I think a z80 microcontroller can get me started in retro computing
#general-chat
dusty citrus
finite monolith
monsters, as in size measured in acres and cost measure in % of GDP
late fulcrum
The Z80 is a nice choice, it's one of the later designs of that crop. I have a personal fondness for the 6502 and 1802 as they're easy to breadboard and integrate, but the Z80 (as you've seen) isn't too tough.
Due to its unusual architecture, the 1802 was once described as having 32 bytes of RAM and 65535 I/O ports ๐
It had an interesting ALU as well. While the Z80 used a 4-bit ALU and some extra cycles to use it to calculate 8-bit results, the 1802 had a 1-bit ALU and used even more cycles. On the upside, it was so simple it could run at a fast (for the time) clock rate, while drawing low power.
late fulcrum
Another feature of the 1802 might interest you: it has a "load mode" specifically designed to make it easy to operate with front panel switches.
dusty citrus
@late fulcrum now that interests me
dusty citrus
But can you do that with a z80?
late fulcrum
There are, of course, ways to do that with a Z80, you'll probably just need a few flip-flops, a latch, and some logic.
Or some monitor code that makes the Z80 do most of the heavy lifting, and some interface logic to read the switches and drive the LEDs (maybe something hung off an I/O port?)
I was looking for some small CRT monitors. There are some nice rack-mount ones used for video and security use, three wide in a 19" space, but for some reason those tend to be expensive. I ended up grabbing a couple chonky TV viewfinders like these https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/zoom/images1/1/1215/18/panasonic-wv-f565h-video-camera-wv_1_cf3e580bd7c95826ca01d84a61faab6d.jpg
A little tinkering and I've gotten one to display a signal. I should think of something to do with that big red tally light, since it's there and all.
grave crest
That would be a wicked retro-styled augmented reality system.
late fulcrum
I was playing with an idea like that before high-rez LCDs were a thing. I was going to use six 1.5" viewfinder CRTs, one each for red, green, and blue. That was going to be a heavy helmet!
finite monolith
steampunk AR.... That would be pretty badass
late fulcrum
I bought a dozen CRTs from a surplus outfit (enough for two helmets), but never ended up actually building it. I still have the CRTs, I've been eyeing them for a vector art project (there's a couple of posts on the tubetime blog on winding your own deflection yokes, and I have a book about it).
late fulcrum
I'm also playing with a sort-of-synthwave project: a "visual theremin" where you make Lissajous figures on a CRT by controlling oscillators by waving your hands around. I was going to make it with vacuum tubes and use lots of brass and copper for extra steampunk goodness.
The breadboard version of the visual theremin
fickle acorn
Very tidy XD
late fulcrum
I admit, most of my circuits look like that for a while.
Eventually the lucky ones look more like this
shrewd hatch
purple
late fulcrum
Yeah, I had OSHPark make the board for me, they make pretty purple boards with gold ENIG pads.
dusty citrus
Why do swamp trees have these droopy, thin clusters of vine-like brown things?
Usually a few inches long
timber goblet
makes for better cinematography.
dusty citrus
Huh?
Like..a movie?
No, Iโm in a swamp right now here in Texas
Iโll try to get a picture
By the way, @late fulcrum I cannot stand a ratsnest unless Iโm making something really quick for testing. Youโll always see me spend time measuring spaces on a breadboard and using pre cut flat-laying wires.
late fulcrum
I figure if it works as a ratsnest, it'll work anywhere, I'm just trying stuff to see what works and what affects what.
dusty citrus
Same here, but I would say I spend far more time organizing and tidying
Because Iโm bad at electronics
:P
I canโt figure out transistors or low pass filters
I mean these things
They are everywhere
dusty citrus
is this good for deep learning and AI?
wait
uhhh
is this supposed to be in the PI channel?
tame saddle
@dusty citrus its called Spanish Moss: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_moss
late fulcrum
The Spanish call it "French Hair".
It took me a while to figure out transistors, they seemed mysterious and magic after learning on vacuum tubes.
dusty citrus
@late fulcrum I wonder what is gonna be next big thing after transistors
late fulcrum
For a while people thought it was going to be Josephson junctions. There was also talk about micro-etched field emission vacuum tubes. Now they're talking about quantum computing and electro-optical circuitry. I doubt anybody really knows yet, but a lot of people would like to, as there will probably be a huge amount of money riding on it.
dusty citrus
Iโm super close to done with The Moonlight Sonata!!! But I never bothered to do metronome practice, so my timing is far out of wack..
velvet nexus
you can claim its artistic interpretation
dusty citrus
I hope FLIR is inexpensive one day so I can tinker with it on pi/arduino
grave crest
Yeah, thatโs totally on my radar.
dusty citrus
Which is the best screen recording softwares for linux
vernal gale
obs
dusty citrus
I want to play Fantaisie Impromptu, but thatโs really ambitious for my level.. I only pretty much finished the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata
(Then I want to do Claire de Lune, lol)
mint trellis
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vernal gale
is it ok to link to another maker discord here?
grave crest
As long as it's relevant, appropriate for all audiences, and it's not spammed.
[and thank you for asking.]
tame saddle
all of this ^^ ๐
dusty citrus
I finished the Moonlight Sonataโs first movement!!!!!!
Months!!!!
My first full classic!!!
fickle acorn
Lol
tame saddle
Moonlight is my 2nd favorite Beethoven piece. congrats on learning it! (Egmont Overture is my #1 fav).
night robin
Does anyone wanna type race? https://play.typeracer.com?rt=5eizoydvb
fickle acorn
@night robin Sure!
spice moss
all those who games on pc https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2019/05/30/microsoft-approach-to-pc-gaming/
covert spire
Of course being Microsoft, Windows is only OS it's on . . .
swift remnant
Hey everyone! There are tickets still available for an Intro to Circuit Playground Express workshop tomorrow at Futureworks Makerspace in the Brooklyn Army Terminal. Know anyone that's interested? Share the word! https://www.eventbrite.com/e/circuit-playground-a-beginners-workshop-on-electronics-and-coding-tickets-61650334811
vernal gale
I think so
there's a video of 8-bit guy doing that one I think
not as expandable as rc2014 though
burnt tendon
Kinda depends on what you want to do with it.
Like, I loves the 6502.
That particular board is going to get you to a running state nicely where it looks like a computer.
But there's a lot of magic in a Propeller chip. And that's also cool because sourcing a CRTC is hard.
So it's that, or a FPGA/CPLD and a lot of the 5v versions of those have gone away.
But I would say that it's the only kit of it's type..
dusty citrus
I guess I would just buy the rc2014
late fulcrum
Toying with the notion of rolling my own (the 6502 and 1802 are particularly easy chips to breadboard). I'm not a fan of "GE" style BASIC, but I've found the source code for Atari BASIC, which is the much superior "HP" style and am looking at porting it.
I think I can make a solid 4-chip computer, and two of those chips are simple gates.
burnt tendon
I'm probably going to breadboard a 6502 computer.
Like, I've got the 6502's. So it's either breadboard a 6502 or hand them down at some point in the distant history to my nieces or nephews. "These were your uncle's DIP package 6502's. A weapon from a more civilized time"
Current plan, because I've got the Rockwell 65c02 and that doesn't have the line that lets me easily tri-state the bus, is to make something similar to http://sbc.rictor.org/info2.html
Although I'll probably make a PCB just because routing traces is relaxing like playing Tetris and it gives a project a nice sense of permanence.
late fulcrum
I do enjoy routing traces. LadyAda's writeup makes it sound like it's a sort of relaxing zen-like process for her too.
copper hemlock
Like combing a japanese rock garden... โฎ
late fulcrum
I enjoy when I realize I can go from this (driver under the displays)
... to this (driver fits inside the display footprint)
bitter violet
Iโm 3D printing a catapult rn
copper hemlock
Great job @late fulcrum !!!!
burnt tendon
Yeah, like, I guess I need to figure out how to actually simulate a PCB instead of fabbing it at some point
Because if I wanted to play tetris for $13 a game, I'd download one of those free-to-play loot-box mobile games. ๐
copper hemlock
Have you tried LTSpice?
covert spire
I love your avatar
copper hemlock
Mine? ๐ Thanks
dusty citrus
Guys can anyone reccomend me a FPGA that I can start out with?
copper hemlock
(More comming, stand by...)
http://www.terasic.com.tw/cgi-bin/page/archive.pl?No=593 (13 of them there)
dusty citrus
Thanks mate!
late fulcrum
Another possibility: https://www.latticesemi.com/icestick
dusty citrus
Nope
copper hemlock
Cool idea: a CPU with a single operation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_instruction_set_computer
IIRC, someone made one...
copper hemlock
Sure you can!
You might have to plot out how many gates you'll need if you want to go cheap. Otherwise what you can afford & start working at it,
Me, I don't buy stuff from ebay anymore, I've sworn them off.
dusty citrus
@copper hemlock how come you hate Ebay?
copper hemlock
I sold a motherboard through ebay, the customer gouged the bottom off of the board & then charged it back.
Ebay's automated system had no way of coping with the idea of it being a scam.
I was out a $200 board, shipping, & auction fees.
For the same reason I've sworn off PayPal too, who's only gotten worse from what I hear.
balmy rivet
Has anyone done any of the Instructables classes/has been an Instructables TA (teaching assistant)?
It seems the format for the classes isn't much different than the normal Instructables so I'm curious to hear other perspectives.
dusty citrus
@copper hemlock I use Ebay more as a way of buying things
late fulcrum
The problem for me with that Altera board is that the FPGA programming software is DOS-only. This may not be a problem for you.
dusty citrus
@late fulcrum what kind of FPGA do you reccomend to me?
late fulcrum
I recommended the icestick earlier. I generally look at FPGA chips supported by Symbiflow (open source FPGA tools that grew out of Icestorm and Nextpnr).
Arduino has announced that they'll offer FPGA programming for everybody (following their introduction of the MKR Vidor 4000) but they haven't followed through yet.
dusty citrus
I would want to have a FPGA where I can create my own CPU
Since building one with actual parts are expensive for me
late fulcrum
Realistically that's not much of a limitation, until you start tacking on CPU requirements.
It's not too expensive in parts to roll your own CPU. You can start with an ALU and a few latches for registers. I'm toying with the notion of implementing an ALU with an EPROM, basically duplicating the old 74181 part using parts that are currently in production.
dusty citrus
The reason why I want to use a FPGA is because I want to create a computer that has my own custom video chip in a single chip as well as the CPU
burnt tendon
@copper hemlock naw, I've not tried LTSpice.
late fulcrum
Ah yes, FPGAs are good at tricks like generating video (PROM+DMA based video generators are neat, but hardly single-chip solutions).
late fulcrum
Makes sense. You went and distracted me again, now I'm reading about a one bit CPU (Motorola MC14500). It's an interesting and bizarre little chip. I may have to buy one and play with it.
One data pin, 4 instruction pins (16 instructions). I'm a little boggled.
dusty citrus
Wow
Should I buy it?
I can start out with it
Considering it looks simple
And wow
I feel like the engineers at Motorola were having a conversation and one of them mentioned about a 1 bit CPU and one of the engineers took it seriously
late fulcrum
Apparently it's designed to support "ladder logic" industrial control type sequencers. If you want a program counter, you just add a counter chip. I'm intrigued.
dusty citrus
Cant believe a CPU like that exists
late fulcrum
Was made for about 20 years, apparently that odd beast was useful. It was made in China after that (partly because a simple chip like that is easy to make).
copper hemlock
@dusty citrus I did a lot of both, but I got into selling parts & stuff left over from projects & it all went bad.
@burnt tendon LTSpice isn't the only S.P.I.C.E. circuit simulator engine, but it's a bit easier to use.
I think Contectual Electronics on Youtube has some cool videos on how to use it.
Also, I learned about the integration (in the early stages) of a SPICE engine into KiCAD there.
burnt tendon
@copper hemlock I was playing with Multisim and kinda lost interest trying to figure out how to make the transistor model be a 2n2222
Dono, it bugs me on a bunch of levels in a variety of ways, but simulation that is accessible to the non-professional users hasn't really developed well. Because SPICE circuit simulation seems to be on the same level as Finite element structural simulation.
copper hemlock
None of that stuff is really easy, because there's often a lot of high octane math going on under the hood.
late fulcrum
Additionally, the user interfaces tend to be primitive, keying in a bunch of nodes instead of drawing connections on a screen. While I've played with simulators, I don't find them particularly useful. I'll generally just breadboard a circuit and see what happens. Often it won't work at first, and sometimes I'll let the magic smoke out 
. But I learn something every time.
burnt tendon
I spent a year horking with some CAE software and I think my bigger problem is that they are hard to use, contain high-octane math, and seem to contain questionable implementations of high-octane math.
Like, on the pro side of things, you have a person who has a sum of money equivalent to approximately 10% of their salary who's job it is to babysit CAE software that's contains a variety of features that have no purpose but to mess with you and extract money from your employer. And then they end up saying "Cool, it passed the mumble mumble. That's cool; let's not try to run it a second time because that might not give us passing numbers a second time."
Obviously, not CAE trained, but I found failure modes in expensive commercial CAE software that I am not necessarily comfortable with.
Conversely, I'm not sure if "Something that takes 200% of the CPU time, has 50% of the feature set, can only do simpler parts, but will never mislead you" is viable from the software side, the mathematics side, or the business side... but I'd love to see it.
tl;dr: Nothing beats building it and then seeing how far you can push it before snaps / lets out the magic smoke / falls off / sends springs flying off, never to be seen again.
Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but "works in a SPICE simulator" is still mostly "circuit is valid" than "is a valid PCB layout", right?
dusty citrus
you may enjoy some of the open source solid modeling tools like FreeCAD or Solvespace
simpler for sure than fusion360 or solidworks but youโre still in control heh
mint trellis
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there
copper hemlock
I wouldn't know. How many gates do you need?
You might design it in software/paper/algorithym/etc first if you don't know.
I've never done it myself.
That said, there is this: http://www.megaprocessor.com/
And this: https://monster6502.com/
dusty citrus
@copper hemlock i do want to start out with something simple and easy
copper hemlock
Why not start with something simple & well known? Try simulating a MOS6502 first.
late fulcrum
I'd start with a half adder, then a full adder, then two of them, then look at carry propagation. From there, I'd probably either add some registers and a program counter, or add more functions toward a full ALU.
The advantage of an ALU is that you can test it out with some switches and LEDs. The advantage of a couple of registers and a program counter is that you can start running simple programs.
copper hemlock
A good idea madbodger!!!
late fulcrum
The learning curve for FPGAs in my experience is a bit frustrating. To implement a half-adder with gates and a breadboard might take an hour. To implement a half-adder with an FPGA might days to get the software installed, figure out how to operate it, write some VHDL or Verilog, get it debugged and building, assign pins, work through the floorplanner, build a bitstream, actually get the bitstream onto the FPGA, and test it out. However, once you've slogged through that process, iterating on it and adding functionality goes a LOT quicker and easier.
copper hemlock
Probably 1-4 weeks @late fulcrum ?
late fulcrum
I'd say a couple of days to a couple of weeks, depending on motivation, interruptions, and luck. Time to think interruptions (mowing the lawn, showering, going for a walk) seem to help, distraction interruptions can really slow a person down.
copper hemlock
Thank you. That's why I was reluctant to encourage @dusty citrus (besides not having any FPGA experience myself.) Doing a full 8-bit processor is a rather ambitions task & lately, I've had a full plate at work myself.
dusty citrus
I mean
I can start out small
Everyone in there life approached a new thing slowly
copper hemlock
Exactly!! That's a big bite to chew, start off a bit smaller & enjoy yourself.
dusty citrus
I can get a book to learn about FPGAs
late fulcrum
You've got the right mindset: read up on things and start small. I just meant to caution you that even starting small can be frustrating.
dusty citrus
What book do you reccomend for me to read
late fulcrum
I don't have firsthand book recommendations, but sounds like the O'Reilly book "Learning FPGAs" and the Pong Chu books (like "RTL Hardware Design using VHDL") are good. There's also a reading list here http://www.asic-world.com/verilog/books.html (the older book "HDL Chip Design" is said to be good).
There are, of course, a wealth of websites on the subject too.
A quick look around on bookfinder.com shows that these are not exactly cheap books ("A Verilog HDL Primer" is the cheapest I found, at $17.34) but your local library should have some FPGA/VHDL/Verilog books available (I love libraries). ๐
late fulcrum
It can also be instructive to read how the parts work inside. The modern ones tend to by mysterious and proprietary, but the simpler older parts are better documented like this one which gives the internal logic, shows how it works, and even has a one-page diagram showing all the programming bits. http://web.mit.edu/6.115/www/document/gal22v10.pdf
dusty citrus
Is saliva acidic or basic?
umbral phoenix
"typically pH 6.2โ7.4" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saliva
vernal gale
@late fulcrum Someone is writing a motorola 68k backend for Rust https://lists.debian.org/debian-68k/2019/02/msg00003.html
late fulcrum
Interesting. I'm not aware of a lot of 68k machines around these days, but I suppose the DIP version is breadboardable.
vernal gale
now we just need 6502 ๐
I know a guy who transpiled Rust to C and then compiled the C with cc65 but I wasn't able to replicate his results
burnt tendon
There's the 68katy: https://www.bigmessowires.com/68-katy/
Also, for that matter, here's a "Starting with an FPGA make a complete computer from scratch" that a friend has been working on for a logn while now: https://kestrelcomputer.github.io/kestrel/
burnt tendon
I dono, a 68k is a lot more able to naturally accept random compilers and programming language than a 6502, tho. I mean, if you treat the zero page as a giant register store and the actual registers as a user-visible cache for the registers it makes a bit more sense, but..
Well, if you are doing FPGA then the width becomes less of a concern.
stuck moth
hi @dusty citrus! happy to see you here. welcome!
dusty citrus
oh hi! thank you :)
dusty citrus
Hey, guys, super duper weird question, but I don't want to Google
Chocolate chips in the pancake batter, or sprinkled in after pouring?
I feel like there's a specific way to do it right...
I'll try sprinkling
late fulcrum
I'd guess that's the way to go, as there would be less risk of them ending up on the bottom and melting out, and you'll likely get a more even distribution.
burnt tendon
I'd say put 'em in the batter, although if I were making it, I'd sprinkle 'em in after pouring so not everybody is stuck with chips.
torpid belfry
whenever we do it they're folded into the batter
if they're dropping into the bottom you're letting it sit too long
just stir it up a little before pouring out new pancakes.
fickle acorn
WOAH. Big change for Apple
Apple is usually an "I'm not sharing my anything" company. Nice step forward Apple.
torpid belfry
All that means is that they're planning on selling a lot of upgrade modules, not that they're planning on anyone else selling them or supporting it if they do and you buy them
late fulcrum
The Apple ][ was pretty open (and documented). The G5 "cheese grater" machines were easy to service/upgrade. It could be that they're making their more expensive machines more open, to encourage people to buy them (which I can basically understand).
dusty citrus
@late fulcrum https://www.bigmessowires.com/nibbler/ is this a good CPU to build?
late fulcrum
I think that's one I linked you to when we were discussing building 4-bit CPUs.
It seems like a reasonable choice to me, and uses the usual 74181 ALU. It's a fairly low-level design, which is good for learning but will eat up some breadboard space.
It's a Harvard architecture machine as well, which simplifies some things but also makes certain tricks (like self-modifying code) unavailable.
dusty citrus
but im really confused about the microcode assembler
late fulcrum
Hmm, there's a microcode builder and an assembler, which do you mean, and what is confusing you?
dusty citrus
how can i put in the microcode in the ROM?
i dont know where is the file for the microcode
late fulcrum
You can use a PROM burner to put the code into the ROM. Looks like the file is in the files download.
late fulcrum
Hmm, looks like the 28C16 used is an EEPROM, which is easy to program even with just an Arduino.
Even other PROMs aren't too hard, you just need a handful of I/O pins, a power supply, and a couple of switching transistors.
I also found this video that shows it being programmed with just a bunch of switches. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K88pgWhEb1M
dusty citrus
@late fulcrum I guess I can use a ROM programmer
late fulcrum
You can, but there's no need to pay for one or wait for it to show up if you don't feel like it.
late fulcrum
If you're going to breadboard a computer, it might make sense to get comfortable with programming chips a little more directly like /usr/ucb/ponyprog -d 28C16 -H -x -v -t 200 -p /dev/cu.usbAK004 -i /home/ni/src/build/rom0-firmware.bin
That said, a popular chip programmer out there is the TL866II+ http://www.autoelectric.cn/en/TL866_Dealer.html which can be operated by open source software https://gitlab.com/DavidGriffith/minipro/
late fulcrum
It's the usual approach to low-level activities like burning ROMs.
late fulcrum
Since it's rewritable, you can just write it over if you get it wrong.
An improvement on the old days where it was either write once (trash it and buy another if you get it wrong), or UV eraseable (wait 45 minutes to erase it before you can try again if you get it wrong).
Let alone mask ROMs (pay several thousand dollars for a mask fee, wait weeks for the chips to be fabricated and packaged, and REALLY hope you got it right).
fickle acorn
cough
hoary vault
The server icon looks very nice, good job!
finite monolith
return of the cheese-graters!
cosmic gust
I don't like companies joining in on these trends
fickle acorn
Shaking head
copper hemlock
Dear Apple, -1 for your new super-powered CheesgraderMac2 having only one socket.
builds a dual-socket Hackintosh beast instead
late fulcrum
TV displays can be done a few different ways. You can bitbang video in real time (Tronixstuff's B&W baseband or DQYDJ's VGA), use dedicated chips (like CDP1861 or Atari's CTIA/GTIA chips), video generator sequencer (counter + PROM + DMA), or (of course) FPGA implementations.
restive goblet
I have many computer issues that I'm too lazy to fix, like my corrupted Raspberry Pi server and broken Photoshop OpenCL library
I considered making an Arduino power cycle the Pi everytime it crashes bc I'm that lazy ๐
late fulcrum
That's the basic concept behind a "watchdog timer": reset a circuit any time it stops operating.
restive goblet
Except in this case it's a computer crashing from kernel panics, so I probably shouldn't actually do that
dusty citrus
@late fulcrumi was thinking of implementing a mini CRT screen with the CPU wired up to it
Then
I can create this huge watch and the image will be projected onto a white surface as a screen
late fulcrum
Yes, doable! It's possible to project a CRT screen onto a surface with a simple lense. I may not be super bright, but it works.
late fulcrum
If you can get the lense from an old video projector, those are great for this trick. They're not too hard to find if you keep your eyes open.
restive goblet
Old slide projectors have the easiest to remove lenses
late fulcrum
True, and they're easy to find too. The video projector lenses are larger and gather more light, but slide projector lenses will work.
dusty citrus
@late fulcrum I could also try to program simple games on it
It would basically be a huge 4 bit wearable
late fulcrum
Yup, once you have a CPU running, you can do all sorts of things with it.
dusty citrus
Yep
I could also try to put a program which will unlock a door
A card will be wired to the CPU and the CPU will send messages to the door lock
Telling it to open
But however I do need the lenses to be small for it to fit
late fulcrum
Yeah, when you said CRT, I figured a 5" CRT, but perhaps you were thinking a 40mm CRT?
dusty citrus
@late fulcrum you know those small mini CRTs in those old cam corder?
late fulcrum
Yeah, I love those things
dusty citrus
That's what I want
late fulcrum
Those go down to tiny 12mm faceplates. I have a box of 'em.
dusty citrus
Yep now I need to find a way to get the CPU to display
But wait
How much RAM 4 bit CPU take?
I hope it's not bytes of RAM
@late fulcrum can a 4 bit CPU take 4 KB of RAM?
late fulcrum
It's possible: RAM size basically depends on how wide your address bus is. If you have 12 bits of address, you can address 4kB of storage. Normally you'd want some ROM and possibly I/O as well, so you might want to go for 13 address bits.
dusty citrus
But I would have to do many modifications to the CPU
late fulcrum
That's leaving out other options like separate address spaces, Harvard architecture, segmenting, and I/O ports.
I don't think you would. You may be confusing the data bus size (4 bits) with the address bus size (12 bits). They don't have to be the same and often aren't (classical 8-bit CPUs traditionally have an 8-bit data bus and a 16-bit address bus).
late fulcrum
You could do it that way as well, but it's not really necessary.
dusty citrus
I think I just want 4 KB of RAM and 4KB of ROM
late fulcrum
There are a few ways to do that, depending on the processor architecture you decide on.
dusty citrus
I do have to make it small as possible
late fulcrum
The usual approach is to have a couple of CPU registers that are wider than the data path. In particular, the program counter and index register.
dusty citrus
Like the fallout 4 pip boy
late fulcrum
That's now the Nibbler works: it's a 4-bit machine, but uses a 12-bit program counter (and a somewhat creative approach to RAM addressing).
dusty citrus
I see...
According to the website it says that It has separate buses for ROM and RAM
late fulcrum
Right, it uses a "Harvard" architecture so instructions and data have their own buses, so a 12-bit program counter can use all its bits to address 4k of ROM, while RAM addressing is handled elsewise.
Some of the other homemade 4-bit CPU projects I linked you to a month ago have other approaches.
dusty citrus
But will RAM be enough for programs?
late fulcrum
Yup. My first computer had 768 bytes of RAM, divided up into six 128-byte "pages". One page was "page zero", where I put variables, and another was used by the monitor program, and one was the stack, leaving me 384 bytes for my program.
late fulcrum
The Atari 2600 had a ton of games (good ones, too) and it only had 128 bytes of RAM.
burnt tendon
I mean, I had some pleasant moments programming the AT90S1200 which has 1k of program ROM, 64 bytes of EEPROM, a 3 layer stack, and 32 registers but no real RAM.
Like, the important part to all new hardware projects is that LEDs must blink.
late fulcrum
Reminds me of the old 1802 and PDP-10 both of which were register-rich enough to run without any RAM. The PDP-10 had a big advantage in the blinking lights department (although they were originally incandescent, not LED).
proven geode
The first computer I learned on was a PDP-8/E, running interactive BASIC, in 8K of RAM, supporting 3 simultaneous users, one of which was remote on dial up using a 110 Baud modem.
dusty citrus
Now that looks like a epic computer
proven geode
dusty citrus
ITS A CHEESE SHREDDER
burnt tendon
As far as computers go, it's a grate one.
late fulcrum
I used BASIC on a PDP-11/05 for a while. I think it was "Oracl BASIC".
Of course, if you miss that PDP-8, there's a good-looking Pi-based replica available for not too much money: http://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-8
dusty citrus
@late fulcrum is it possible to get 2 CPUs to work in dual core mode
late fulcrum
Anything's possible...
late fulcrum
The University of Maryland built a lashup they called "ZMOB" that was 256 Z80 boards connected together by what they called a "belt" instead of a bus.
dusty citrus
@late fulcrum now that sounds epic
copper hemlock
Too bad they didn't go heavily enough into the old cheesegrater macs... A 58 core 116 thread mac pro would be far more attractive.
RIP Apple, missing the mark again...
late fulcrum
That implies that Macs aren't running X86 CPUs, but they are.
late fulcrum
Here's hoping.
zinc tusk
i would honestly support apple if they left x86
theyre one of the few companies with the power to force the industry to change
copper hemlock
It's so dramatically cheaper to build your own these days. Or heck, build 2 and have a spare & money left over!!!
late fulcrum
Basically you have 4 choices: 1) buy an old Apple G5 (cheap, quick), 2) buy an old Playstation 3 (also cheap and quick), 3) buy a used IBM Power system (expensive, quick), 4) buy one of the new Power 9 servers (expensive, you'll have to wait until they're available).
copper hemlock
๐ Or custom build an ARM cluster !!!! ๐
late fulcrum
I did that once. 4 ARM CPUs and a DSP chip, sharing some dual-port RAM.
copper hemlock
๐ค Wicked!!! ๐ค
late fulcrum
Here's a pic, if you're curious
finite monolith
I found an old 17" PowerBook G4 last week. The peak of PowerPC G4s
late fulcrum
The flash chip is simply flash memory. The boot code is stored there.
late fulcrum
This was a while back, so the ARM cores themselves aren't very powerful by today's standards, but these have a bunch of custom cryptography peripherals.
dusty citrus
i bet i cant run minecraft PE on it
(minecraft is my favorite)
Guys I have a question. im looking to buy a pi 3 with cost being a bit of my limiting factor and stumbled upon some site. Does anyone know if it's a good site? saw it on pimoroni's distributor page but I literally never heard of it before. just wondering if I should buy.
Can somebody check for me?
also second question is it possible to have a pi run a 3d printer
limpid cave
@dusty citrus Element14 is the sole distributor for the rpi and you will not get it any cheaper than them. The resale of a pi is also terrible, because each new release has so far been an substantial improvement over the previous. So it might be penny-wise-pound-foolish to buy an older model raspberry pi because its a few dollars cheaper.
On your last question, if you had googled "pi, 3d printer" you would have come across "Octoprint" which is the-most-awesome application for the pi.
dusty citrus
No not octoprint I meant having a pi as the printers own control board with it's own printer firmware running the whole thing
@limpid cave
limpid cave
I think you might have to look a little bit at the role/function of a controller board in providing for your 3d printing peripherals and a nice breakout for your stepper drivers. I don't quite get the point of the question because its not what the pi was engineered for. Its like asking, "Can I use a kettle as a kiln to smelt something?" @dusty citrus
So the answer is maybe, but that's not what the rpi is purpose-built for.
dusty citrus
Alrighty, well I'll try it anyway! (Cuz why not. haha)
Nothing's more fun than experimenting.
@limpid cave I did find a place that has a pi cheaper than Element14, only because the shipping is lower as this other site lets me choose USPS First Class.
But I will need some 'extras' of course like the breakout for the steppers
For sure.
wild junco
ok iv fallon into the 3d printer black hole not even started designing parts yet been printing almost every day for 2 weeks
๐
late fulcrum
Fun, isn't it?
dusty citrus
Very addicting
wild junco
yes it it sos for late replay releveling the bed ๐
dusty citrus
My next printer will be autoleveling
To lower time in between prints because I like printing a lot
late fulcrum
My cheap one (Mini Delta) is auto-levelling, it's nice
All the Who's down in Whoville liked printing a lot. The Grinch who lived north of Whoville, did not.
torpid belfry
Does anyone have any good diagnostic prints out there, and pointers to tutorials on how to properly interpret them? I borrowed a buddy's unused Monoprice Maker Ultimate (a Wanhao Duplicator 6) and cobbled a Cura 4 profile together, but all of my test prints have been unreliable and I lost the time to research.
late fulcrum
Ed Nisely's blog http://softsolder.com has some posts on tuning with simple calibration cubes
torpid belfry
thanks, opened
I also just ran across a posting claiming that the default acceleration setting in the firmware is way off, so I will need to check that
late fulcrum
That seems to be true for a lot of printers. Normally there are configurations and updated firmware out there
dusty citrus
how can i create my own ghost detector? (EMF detector)
restive goblet
In addition to diy electronic stuff, I also play around with Photoshop and my architecture pics
dusty citrus
i found a ram slot for PC133 SODIMM ram on my printer, it came with 32MB (the samsung chip in the photo)
and you can easily find pc133 sodimm ram on ebay
I am a 14-year-old and I'm getting hand tremors and weakness
I don't think it's carpal tunnel, though it's likely a development of it
My hands are very unnatural
Looks like something out of a horror movie not to be mean
I understand :P
I don't know anyone with hands similar to mine
At all
(Besides...y'know...being a human hand)
devout ravine
dusty citrus
Piano
dusty citrus
Guys
I need help
So I got this USB wifi antenna off ebay
And for some reason
The antenna wont work when its plugged in and will work when its plugged in and its leaned down a bit
late fulcrum
Bent/dirty connector?
dusty citrus
@late fulcrum I'm not sure
But I really want this thing to work
Just please I need help
stuck moth
@dusty citrus provide as much detail as you can and wait patiently for someone to chime in.
dusty citrus
It would only seem to work when I bend the USB connector down when it is plugged in the PC
vestal phoenix
@dusty citrus Have you tried plugging into different USB ports? You can get a USB extension cord to get it away from the computer and tape it in position when it works. Or it could be a bad connection for the USB plug/cable on the circuit board from the antenna. You can try to clean the contacts inside the plug by scraping with a pin or something. Good luck.
dusty citrus
Extra crispy skylake PCH, yummy
pch_skylake-virtual-0
Adapter: Virtual device
temp1: +76.0ยฐC
ooh grills of lowe's i can can can+ up up up DOWN DOWN.
Good afternoon, how's everything everyone?
dusty citrus
Java has officially upset me
I cd directly to the class directory and type java Bot
Cannot find or load main class Bot
What?!?!
It's right there!
late fulcrum
The Java classloader is ... quirky.
torpid belfry
"Java has officially upset me" is the gentlest way I have ever seen that particular emotion expressed
grave crest
Iโm not mad Java. Iโm just disappointed with you.
dusty citrus
My disappointment is immeasurable, and my day is ruined
late fulcrum
The fix is probably something like -cp .
dusty citrus
Oh, no. I went on StackOverflow and read a post about it and tried every solution the post listed, but they didnโt work. So I asked my own question, properly documenting that I tried every solution in that exact post to no avail....and what happens?? I get marked a duplicate to that exact post
late fulcrum
Ouch.
late fulcrum
My bench is a mess too. So are my circuits.
dusty citrus
Lazy admins...
late fulcrum
Nope, making circuits at all is the important part
dusty citrus
I have no worldbench at my parents small apartment
I'm 15 and I don't have a house of my own
dusty citrus
My dad was so kind to give me an area to work in the garage
But I do most of my prototyping in my room, and solder in the garage
I want to dedicate a workbench in my room to my computer and a couple of mini-shelf organizers
I need a system, thatโs what I need
dusty citrus
@late fulcrum Should I just ask another question?
The weirdest thing is: I made an entirely new Java project and ran the main class in the cmd
And it worked fine
The only difference is the directories. The initial project I tried it on used a Maven target structure
shrewd hatch
kind notch
that's beautiful
shrewd hatch
theres also a reflow oven just a little further down
@late fulcrum what do you think
what are the chances of getting a #workspace channel
that way people can show there work spaces and others can get an idea of what they may need/want in one of theres
late fulcrum
15? Happy birthday!
That's very nice. We did have a workbench/workspace thread a few months back where you can see a picture of my messy one
dusty citrus
Should I buy a 2011 mac pro and install windows on it?
late fulcrum
It is a good windows machine. You could dual boot it if you wanted Linux or BSD available as well
frail forge
Warming the PCH is cool. How'd you do it? I know for my DDR4-4133 it might be cooking the PCH. ._.
Also FreeBSD is nice.
shrewd hatch
i would just get a windows based pc
burnt tendon
So, I have a place of my own and my electronics lab is a little roll out TV cart and a shelf. I have several obsessive hobbies all competing for space.
shrewd hatch
i also have a 42u server rack
late fulcrum
You could fill it with 42 1U servers!
dusty citrus
I am runing a minecraft server on a 2005 PC
The CPU has 2 cores
And that's enough for my server
dusty citrus
late fulcrum
I just use Discord for that. Y'all are my rubber duck brigade
late fulcrum
"Here, let me show you my problem ... aha I figured it out, thanks"
dusty citrus
The day you see madbodger ask a question of his own, itโll be your birthday, youโll be struck by lightning three times, youโll beat PowerBall in one ticket and become the president of the united states
late fulcrum
Hee-hee! I ask questions here too
proven olive
I have figured out answers for my own things by answering other people's issues too
idle iron
I used google shop for a product not sold in USA, and it gave me link to "Alexnld.com" never ever buy from them. They blackmail you to leave positive reviews before customer support will help you. From what I can tell then don't even ship until a positive review has been made.
dusty citrus
Iโm watching an anime where one of the main characters is a programmer, and it shows her writing Python every once in a while
Kinda funny how the comments are Japanese but the language is english
Makes me wonder, do some languages have full-on translations?
Like if I only knew Spanish and wanted do Java?
public abstract static int calculate(int x);
pรบblico abstracto estรกtico int calcula(int x);
Yeah, itโs a nice language
But Iโm wondering if some programming languages accommodate direct translation for other languages
copper hemlock
I suspect @late fulcrum is from the south.... "Y'all" is a southern thing. ๐
late fulcrum
I grew up on the space coast in Florida
torpid belfry
@dusty citrus there was once a Perl variant called perlingata that allowed you to write Perl programs as Latin...but otherwise, I am not aware of any programming languages that accommodate using keywords in multiple natural languages.
dusty citrus
I see
late fulcrum
Intercal uses Roman numbers.
dusty citrus
Who else has heard the sound of silence?
Not the song
It's a constant ringing, far-out sound inside your head. It's not a real sound, but it feels like something is there
It only comes to me when it's totally quiet and I focus on the fine detail of what I can pick up
The more I focus, the more I know it's there
I constant ringing
copper hemlock
Sounds like hearing damage...
grave crest
I'm no doctor. But that sounds like tinnitus. I'd totally see a ear doctor about it.
General best practices -- don't play music/audio loudly through headphones, wear approved hearing protection in loud places such as concerts, datacenters, etc.
I've endured it since very young childhood -- perpetually sounds like the high notes on a hearing test or a CRT monitor/TV buzzing, but it never stops. Ever. I use white noise as a way to mitigate it, and over time, you do get used to it.
Nice sources of white noise: fan blowing in the room, computers running, the manmade sounds of a city/suburb, the natural sounds of a babbling creek -- or high quality recordings of such things. I also do a horrible no-no and fall asleep to a video playing (with auto-off set to 90 minutes so not to disrupt my REM cycles).
copper hemlock
I use high quality headphones all the time at home, but I keep the volume at about 12% max, 33% if I'm really rocking out.
I recommend to everyone that they get good, high-quality headphones so they don't need to crank it up to hear the details.
late fulcrum
I'm guessing it's easier to overload your ears with headphones than with speakers. In any case, I greatly prefer speakers, so that's what I use. My hearing damage is a mix of inherited and interest in explosives.
copper hemlock
Mine has been from too loud use of junky headphones. Now that I've got my planar magnetics, I know what things should sound like.
idle iron
I soft modded my 3ds, had latest 11.10.0-43U... didnt take very long, had to switch the internal SD card in and out of 3ds to PC. I found the most interesting part of it, the seedminer, where a website mines your systems encryption key. appearntly its not even 3ds encryption its DS encryption used in "DS Download Play".
I was planning on using a flash card but it never came in the mail. im glad i got to try this soft mod. Really nice work from the Hackers.
rich laurel
"curb your enthusiasm" theme plays in background
tame saddle
its a great show...
rich laurel
agreed
proven geode
@dusty citrus AppleScript originally supported Japanese and French dialects alongside English.
It stored scripts in a "compiled" form that could decompile to a different human-readable language.
MakeCode does something analogous, enabling you to switch between blocks and a JavaScript dialect.
I think MakeCode is experimentally extending this to include Python, as well.
dusty citrus
Ah
grave crest
Python related -- the author behind the awesome book "Automate the Boring Stuff with Python" has an Udemy course based on the book, and it's free until June 14th.
Here's a reddit post from him explaining the details.
umbral phoenix
This gets confusing.
vernal gale
you can rename the drives
stray wind
@umbral phoenix What @vernal gale said. You can rename the drives. The first issue is figuring out which one is which to rename them... ๐
umbral phoenix
I was afraid to even try it, didn't know if it would wipe something out or not be persistent. Thanks!
stray wind
@umbral phoenix It will be renamed back to CIRCUITPY when reloading CircuitPython, I believe. But otherwise it's persistent.
umbral phoenix
Ah, good to know, thanks!
stray wind
@umbral phoenix https://learn.adafruit.com/welcome-to-circuitpython/the-circuitpy-drive I knew I wrote it somewhere. ๐
It only reverts when erasing the filesystem.
umbral phoenix
NTS: Always re-read the https://learn.adafruit.com/welcome-to-circuitpython/ Guide ๐ ...and the https://learn.adafruit.com/circuitpython-essentials/circuitpython-essentials Guide
Whoa, it can be done programmatically based on what the code knows about its config ๐
stray wind
Yep!
grave crest
Very nifty ๐
magic sequoia
Nice
barren hemlock
@covert spire You upgrade your ham license yet?
barren hemlock
Why is make closing shop?
copper hemlock
General class myself. ๐
late fulcrum
I eventually took the plunge and upgraded to extra.
torpid belfry
I did all three in 2-3 chunks
Technician in August, Extra by the following June
2-3 month chunks, I meant
covert spire
I tried to, but seemed I wasn't undersranding certain things
Been dragged off to other projects ect
Right now I'm trying to get back into soldering
Learning layout of ciruit boards
Maybe get back into robotics
Altho, I'll prob bum back into Ham with some of that
Some radio kits I wanna do
late fulcrum
Here's what we need, an 1802 Feather!
โข 16 16-bit registers: any can be program counter
โข 3 dedicated I/O select pins
โข 4 input pins with dedicated branch instructions
โข dedicated Q flip-flop
โข multiplexed address bus
โข built-in DMA: create video with just 3 chips
โข load mode for operation with simple switches
late fulcrum
That's an 1802.
Note that this Feather does not exist, this is just a silly idea I had.
dusty citrus
Now I think I can I start out with that chip
late fulcrum
In my opinion, the 1802 and 6502 are the easiest CPUs to breadboard.
dusty citrus
I want to understand something weird about circuitry
Sounds super basic, but I can't wrap my head around it :||||
Why can't two batteries...interact?
Like, why can't the negative of one battery work with the positive of another?
Iknowimbadimsorrypleasedonthurtme ;-;
late fulcrum
It's still the notion of a "circuit", which is another way of describing the fact that a voltage doesn't exist in isolation, it's always the difference between two points.
So each battery is maintaining a 9V difference between its + and - terminals.
So the circuit shown would (depending on the orientation of the LED) give a total voltage of 9 + 9 - 2 = 16 volts between the + terminal of the left battery and the - terminal for the right one.
To put it yet another way, a battery sitting around unconnected to anything doesn't magically have zero volts on its negative terminal, because (again) you can't have a voltage without a reference to something else.
dusty citrus
So, a battery is keeping a difference between its two leads
late fulcrum
Right.
dusty citrus
Why does a battery work?
I've heard they used to have acid inside of them that did electron movement magic
Way back when
late fulcrum
There are several chemistries possible. They generally have electrodes with different potential, and an electrolyte that permits current/ions/electrons to flow between them. I think the first battery (the voltaic pile) used copper and zinc as its electrodes and salt water as the electrolyte.
Lead acid batteries use lead and lead sulfate as the electrodes and sulfuric acid as the electolyte.
However, "dry" (or LeClanche) cells use carbon and zinc as the electrodes and sal ammoniac (which is a base, not an acid) as the electrolyte.
dusty citrus
What about "lithium ion"?
late fulcrum
I think lithium ion cells use lithium oxide (or one of a few other similar materials) and carbon as the electrodes, and a variety of electrolytes. They also have a separator that restricts which kinds of ions can flow.
Other cathodes for lithium cells include lithium cobalt oxide, lithium manganese oxide, or fancier things like lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO cells), lithium nickel manganese cobalt (NMC cells), and lithium nickel cobalt aluminum oxide (NCA cells).
As you might imagine, there is a lot of R&D occurring with lithium chemistry cells.
Whereas lead-acid chemistry has been around for over a century, and hasn't changed a lot recently (originally they were called "crow's foot cells" due to the shape of the electrode used).
If you want a lot of information on the subject, I can recommend the book "Batteries in a Portable World", by Isidor Buchmann ("A Handbook on Rechargeable Batteries for Non-Engineers").
echo agate
Going through old parts that we're recycling at work, so many bits and pieces ๐คฉ
limpid harness
I guess this is offtopic. I bought all of the parts - case, buttons, battery, and speaker, for the pygamer, waiting for the boards to be in stock. I didn't realize that the AdaBox012 was going to be the pygamer kit. I would like to sell the unneeded parts. I have not seen any "for sale" place on the forums or discord. Am I just missing it? Is it okay to offer it here? Thx!
copper hemlock
After zooming in with Gwenview, yeah... lots of tantalum caps.... Gads those drive me bonkers.
burnt tendon
See, @late fulcrum, you keep saying that and I'm seriously considering if I ought to breadboard a 6502 for the next workplace hack day.
late fulcrum
I bought one of the current production 65C02 chips with the goal of trying it myself.
burnt tendon
I've got a pair of NOS Rockwell 65C02's, a pair of 6522's, a pair of 6551's, some RAM in various types, some 74HC stuff, et al that I've been slowly acculumating alongside more "productive" pursuits.
Mostly I don't have anything to burn flash or EEPROMs.
So mostly it's "If I spend some time with the breadboard and Arduino this weekend, can I replicate http://danceswithferrets.org/geekblog/?page_id=903 with parts-on-hand"?
Understanding that I'd be using a MightyCore instead of an Arduino Mega
late fulcrum
I saw some good youtube videos on programming EEPROMs with an Arduino. I'm going in a slightly different direction myself, but a similar approach.
The Mega is attractive because it has a bunch of I/O pins, but the video (and I) takes the approach of using shift registers to get more I/Os.
But (as I tend to do) I got distracted playing with the notion of a generic chip driver.
burnt tendon
I think I'd rather have it contain an AVR that holds the processor in reset while it loads the firmware to RAM, for a more Arduino-like bootloader experience.
late fulcrum
I'm envisioning something similar but with my own twist: I'm planning on using an FRAM chip as both RAM and ROM.
burnt tendon
Yah, that's an interesting twist
dusty citrus
HI
zenith gull
dusty citrus
Hello
finite monolith
I wonder if they did that at last year's air show....
dusty citrus
The second joint of my right middle finger hurts a lot
It was so sudden
I just flexed the finger, and ouch
The same pain is still there
barren hemlock
I was bobaFETT. Felt like a time for a name change
covert spire
At least avatar matches
barren hemlock
@covert spire I do have a method to my madness usually
idle iron
someone making capture card for 3ds stopped, i cant find schematics or anything. i kinda want to make my own ......... only info i have found so far is https://www.3dbrew.org/wiki/Video_Capture
are CN2 and CN1 two different chips??? and are those pinouts?????
late fulcrum
Looks like CN1 and CN2 are connectors. Looks like the two chips on the USB board are an Altera EPM570T100C5N MAX II flash CPLD and a Cypress CY7C68013A-56PVXC 8051-based USB peripheral chip (which makes sense for video capture with a USB interface).
The page describes how to wire the 29 connections from the 3DS board to the CN1 and CN2 connectors on the USB capture board.
The text ้
็ทๆฌๆฐใฏ้ปๆบ๏ผๆฌใ ใฏใญใใฏ1ๆฌใๅๆไฟกๅท2
ๆฌใ RGBไฟกๅท24ๆฌ (ๅ่ฒ8ๆฌ) ใฎ่จ29ๆฌใจใชใใexplains that there are 2 power supply connections, 1 clock, 2 synch signals, and 24 RGB signals (8 of each color).
burnt tendon
K so I realized that I wasn't going to finish an eeprom burner on my own before Friday and eeprom burners aren't that fascinating so I opted to just get a cheap and frightening eeprom burner from Amazon Prime.
fickle slate
what about using an arduino haha
or do some eeprom need high(er then 5v) voltages to burn?
burnt tendon
I mean, I'm too cool for Arduinos so it was a Breadboard Arduino using MightyCore
late fulcrum
Some older chips needed higher voltages, but a lot of them these days you can program with just 5V. Or if you you use FRAM instead of EEPROM, you can just write to it like memory.
dusty citrus
If electrons always find the easiest way, donโt thunderstorms love rollercoasters?
I donโt like the look of this ๐
late fulcrum
Microsoft basic is a derivative of GE BASIC. I much prefer "HP" style BASICs. That said, BASIC isn't tough to learn, since it's an interpreter, just dive in and try stuff. ```basic
PRINT "HELLO"
PRINT 2.5*SIN(45) + 3*COS(60) + SQRT(44)
Unless it's integer BASIC, in which case the math and trig functions won't be there ๐
dusty citrus
i am using PC BASIC
late fulcrum
I'm currently playing with VIP2K BASIC, but I'm toying with the notion of porting Atari BASIC to a KIM-1.
late fulcrum
US$7 for a nice breadboard friendly 128kB static RAM board https://www.bgmicro.com/COM1232.aspx
grave crest
@swift hatch Not necessarily a how-to, but a very nice video talking about "1-bit" animation in new game called "Gato Roboto". Yes, it's actually about a ๐ฑ in a 
suit. And the youtube commentary is quite accurate -- it's a gorgeous game.
errant atlas
Anyone looking for a new jobby job? My company is still looking for someone with a special set of skills.
late fulcrum
Very nice scratch-built computer, along with how it works from the transistor level on up https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyznrdDSSGM
lilac tangle
Oh, I've watched a bunch of his videos before. They're pretty good.
swift hatch
@grave crest WHOA! That is a freaking awesome looking game! I thought it would be an Arduboy game when I saw the thumbnail :)
Great commentary on the design and animation, agreed.
sonic dew
@late fulcrum that 8-bit computer looks awesome! I would build one of those if I just had enough talent as that guy. Would be nice if there was a kit that people like me can put together with minimal skill so I can demo it to my kid
late fulcrum
He does sell it in kit form. https://eater.net/8bit/kits
sonic dew
yikes. 270 bucks for an 8-bit computer. lol
late fulcrum
I didn't say it was cheap! I toyed with the idea of putting one together out of my junk box (fortunately I have a LOT of TTL in my junk box), but ultimately elected to continue with my existing nutty projects instead.
sonic dew
if I do end up building one of these (which will probably take years) it will end up in a locked case which would defeat the original intention ๐
late fulcrum
I'm trying to figure out if I can build a working 1802 based computer on a single breadboard.
I'll probably end up cheating by making the front panel separate, as DIP switches are painful for more than a tiny amount of data entry.
dusty citrus
I like switch programing computers
late fulcrum
Me too. I just found a gorgeous LED and switch panel in my junk box and I'm eyeing it to hook to a breadboard computer.
dusty citrus
Now that's real programming
dusty citrus
Fun fact
Me being on reddit
It seems like reddit mostly hates people
I mean
I don't like modern social media that much
And it looks like reddit hates people alot
lavish ridge
Hi,whet are your experiences with bang good?Thanks!
late fulcrum
Reddit is a company, but the people running it seem to be willing to allow its users to hate on each other, so you'll you see a lot of hate there. Sadly that happens to a lot of communities. It's not that there are so many haters, but the haters are loud and the nice people go somewhere else.
I've bought a bunch of stuff from banggood over the years, and I've been pretty satisfied.
dusty citrus
@late fulcrum it like as if they hate new people that try to use the platform
But I do like this subreddit called r/thinkpad
I post a picture of my bird with my thinkpad and people actually liked it
late fulcrum
I had been thinking of repurposing one of these old test panels as a front panel
But when I was digging out the test panels, I found this in the same box, and it looks just about ideal!
I like the look of those paddle-toggle slide/rocker switches, so I started looking for similar ones on DigiKey https://media.digikey.com/Photos/CK Comp Photos/7211J61Z3QE22.JPG
dusty citrus
Now that looks cool
I could imagine @late fulcrum building a huge 8 bit computer in his garage
late fulcrum
The funny thing is that I'm thinking of lashing that big beautiful front panel to a little 1802 on a breadboard!
late fulcrum
Yup, like the Cactus!
dusty citrus
Will you make a huge 8 bit computer out of transistors?
late fulcrum
Probably not. If I'm going huge, I'll use vacuum tubes.
late fulcrum
I am actually building some gates out of relays as a demonstration device.
scenic laurel
Pls help me. Why should/shouldn't disney invest in space travel?\
burnt tendon
Hm, so I have a list of switches that I kinda want to have handy for a future project just because they look cool.
late fulcrum
I do like the look of this one
I'm also fond of the look of the passive indicator "eyeball" switches
tawny sonnet
@dusty citrus reddit is a cesspool. I filter out everything except cute animal pictures and a couple relatively tame fandoms. Social media is a garbage fire and I hate it
ocean sigil
It's one of the biggest disappointments to me. When the internet got going (yes, I'm that old) I was really excited about the idea of being able to comment on news stories or articles and have real discussions. What a failure... I never bother to read comments any more -- it's too depressing.
I am glad that Adafruit takes the concept of "constructive comments" seriously on this server.
tawny sonnet
"never read the comments" is a pretty good lifestyle choice
echo agate
I've returned to using forums, reddit is just... yikes.
tawny sonnet
the ONLY social media I can bring myself to be active on is Instagram; I hate facebook's product and I don't trust their ethics (I'm in denial about them owning instagram, ok), Twitter is an open invitation to get doxxed by angry dudebros, and Reddit is a cesspool. Instagram's user base is at least somewhat tamer, in my experience
I'm trying to build up A Rep for my cosplay stuff, so I have to have some social media. Ugh.
proven geode
@tawny sonnet Have you looked at Mastodon? It's been a while since I've been active on it, but it was very pleasant, relaxed, and seemingly free of drama and sharp elbows.
https://joinmastodon.org
dusty citrus
@tawny sonnet thing is on reddit when I comment on a post people just mostly downvote
tawny sonnet
I keep intending to
dusty citrus
And when I try to add on to the conversation or give my own opinion
Everyone
Just goes crazy and starts attacking me
jagged siren
Reddit varies widely by subreddit. What little I've posted or commented on sysadmin or homelab has been fine.
But I don't post or comment often, and almost never outside of professional/technical subreddits, and avoid controversy as much as possible.
burnt tendon
Yeah, I have a lot of problems because I do a variety of arts that all ought to be shared and we've had a problem where by the time people were seriously sharing images, it was already trending towards photoblog.net and flickr and other folks
And then everyone went to Instagram
Which I deeply hate for a variety of reasons, but it has userbase
tawny sonnet
instagram is marginally less bad than the other popular options, but that's not saying much
burnt tendon
Yeah.
My big problem is that sites like Tumblr and Flickr at least let you put in an external link.
tawny sonnet
unfortunately, if you're trying to build a following, you kinda have to pick a platform that people actually use
ugh
burnt tendon
Hence the phrase "Check the link for tomorrow's show in my profile"
Like, my hatred of Instagram goes way back, mostly to the days when they had a cute default film edge and, as a film photographer, that annoys me to no end.
I think that's long gone, tho
I mean, given the attitude of other people in tech... if we, as an industry, got draconian and unfair and unpleasant regulation landing upon us it's our own fault regardless.
But I feel like nobody's talking about restricting people from linking outside of the network as monopolistic behavior.
tawny sonnet
I've given up on anyone caring about user experience if it doesn't directly translate to money
tawny sonnet
really I've given up on people caring about a lot of things if it doesn't directly translate to money
burnt tendon
Also, I remind myself that, as someone who presents as hetero-cis-male, the time between incidents that require mere minor steps such as the "block" button can be expressed in units of "decades"
...and that's not really true for everyone else
tawny sonnet
yeaaaaaaah that's why I'm terrified of twitter
there is a small but nonzero chance that my life will be utterly destroyed by angry dudebros and I just don't want to risk it
burnt tendon
My goal for Twitter over the years has changed to include signal-boosting a variety of angry non-hetero-cis-male-type-people and such.
tawny sonnet
Thank you for taking one for the team
red atlas
I'm only on twitter, but basically never post.
dusty citrus
Is it possible to recreate the Atari 2600 by getting parts like the chips?
vernal gale
A lot of the chips were custom
red atlas
Even the generic ones, there is a decent chance they are out of production, so sourcing those will be an issue (or you'll get fakes).
dusty citrus
I'm better of recreating the 2600 on a FPGA
late fulcrum
The 6507 you could easily fake with a 6502 (it was just a stripped down 6502). The 6532 RRIOT is still obtainable (I have a couple). The TIA is the tough one: it's a custom chip. Its descendents, CTIA and GTIA powered the Atari 400 and 800 home computers, giving them serious (for the time) graphics capabilities.
Not a lot of other silicon in a 2600. A single 4050 hex buffer, a few transistors and diodes, and a handful of passive components.
burnt tendon
Well, tomorrow is hack day and I think I've got all of the bits to make a 6502, plus allowances for letting out the magic smoke.
late fulcrum
I just ordered some bits and bobs from Digikey for a similar project. Not really required, but I want to attempt some odd optimizations for my own amusement and edification.
For really compact hardware switch debouncing, I ordered some MAX6817 chips, which implement 2 debouncers in a tiny SOT23-6 package. Amusingly, they're derived from the MAX811 microprocessor supervisor ICs. Maxim found out people were using them just for their switch debouncing ability, so they came out with purpose-built versions including ESD protection, undervoltage lockout, etc.
dusty citrus
I remember I saw this video of the 8 bit guy reviewing the maximite
A 8 bit computer made with the PIC32 chip
burnt tendon
Well, I'm using the MAX707 for reset, which is pretty much the MAX811 with a brownout reset line.
I'll probably be posting photos of my build in real time to my Instagram story: https://www.instagram.com/stories/wireheadarts/
idle iron
is there a way to disable .trash-1000? my sd cards are filling up.... when i delete something off the SD card using my PC it doesnt delete it, it just moves it to the folder .trash-1000.... I thought in ubunto that doing "sync" in terminal would fix it... but doesnt... i have to manually delete the folder before i eject it
late fulcrum
Maybe like the AdaFruit suggestion to keep MacOS from filling up virtual drives, create it and make it non-writeable?
idle iron
what create the folder and make it read only?
late fulcrum
Yeah, basically
late fulcrum
Are the RFduino guys gone? Their website seems to be off the air.
late fulcrum
Looks like a ham radio perched on a power supply. I'm repairing a TV and a laptop, myself.
covert spire
It's field day
So, that is exactly what it is
I left station for bit to grab headphones, back ground convos are too distracting for me
late fulcrum
Whoops, forgot it was field day! I should either throw up an antenna and fire up the old TS-530, or go find where a local club has set up.
covert spire
Clubs are wide open!
finite monolith
hmm, I think I'll dig up the SDR from an adabox and see what the locals are chattering about
dusty citrus
Wish there was a portable commodore 64 so that I can learn programing on basic and machine language
late fulcrum
The VIP2K is sure portable, and offers graphics, BASIC, CHIP-8, and you can program it in machine language.
The 6502 Nameboy will be really appealing, but it's not available yet.
dusty citrus
@late fulcrum well I do want something with a screen intact
Sorta like
A mini laptop
late fulcrum
There was the SX-64 "luggable", but was almost, but not entirely unlike a laptop. However, check this out https://www.instructables.com/id/C64-Portable/
dusty citrus
@late fulcrum I dont think I can build that
dusty citrus
I really need to start taking my posture more seriously
Slouching for 12 to 16 hours a day is.....probably not the best thing to do to myself when Iโm 14 years old
proven olive
Get good habits early and they help you through the rest of your life.
burnt tendon
There's slouching and then there's not being active, tho.
torpid belfry
Slouching will lead to back problems and that cascades into pretty much every other extremity
Can make it harder to hit your desired levels of activity later in life
Talking from personal experience here
covert spire
Same
torpid belfry
46 me wishes 14 yo me had been less of a couch potato and more willing to go out hiking, exercising, bike riding, etc.
I deal with pretty severe migraines on a regular basis that all have their source with my posture and my back
covert spire
I done hiking & bike riding at 14, but wishes that age me didn't slouch
My back would be halfway decent at least now
At more than double age later
torpid belfry
Have spent a lot of $$$ and time trying to retrain myself, ergonomic workstations, etc.
torpid belfry
Did Shorin-Ryu karate for several years. Was just about ready to test for shodan, hurt my ankle, and have been fighting to get fit again ever since.
covert spire
Ouchies in more ways than one
torpid belfry
Have been doing 6 months of PT to deal with the ankle.
After too many years of sitting and letting it get better, then re-injuring it through casual movement
The YMCA where our dojo meets has one room that has one of those rubbery anti-skid coatings on the floor
one night I moved in my kata and my foot didn't
cue years of trouble with ankle, knee, hip, and back
covert spire
Yea, found out a guy done that during one of our tai chi tests
Ankle fine, knee . . . not
I like anti-skid floors for weight lifting, not martial arts
torpid belfry
yeah, I won't go to class any more on the days when it is in that room
but I'm hoping to be able to head back to class here later this year, finally
covert spire
Fair enough
torpid belfry
6-7 years delay to get shodan is annoying
covert spire
Did ya party with Hams for field day?
torpid belfry
Nope
covert spire
Eep
torpid belfry
I'm not a big FD fan
torpid belfry
My anxiety has really kicked up in the last few years, so socializing is even more painful and high-energy than normal
and the state of my ham shack just depresses me right now
covert spire
Time to renovate!
torpid belfry
Two kids in college, possible third one coming home from the military early, space-challenged lot, not enough $$ in budget to buy the antenna setup I need, and not enough skill or time to fabricate my own
covert spire
Oh
torpid belfry
I still have a sat tracker project that's over two years old that I'm trying to get pushed over the finish line so I have an Ardunio-controlled az/el rotator for my Elk antenna for handheld sat ops
which is what my passion is
I actually want to get into building sats
Would like to go back to school and get a Bachelor's in Space Science through an online university
covert spire
Any project is Ham-shack renovation
torpid belfry
Even if it doesn't lead to a second career for me, it should give me better grounding in the science and make my SF writing better ๐
torpid belfry
I have a buddy's 3D printer sitting here next to my desk, taunting me
covert spire
Cruel
torpid belfry
Yeah, I need to learn Morse one of these years
It needs calibration that I have no idea yet how to give it
torpid belfry
but then there's a spool of ABS waiting for me to print out the SatNogs rotator parts
torpid belfry
probably need to buy/make an enclosure for it too, this model is known to be a bit sensitive to temperature drops for ABS prints
Probably have to beef up the extruder head and fans, too
Sucks to sink money into a printer that isn't yours
so I haven't touched it
covert spire
Oh, open frame?
torpid belfry
Yeah, Monoprice Maker Ultimate
torpid belfry
clone of the wanhao duplicator 6
My PLA test prints have been...discouraging
I have seriously thought about just ordering the SatNogs parts from one of the custom 3D printer places
although my son's college has a Makerspace and the kids get $X/term worth of prints
Might just have him get them printed for me in the fall
Or get signed up for a math class and be a student myself
covert spire
I gotta check on classes of local comm college
They have a warehouse sized maker building
They're trying to train for factories.
torpid belfry
Yeah, my son was doing pre-med but decided he didn't want to. He teaches blacksmithing at a local BSA camp during the summers, and took a welding class or two, so he's switch his goal to getting his AA and soaking up all the welding certifications/classes he can get.
He also signed up for one of their engineering classes which is essentially just their STEM club -- each term, he has to work with one or more of the groups as a SME to help them design, build, and execute a project
So he's going to be taking some metallurgy as well
but our CC has a great votec program that's a feeder into a lot of the local Boeing vendors/suppliers
late fulcrum
First light of the 1802 breadboard. Green lights on left are CPU status, red lights on right are address bus. 555 on far left is generating the (slow) clock.
burnt tendon
Nice! I was going to show off where I was with my 6502 this morning, but that was rescheduled to Thursday
dusty citrus
@late fulcrum what program is it running?
late fulcrum
It's not running any particular program yet: the data pins are unconnected. Next step is to hook up some RAM and the switches and use the chip's "load" mode to DMA data directly from the switches into RAM to store some code.
dusty citrus
Interesting
idle iron
@late fulcrum hey i was wondering if you might be interesting in Nintendo dev? https://developer.nintendo.com/ there is a link i think they use Unity.
they have a NDA that is pretty air tight so I cant say anything else
||some of Nintendo's tuts are cancer to read, you may end up ripping your eyes out||
late fulcrum
I hadn't really thought about developing for Nintendo. Long ago, I had been thinking of getting one of the "black Playstations" and developing with that.
vernal gale
Warning for Canadians purchasing from Arrow Electronics. I just got hit with $82 of Fedex fees for import duties.
so much for free shipping
late fulcrum
Ouch! I knew they had discontinued free shipping, but duties on top of it really hurts.
At least Canadians can get free shipping from Digi-Key (if they're not in any hurry).
vernal gale
Digikey free shipping is for orders of $100+ I think
late fulcrum
From https://www.digikey.com/en/terms-and-conditions, ยง II (6): "When a check or money order accompanies your order, Digi-Key pays all shipping and insurance (our choice for method of shipping) to all addresses in the U.S. and Canada."
weary fiber
I took a picture with my custom laser projector,
And had it drawn with my character!
weary fiber
((Side note: never be in the same room as an emitting 5-watt laserโ especially a galvo projector that can move the beam aroundโ without eye protection. that first pic was hella dangerous to take, and I donโt recommend it))
burnt tendon
Yeah, I confess a certain desire to do 80s laser backdrops in my photography
But.... safely.
hushed hill
burnt tendon
So, I spent a bit of time with my 6502 single-stepping and I'm fearing that I might have fried it at some point while wiring things up.
...and I only got one 6502, which was altogether a bad move.
late fulcrum
The 6502 isn't fully static, so needs some extra logic to single-step it (not just slowing the clock down), but that shouldn't cause any damage, just data loss. It is possible to damage it with voltage spikes. On the upside, 65C02 chips are still made today (I just bought one a couple of weeks ago for similar experiments).
burnt tendon
Yeah, there were a few points where I might have applied voltage spikes by accident.
And, yah, I've got the 65c02 running, which is fully static, thankfully.
late fulcrum
The 65C02 is a nice chip. I'm currently playing with an 1802, which is also fully static: I'm clocking it at about 3Hz using a 555 as a clock generator (scroll up a dozen or so posts for the video of that from June 24).
burnt tendon
YAh, I saw that.
I've got a debounced button to trigger a single cycle.
From partway down http://wilsonminesco.com/6502primer/ClkGen.html
Either way, I've got a pair of 65c02's on the way.
Like, I was thinking "Surely I was not so confident in my abilities to buy only one 65c02...."
And then I pulled up the invoice from 2008 and lo and behold, I wasn't thinking.
late fulcrum
I ended up choosing the lazy debounce method of a dedicated debounce chip.
burnt tendon
Yeah, I probably could have used a second MAX707.
I kinda want to leave a bunch of lights in place on the final design, knowing that for the most part, they are going to be flickerin'
hushed hill
Could a 555 work instead of a crystal.
Also are there any guides on the 6502 with roms from a commodore plus 4?
Nvm.
late fulcrum
Yeah, 555 works just fine as a CPU clock, which is handy if you want a variable-speed clock.
hushed hill
I did get my 55 time to run at 1+MHz.
But now I forget how to do it again.
Wow. Just found this.
0.00001 ยตF 1 Kฮฉ 1 Kฮฉ 0 sec. 48100000 Hz. 66.7 %
Not sure if the chip will handle it though.
late fulcrum
I think a megahertz is near the limit of what a 555 will handle reliably, for that sort of frequency, other circuits are often used. The newer, similar 7555 is specified up to 1MHz, which might help. For higher frequencies, perhaps something like a 74LS628 might do, it's good for 1.1 - 25MHz.
If a digital approach instead of an analog one is preferable, there are a host of direct digital synthesis (DDS) chips like the AD9850 that will give you microprocessor control of frequency. You can get them already set up on a breakout board fairly inexpensively https://www.ebay.com/itm/183427183971
There are some good writeups on real-world use of them on Ed Nisely's blog https://softsolder.com/?s=ad9850
Useful writeup from a chip manufacturer here https://www.analog.com/en/analog-dialogue/articles/all-about-direct-digital-synthesis.html
dusty citrus
Who had heard if si five?
late fulcrum
I've heard of their HiFive1 board, that's about it.
edgy apex
I got a bumper sticker to represent how I roll
edgy apex
I also added the "my other computer costs $35" sticker
vital harness
dusty citrus
@late fulcrum had thought about creating my own CPUs using RISC V
late fulcrum
Here I am, still breadboarding an 1802. Got the address demultiplexer working, and can shift modes. Now to add some RAM and DMA support so I can load some code.
burnt tendon
I think my v0.0 light display for my RaspberryPI is behaving now that I turned it into a systemd service. Since I'm waiting for my repalcement 65c02's to arrive.
elder rain
Any idea what โmanual testingโ means
Itโs a job title i have in my internship thingy
red atlas
I assume as opposed to "automated testing"
slim shard
or you have to read the product manual, make sure the pages turn, corners not too sharp, make sure none of it is written in draconic
copper hemlock
...or elvish, Klingon, etc.
rotund echo
I just got MCP3421 and I have to say I'm impressed. It gives much more stable reading than Arduino onboard ADC
rotund echo
๐
velvet gorge
SDVX ๐
late fulcrum
@dusty citrus Earlier you mentioned re-creating the Atari 2600 video game. Amusingly, a relevant book on the subject just showed up in the mail. It's called "Racing the Beam", by Ian Bogost and Nick Montfort, ISBN 0-262-01257-X (MIT Press, 2009). The title is drawn directly from how the 2600 works: it doesn't have enough memory to buffer a video frame, so it's generating the pixels on-the-fly as they're being displayed, literally racing the CRT beam that's displaying the graphics. The book examines how the system came to be, how it was designed to be both simple and flexible, then continues with how six games worked in particular (with references to many more), and how they leveraged the limited capabilities of the system in creative ways to good effect.
velvet gorge
Speaking of the 2600, this recent demoscene release is criminally underrated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaIEEXOaVkw
I have no idea how it was possible to calculate everything with the few spare VBLANK lines available
It's precalculated but having to render all of that is still an amazing feat
Actually, here's a writeup (haven't caught on with the news as of lately): https://medium.com/@peterbudziszewski3/iocaste-physics-routine-1f86570cdc63
mint trellis
?serverinfo
solar ridgeBOT
adafruit
weary fiber
I just spent 4 hours cleaning every part of my keyboard
Cleaned the base with tweezers & isopropyl, and scrubbed every side of every key
AND IโM FINALLY DONE
slim shard
funny, I thought Box2D when I saw that bit in the demo
covert spire
I normally just disassemble my keyboard to clean it
sleek night
copper hemlock
Wizzard @weary fiber !!!
Would you be making this into a sevice for others?
@sleek night I think it's due to Independance Day (US) being this week. Adafuit is a US company with mostly US workers. ๐บ๐ธ
'Merka https://giphy.com/gifs/tItIlCGySM0ieKKW6b
๐
copper hemlock
But for my friends in the Republic of Canukisdan,
๐จ๐ฆ HAPPY CANADA DAY!!! ๐จ๐ฆ
dusk geyser
stoic bane
weary fiber
@covert spire I absolutely disassembled the thing! I replaced the entire numpad with different mechanical switches, so there was some desoldering involved uwu
covert spire
Sounds awesome fun!
late fulcrum
Once I've pulled all the keycaps, I just put them in a mesh bag and run them through the dishwasher.
late fulcrum
Foam?
weary fiber
Very cleverly placed foam, and some modifications to the plastic to maintain the same travel distance
I found a lot of interesting placements that helped minimize noise
late fulcrum
Slick! I like well-done human engineering upgrades.
dusty citrus
(If I closed one eye, in how long would I lose my depth perception?)
proven olive
@dusty citrus Depth Perception is more than just binocular. Binocular hekps, a lot, but there are other methods the brain uses
dusty citrus
Ah, I see
gaunt thunder
dusty citrus
Very, very easily, I tell you!
I had a Minecraft server for a time, and I was surprised to see I knew EVERYONE'S IP that got in
I scared my friends telling them their IP address
But I don't know how to use an IP, soooo
I see no reason to learn how to attack systems, though
dusty citrus
@dusty citrus it's just that I got myself into quiet a pickle
Yikes
What even is a DDoS, technically?
@dusty citrus it's when you get pinged so much that your internet stops and your PC lags
I think that's how it works
It can also lag a internet connection
Oh, well now I know how to DDoS
That's not good