

Thank you for asking

[raw jasper]

Oof, tendon stuff is hard. I hope everything ends up working out well for you.

[lusty fossil]

Same

Thx

[frigid tiger]

Funny how all shortages are followed by record quarterly profits

[night crescent]

Desk of Ladyada - More RP2040 Feather Smorgasbord & CAN boards https://youtu.be/gNG9r4eiEL4

[dusty citrus]

An alternative to the pi zero w which can accept a camera module?

[dusty citrus]

What I want to do is:
A battery powered camera module with image/text recognition + a couple of extra lightewave functions that considers as input what it is getting, processes it, and gives out an output

[keen arrow]

OpenMV H7 Plus

[dusty citrus]

It costs 100 USD vs 10 dollars

[keen arrow]

I was able to replicate everything my pi zeros were doing in opencv on the openmv but it was more basic

Or you can try a coral dev board mini(not in stock last I checked) or a rpi 3 model A+

If you want cheap you can always go esp32 or chinese stuff from seeed

I wouldn't really recommend any of the bananipi zeros or whatever they are called

The newest ESP32S3 Eye is like $40

https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Espressif-Systems/ESP32-S3-EYE?qs=Rp5uXu7WBW8jiAfcrui1pQ%3D%3D&mgh=1&gclid=CjwKCAiAmJGgBhAZEiwA1JZolt9T4Z2wELRTQaAPSGNOGHCP3VbUSNzJ9nM7fK2lZ5hjONeByEjv5hoCvNQQAvD_BwE

The Sipeed MAIX-II Dock is ok

I do recommend anything that can work with the OpenMV IDE tbh since it's pretty easy to use compared to anything else

[bright veldt]

how efficient is reverse osmosis nowadays, energy wise?

[late fulcrum]

ESP32-CAM?

[dusty citrus]

It can manage to do image recognition? I saw some implementation with tinyml, but Idk

[late fulcrum]

It can do things like face recognition, and it's compact and inexpensive, so I thought I'd mention it, even if I'm not sure it will satisfy your use case.

[tardy badger]

Yeah, ESP-EYE is pretty potent for its package

It’s really wild what you can achieve these days

[late fulcrum]

I'll occasionally see questions looking for Star Trek type technology that's compact, long battery life, gobs of processing power, etc., and I think to myself "that's not practical today, just wait a few years"

[tardy badger]

Hehe.. yet here we are with cell phones

Unimaginable decades ago

Science fiction continues to inspire reality

[late fulcrum]

I'm actually more impressed by small cheap powerful development boards than cell phones, but it's all been a cool ride

[tardy badger]

Cell phones have been around long enough the novelty has worn off

But dev boards continue to take interesting turns 🙂

[late fulcrum]

I think of a cell phone as a $700 1.5GHz ARM board. And a Pi as a $40 1.5GHz ARM board. No contest.

Granted, the phone comes with a battery, display, and GSM modem, but that hardly accounts for the over $600 price differential.

[tardy badger]

I only buy phones when they have steep discounts

My nephew recently wanted a phone so since my sister saves money by being on my plan, I set up another line and got his phone for “free”

[late fulcrum]

I'm waiting for my Astro 5G Slide from an Indiegogo campaign, as I really like having a mechanical keyboard for one of my prime use cases for a phone these days: as a terminal in my pocket I can use to ssh into a computer via WiFi to do debugging/maintenance.

[tardy badger]

I’m only paying $5/m for my iPhone 14 pro

Thanks to a trade in on my old 12 mini for nearly what I paid for it lol

Which I think tells you all you need to know lol

[late fulcrum]

Apple explicitly stated that they won't be building any phones with mechanical keyboards, as they apparently think that mashing my fingers into a featureless flat surface is a better user experience. So they're out of the running.

[tardy badger]

I think most phone manufacturers are on that boat

[late fulcrum]

Oh, I know the real reasons: looks and cost.

[tardy badger]

Mechanical keyboards are an accessibility feature though so it shows they’re okay hurting a growing population of potential users

[late fulcrum]

Apple used to be a market leader in accessibility, but lately they seem to have lost their way, with tiny grey-on-grey fonts and the like.

[tardy badger]

Yeah.. at least macOS is still decent

But that’s changing

[late fulcrum]

I'm worried about MacOS, as Apple is trying to "converge" MacOS and iOS, which I think is a terrible idea. What's good for a desktop is distinctly different from what's good on a phone.

[thick wind]

Case and point: windows 8.

[tardy badger]

Windows 11..

Lol

[late fulcrum]

While I have no love for windoze, I can't help but admire their "win by giving in" strategy of replacing more and more of the windoze backend with Linux.

[tardy badger]

I disabled the fTPM on my desktop to stop the “upgrade to windows 11” prompts

[tardy badger]

They have to, they’re losing developer market to Apple and Linux in general

[thick wind]

If it’s more in the direction of Samsung DeX, where the mobile gets a desktop mode, I guess I wouldn’t be totally opposed, but I feel like Apple is really pushing some sort of limit here.

[tardy badger]

Though they still have a firm hold on enterprise desktop

[late fulcrum]

Also, holding the windoze market isn't economically important to them any more, they make most of their money in the cloud arena these days.

[tardy badger]

Yuuup

Azure has been slowly chipping away at AWS

And oracle cloud

[late fulcrum]

As they've long known "a third the quality for half the price" is an effective market position.

[tardy badger]

Yeah

[late fulcrum]

One of our company's main activities is selling cloud services, so I have a lot of experience with not only AWS and Azure, but GCP, and even IBM's Bluemix/CloudFoundry. IMHO, Google's cloud services are the most wide-ranging, secure, best run, and easy to use, but they're a distant third in the market. Quality doesn't really sell.

[tardy badger]

Money talks

[late fulcrum]

I've gotten accustomed to, when I want to train a large machine learning model, lighting off a custom VM with some serious TPU or GPU (like a V100) with TensorFlow and all the drivers and libraries already installed and configured, running my training job, and getting back the model, ready to run on whatever I want, in less than an hour, for less than a dollar.

Especially after my company lost the use of the IBM AC922 I had been using (that was an amazing platform)

[keen arrow]

or just use colab pro

You can get a GPU instance up and running in seconds

I really want OpenMV and circuitpython to do something together tbh like a circuitpython powered board using the dual m4-m7 chip and the m7 chip is for vision while the m4 chip is for circuitpython

[wooden schooner]

wdyt of this whole Material Design thing. Been going on for years, with google's web-based services leading the way to unusability, and many others following. Seems like a clear "mobile is the cash cow, ignore desktop users and watch the dough roll in"

apparently there is a person at google who basically made his career on pushing Material Design. Buddy, come on

it also made every web application take 10x more cpu

for no added functionality, and less customizability

[lapis dirge]

According to the metrics on my YouTube channel, over 90% of our views come from mobile. My two 30somthing daughters don't even have desktop computers. The members of this discord server are kind of an echochamber, we love tech in general and computers specifically. We are in the minority.

[keen arrow]

Do they have a laptop at all?

I'm pretty certain the majority of users who use MacOS use it on a macbook and not an imac or mac mini

Myself included

[lapis dirge]

Oldest daughter has a laptop from work. Doesn't use it for personal use, her main computer is an iPad, Youngest daughter has an iPad for her Cricut stuff otherwise she uses her phone.

[lapis dirge]

I wasn't talking about MacOS specifically, just "computer" usage in general. I think we are moving away from desktop computing in general, Winders, Linux, Mac.

Amd moving to mobile.

[keen arrow]

How can they function like that lol? I can never see myself using just a phone no matter how big it is

[lapis dirge]

Not everyone is like us ........

[keen arrow]

but... I do somewhat agree especially based on the 2022 sales where iphones and ipads were sold the most

However, how many times have you upgraded your phone vs your computer?

Especially macs

[lapis dirge]

I don't do Mac but in the last 8 years I have had 2 phones. Galaxy S5 and upgraded to a galaxy S10. But I have some killer PCs around the house!

[keen arrow]

How many phones have your daughters had in those same 8 years?

[lapis dirge]

They get a new one every year!

[keen arrow]

Exactly

[lapis dirge]

So from a monetary point of view Apple is just catering to its base. They are phone users.

[keen arrow]

Sure but I'd like to find the total amount of mac users vs iphone users. I know there are most iphone users but I want to know the total delta

[lapis dirge]

The delta is probably mind bogglingly huge.

[keen arrow]

Also, how has the delta changed through the years because I think a lot more people are buying macs nowadays especially in the dev spaces but people are probably buying more iphones as well

[lapis dirge]

Hard to say. And let's see them do this on an mobile ...... of course some nerd has probably done it.

[glossy knoll]

If Apple really wanted to iOS-ify the desktop, I feel like they would have done it by now. Launchpad has been around in MacOS for years; plus they probably watched Microsoft do it with the Surface and probably realized "eh maybe not"

[keen arrow]

I would do it if I can find the data but I cant find the data

[ebon dew]

Just because Microsoft isn't successful with something doesn't mean that Apple can't be... Zune.

[late fulcrum]

I just use the Mini, it's compact and has great bang for the buck.

[keen arrow]

I really love my 16" Macbook pro tbh

[late fulcrum]

Come to think of it, I do have a Macbook pro I use as a basement machine and for travel, but most of the time, I just use the Mini with a nice keyboard and big screens.

[glossy knoll]

Absolutely fair, but Launchpad debuted 12 years ago and I'd bet that much of the iOS-style UI infrastructure has been in MacOS for that long too

[keen arrow]

I'm starting to transition from my old-ish pc I built at the start of the pandemic to my macbook pro on a big 4k screen

[late fulcrum]

I bought one of the 30" Apple Cinema Displays used on the cheap. It's grand.

[keen arrow]

dang I really want the studio display but not for like $1500

[late fulcrum]

Still, it's not as insane as a couple of years back when they only monitor they offered was the $6000 Pro Display XDR. I paid a lot less than that for the Cinema Display. However, third-party monitors are pretty competitive these days. My second monitor is an old Acer.

[keen arrow]

I just got a samsung viewfinity s8 and it already had a dead pixel

I did try the pixel fixer thing but it comes back

I have until Thursday to take it back so that's what I'll do

[wooden schooner]

This majority-based reasoning is reductive. It implicitly assumes that users use what they do because of their true preferences, rather than having been manipulated into using it because of pressure and misinformation from revenue-minded companies.

A common pitfall of standard econ.

[loud briar]

The new arduino is pretty great ngl
It’s expensive but has pretty nice features, and actually seems better than more expensive portenta in quite some ways to me.

[tardy badger]

Portenta is hard to work with in many ways because it’s not a standard breakout. The mezzanine connectors make it a little awkward for those expecting normal headers

[lapis dirge]

Be that as it may, Apple makes a lot of money and if they think that merging their OSs will grow their market share (attract more users) it is probably good for their bottom line. And let's face it, they aren't trying to cater to us, we know how to use computers and probably use some flavor of linux. By far there are more linux machines in my house than winders or Mac, even discounting the Raspberry Pis that run things on the home network.

[loud briar]

Yeah, what I mean is, few days ago arduino released a new arduino with the same chip, that has mega pin out + extra pins, like standard radical header, and it’s also at higher clock speed.

[tardy badger]

I know, I saw the Giga release

[lapis dirge]

Oh yea!

[loud briar]

Got it too today

[loud briar]

Oh by the way if you are interested, I am making an oscilloscope lib for it to configure adc to run fast, and do some basic oscilloscope functions. Did that before for samd21, but here I already have sample rate 10 times higher. Just gotta figure out dual adc mode and setup opamps, and should be able to release it.

[lapis dirge]

Sounds awesome! Microcontrollers are my winter hobby, cars are my main hobby. I bought the Giga to try and adapt the Speeduino software (engine management software) from an Arduino Mega. So I get to combine both hobbies. Just have to make time to do it.

[loud briar]

Wait it’s actually called Speeduino? That’s so funny, because my samd21 library i am porting over rn I called Speeduino lol

[lapis dirge]

Yep.......speeduino

[loud briar]

Lol, well then we are both working on adapting Speeduino to giga r1 wifi, just different Speeduinos haha

[lapis dirge]

I think the Giga would make an outstanding logic analyzer. And it's fast enough for most hobbiest needs. Lots of i/o pins and the speed.

[loud briar]

Yeah, rn I am working mostly on the analog side of thing as the adc is capable of around 4msps at 16bit resolution, and in dual mode may be double

[lapis dirge]

Can I add you as a friend, I'd like to follow along with you progress?

[loud briar]

Sure sure

[lapis dirge]

awesome!

[frigid tiger]

They've definitely made macos worse with the latest version

It'll be nice to switch to Linux with a proper tiling window manager once that's ready for arm

[lapis dirge]

Ubuntu was building a release for ARM but I think it was aimed at ARM servers.

[wooden schooner]

We're in agreement. The bigcorps put their bottom line before the interests of their customers.

[desert karma]

Hey guys I know this is kind of an odd question for a place like this but I’m not really sure where else to ask

Does anyone know the ins and outs of patents and the laws about public domain

I can’t seem to find what I’m looking for online

[whole jacinth]

that's a pretty wide range of topics. could you be more specific about what you're trying to do?

[tardy badger]

I’d say you probably want to talk to a patent lawyer. Any thing we tell you likely is going to be dubious at best because most of us are not patent holders/patent lawyers.

Even fairly common topics like fair use are dicey

But perhaps we could do some google foo that will at least help you formulate your questions/hypotheses

[lapis dirge]

The ones that are still in business do, of course the ones that don't are no longer in business. But I think big business does the minimum for it's customers so that they can remain in business and the big one try to do as little for their customers as possible while trying to make their share holders happy ...... which is exactly what they should be doing. That is, in America, other places ..... who knows.

[wooden schooner]

there's a lot to unpack about that "should" and its socio-economic implications, but yes i recognize that position as a common one

[rapid geode]

The only thing ive universally heard from smaller businesses /people that hold patents is they are not worth the effort. I expect that changes a lot when you are big or want to sell the company later for larges amounts of money.

[unique nest]

Hi, does anyone have any recommendations on a good $25-30 kit that has a bunch of exploratory things for an rpi 3b+ like sensors, motors etc

I’ve bought one from amazon, but was wondering if there were better quality/better deals with adafruit

[tardy badger]

If you’re selling a reasonable amount of something, that’s when it usually makes sense for a patent for people starting out

The sharks from shark tank mentioned that for them it’s often a red flag if someone has patented something before they’ve even tried to sell it.

Realized that autocorrect butchered that message lol

[rapid geode]

shark tank... oh dear. haha

one of them set their electric car on fire at a gas station

they arent the benchmark for birghtness

😛

[glossy knoll]

Might be a red flag for them as investors, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad thing to do

[rapid geode]

yeah, you need to assume everything they say is about making THEM money, not you

[raw jasper]

I've been told it's a bad idea to even look at existing patents (as an implementer)

Which.. makes sense

[rapid geode]

thats a different topic. software companies (autodesk for example, wehre that quote i think originates) say they they do no regard patents when developing, and sort that out after they have a working software - usually buy licensing or buying out

[tardy badger]

Even from a you making money standpoint you should not invest in a patent early on

[rapid geode]

but if its on the market and has no patent/pending patent then it will just be copied instantly

catch 22

[tardy badger]

Sure, but it’s going to be copied anyway. Good luck suing patent trolls in China

[rapid geode]

well this is why many patents are pointless

anyhyow. i only play a lawyer on tv

[tardy badger]

There are not very many new novel things these days

[rapid geode]

:x

[tardy badger]

Lol

[rapid geode]

ive heard of someone that has patents on limes for pies

and spends millions defending them

[tardy badger]

Yeah, patented genetic variants

Pink Lady ™️ apples

For instance

[rapid geode]

i think the canned pumpkin is patented

[tardy badger]

Yeah because it’s not real pumpkin

[rapid geode]

(which isnt even a pumpkin it turns out)

[tardy badger]

Lol

In other news I’m playing lecture catch-up and homework sprint for homework due at midnight

Or 11:59pm rather

Multidimensional signal processing

Woo

[raw jasper]

course/training or uni?

[tardy badger]

I have 5.7hrs left lol

[rapid geode]

im finishing the last episode of a tv shows thats needs 2 weeks of work but delivers monday

yay

[tardy badger]

Masters class

Because I made the mistake of enrolling in online masters of electrical engineering classes at ASU which didn’t turn out to be what I thought it would :/

[rapid geode]

doh

[tardy badger]

Thought it would be a rigorous schedule of virtual sessions. It’s not

[rapid geode]

did they teach you to wire a plug?

[raw jasper]

Would it be possible to just turn in the hw and do the catch-up afterwards?

[tardy badger]

It’s a “watch these recordings” “oh by the way, office hours are during your work schedule so good luck”

I need the lectures to do the problems lol

[raw jasper]

Ah. I kinda hoped they were different courses

[tardy badger]

Like inverse z transform of a 2D transient response

[raw jasper]

brews skerr some coffee

[tardy badger]

Can’t be done explicitly, it requires contour integrals

A double close integral at that

Wooo

Looks great, right? Lol

[raw jasper]

Well, at least your handwriting's nice

[tardy badger]

Lol

[tardy badger]

Not that practical

[rapid geode]

shame. i need help wiring a plug

haha j/k

[lapis dirge]

And those differential equations are non-trivial.

[rapid geode]

actually i do need to wire 4 plugs this week bah

[tardy badger]

Probably

[glossy knoll]

I honestly considering doing an embedded engineering master's online at ASU, but now I'm kinda glad I didn't

[tardy badger]

It just takes a lot of self motivation that I struggle with for school

I need the schedule of in person and the flexibility of online lol

[lapis dirge]

Preach!

I'm of an age where I can go to state schools for free (audit only) and the only thing I'm interested enough in to go back to school is welding.

And maybe machining

[glossy knoll]

A few years ago I had to get an ISC2 cert and it was the first time I had to do actual studying for an exam since college. I'm in my 40's now and dang if it didn't take twice the effort to learn that stuff as it would've taken me 20 years ago, ugh

[tardy badger]

My biggest drain going into this is I haven’t used any of my EE classes since graduating

[glossy knoll]

At least with Computer Science, I feel like we use a lot of it in day-to-day stuff

Maybe not some of the "how does 2-level paged memory work" but still

[tardy badger]

I did computer engineering because I wanted to do embedded

Got stuck in software

It’s kind of embedded but in a very hands off way

[glossy knoll]

Back 20 years ago, it seems like Computer Engineering was like half CS and half EE, but didn't really provide a solid foundation for embedded stuff

[late fulcrum]

I found learning on the early microcomputers was great preparation for embedded stuff.

[tardy badger]

It’s still kind of like that, mine was mostly EE classes like digital systems design, digital systems verifications, microcontrollers, physical computer architecture, embedded systems, etc..

I had to take.. 5 CS classes

The rest were all EE classes

[lapis dirge]

My computer engineering undergrad was all EE and CS with the exception of two classes.

Most people just tood an extra EE class or two and graduated. We only graduated 4 computer engineers a year until ABET made them bring the CpE curriculum in line with EE and CS in terms of credit hours.

[dusty citrus]

Dunno how it was back in the days, but nowdays I say the tendency of making up new tuition programs by day with many timewasting bs, just to try to capture a wider audience, while making happy some lobby

[tall iron]

Hello!! Glad to be here! Greetings from the Philippines! 🥳 😁

[dusty citrus]

👋 greetings from Australia!

[static flare]

:D Also greetings from Australia

[lapis dirge]

Hello from the USA! Glad to have you here!

[lapis dirge]

My son-in-law was two classes from graduating and he dropped out. Last Year (9 years later) the university contacted him and told him that if he took one more class he could graduate with a degree in "College Studies." He took an English class and they gave him a diploma. I think they were up for review of their accreditation and maybe their matriculation rate was a bit low so they made a bunch of sweetheart deals for those close enough to graduate with this new curriculum. (just speculation on my part)

[late fulcrum]

I wish they'd done that with me! Due to some convenient "administrative errors" on the part of the university, I was unable to graduate, even though I had 147 of the required 120 credits by the time I gave up.

[tardy badger]

I’m guessing a North Carolina institution?

NC schools are absolutely bonkers

What goes for one school, doesn’t necessarily go for another even though they are part of the same larger system which is supposed to guarantee transferability between institutions

[crystal ore]

I'll bet that would shake loose some alumni donations too. When I dropped out of my PhD after way too many years, they didn't give me a consolation-prize masters or anything. Yeah, I'm totally going to give them free money when they call me up now...

[tardy badger]

Probably will be the same when I drop my masters classes in a few weeks..

[late fulcrum]

University of Maryland

[tardy badger]

I’m already getting these weird “Alumni Network” emails that are very spammy

[tardy badger]

Even worse

Lol

I got an associates of engineering from an NC Community college that was supposed to fill all the non-engineering requirements for my degree, but the 4 year institution I went to that was part of the articulation agreement decided they didn’t want to uphold that so I had to transfer credits back one more time to my community college one month out from graduation to get yet another associates degree (A.S.) so I could meet the graduation requirements

The community college registrar was really mad to hear that the school wasn’t upholding the articulation agreement

[lapis dirge]

I did the same in Virginia, But in order for any institution to receive state money (that is all of them) they have to accept the credits fully from any other state institution. So I transferred in 80 credit hours from Tidewater Community College to Old Dominion University. It satisfied my first two years in the BsCpE program.

[tardy badger]

The school I got my BS from is an HBCU which they claimed meant they could have special requirements for certain categories of graduation requirements. The only way around was either an AA or an AS.

The community college registrar said that wasn’t how the articulation agreement was worded but it only cost me the fees to send transcripts back and forth

I was mad though that they waited a whole month before graduation to scramble to get things figured out

[acoustic pawn]

I’m still in high school, and I’m looking to become an EE. What is college like? I’m in the process of looking at colleges. Any tips?

[thick wind]

College is basically whatever you make of it. Don’t get too stressed over which college you end up at for undergrad, as long as they have a decent abet certified degree program. Don’t slack off early, because catching back up later is much more difficult.

[glossy knoll]

Honestly when I interview someone for a developer position, the actual college they went to does not matter unless it's like, ECPI or something. Even then, it's not like I'd immediately disqualify them or anything. I'm guessing the same is true for EE

[thick wind]

Honestly, even not having a degree doesn’t disqualify a developer these days…

Though for EE yeah school matters little, but gpa has a pretty big impact when it comes to initial opportunities.

A 3 gets your foot in the door at most places, and a 3.5 3.2 should be enough anywhere. Past that, just make sure you have project experience you can put on your resume.

For a high schooler, just focus on picking a school you want to spend 4 years of your life at. Once you get there, just make sure to keep the grades up the best you can.

[tardy badger]

A 3.5 in an EE is tough

I had a friend pull off a 3.973 though. Highest graduating GPA for ECE in like 20 years apparently

He was ridiculously smart and determined

[thick wind]

I think I meant 3.2. Why did I say 3.5….

[tardy badger]

I had a 3.29

[thick wind]

I had a 2.7 hehe

[tardy badger]

But I poured.. probably 60hrs a week my last 3 semesters to get that

I wanted to graduate with honors lol

I was also taking like 15-18credits a semester because I wanted to be done lol..

[thick wind]

Let’s just say I hope nobody does what I did and play way too many video games their first two years.

[tardy badger]

My first attempt at engineering was derailed by meeting my wife and her parents kicking her out and having to figure out living together

🙂

I was going for architectural engineering at first

I wanted to design skyscrapers

But I was also very interested in software and electronics so I switched up on my second time around

[tardy badger]

An interesting comment on this. So I got my 3.29 and graduating with honors stuff. And I was still asked why my GPA was so low during interviews

[crystal ore]

I halfway wonder if that's a purposeful psychological poke that they do to everyone, no matter what GPA they have. "How does the candidate react to criticism?"

[tardy badger]

I responded often that GPAs were not good indicators of success, and that an arbitrary number to assess one’s ability to succeed in a meat plant didn’t reflect their ability to practically apply knowledge.

Lol

I also explained that I wasn’t a good test taker due to anxiety and dyslexia

[late fulcrum]

I had a very poor GPA, but my SAT scores were quite high, as I'm bad at academics but good at learning (and a demon at taking standardized tests). I had the strong advantage of solid hardware and software experience, so I could target things like embedded programming, device driver development, and the like, where there's not much competition.

Happily, I had accumulated actual device driver experience in the job I was working while I was in college. I failed to get a degree, but I got some priceless job experience.

[tardy badger]

Trying to start in hardware these days that way would be a nonstarter which is unfortunate

[late fulcrum]

I'm unsure why you assert that.

[tardy badger]

What I mean is trying to get a hardware design role in industry is nearly impossible if you don’t have a degree or significant amount of prior experience doing so

You can do freelancing of course which is somewhat viable if you are good at what you do

Software is different though. There was a good bit of time though that it was gate kept quite a bit by degree requirements.

[late fulcrum]

Amusingly, I have done freelance hardware design.

[tardy badger]

It’s good fun

Simple designs tend to bring me a good bit of joy

[late fulcrum]

I did run into attempted gatekeeping, but found many ways around it.

[tardy badger]

I helped another maker with a simple PCB for electronics earrings https://twitter.com/NickRuffilo/status/1631476830182993921?s=20

:: high five:: Nick Ruffilo (@NickRuffilo)

Beautiful design by ⁦@oakdevtech⁩ Time to make some jewelry!

Twitter · Mar 3, 2023, 2:09 AM

Simple yet fun

Finding a cr1216 battery holder in stock with JLCPCB was a nightmare though

[raw jasper]

I feel the same. Designing hardware brings me a different joy than software.

[tardy badger]

I loss time designing hardware. Software I tend to not feel so passionate about

[raw jasper]

What kinda hardware do you like designing?

[tardy badger]

Lots of different things. Microcontroller dev boards, watches, LED matrix displays, light controllers

[late fulcrum]

I like cosplay, prop replicas, vacuum tubes, high voltage, and bizarro art projects

[raw jasper]

PCB design is not my strong suite. Actually, nothing physical is. I've recently gotten back into FPGAs, potentially for a work project

[tardy badger]

I also work with FPGA

[raw jasper]

(system)verilog or vhdl?

[late fulcrum]

I'm slowly getting back into FPGAs, after having my enthusiasm crushed by some mean comments on a (different) Discord

[tardy badger]

Verilog mostly

[raw jasper]

Same!

[tardy badger]

I have experience with VHDL

[raw jasper]

I haven't ever actually used vhdl though

[tardy badger]

My enthusiasm was crushed by a hiring manager refusing to even talk to me because I wasn’t an EE

But I’m doing my own thing now

[late fulcrum]

I had a knack for getting around hiring managers like that

[tardy badger]

They were the director of that group, they wouldn’t even look at my relevant coursework

Saw computer engineering but read computer science instead..

[late fulcrum]

What a git

[tardy badger]

Yeah

Gate keeping at the highest level

Never mind my skills section included vhdl, Verilog, digital systems design, digital systems verification…

[raw jasper]

What do you use for verification, if you don't mind me asking?

[tardy badger]

My verification course was graduate level too

SystemVerilog

VHDL has test support built in which is cool

Verilog it’s a bit harder without SystemVerilog

[late fulcrum]

I've become fond of the free FPGA simulator at 8bitworkshop.com as well

[raw jasper]

Yeah, verilog testbenches are pretty grubby

[tardy badger]

Yeah, that’s a pretty awesome website

EDA playground was what I used for my digital systems verification class

[raw jasper]

I use whatever version of modesim comes with the xilinx tools

And icarus verilog

I've also picked up a systemverilog book to catch up

[tardy badger]

I used questasim in my Digital Systems Design class

[raw jasper]

The last FPGA I worked with (some spartan 3 series thing) did not actually have any DSP blocks!

[tardy badger]

Which is the “enterprise” version of modelsim

[raw jasper]

It had HW multiplier blocks though

[tardy badger]

Technically those are DSP blocks

If you look up DSP blocks/slices in data sheets it’s usually listed as multipliers + accumulators

[raw jasper]

That sounds correct, though I haven't read the full datasheet yet. They (the xilinx ones) have an opcode port, so I assumed they could do more

[tardy badger]

ICE5LP4K for instance have 4 DSP blocks which have 8/16bit multipliers with 32b accumulators

The iCE40UP5K has 8 DSP blocks in a similar configuration

[raw jasper]

I have a feeling you have a liking for lattice FPGAs

[tardy badger]

They are very affordable and very accessible

[raw jasper]

Yeah! They aren't very dense though

[tardy badger]

Nah, but you’d find few applications where you’d fill a 8k FPGA unless you’re making like a beefy risc-v soft core

[glossy knoll]

Whoa, that site is really cool! I had no idea it existed

[tardy badger]

You can do a lot with even 1k logic cells

And getting started on fpga, you’re rarely using more than 1500 cells anyway

You could probably do your first 6-9 months of learning on a small FPGA

Heck, maybe even first 2 years

[late fulcrum]

I like the Lattice chips because I never was able to get Quartus, Vivado, or any of the other vendor tool chains to actually work, so having IceStudio/fomu/apio available is important to me.

[raw jasper]

I remember getting ICE to work back in the day

[tardy badger]

Someone is porting Xilinx to nextpnr

Lol

[late fulcrum]

I hope they don't get a DMCA smackdown

[tardy badger]

They’re reverse engineering for open source work which is generally permissible

As long as there is no profit motive

It’s not like Xilinx charges for Vivado anyway

[raw jasper]

As long as they aren't touching (and have never touched) the Xilinx tools themselves, they could be fine, I guess

[glossy knoll]

I suspect if you started reversing their IP cores, it would be a different story

[raw jasper]

FPGAs and associated dev tools are under very strong export controls though

[tardy badger]

Yeppp

[late fulcrum]

I thought the sticking point was the encrypted bitstream

[raw jasper]

that's one way to get DMCA'd

[tardy badger]

You can encrypt the bitstream but you have to enable it as far as I’m aware

[raw jasper]

I thought it had to be encrypted, or at least signed, to actually work with the FPGA IC itself

[late fulcrum]

I was intrigued by the Arduino foundation's statement that they were going to democratize FPGA development the way they had with microcontrollers. Unfortunately, their interpretation of that ("hey, we have some canned modules you can use") didn't agree with mine ("a portable IDE to develop for FPGAs")

[tardy badger]

https://github.com/gatecat/nextpnr-xilinx

They have some stuff building already which is cool

Hopefully they (amd/Xilinx) see it as a way to get more users (more money) rather than squashing it

[raw jasper]

I feel the proportion of users who do not use xilinx fpgas because the tools aren't OSS would be tiny, especially given the fact that FPGAs are mainly enterprise/research things

[late fulcrum]

Yeah, that always confused me: I figured their business model was to sell chips, so letting people use the chips seems like a no-brainer. But, like Nordic, Microchip, and many other vendors, they apparently want to lock people into their own proprietary toolchains.

[raw jasper]

Also this could hamper the ability of xilinx to sell enterprise vivado licenses for ICs not covered by webpack

[raw jasper]

You may enjoy this book:
http://www.zxdesign.info/book/

[late fulcrum]

While you're right that industry doesn't often care, there is a potent magnifying effect that many engineers are also hobbyists, and come from hobby backgrounds, and their preferences when they become designers and part specifiers will be influenced by their experiences in the past.

[tardy badger]

I don’t think the care so much about the software licenses; they probably care more about selling $130k FPGA to companies like the one I work for

[late fulcrum]

Heh, I have that book!

[tardy badger]

If my company buys 100x virtex ultrascale plus every quarter, that’s a good chunk of change lol

$50m in the bank every year

And the company I work for buys way more than that lol..

[late fulcrum]

If I tell my purchasing manager "their software only runs on a dying, bug-ridden platform", that vendor may well get blackballed by my company.

[tardy badger]

Lol

Anyway, Lattice now has midscale chips that are way cheaper than Xilinx chips and from what I’ve seen so far are pretty decent

[raw jasper]

Sounds interesting! Any specific PNs I could look at?

[tardy badger]

https://www.latticesemi.com/avant

Up to 500k cells which is way above hobbyist level but still

[thick wind]

Depends what you’re looking for? Any particular needs in terms of size or peripherals?

[late fulcrum]

Yeah, the sort of things I build don't need a lot of logic, I'm mostly looking for high speed and a lot of I/O pins (where FPGAs excel to begin with)

[tardy badger]

Yeah

I need to step up my multilayer design so I can work with some higher density FPGA packages

I want to make an open source CPU development board that has some parallel SRAM (32KB) and some io broken out

[raw jasper]

Thanks for the link!

RISC-V, or would you like to attempt your own design?

[tardy badger]

Whatever you wanted really

[raw jasper]

Ah, I thought you wanted to make the board as a base to develop your CPU on, not as a product!

[tardy badger]

Well, I mean i will continue development of my 8-bit CPU on it 🙂

https://github.com/skerr92/oak832128

Haven’t worked on it in a few months

But I’m hoping to pick it up again soon

[raw jasper]

Nice! I took a look, so here are some unsolicited thoughts (probably questions) from somebody with probably way way less experience than you:

• Fun fact: We use different styles for module declaration. I tend to prefer:

module top(input [7:0] frame, output reg [7:0] dout);
//Magic happens here
endmodule

(TIL Discord supports verilog highlighting)
Is there a specific reason for the syntax you use, or is it just stylistic preference?

• It's really interesting how everything lives in top.v; I feel splitting it into different modules (for example, control unit, ALU, register file, program counter), and just connecting everything in top.v would allow for more abstraction (by decoupling the various components it'd be easier to make changes as long as the behavior of each module stays the same), and potentially reuse modules across projects. It'd also make it more amenable to testing. However, that would also make it easier to mis-specify double flip-flops for an output (so, say, one flip-flop for the register file write and one for the register file itself).

• Have you considered rewriting your instruction decoding logic/control unit as an FSM? I think it's a more extensible design, and, as long as you stick to a serial execution model, it would allow you to evolve the design to be able to support things like I/O wait states and multi-cycle instructions later on.

You could also go for the overkill route and completely pipeline your CPU 😅

[tardy badger]

Probably lol

It’s a big work in progress so it’s going to change quite a bit 🙂

[raw jasper]

Looking forward to seeing it develop!

[tardy badger]

Definitely! The core dev kit will save a lot by offloading SRAM

[raw jasper]

Yup! Especially if your FPGA does not have any RAM blocks (and, even if it has, they'd probably be tiny compared to what an external IC could do.. But then, you'll definitely need a 16-bit address bus á la 8-bit CPUs of the time, so you'll need to port your design to an FSM for a more complex fetch cycle..

(sorry for nerding out on you, I really like thinking about CPU design)

[tardy badger]

I have BRAM

But I’d rather save that for other things 🙂

[stable vapor]

How long does it normally take for orders to be shipped?

[tardy badger]

1-2 business days (m-f)

If you order on a Friday, it’ll likely be shipped the following Tuesday

[reef inlet]

I need some help shopping for the correct product for a project, Im looking at the QT-PY, the project is to convert a PWM signal from an Ethanol sensor to a linear 0-4.85 DCV anaolg output. Will the QT-PY be able to handle this task or should I be looking at something else?

basically im taking a PWM signal being output by the E85 Ethanol sensor, and converting it to a 0-4.85 DCV output that will be sent to a Car ECM to read ethanol content and adjust Fuel and timing maps accordingly (Hondata and Haltech ECU's)

[wanton thistle]

Looking at the datasheet for the base chip (ATSAMD21E18), it has a 10 bit DAC on board

You will have to boost the output with an op-amp though

[ebon dew]

Just had a close call. Was coding and started losing vision in my left eye. Was making me mad i couldnt see. Almost passed out. Heart rate was 160 and couldnt breath. Thankfully my sister was here.

I have a blood pressure device and pulse oximeter. Came pretty close to calling 911.

[tardy badger]

Don’t die please

[ebon dew]

Doing my best like everyone else.

The redbull didnt help. 😵‍💫 Thought id use it to power through some regex stuff. Nope, bad idea.

[tardy badger]

Yeeeah

I try my best to avoid energy drinks, keep myself to 2 cup of coffee a day

[dusty citrus]

Just imagining it now; "these regexes are killing me! [serious]"

[ebon dew]

Pretty much yes lol

[static flare]

Just had a random bp check of 150/100, which is, well, high

[ebon dew]

Feeling much better. Needed to chill out for a bit. This is an issue with me though. Hypertension.

When i saw 160 i was like pfft that thing is broken. It wasn’t broken.

[reef inlet]

What would be a better all in one solution that could natively output a 5 V DC siganl? ESP32?

[static flare]

the worst I've seen on me is about 200, which was less than fun

[raw jasper]

Are you sure this was not a stroke?

I would suggest you get yourself checked by a doctor ASAP

[wanton thistle]

Even ESP32 is a 3.3V, you arent getting around needing a Amp unless you use an external DAC with 5V

[static flare]

Ultimately, no matter what, usually after an anomalous cardiac event, getting checked by a PCP sooner rather than later, but I also know that's not always feasible

[tardy badger]

I just read that Reese’s is introducing vegan peanut butter cups 🙂

[frigid tiger]

Anything to cut costs

[tardy badger]

This is great news for my youngest child who when they are older can enjoy Reese’s cups

[tardy badger]

It’s hardly about cost cutting

[blissful roost]

..... How are they not already vegan?

[tardy badger]

Have you heard of milk chocolate

[blissful roost]

I mean, they sure don't contain meat.

[frigid tiger]

Chocolate uses milk

[blissful roost]

Hummm...

Still confused

[tardy badger]

Milk is an animal product

Vegans can’t eat animal products

[frigid tiger]

Vegan requires abstention from all processes that exploit animals whether for health or ethics

[blissful roost]

*won't

[tardy badger]

People who also have full blown milk allergies also can’t really eat regular chocolate

[blissful roost]

That's definitely entirely separate. Lol

[tardy badger]

My youngest child for instance has a full milk allergy, can’t even eat hard cheese

But vegan stuff still fills the needs of people with other dietary restrictions

Some people have to eat vegan for health reasons

[blissful roost]

Sure.. just means I won't ever eat them again.
Chocolate really isn't the same without milk.

[tardy badger]

It’s a new line of products

Not replacing anything

[dusty citrus]

yay, more options!

[blissful roost]

Ehh, if it's new thing.. fair enough

[tardy badger]

You can still eat normal Reese’s cups

They still will make billions off people like me

And now they’ll make a few hundred million off new people

[frigid tiger]

I do wonder what the margins are like on a product like that, I saw they were also creating Reese's with cereal bits, so basically more air

[tardy badger]

But now my son will have an option which makes me happy

[blissful roost]

Thankfully, my only dietary restrictions are things that are gross.. like beans.

[frigid tiger]

It's a good to have options though

[blissful roost]

Yarp

[tardy badger]

Who knows, I imagine vegan ones will be more expensive given it will require a separate line to produce them

I shouldn’t eat dairy, and I generally don’t

But I do love cheese and ice cream

[blissful roost]

Meanwhile...

+yet another cup of mocha. 😁

[tardy badger]

I do love hot cocoa

I drink it year round

[blissful roost]

I love making a full milk mocha, with freshly brewed coffee and Belgian chocolate.

[raw jasper]

Forgive me, urgent healthcare is free in my country, and it is sometimes easy to forget this is not the case everywhere in the world.

[rapid geode]

healthcare is for the weak

[tardy badger]

Murica strong?

[blissful roost]

Weak troll is weak.

[tardy badger]

Lol

[rapid geode]

ha

my doctor botche my perscription last week and still hasnt fixed it.

punk

[tardy badger]

I don’t have a doctor 🙂

[blissful roost]

I like paying an insignificant amount from my income so that healthcare doesn't destroy my financial situation.

[tardy badger]

I’m just winging it hoping I don’t have a catastrophic health emergency

[rapid geode]

pft! i want to spend all my money and then have a $60000 medical bill i cant afford. makes life exciting

[blissful roost]

...

[raw jasper]

I feel the chat is veering off topic, and I don't want to see us all banned

[rapid geode]

k, enough mocking the usa. /me goes back to making weather baloons

[tardy badger]

We have cynical conversations out our healthcare situation often 🙂

We just steer clear of the political side of it to keep it within reason

And brief as well

[rapid geode]

yes.

i blame el nino

err

[tardy badger]

It’s La Niña

[rapid geode]

yeah

[tardy badger]

Technically there is both

But we were supposed to be in a long term La Niña

[rapid geode]

well it left us, cause i got dumped with a foot of snow 😛

[blissful roost]

Wow.
Paid £283 for NI last month. Lol

[urban arrow]

Can you say "Blazing Saddles?"...

[tardy badger]

We got like a foot and then it drifted enough for me to make a small sledding hill off the rock wall for my kids

[rapid geode]

what is NI?

[tardy badger]

National insurance

[blissful roost]

Yarp

[rapid geode]

ahh

[blissful roost]

No, I've never had gas that bad whilst riding a horse...

[rapid geode]

is that a lot? we dont ghet it broken down in any way. i pay roughly 29% income tax and some amount of that is health care

[tardy badger]

That £238 pays for the equivalent of like $1200 in a medical visit on top of my $200/paycheck

[rapid geode]

but drugs and some other stuff isnt included

[blissful roost]

Mine is certainly less than 29%

[rapid geode]

diabeties is aparantly a drain

[dusty citrus]

yep, I pay something like 1-2% income on public healthcare here (Australia), which doesn't include copay on some medications, etc.

[blissful roost]

Ohh, income tax... Nevermind

[tardy badger]

Drug costs in the US are expensive to pay for cheap drugs elsewhere apparently?

[blissful roost]

My tax deduction was £471. Lol

[tardy badger]

Good insulin? $700 a month

[rapid geode]

thats not true, but ive heard that line fed on the news

[blissful roost]

UK, £0

[tardy badger]

You can get the 1970s formulation of insulin that will slowly kill you for $25 at Walmart

[rapid geode]

we do 2 things here. we cap most drugs, and we invalidate patents. but we also do develop some here. although i think the us and germany develop most of them

[tardy badger]

Denmark apparently develops a lot of drug patents

[rapid geode]

insulin was originally developped here i think. we have comemorative stamps for it 😛

[tardy badger]

Apparent Switzerland beats the US and UK for number of pharmaceutical patents

[rapid geode]

but drug companies like to redevelop to keep patents going.

oh

interestinh

[tardy badger]

Yeah, darn Swiss first all our money, then the parents

Lol

[rapid geode]

see, thats how much myth we get fed, "usa pay for everything"

[blissful roost]

Well, you do have to pay for everything...

Someone does, somewhere along the line.

[rapid geode]

likewise you apparently pay more per person for "no" healthcare than we do for "free" healthcare. which is sad

[blissful roost]

Like.. UK healthcare isn't "free".

I'm happier to not get ripped off by a for-profit system.

[rapid geode]

nothing is free. the 2 main reasons for single payer is to be more efficient (sometimes works, soemtiems doesnt) and to remove all the beurocracy from the patient.

[tardy badger]

Americans only pay more for drugs because there’s literally no one saying they can’t charge us astronomical amounts

[rapid geode]

yeah

[blissful roost]

But why would you have to pay for an ambulance?!?

That's insane..

[glossy knoll]

So rich CEOs can get bigger bonuses, why else?

[blissful roost]

I believe that varies by State...

[rapid geode]

we have to pay separate for ambulance, but its nto too much money. $90 i think

[blissful roost]

Duh. 🤪

[tardy badger]

Ambulance rides even going just a short 1km can cost you a few thousand in some places

[rapid geode]

alot of ambulances are contract too, not gov owned

so, i guess they feel like they need to split it out

[tardy badger]

My mother in law had a $800 bill twice here where I live

[rapid geode]

oof

[tardy badger]

The cost of my youngests birth was over $25k

[rapid geode]

is it a fixed fee, or vareid based on service needed?

O_O

[tardy badger]

Luckily we maxed out our out of pocket for my wife so we paid like $250

[rapid geode]

but of course, you pay like no tax right... right?....

sigh

[tardy badger]

I pay 22% income tax

[rapid geode]

see, almost as much as me

oh well

[tardy badger]

6.75% for social security, and 1.something for Medicare

And 5% state income tax

I do get tax advantaged deductions for my health care plan, my HSA contributions ($20/paycheck right now), 401(k), hospital indemnity that pays up to like $15k for 4 days in the hospital.

[glossy knoll]

A friend of mine here in the US has stage 4 cancer and is going through chemo for the rest of his life. If he doesn't continue to work full-time he'll lose his health insurance and basically his family will go broke paying for his care. Basically he'll be punished for not dying fast enough.

[tardy badger]

My take home ends up being ~70% of my hourly

[rapid geode]

oh. see mins 29% all in, except sales tax and property tax

we dont get line items

[blissful roost]

I don't know what my exact tax percentage is..

Don't much care, not an accountant.

[tardy badger]

I did get a 4% raise yesterday though so that’s nice

[rapid geode]

(i just got my return yesteday, so im reading it, hahaha)

[blissful roost]

I don't file tax returns.

[rapid geode]

oh, i guess we do have a few line items. we have income tax (federal and provincial get mushed together) and we have pension, and employment insurance.

but those are capped at a small ish amount

once you make over about 200k takes go way up eventually getitng close to 50% at a few million a year. but anyone making that much money has a corporation

and write offs etc

[tardy badger]

I wish there was a chance I’d see the social benefits I pay into. It’s unlikely to be around in 37 years when I would be old enough to draw

But it pays for my grand parents to be able to somewhat scrape by

[rapid geode]

thats what everyone says. looks bleak right now, but it will stabilise and go back to normal eventually

[blissful roost]

I'm pretty sure I've paid off the cost of my hospital treatments by now. Lol

[tardy badger]

I’ve probably paid off the food stamps and Medicaid my family drew while I was pursuing my bachelors degree

[rapid geode]

i have used relatively little heathcare ervices, but then one day i lost my adrenal glands. left them on the bus. (airplane actually, that was suuuuper fun) and i used up a goof few hundred k of service.

[blissful roost]

I dread to think how much it would have cost, even over here...

Multiple surgeries and life-saving treatment.

[rapid geode]

normally anything critical you dont worry about here. but theres lots of cancer and such experimental treatments that arent covered (yet) so people in a last ditch cancer fight can rack up some bills

[tardy badger]

Urgent care visit for my daughter about slicing her pinky off cost nearly $900

[rapid geode]

eek

was that to sew it back on?

ive spent most heath related money on dental. cause that costs a lot

[blissful roost]

I tried to turn my hands into stroganoff.. not pretty.

[tardy badger]

She was playing with a kids tape measure and is sliced at the joint so four stitches to get it back on

[rapid geode]

eek

[tardy badger]

Saved a bunch of money by utilizing my field knowledge from the military to keep the bleeding down and things right.

[rapid geode]

my uncle cut his arm off with a bandsaw. this was in the 50s or 60s though, they didnt know how to put it back on

[tardy badger]

Avoided a much costlier visit.

Yeah, arms are harder than deep cuts

[rapid geode]

eek

[blissful roost]

Ohh! Snow!

😁

[tardy badger]

Oh good the algorithm is better and didn’t flag your hand

[rapid geode]

ive so far manages very few major injuries. just cuts and bruises

and a broken wrist

[tardy badger]

I got my major injuries out of the way before I was 10 years old

Broke both my arms at the elbow lol

[rapid geode]

ha, yeah most of mine too

wrist i was i think 7. jumped of swings

[tardy badger]

One at 4, the next at 7

[blissful roost]

Ohh, I'm sure it would have if I could find pics from when it happened... Lmao

[rapid geode]

ha

[tardy badger]

I was thinking about how hands were getting flagged as NSFW lol

[blissful roost]

Ripped up both hands.. and I've got a 10" scar up my forearm

[rapid geode]

i punctured my leg last year with a bike pedal, my sock was pink. (not red, pink, something about oxujen levels)

[blissful roost]

Yeah, too much flesh.. giggity

[tardy badger]

https://tenor.com/view/weird-creeping-looking-window-quagmire-gif-17384876

[rapid geode]

anyhow. i dont like gore. hahahqaha. which is a bit weird considering my job

[tardy badger]

FC artist

?

Engineer

Idk what the term is anymore

[rapid geode]

vfx for the boys

😛

[tardy badger]

FX*

[rapid geode]

yes

(among other shows)

hanibal was the worst. the boys is so cartoonishly over the top it doesnt bother me. hanibal was gross. i refused to do a few shots

[tardy badger]

FX is funny to me because f and x don’t mean anything, it just sounds like effects when said together

[rapid geode]

ha

fx the seriues?

ha

[tardy badger]

VFX tries to be an acronym but it’s only 1/3 of the way there

No, the term FX, I think adding the V is a more recent (last 20 years?)

[blissful roost]

My uncle works on film props... I know he's done some gory stuff
Lol

[tardy badger]

I wanted to be a doctor when I was a kid

Then I realized I have horrible sympathy pain. I physically can not handle seeing other people in pain

[blissful roost]

Gore doesn't bother me at all.
My first job, at 15, was working in a wholesale butchers.

[rapid geode]

a girl at work cut the tip of her finger off (no bone) while making her lunch in the office. that was a mess. she almost passed out.

they just superglued it back on

[tardy badger]

Yeah, superglue is surprisingly common in stuff like that

[blissful roost]

It was developed to treat war wounds..

[tardy badger]

When my now 85lb/38kg dog decided to use my face as a springboard, his nail left a nice gash on my lip.

Superglue was developed by accident

[raw jasper]

Really?!

[tardy badger]

https://www.militarytimes.com/off-duty/military-culture/2021/07/30/how-world-war-ii-led-to-the-invention-of-super-glue/

[blissful roost]

Lillie actually bit my lip a few weeks ago.. enough to draw an insignificant amount of blood. Lol

[tardy badger]

The guy was trying to make a new kind of plastic for gun sights

[blissful roost]

It was more a surprise that she actually caught me hard enough. 😅

[tardy badger]

Accidentally made super glue instead lol

My gash had to be stitched back together

Dr said I wouldn’t have a scar

I do, I can see it when I shave my open lip

This was.. 8 years ago that happened (my dog jumping in my face)

[rapid geode]

one day we will know enough to put people back together and restore them like cars

haha

[tardy badger]

“What vintage is your arm?”
“Ah it’s all original actually!”

[blissful roost]

Lillie didn't bite me hard enough to leave a mark.
It stopped bleeding almost immediately.

[rapid geode]

i think technically nothing on us is over 10 years old or something. i forget the exact detail, but it doesnt get replaced with brand new shiny cells..

kinda like amazon warranty

[tardy badger]

Every 7 years

Give it take a year

[tardy badger]

We have new blood circulating every 6 months or something like that

[rapid geode]

blood is fast for sure. cause thats how they do doping. take out 2L. wait for it to regen, then add it back in

BUNNY!

[ebon dew]

Cute super floofer

[rapid geode]

bunny wants carrots.

[tardy badger]

Bunny wants word domination

[rapid geode]

theres bunnies around my house. i saw one last fall.

[rapid geode]

hahahaha

[blissful roost]

Not my bun, but still funny. 😁

[tardy badger]

https://tenor.com/view/the-secret-life-of-pets-snowball-rabbit-angry-mad-gif-17562052

[blissful roost]

I think my PFP says enough. Lmao

[rapid geode]

that bunny has anger issues

[tardy badger]

Imagine if your pet was voiced by Kevin Hart

[blissful roost]

My Beau doesn't cheat on his wife... Coughs loudly

[rapid geode]

.....

[tardy badger]

👀

[blissful roost]

Controversial!

Lol... Sorry

[static flare]

It's usually easily accessible here, but I know elsewhere it can be difficult

[rapid geode]

conversation lifesigns reading zero

:x

[blissful roost]

It's dead, Jim.

[tardy badger]

https://tenor.com/view/i-died-now-im-dead-chris-traeger-parks-and-recreation-stomach-ache-pain-gif-17142835

[blissful roost]

I wish I could make something like this..

[tardy badger]

You totally could

You’d get maybe like 15 minutes of flight time though

[blissful roost]

Sadly, I lack the tools and funds.

"Extremely light, nearly silent, and with a flight time up to 25 minutes, the combat-proven, pocket-sized Black Hornet PRS transmits live video and HD still images back to the operator."

[tardy badger]

Wow, that’s impressive

[blissful roost]

The size is the most impressive part..

[rapid geode]

that reads like the scam ads i see on youtube

combat rpoven?

oh, flir

nevermind

ha

[blissful roost]

No, this is very factual

[rapid geode]

google says its $200k

ha

[blissful roost]

Yuh huh...... Lol

"Where do you think it all goes?!?... $10,000 for a toilet seat?"

[rapid geode]

i think it goes to the wifi service provider

[ebon dew]

Glad im not the only onefed up with the scammy youtube ads. “This is proven navy seal technology” i’m just like no its not. Might as well be those head-on ads. “Apply directly to the forehead”

[tardy badger]

You mean Elon 🙂

looks at starlink

[blissful roost]

At least I can confirm this one is definitely genuine. Lol

[tardy badger]

Reminds me of a post I saw that was like “there were 278 special forces personnel who were in Vietnam and I’ve already met 1000 of them”

I worked with over the summer of 2013 this young kid who claimed to have been a navy seal and whatnot. Claimed the VA wouldn’t cover his medical expenses because according to the military his missions “never happened” lol..

They proved very quickly that they either never served or if they did, in a very menial role. I left for my national guard drill weekend and came back to find out they never showed up for work over the weekend or would work the shift they weren’t supposed to with the person they were dating.

And then they just disappeared

[rapid geode]

ha

[blissful roost]

Ahhh... Obviously spent time aboard the USS NeverServed.

I have a personal hatred for people that claimed to have served when they didn't.

[rapid geode]

thats the same boat most politicians served on

:x

and steven segal

[blissful roost]

Indeed

Even his "martial arts" is fake.

[rapid geode]

i get how people can exaggerate a little here and there, but the people who just flat out make up an entire life baffle me

[ebon dew]

https://tenor.com/view/navy-seal-navy-bonk-abinder-pog-gif-25206728

[blissful roost]

Hot Shots?!?

[rapid geode]

reminds me of when my boss ran over a cesna

[ebon dew]

? Thats the navy.

[rapid geode]

(not an exageration)

[tardy badger]

In The Navy?

[rapid geode]

no, at the toronto airport

[ebon dew]

No, just the navy. They can be like that.

[tardy badger]

The navy can be serious

[rapid geode]

back when i was in the navy i uh... see, i dont even know anything abouyt the navy at all to make up a lie

[tardy badger]

Put the army in an aircraft carrier.. you’ll have a new finding Nemo movie in no time

[rapid geode]

ha

[ebon dew]

Hot shots was an underrated masterpiece though, probably a prequel to idiocracy.

[blissful roost]

I signed up for the British Army.. checked out when they wanted to assign me to Logistics.

[rapid geode]

ha

[blissful roost]

"Ohh, you can use a computer!! We've got the perfect role for you!"

Errr, no.

[rapid geode]

"i want to fight bad guys" "you can pack boxes"

[tardy badger]

Welcome to the Air Force son

[blissful roost]

Lel

[ebon dew]

Whaaaa but thats where all the fun is. 😁

[blissful roost]

To be fair, I do make awesome coffee.

[tardy badger]

The Air Force, where only like three of us actually fly planes

My dad was in the US Air Force

I did the army, my grandfather on my mom’s side was a marine, my uncle was in the navy

[rapid geode]

the closest ive been to the army is walking up to a US f 15, noting the armed soldier's lack of smile, then walking back to my 727

[tardy badger]

No one did coast guard

[rapid geode]

(not MY 727, but the one i had to load)

[blissful roost]

My paternal grandfather served with ground forces for the RAF, shortly after WW2.. My maternal grandfather was working on coastal defense at the same time.

They were too young to see service during the war.

[rapid geode]

my grandfathers were in ww2

not on the same side

:x

[blissful roost]

Close call? Lol

[ebon dew]

https://tenor.com/view/wee-ship-cute-wave-funny-gif-16685307

[rapid geode]

ha. actually i suppose they were on the same side. my german grandfather was in the opposition party in the 30s

i would not do well on that boat

haha

i dont really like boats

[blissful roost]

If this boat's a-rocking.... Hold on tight!!

[rapid geode]

my cousin has some 2 engine speedboat and i was in the back when i was maybe 6 or 7. nope.

he put his kid behind it on waterskis... and the holiday was over with an abulance trip

[blissful roost]

I love boats. 😁

[rapid geode]

i can do remote control boats

ha

[ebon dew]

Oof. The faster you go the harder water becomes or something like that.

[blissful roost]

Haha

[rapid geode]

i dont even like the ferry here

[rapid geode]

face planting on water is no better than concrete. it was bad

[blissful roost]

I've seen some rough water crossing the English channel, but I know it can get a lot worse.

[rapid geode]

also i think he got dragged on the rocks too

poor kid

[ebon dew]

Geez, gj dad

[rapid geode]

well, i was 7 ish. my cousn was maybe 22? his kid was 6.

soooo

[ebon dew]

Imagine trying to explain to your wife you raked your kid across rocks

[rapid geode]

she was there

shes no better

haha

[blissful roost]

I've never been on skis, water or otherwise..

I prefer to stay in the boat.

[ebon dew]

Oh hes definitely divorced now

[rapid geode]

nope, theve been married now like... 40 years?

[ebon dew]

Rare

[blissful roost]

Well, I guess it can't get any worse now.....

[rapid geode]

yeah. they both have the correct amount of immaturity to be compatible

ha

the other side of my family is a bit more chaos. some fo the kids even have the same dad

[ebon dew]

Doesn’t matter if you’re married or not i like seeing couples together for the long haul. Thats supposed to be the point.

[rapid geode]

their parents (my aunt) were togther for like, 50 years maybe til my uncle died

sometime it works i guess

[blissful roost]

My grandmother passed away in 2018..
My grandfather still wears his wedding ring and writes "married" on paperwork.

Some people have asked why...

"I'm still alive.."

[rapid geode]

ha

to collect his social insurance

😛

[blissful roost]

His what?

[rapid geode]

ha

um.. bus pass?

what do you guys got over there

[blissful roost]

He gets a bus pass regardless. Lol

My dad has one now.

[rapid geode]

ah

[ebon dew]

As long as someone remembers and thinks about you then you’re still alive.

[blissful roost]

As for State Pension... Automatic.

[rapid geode]

so, does that make the cast of most 1970's shows dead?

[blissful roost]

Oof

[rapid geode]

ha

here we have convoluted pensions and credits.

theres one you just get for being old

one you get from paying in over your life

some credits depending on if you are poor

and then if you had a job with its won pension you get that.

i think in most cases its not considered enough

[blissful roost]

I've got 2 private pensions and 1 State, so... Ehh.

[fierce prawn]

Can esp32-c3 run a web browser

[crystal ore]

Not easily. It can request web pages, for sure, but actually rendering sites properly on a screen, etc. is a chore best left to full embedded computers like Raspberry Pis and so forth.

[frigid tiger]

Is it ever

[loud sparrow]

Guys, if someone has put an 8MHz crystal instead of an 8.192MHz crystal on a M90E26 board, what are the chances that this particular issue is causing SPI communications failure (No response at all)?

[tardy badger]

So 8.192MHz is chosen because it more easily can be divided down to specific frequencies

8MHz doesn’t quite give you the accuracy for dividing down and getting specific frequencies for the measurements that it’s doing. You would need to adjust the measurements by the factor that the crystal is off from the suggested value.

[late fulcrum]

Since SPI is a synchronous protocol, it doesn't depend on specific timing, so a slight change in crystal frequency is likely not a factor.

[tardy badger]

Whoops, I should have covered that too lol..

[spark egret]

So I see adafruit has

Micro NFC/RFID Transponder - NTAG203

but I found

NTAG 213 micro chip 6x15mm

from the brief research I did it seems like the 213 has more benefits? Am I missing something? I only see adafruit stocking raw 203 but not the 213?

[glossy knoll]

I believe the core difference is available space. That and if you're looking to do anything amiibo, you need the 213 specifically

[spark egret]

gotcha, ty for additional info.

[steady dove]

@delicate stream 👋

[bright shale]

Hi. Can this be wired directly to a raspberry pi zero w ?
https://www.adafruit.com/product/5001

[ebon dew]

@bright shale yes, the breakout board that goes with it has no logic circuitry so you can wire it directly up to any controller you want.

https://www.adafruit.com/product/5221

It's just for ease of use to provide header pinouts. You can wire directly to the pins on the back of the ANO if you want though no problem.

[wanton thistle]

So Im pulling the trigger and I bought some STM32 modules and a programmer. Dont know what Im going to use them for but the language seems very similar to what Im used to 🙂

[late fulcrum]

It's an ARM CPU, so you can program it in any of several languages. It's a solid, popular choice, I hope you enjoy working with it.

[glossy knoll]

CubeMX is a real hog but it does seem to generally work

[wanton thistle]

The STM language doesnt seem hard to use. Its C. CubeMX (I think) is almost like Microchips Code Configurator. They both seem to generate low level code from what you input.

There is one particular application Im interested in: a digital SMPS. Ive already proven it can be done with a PIC and I know theres caveats, and from what I played around with in software, even the STM32F0 is more than capable of handling it. Its much faster ADC wise as is the PWM.

and, if I dont like it, I can always use the arduino bootloader

[glossy knoll]

Pretty much. Even though it's a hog, it's still better than MCC (that's not saying much)

[wanton thistle]

The only complaint I have for MCC is that it takes forever to load and then sometimes it doesnt overwrite things if you change code, so you have to re-do it and then rebuild. But Im only a hobbyist and not production 🙂

I did see that there are some 20 PIN TSSOP versions that shouldnt be too hard to solder with air.

I also have plenty of 8 bit PICs too lol. Whats more to the collection 😄

[glossy knoll]

Oh don’t worry, it does that too if you use it professionally

[wanton thistle]

ooof

Its kind of annoying, but I could see it being REALLY annoying if you have tons of code

[glossy knoll]

Thankfully, with those types of tools you usually stop messing with it once you get far enough along in a project

[wanton thistle]

This is true. Once your set and done, you really dont have to mess with things. Thats the first thing I do though, get things "talking" because in all systems (Even PLCs), getting things to talk is 90% of the battle. SPI/USART/I2C works? Sweet. Lets go then!

[glossy knoll]

Yep, same- did the initial prototyping using a dev kit, then once the boards are spun you usually don't mess with the configuration much

[raw jasper]

Curious, since I don't do embedded dev: Would it be possible to bypass the vendor tools by calling the toolchains in a Makefile?

[spark egret]

So I just realized that the two PN532 on adafruit are actually different boards. Originally I thought they were the same but different versions.

Could anyone tell me more about how the use case / capabilities differ between these two boards? The items description does not help that much as I am unsure if features are missing or just omitted.

https://www.adafruit.com/product/364

https://www.adafruit.com/product/789

I am also a newb when it comes to Arduino and hardware but I believe I need to learn SPI to optimally use either board for NFC tags. I planned on using NTAG213

TY again for all the help with helping me understand the products.

[night crescent]

WE ARE LIVE! SHOW AND TELL! https://youtu.be/xgp7cLM2tdY

[night crescent]

WE ARE LIVE! ASK AN ENGINEER! https://youtu.be/oYpkW53q3PU

[thick wind]

They’re functionally equivalent, but the arduino shield is designed to plug directly into the top of an arduino uno form factor board.

[thick wind]

I’m curious what people have planned for their arduino gigas and metro m7s…

[tardy badger]

I saw someone was looking at doing a pinball machine

[raw jasper]

Not having been in contact with the maker world for years, I'm surprised arduino is still evolving

The last arduino board I remember was the arduino yun

[tardy badger]

they also have an extensive Pro lineup

Nicla boards are pretty impressive smol boards

[raw jasper]

I actually came across the nicla voice board thing today. I'm amazed by the chip it's got on

[tardy badger]

it's impressive

it's like the size of the watch boards I've made and are about 10x more powerful lol

[raw jasper]

Yeah, it's, like, a neural network CISC IC and an ARM processor in one chip

[lapis dirge]

Giga - adapt the Speeduino engine management software from the Mega to the Giga. Metro M7 ..... Just have fun with the new processor, try to hack a core for it on arduino.

[glossy knoll]

Oooooh, who's gonna be the first to put an Atmega 328 soft core on the FPGA? hehehehe

[raw jasper]

Arduino inception! :P

[rapid geode]

I want to see someone emulate and fpga core on an arduino

[loud sparrow]

The datasheet mentions 8.192MHz to be used and maybe that specific frequency is required for some other function, which in-turn is causing the SPI to fail? Anyway after switching out the crystals the board is working

[brave copper]

Say can the Pi's RED PWR LED be turned off on boot up?

[ebon dew]

which pi?

[brave copper]

Pi 3B models I'm running a 3B for my BMC64

the RED LED on my Pi 3B annoys me as I can see it through the Commodore 64's small gap from the case

[late fulcrum]

Usually specific clock frequencies are required for timing specific thing like talking to asynchronous serial devices, One-wire, DHT11, NeoPixels, and the like. SPI shouldn't care. It could be the specific peripheral requires a specific service internal or somesuch. What details indicate it's an SPI specific problem? In any case I'm glad you found a fix, but I'm curious as to what is going on.

[late fulcrum]

As it's a power LED, I suspect it's not software controllable (I haven't checked the schematic, however). My usual approach is to cover the LED with something opaque (electrical tape, nail polish, etc.) or remove the LED or its current limiting resistor (if you don't want to do precision soldering and don't care about getting the LED back, you can just cut the LED or resistor in two with some nippers).

[loud sparrow]

Yes you can (atleast works on Pi4). This is my config:

dtparam=pwr_led_activelow=off
dtparam=act_led_trigger=heartbeat

[manic rain]

say I have a coil with iron core placed horizontally. If I move a bar magnet horizontally over it will it produce DC?

[late fulcrum]

Nope.

[fierce prawn]

Any backend managers that manage the adafruit website is here?

What you all use to host the api used by adafruit website

Need to move from vercel cz it's having a big downtime

Or what most of you all use

[stuck cobalt]

First I use KiCad so maybe I have a conversion problem. That being said, I would like to get some of the new "Adafruit Metro M7 with AirLift" for a project. So I downloaded the PCB design to make sure it would be a good candidate for my project. What I don't understand is how the ESP and the RT1010 are talking. The MISO and ESP_MISO don't seem to be connected.

ICSP0-1(MISO) -----> RT1010-57(MISO) ------> IC1-4
ICSP0-3(SCK) -----> RT1010-52(SCK) ------> ESP32-30(SCK)
ICSP0-4(MOSI) -----> RT1010-56(MOSI) ------> ESP32-13(MOSI)
RT1010-43(ESP_CS) --> RT1010-29(ESP_CS) -----> IC1-1
RT1010-37(ESP_MISO) ----> IC1-2

[tardy badger]

More than half of getting software to work is making sure you have the right version of dependencies.. so much fun lol

[bleak igloo]

I read through the rules but couldn't find anything against offering money for a coding. Does anyone know if this is allowed?

[thick wind]

We usually refer paid requests to jobs.adafruit.com

[bleak igloo]

I went to your link but it seems to be info on careers with adafruit.

[whole jacinth]

i think the jobs board is currently being rebuilt

[brave copper]

I might see if that will work or not if not since it just boots Vice instantly it may not work

[tardy badger]

PCB artistically representing a classic FPGA exercise

[tardy badger]

Assembled and stacked on the IcyBlue for doing some coding!

[waxen wasp]

I think the icyBlue FPGA is currently in crowdsupply's featured Projects section on the main page, congrats!

[tardy badger]

is it?

😮

[waxen wasp]

On my instance it is, and I opened a private browser to double check and it's there as well. It could be doing IP filtering, but hey, it's the main page for me!

[tardy badger]

I think so too

on mine it shows other projects

but that's cool that it's filtering to the top for others 🙂

[ebon dew]

yup, looks like there are 8 featured projects and skerr's one of them. 🙂

[tardy badger]

neat!

[raw jasper]

Can confirm it's there on my end too!

Congrats, hope you reach your target!

(and exceed it, tbh)

[tardy badger]

thanks! I'm hoping to launch in the next two weeks when my business formation stuff is finished 🙂

[rapid geode]

O_o

[tardy badger]

o_O

[rapid geode]

whats a traffic wing. does it traffic illicit data packets?

[tardy badger]

It’s for a common FPGA lab exercise in which you made a traffic light controller

[rapid geode]

ah neat

[tardy badger]

Usually it is done on a board where it can feel a bit confusing to do

Kind of like this

Video my lab partner took for doing our lab write up

I’m considering a larger one that you can do the cross walks and whatnot

[rapid geode]

if only it could make cars stop for cross walks

[raw jasper]

For some reason, I managed to learn verilog without ever coming across the traffic light exercise

[rapid geode]

😛

[tardy badger]

It’s mostly an academic exercise taught for learning timing and whatnot

And state machines

[raw jasper]

I knew FSMs from programming, so "porting" that knowledge over to verilog wasn't hard

[tardy badger]

Yeah, most people who take digital systems design haven’t done state machines in programming yet

[bright shale]

Hi. I was wondering if this product could be hooked up via gpio to the pi ? https://www.adafruit.com/product/5001

[tardy badger]

FPGA sometimes present interesting approaches to state machines

[wanton thistle]

oh man, I used these when I did my degree

[raw jasper]

Any particular examples come to mind? I always use the... well-known formulaic code

We all know which one I mean :P

[tardy badger]

just depends on if you like moore or mealy state machines 😛

vending machine problems are also popular state machine problems

[raw jasper]

I think I usually go for a Mealy design

[tardy badger]

speaking of state machines, I need to draw one up lol. trying to code it from scratch isn't always easiest xD

[raw jasper]

Fun fact: regexps can be represented as FSMs, too

[tardy badger]

yeah

if you're good at regex

I am not

lol

[raw jasper]

There's a tool that will draw the equivalent automaton for you https://github.com/katef/libfsm

[frigid tiger]

imagine jlpcb for displays

[crystal ore]

Or for ASICs. 😁

[raw jasper]

You'd need to have the super expensive EDA chain to design them in the first place, though

Unlike PCBs, where open-source, free or low-cost design software exists

[thick wind]

I mean, tiny tapeout is a thing. Doesn’t have to be super expensive to design ASICs.

Fabrication is a completely different story, though.

[raw jasper]

What I wanted to say is that the software to even design said ASIC isn't, as far as I know, accessible to a hobbyist, pricing-wise.

[thick wind]

I don’t think that’s necessarily true either. Free software exists, you just have to know where to look.

They’re not as polished as their commercial counterparts, but they certainly exist.

[raw jasper]

I actually did not know that.

Any keywords I could use to find out more?

[thick wind]

https://semiwiki.com/wikis/industry-wikis/eda-open-source-tools-wiki/

Technically, you can start learning asic design in a similar vein as fpgas

https://tinytapeout.com/ accepts verilog hdl as well as a wokwi template haha

[raw jasper]

I have no idea where I could use that, but, thank you very much for linking those, I learned something new today!