instead of using CDs, writing the ISO to the HDD directly using rufus then booting from it
#general-chat
proven geode
I guess https://rufus.ie would have the answers to that.
fluid forum
so color eink, when will it be in the store ?
proven geode
@fluid forum Define “color eink.”
fluid forum
scroll up and check out that youtube video
proven geode
So, that one I wouldn't expect to be generally available until maybe 2021 or later.
proven geode
I'd guess the first samples will go out next year, followed by early production runs for partners like Wacom.
fluid forum
amazon for the kindle line
proven geode
If we're super lucky, we might see a color Kindle next year. Which the DIY crowd will probably need to steal parts from at the beginning.
What would you like to make with one?
fluid forum
not sure just yet, I saw it and wondered what others here would do
It would be awesome for comic reading
proven geode
@fluid forum In the meantime, I'd suggest looking at other reflective display technologies, like the Sharp LCD used in the color Pebble smartwatches:
fluid forum
that is cute
but I sorta have a thing for eink, this is even tho i have yet to build with it
I wanted a pybadge but they were out of stock sadly
proven geode
PyBadge uses a backlit TFT display.
fluid forum
i thought one of them used an eink
proven geode
PyBadge is in stock at Digi-Key, an Adafruit distributor:
https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/4200/1528-2950-ND/10130491
fluid forum
not sure off hand im not sooking at the page
proven geode
Maybe you're thinking of this:
https://www.adafruit.com/product/4428
proven geode
This eInk FeatherWing is in stock:
https://www.adafruit.com/product/4128
proven geode
Well, then, may I also tempt you with this:
https://www.adafruit.com/product/4262
fluid forum
i just love the idea of the full/fullish color eink
proven geode
Note that the two-color (black and white) ones need a couple seconds to refresh.
The tri-color ones (red/black/white) need about 15 seconds to refresh.
The full-color one demoed above takes just a couple seconds.
But another, brighter and more saturated eInk technology currently takes quite a bit of time to refresh:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2V9iuTW3sA
fluid forum
black and white is nearly instant, I have a kindle , not sure how it would be on a massive bilbord scale tho
i know the tri color ones do take longer, at least they have improved a bit
proven geode
Kindle uses a technique called partial refresh, so it is pretty fast most of the time. Occasionally, even the Kindle needs to cycle the display to full black/full white, as you know.
fluid forum
yeah, a quick flash I see that when unlocking it sometimes
it's still less then a second i think
dusty citrus
Moisturizing my face is one of the most painful things I can go through
Why does it sting so, so, so much?
I have oily skin that I clean off before moisturizing. And the cleanser leaves me a little dry and stretched
Does dry skin have exposed nerve receptors or something?
Wait a minute...doing some research on the topic. The moisturizer I'm using may have alcohol, and that would obviously hurt. Let me check
Yep....look at that
"Cetearyl alcohol"
What the heck? Why does a moisturizer have xanthan? Lol
proven geode
Xanthan gum is a thickener.
dusty citrus
I thought it was a food thing
proven geode
But yeah, alcohol in moisturizer … just no.
proven geode
Might be worth a trip to Sephora to get some ideas and wisdom.
stray wind
It can be meant to deal with drying out oily skin.
dusty citrus
The thing is, I'm being treated right now, and other products are drying out my skin. The moisturizers were prescribed to help with this. But it hurts so much
proven geode
Also, why not DIY it?
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=diy+moisturizer&sp=CAM%253D
dusty citrus
I want to consult my dermatologist again. It's so annoying
stray wind
And dry skin can have tiny cracks in it, so if you're already drying out your skin, you're basically putting alcohol on a cut.
dusty citrus
Millions of cuts
stray wind
That would be the best thing to do, @dusty citrus
idle iron
says the first 200 to complete course get a Intel NCS2... its like $70 value
nvm ignore that... i dont need to know i dont even meet the "Prerequisites"
shrewd hatch
so i am just wondering because i kinda want to add these to the house how hard would it be to make a intercom like the one in stargate sg1 season 6 ep 11 that functions as both a intercom and door control
late fulcrum
Not too hard, except for the hard bits.
echo agate
Working on turning some old infrared (not good) game controllers into RF controllers. The fun begins 😀
shrewd hatch
@late fulcrum like figuring out how to make the intercom part
late fulcrum
A microphone and speaker are easy enough, and switching audio isn't tough if it's a wired system. However, if you want it to be wireless, suddenly it's more complicated.
grave crest
Not saying it's impossible, but truly wireless stuff like that is always a challenge. Mostly because of power consumption. If you can run power and data lines discretely, then the sky is the limit. Or in case of Prometheus, probably the Asgard home galaxy.
And don't fret about replicators, they're not attracted to our paltry human technology.
[wait, why is that robotic insect eyeballing the Circuit Playground Bluefruit? Ruh roh.]
shrewd hatch
yes that is a raspberry pi cluster and network switch on 3 usb power banks my problem is that i need to now learn how to setup kubernetis on these and keep them up to date
or even docker swarm
finite monolith
checkout k3s. Kubernetes with less clutter and absurd memory usage
idle iron
google lead me to this FPGA neopixel driver
https://github.com/jeffrey-hearn/ws2812-verilog
im still too noob to get some neopixels working with TinyFPGA-BX
late fulcrum
I'm still working on installing Symbiflow so I can even process Verilog.
idle iron
what is Symbiflow? im just using the apio stuff in atom the tutorial said to get
shrewd hatch
@late fulcrum what do you think of that cluster
shrewd hatch
late fulcrum
I get "Access denied" and "Anonymous caller does not have storage.objects.get access to discord/attachments/538149593246859313/651961897553231873/JPEG_20191204_214326.jpg."
shrewd hatch
late fulcrum
Oh, cool! It's a compute tower!
idle iron
@late fulcrum "Atom linter for Verilog, using Icarus Verilog. It uses the toolchain-iverilog package binaries installed from apio."
https://github.com/FPGAwars/apio-ide/wiki
vernal gale
my nand2tetris fpga project is almost done I think
also you guys should look into verilator
you can simulate verilog without an fpga
idle iron
https://github.com/hexthat/simple_npx found someones code and it worked with only pin changes for TinyFPGA-BX
idle iron
hmm its a little off color order is BRG not RGB
late fulcrum
Should be a simple enough fix.
dusty citrus
While looking at the moon last night, I discovered I have a tiny blind spot in one eye.
The moon was missing just a corner of the half-disk shape, and had a bit of rounded tip at the other limb (forming an S shape overall). But it's a really small blind spot.
(I was able to get the rest of it by rotating my head! towards the horizontal, to cancel out the (off-center) blind spot (move it to where I don't need it to see the moon).
@lapis coyote I know exactly what it's supposed to look like so this stood out immediately.
proven geode
@dusty citrus I am not a doctor, but since eye issues run in my family, I wonder if it might be a correctable retinal lesion. Or it could just be a natural blind spot.
fluid forum
I saw this and wondered how they did it https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7755199/Shocked-Electric-eel-powers-aquariums-Christmas-lights.html
I sorta hope the zap to tweet is sometihng easy to repeat.
dusty citrus
@proven geode Thanks. I need to just schedule an appointment at the V.A. and get on with it. Just noticed it the other day, so this isn't exactly procrastination (yet, hah).
If it's treatable or something to be caught early, then I'll be that much ahead of it. ;)
It's kind of cool, because it's just a black spot. I haven't seen it in any other context except the dim blue blinking LED on the PC does tend to disappear for no reason (viewed at the typical distance and angle) so if that's what has been going on, then it's been going on for a while, now.
(Everyone on Earth has a set of blind spots way off axis and those are easy to demonstrate -- this is the exact same thing, experientially, but is (in this case) much closer to axis of sharp vision)
(cover your left eye; with your right eye, find a lit LED and look way to its left -- it'll disappear; if you look further to the left, it reappears (in peripheral vision in both instances)
Once you get the hang of it, the difference is quite obvious.
gray aspen
@dusty citrus Oilatum, best moisturiser.
drowsy zephyr
hey uh, can i vent to a fellow ee student/electrical engineer?
in the dms perhaps?
i need to vent a bit and i don't know where and to whom i do it with
late fulcrum
I enjoy EE rants, although I'm self-taught, so not an official student or EE.
dusty citrus
All I can tell you is, I used to think of myself as an uncredentialed Engineer, until I worked with real engineers.
The difference is their high grasp of advanced mathematics, among other things. ;)
AMA style medicine is in a difficulty - the methods used to teach are time-pressure oriented, to say the least.
It's still our best (deployed) effort, to date, as a species, IMO. ;)
drowsy zephyr
it's a humiliating rant tbh
so, i'd rather do it privately with someone i can trust
humiliating in an engineer sort of way
dusty citrus
One trick is to type into a plaintext editor, let it sit for a few minutes, select All and hit backspace (erase the buffer, having never saved it to disk).
The act of typing is where the chief benefit comes from. ;)
dusty citrus
What would you call the study of proper camera angles and camera movement?
For an art project, we had to make a video about our everyday lives, and as a joke, I made mine in Minecraft with a mod that lets me set camera keyframes over me playing the game
The angles and movements I used looked a bit gross, though, and I wonder how I could learn to do this properly
umbral phoenix
cinematography?
dusty citrus
Ah, yes!
That was the word
When they made 'Gerry' (Gus Van Sant) they laid out tracks carefully (like a railroad) so they could film the actors walking across (what looks to me like) salt flats .. for a fairly long distance.
Pretty interesting camera locomotion used to film Gerry.
late fulcrum
Blargh, my brand new mouse refuses to connect via Bluetooth. I tried the first dozen or so "fixes" on the internet, and the more extreme ones (reinstall the OS, etc.) simply do not appeal. This annoys me.
dusty citrus
What do you call those covers you can put on top of LEDs to make the shiny effect go away?
These things
A filter. 'diffraction' may apply as well.
great
Not sure how surface smoothness is discussed in this context (how reflective it is).
basically the rays of light reflecting off a surface that is very smooth are roughly parallel
I want to make an LED decoration board
With THT LEDs spelling out something
Look at how corner prisms work (retroreflectors use these)
Could I smooth this out like that somehow?
Not sure what you're asking. The filter over the 7 segment LED is (I think) there to improve contrast.
'specular reflection' is a laser technical term as well.
Yes, like that. But, I plan to make a PCB spelling something out with THT LEDs
diffusion is probably what I meant not diffraction ;)
Could I add one big diffraction to this?
Diffusion
Like a screen-ish sort of look
Not painful to look at the LEDs head-on
I don't know what the datasheets say on that stuff. Was commonly used/available when 7-segment displays were king.
Hmmm
In general discrete LED's have built-in 'optics'.
The diffused ones, yeah
That dome was designed. ;) Similary square LED's were designed with their own optics.
I see
Thanks
And you're right - some bright ones aren't as diffusing.
So they think about this when they make them (and then act, haha).
Since human response to POV is different than a 'dead camera' there are (primarily, power-saving) tricks to using LED's with or without covering filters.
So you can pulse your digital clock display 300 times a second, very brightly, very briefly. The human eye-brain 'remembers' the past; subjectively the light looks brighter than maybe it has the 'right' to. ;)
Something like that. The effect vs power consumption is established fact.
(whereas a chemical process or a growing plant may be more concerned with 'energy received' which will be very different from 'human subjective perception of a brightly lit scene' (like that haha).
(I may have this all wrong; the above is my understanding of things)
Hmmmm
dusty citrus
🌤️ I'm trying to figure out a way to shuffle these mahjong tiles without scratching them, and without a huge table surface (I just want to play solitaire, which I just have room for on this small mini-desk).
They're about 29 mm on the long dimension, and made of melamine. ;)
dusty citrus
I have a clean unused pizza box I'm going to try. ;)
idle iron
what is it?
sick adder
not thrilled with the IC placement, I'd semi-committed to the mounting hole placement earlier so now I have to redo the 3d model of the plastic part that goes over top to accomodate the IC footprint (should be OK)
late fulcrum
@dusty citrus I got pointed to the Lee filters site by @hot leaf and found their Zircon 810 LED diffusion material, it's great. If you search this Discord for "810 Lee diffuser" you'll fine my pictures of the effect.
@dusty citrus, have you see the automatic mahjong tables that shuffle and deal the tiles for you?
dusty citrus
@late fulcrum I did see something on that but didn't look into it.
sick adder
@idle iron It's a numeric display. 10 etched glass slides sit on top of the LEDs, and you see the number shape from the LED that is lit. Parts not shown include a 3d printed carrier for the slides (mounts via the mounting holes) and the slides themselves..
late fulcrum
There are some youtube videos of the automatic tables, they're fun to watch
dusty citrus
Thanks! Definitely want to see some of that!
sick adder
"zero" slide
dusty citrus
(I like playing Mahjong solitaire with real tiles)
late fulcrum
@sick adder, like the "Lixie" displays?
sick adder
experimental slide being lit by LED
@late fulcrum right, except edge lit displays are classic pre-transistor/pre-LED displays in their own right
patented in the 50s I think
late fulcrum
These are the ones I was thinking of: https://www.tindie.com/products/connornishijima/lixie-ii-the-newnixie-for-arduino-digit-kit/ Another modern re-creation of edge-lit displays
sick adder
the classic edge lit displays were made of dots, so that's what I'm doing.
late fulcrum
The last one I had was a voltmeter that operated the (incandescent) display bulbs with stepper relays.
sick adder
wikipedia calls them "light guide displays" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightguide_display
idle iron
does this work? i think i tried it but didnt work for me >.< i might not have done it right...
supposed to be step-up-level-shifter
dusty citrus
It's from Page 16 of the original app note from Microchip.
Newark has a copy. I'm not comfortable linking it here as it's a Newark asset. ;)
It has a name similar to 3_3vto5vAnalogTipsnTricksBrchr.
TIP #7 3.3V Æ 5V Using A Diode Offset
sick adder
@dusty citrus @idle iron the original from microchip seems to be http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/DeviceDoc/chapter 8.pdf
"Note: For the circuit to work properly, the pull-up resistor must be significantly smaller than the input resistance of the 5V CMOS input, to prevent a reduction in the output voltage due to a resistor divider effect at the input. The pull-up resistor must also be large enough to keep the output current loading on the 3.3V output within the specification of the device." they caveat, and give no suggestion as to an appropriate value 
idle iron
i tried 220Ω, ill try 10Ω
dusty citrus
@sick adder @idle iron a common Ham Radio station accessory was known as a 'decade box' .. test equipment that provided a switched resistance bank, to temporarily provide any value of resistance for a circuit under test.
They were probably 1/4 or 1/2 watt discrete passives.
I personally would start with about 27 k ohms and take measurements to see what (if anything) registers.
Try to estimate the effects with a high resistance, then gradually bring it down (stepping 10 percent or 2.7k for the first reduction, to 24.3k) (nearest standard value lower or higher, whichever is less a variance from the idea 10 percent redution).
Then take ten percent off that (from 24.3k to 24.3k minus 2.43k haha).
Do the math ideally and find the nearest standard value, rather than work off the last standard value, so errors don't accumulate.
Wild guess: 2 mA through the 'sensitive' port pin should be upper limit.
(2 mA is way high for positive switching; should be much less -- I don't know .. 0.2 mA sounds good to me)
(at 2 mA you're actively powering things like LED's in my opinion)
(15 mA I generally take to be an LED burning brightly and 'incandescently' (no pulsing at all; straight DC) for reference's sake.)
late fulcrum
@drowsy zephyr Analog circuit that controls a refrigerator? Like a thermostat? Generally a temperature sensor, a comparator, and something like a triac or relay to switch the power.
late fulcrum
Hmm, a computer built out of relays. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1hJoalcK68
dusty citrus
mahjong .. ended up cutting a large square from a (prized) old maroon sweatshirt, as the no-scratch table surface layer; using the pizza box (off-table) to store 'shuffled' (hand picked) tiles (not enough room on the (now maroon) tabletop, to shuffle properly).
Decided not to worry about if the pizza box has enough 'grit' to scratch the tiles.
The maroon looks really good, so that's going to be a design goal now. ;)
dusty citrus
maroon
hardy rock
classy
drowsy zephyr
oy guys, question, how do you remove excess flux from your soldering?
can you use rubbing alcohol?
short bone
Yes, I use it for removing flux. Some people use isopropylalcohol also (but it is more expensive)
drowsy zephyr
okay
dusty citrus
@drowsy zephyr Hey, I’ll ask it here to prevent blocking you off in #general-tech. I had to make my solder tracks with the board laying flat, because if it was being held up, the metal would fall through the holes as I melted it, and make these ugly little balls on the underside
Is there a way to prevent this? Putting tape under the place you’ll be acting on?
drowsy zephyr
uhm, to me, flux is helpful
it helps the solder to stick on the copper paddings
your solder needs to be super hot tho
well that's for me, any other tips?
drowsy zephyr
right
here is a question from me
from an ee college student to fully fledged engineers, how is electrical engineering irl exactly?
i'm kinda depressed and confused about my situation in college, i need a pick me up T_T (or at least some answers)
is it a fun kinda dynamic kinda research intense job, or is it just another desk ridden job?
i have learnt too many information and yet i have a hard time figuring out which one is necessary to keep, which one is not
dusty citrus
No, I mean, flux is helpful, but my solder will literally fall through the holes when I heat it up and the board is being help up. It's really annoying
short bone
@dusty citrus thats because you use double sided board. If you used single sided board, the solder wouldnt fall through
echo agate
@drowsy zephyr Depends a lot on exactly what kind of EE job it is. Most of the engineers I work with split their time doing desk work (spec documents, test plans/reports, schematics, datasheets) and working hands-on in the lab testing the stuff they designed.
echo agate
Also, from everyone I've heard about it from, working and being an EE in the real world is much easier than doing school.
drowsy zephyr
can anyone help me to simplify how to analyze an analog circuit?
@echo agate oh really?
well that's a bit of relief
btw back to my second question
im having a hard time digesting transistors
short bone
I think in practise, analog circuit are simulated, not analysed by hand @drowsy zephyr
drowsy zephyr
well i need analyze them for a final test
short bone
What type of transistors?
drowsy zephyr
the simple kind
well, not only transistors
im just asking whether there is a simple way to analyze an analog circuit
short bone
No, you have to have a specific approach for a specific connection of transistors
drowsy zephyr
for added context, let me give you an example of a past final test
i know it's in indonesian, so let me explain some of the test
let's look at the second question first
2a create an antilog amplifier that doesn't get affected by reverse saturation current
2b create the equation for VA, VB, VC, VD, and VO where V1 and V2 is a variable input
how do i approach this without memorizing diagrams or characteristics
(this is why i rant all about the stuff above. I am stressed)
short bone
For OP AMPs, you have to derive from the basic working principle of the ideal OP AMP: If negative feedback is connected, voltage between inputs is zero.
So for the current you get V1/R1 = -I_C (current through the transistor)
Or you can just remember the formula for such OP AMP circuit
drowsy zephyr
right, how do i approach transistors exactly?
short bone
Bipolar transistors control the I_Collector depending on the I_Base
They should have told you some formulas for this relation
drowsy zephyr
they uh did
like 2/1 semester ago
but because of the constant changing of topic over and over again, i don't know what formula i should use
short bone
OK, the OPAMP controls the U_BE. I_C has exponential relation to the U_BE
Here are the formulas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Log_amplifier
drowsy zephyr
yes i've noticed that
what i meant is, what do i do when reading with transistors when i suddenly forgot what a log amp is?
short bone
You would have to derive it from the basic OPAMP principle, Kirchhoffs laws, transistor operation - well, it is not so easy
|| Actually, I am learning analog electronics now too ||
drowsy zephyr
darn
how could others see analog circuits so easily
they can analyze these circuits so fast
predict what's going to happen
short bone
What is the question 5? It seems complicated
drowsy zephyr
oh it only tells us how does the circuit work
not comprehensively but just how do you think it works
short bone
Maybe others just learned common used connections and they divide the schematic into them
drowsy zephyr
ayayayay, how do i do this
short bone
I have found this series of videos covering basic analog electronics, theres also second series released https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmhFnm6mdxY&list=PL7qUW0KPfsIIOPOKL84wK_Qj9N7gvJX6v
You must always decide how is the component used (whether as amplifier, switch, ...)
short bone
In your notes?
drowsy zephyr
yeah
so my teacher taught me to consider the emmiter as a negative pole while the base is a positive pole
that way i can consider the transistor as a voltage source
VBE
where VBE = -(kT/q)ln(Ic/Is)
and Ic = Is*(e^(VBE/kT)-1)
does this work?
short bone
Yes, that is the same as on the wikipedia page
drowsy zephyr
alright thanks
this tbh ruins my whole understanding of transistors
you know how much types of amplifiers i have to memorize because how convoluted it is?
uggghhh
short bone
Analog electronics are difficult :/
drowsy zephyr
yeah
so uh, fully fledged engineers, is analog circuit supposed to be this difficult or are we just dumb?
dusty citrus
@short bone Thank you, that makes sense
I could put tape under the places I put tracks on
@drowsy zephyr My boss was big on organic solder flux (liquid, probably citrus based) which was water soluble. Rinse (or rinse and scrub) with water, only.
Would those types of flux not damage me as much?
I’ve gotten stomach aches from fumes before
Not fun
I don't know what his thing was, really. My objection was: water pollution. He didn't say anything about waste water.
I guess 'organic' maybe covers that. I should have read the flux manufacturer's datasheets and MDS.
Presumably the solder doesn't wash away, leaving only the products of heating the flux to consider.
(it does work well and is easy to manage from a user's view) (this stuff is expensive)
drowsy zephyr
Right, what about the latest question of mine?
dusty citrus
Which question.
drowsy zephyr
Are analog circuits that difficult or are we just dumb?
dusty citrus
They are inherently difficult.
What you want to look for is circuit separators.
A good schematic makes this obvious.
I would suggest getting a vintage copy of the Radio Amateur's Handbook (call number 621.384) since analog ruled back in the day and there are many examples of 'simple' analog circuits in that book, including transistor-based circuits.
drowsy zephyr
Phew, glad im not the only one who finds it difficult
dusty citrus
Also, I have a physics book (can't remember the name of it) that gives problems and their solutions, in a lot of detail.
There's probably one for EE.
I want to say 'The Physics Problem Solver' but that's a weak memory. ;)
It's really cool and very very helpful and was designed for undergrads.
Are analog circuits difficult (to learn)?
(random)
$ mogrify -strip thisfile.jpg # remove exif
mogrify comes from imagemagick but there's /etc/alternatives for it, so ... ;)
late fulcrum
I don't think of transistors as a voltage source, more of a current-variable resistor (for bipolar transistors) or a voltage-variable resistor (for FETs and vacuum tubes).
idle iron
iCEcube2 is very cool, so much info.... IceStudio is like blocky coding but for FPGAs, highly recommend both if you got tinyFPGA-BX
west birch
does anyone know of an online school or something, for people that have no background in electronics, but have a basic understanding of SOME stuff, and knows how to do a few things (like blink leds, hook up wires, and halfway read a schematic if its clear)?
or maybe someone could point me in the direction of something like this?
i really want to do this, but when i try to start, most of the time my head gets all fuzzy and i dont really get whats being said. I do know how to follow directions on a lot of stuff, like ive done a few simple projects. but i most definitely couldnt make one from scratch myself at this point
i do also have, however, the drive and the time and motivation to do this. I just need direction
i just started a few months ago on this path, and i started with learning Linux. Now that im comfortable with that (mostly), i think that its time to place my focus on something more. this world 🙂
dusty citrus
@west birch I'd get a scanner (scanning radio that picks up police, ambulance and fire calls).
Tune to 144-148 MHz.
visit http://arrl.org/
Repeater frequencies come in pairs. 146.28 / 146.88 for example. They're spaced 600 kHz apart.
Everyone transmits on the INPUT 146.28 but listens on the OUTPUT 146.88.
The repeater (located on a tower on a hill; or on a tall building) listens on .28 and retransmits what it hears on .88 (in this example).
Channel spacing would be 15 kHz or 20 kHz.
So, adjacent channels: 146.52 146.535 146.55 146.565 (those are simplex frequencies, for point to point communication without a repeater).
Depending on where you live, this could be a benefit or not. You could maybe borrow a scanner to find out what you got, locally.
Either that, or matchbook school. ;)
late fulcrum
I don't know much about formal courses, but there are some good ones published for training soldiers on electronics that can be downloaded from the web. Some kits (Snap Circuits, Lectron, Gakken, etc.) aimed at kids do a good job too.
dusty citrus
You can also tune 27.135 MHz (CB channel 15).
You might hear bizarre talk, or good technical discussion (I was surprised to find the latter in my area).
The old timers usually stay below Channel 19. Channels 13, 14 and 15 are favorites (The old rigs only went up to channel 23).
The huge stations (very powerful transmissions) happen on Channel 6, iirc.
drowsy zephyr
Dayum, that is some old school learning method
dusty citrus
https://youtu.be/rPGoMbVSUu8?t=49
The Simpson 260 multimeter! ft. ladyada ;)
sick adder
https://patents.google.com/patent/US3507378A/en In 1968, IBM patented a design for a light-up keyboard where the legends on the keys could be changed to any of several different combinations. wow! I wonder if such a thing was ever manufactured.
dusty citrus
jepler they probably showed it at Xeroc PARC and someone said 'that has no use whatsoever' ;)
/bill_gates
(Gates and Jobs I think were present during that demo of the mouse and windows haha)
sick adder
and here we have a patent for putting a sheet of acrylic on top of a keyboard so that the keys can't be pressed accidentally. https://patents.google.com/patent/US4060163A/en
dusty citrus
I can't say that word but there's a keyboard 'protector' which amounts to a clear rubber membrane to cover everything. ;) Great for peanut butter sandwich + keyboard uses. ;)
(Keep all fluids off the keyboard desk for the win)
The multimeter often has a third jack. It's usually labeled 10A.
That's an alternate return path for the electrons, and is mainly used for measuring higher current.
It's a good one to start with if you have unknowns.
A bag of resistors of different values, a breadboard and a multimeter are all you (really) need for very basic electronics learning.
This is my first goto source for basic electronics:
https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/textbook/
I use it mainly because it hasn't disappeared as a resource, in several years' use.
Sneak preview (skipping a few introductory matters):
https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/textbook/direct-current/chpt-5/what-are-series-and-parallel-circuits/
west birch
I picked up a little handheld CB a while back, at a garage sale. it doesnt seem to get much of a signal, but maybe its because im down in my basement trying to use it hah!
I will give those links a look for sure though
ive noticed that when i touch the antenna in certain places, all of the static starts to disappear.
its an old "citizen band transciever" by GE. Model: 3-5980A
i may just not be giving it enough power
seems to be a 50 channel cb radio. but i think it stays in the 27MHZ range, for the citizen band
actually, when i touch the antenna in the middle of it, everything dies. The screen, the sound, everything. its coated in rubber, so its not like im touching metal. there is a large lump in the middle where im touching though. I wonder if 12v 3amps enough for this thing
it doesnt have a powe rating on it, buit it can take 8 aa batteries, or an external power source (via jack)
hm, it only dies when i touch it, when the squelch is turned up some
when its all the way down, touhing has no effect
late fulcrum
@sick adder Art Lebedev made some "Optimus" keyboards and keypads like that. I have one of the 3-key keypads somewhere, but I don't think there's any driver support for it for modern operating systems.
sick adder
hmm oshpark gets a bit confused when there are holes off the PCB area..
late fulcrum
Can you blame them?
sick adder
that's a strategy I'm trying, yes.
sick adder
Homemade pcb circa 2003, had USB!! Bit banged on an attiny2313.
Milled single sided board
purpose: to reboot my DSL modem daily
hahaha I couldn't even be bothered to solder all the pins on the microcontroller
late fulcrum
Heh, my DSL modem still has the issue of falling back (switching to a lower speed) every time there's noise on the line, but never recovering. After a couple of weeks, it's down to something like 3kbps or so. I have seriously considered building something like that to reset it periodically.
sick adder
those narrow isolation cuts without soldermask were soooo awful, you could easily bridge them and no amount of solder-wicking would fix it; the board was just wrecked
nowadays I just buy "sonoff" brand wifi relays and flash them with "tasmota", it works really well. I switch my laser printer, 3d printer, paper scanner, and a lamp that way.
late fulcrum
I tend to attack those with a knife. Usually works on the first couple of tries.
sick adder
same era, this board is a 4-quadrant touchpad. you could SORTA use it as a mouse but ugh not really.
I should try it with a modern touch library and see what I get!
dusty citrus
@west birch unmodified CB's won't draw 3A @13.8 V .. unlikely to blow a 2.5A fuse.
late fulcrum
The modern touch detection works considerably better than the older versions. It can still take a little tuning, but seems more reliable and robust than it used to be.
west birch
you think maybe i should put batteries in it, along with the external power connected?
dusty citrus
Those things rarely have memories, so there's no reason to apply power in any particular way.
If it's intermittent it was probably abused - the display should never go out in sync with the sound.
I'd find a better radio at a flea market that doesn't need that kind of restoration work. ;)
west birch
well, it only goes out when i frab the antenna by this buldge in the middle, or when i grab the tip of it. the sound doesnt die completely, it just doesnt produce static anymore, and it kind of squeels. almost like its being shorted.
maybe ill make a video of it and show you
just found that if i remove the antenna, it does the same thing. 7 segment display for the channel number goes out, and sound turns into a low "eeeeeeeeeee" sound lol
weird
im about to take it apart
brb
late fulcrum
It wants to operate into the proper impedance load. With a missing or shorted antenna, it will be unhappy. A dummy antenna would be handy.
west birch
ah ok. in addition to the original antenna on the top (removable) there seems to be a plug for another one on the side, next to the power input. Looks like an RCA jack tbh
late fulcrum
I'm used to them using chonky screw-on SO-239 connectors. I wonder if the RCA is for some other function like a remote speaker.
There are also technical reasons why two antenna connectors would be tricky to implement in a workable fashion.
dusty citrus
BNC
drowsy zephyr
guys, i have an emergency
how do you remove white paint from a PCB without affecting the copper layer?
will alcohol do? will it corrode the copper layer though?
some idiots printed my PCB with some text OVER some copper padding
late fulcrum
Alcohol, acetone, etc. won't harm the copper. However, acetone may damage the soldermask.
You can get soldermask repair fluid, or just use something like nail polish if need be.
late fulcrum
Depends on the paint. I'm guessing alcohol may not do so, so you might need a stronger solvent. However, none of the usual paint removers are going to damage the copper traces.
late fulcrum
Most of them have a laser etched cathode band, but some use other markings like a different shape/size of the contacts, marking on top or bottom, etc.
A good magnifier and light is very helpful, a microscope is even better.
The data sheet should illustrate the markings for a particular part.
polar wraith
I updated my weather station code to be Python3 compliant (it used to run on Python2). I noticed the rain gauge wasn't working and it's definitely pouring here in Seattle. Spent 45 minutes looking at code. No obvious bug. Then I went outside to look at the hardware. There was a small pinecone stuck in the inlet grate for the rain gauge. Removed foliage. Rain gauge is working now. 🙂
dusty citrus
any OSes that i can flash directly to a HDD?
jagged siren
PC OSes? Literal hard drive? And flash meaning no installation procedure at all?
dusty citrus
yes
jagged siren
Yes to all three? Not that I know of. A Linux Live CD or USB would be the closest thing in functionality. Not sure if hard drive boot records could be done that way.
Might also be able to boot from a USB hard drive, depending on the application. System imaging to blank hard drives exists, but that's after you've already made your own image.
So basically depends on what you're really trying to accomplish.
dusty citrus
bios does not support booting from usb (Award BIOS from around 2001)
jagged siren
So why not go through a regular OS installation procedure?
dusty citrus
The usual work-around is to boot off the HDD and point to the thumb drive for all significant OS files.
If the HDD isn't booting at all you may have to chicken/egg it. ;)
i have flashed Ubuntu to a HDD and it booted, but it acted like a live CD (mainly because it is for live CDs/USB Drives)
tranquil gazelle
I ordered a mix of Adafruit and Sparkfun stuff from a local reseller and they're having trouble getting it in
The Adafruit stuff arrived but I also grabbed a JST adapter thingy and they're "not sure when they'll get it in"
I just wanted some EL wire for Christmas deco!
proven geode
@tranquil gazelle What are the part numbers of the things that aren't coming in?
tranquil gazelle
It's a sparkfun item, I'm just mildly annoyed 🤣
The following products require a short lead time:
- PRT-14998 (expected to arrive to us on Mon, Dec 9)
- ADA4036 (arrived at our warehouse, ready to dispatch)
all the adafruit stuff is already there, it's just one bloody cable!
proven geode
@tranquil gazelle In stock at Digi-Key. They do overnight delivery, too.
https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/PRT-14998/1568-1951-ND/9697949
tranquil gazelle
@proven geode Unfortunately they take like $20 for shipping :(
But thank you for checking nonetheless!
round narwhal
new here, edit to just say Hi and not spoil
Guess that could be a spoiler since everyone probably doesn't have their boxes yet. sorry!
stray wind
@round narwhal You can delete the message if you're concerned about spoilers. Please email support@adafruit.com with your situation. They'll get it sorted.
round narwhal
reasonable idea. Thanks @stray wind
tranquil gazelle
@proven geode Yes I'm doing fine, thank you for asking. I'm not in Sydney luckily.
lilac tangle
@swift hatch testing...
gray abyss
testing @swift hatch
gray abyss
@swift hatch test2
proven geode
Testing testing… mic check… 1 2 3… @swift hatch
swift hatch
🙌
dusty citrus
xdg-open does the wrong thing in 'chromium` (Debian 9.x).
https://askubuntu.com/questions/779717/xdg-open-stopped-working-since-16-04-upgrade/816660#816660
Trying to suss this out. I don't want to install anything new. ;)
The suggestion to create or modify open_generic_xdg_mime (shell script) is appealing, at the moment.
(chromium opens 'aegisub' which is a subtitles editor I use with YouTube uploads .. uses this for a plaintext file ending with `.txt' downloaded off the Internet (here in Discord, in fact)).
More google foo. It never ends.
quote
The problem is due to gvfs-info being deprecated.
dire viper
INCOMING HAM!
drowsy zephyr
hey guys, question
regarding this motor
this can't be driven by a simple motor driver can it?
edgy apex
I demoed my food pantry Salesforce system to the top 3 people at the pantry and got the go ahead to do the rest of it. I now have the full client db, volunteer db and the donor db and a bunch of work to do. Here is a screenshot that doesnt show any PII
sick adder
ooh 3d printed motor mount looks successful -- I sent it off with its new owner so I only have a screenshot of the model
❤️ openscad
edgy apex
If I have my way it wil
Maybe a pyportal or two
There are two sections in the pantry the client side and the office side I think a portal for the office side to show how client side is doing would be cool
Just an order count and a total number of family members served would be good to start
late fulcrum
@drowsy zephyr Yes, it's an ordinary DC motor, any driver that can support 12V and 1.8A should work with it.
@sick adder I like it. Is that mostly built with union() or difference()?
sick adder
the main shape is unions, the holes are differences.
the slots are made with hull, naturally
late fulcrum
Cool. In my early OpenSCAD days, I was afraid of manifold issues, so I'd start wtih a cube and subtract everything from it, as if I was machining. Made some fairly hairy scripts. I eventually relaxed and started using union() more, which is a lot more intuitive in a lot of cases, just have to make sure I don't mess up shared edges.
sick adder
I still don't have the hang of that fully
this part seemed to end up watertight and that's good enough for me
I've learned to build more things up in 2D and extrude them, the main bracket shape is made in 2D as a union of squares, then extruded.
drowsy zephyr
@late fulcrum but this one has an encoder input, how do i use it?
i tried it using this
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/14451
late fulcrum
Depends on the encoder, and what you want to do with it. You could go full closed loop, Mechaduino style, or just monitor motion, or something in-between
That motor driver is a little small for that motor, but should basically work if you're not running at full voltage or max load.
drowsy zephyr
it says it can use 11 volts as its power supply for the motor
what is the encoder usage anyway?
and how will i hook it up?
It only has 2 outputs
late fulcrum
I think that's a motor designed for use with an encoder, but an encoder isn't included, you'd have to add it on.
drowsy zephyr
Huh?
But it said that there is already an encoder embeded inside the motor, hence the 6 pin headers
Oh wait, well, mine has 6 header pins sticking out so there is already an encoder inside
O, how do i configure this?
prisma sigil
there should be a memes channel
late fulcrum
Ah, the link described a different motor with only two pins. If you have an encoder with 2 outputs, it could be several kinds, but possibly the most likely one is a quadrature encoder.
drowsy zephyr
How do i control the speed then?
drowsy zephyr
I SEE
whoops sorry for the caps
so like
according to this image, there are 2 outputs for each motor, A0 and B0
where do i connect the encoders?
and where do i connect the power source?
because the pinouts only shows 2
late fulcrum
I can only guess, as I don't have the data sheet. It could be the six pin connector offers two motor connections, two encoder power connections, and two encoder outputs.
The motor driver outputs would connect to the motor connections.
late fulcrum
You can hook that up to your microcontroller to monitor the motor's motion
dusty citrus
Make: Volume 71 came today
echo agate
For that kind of coin, I'd suggest looking into the terasic DE0-Nano
dusty citrus
wait really?
dusty citrus
i kinda have $40 in my pocket
late fulcrum
That's more the budget for a CPLD board or a TinyFPGA BX
finite monolith
He looks comfortable
dusty citrus
The taidacent FPGA board looks nice, i could ask my parents to pay a bit for it
The reason why the taidacet FPGA baord looks appealing is because i can program it using USB and there are many I/O pins
echo agate
https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/lattice-semiconductor-corporation/ICE40HX8K-B-EVN/220-1874-ND/4738851 Another option with USB programming and lots of IO
late fulcrum
Supported by open source tools, too
dusty citrus
Hopefully its good for CPU development
lyric hull
i o nly come here when i have a problem it seems xD
can you guys help me
i turned on dhcp on my router
off
now no internet
i tried setting the ip address manually and following a guide but no avail
echo agate
If you want internet access, your computer needs an IP for itself, a gateway IP, and DNS server IP(s)
(You could get to the internet without DNS, but wouldn't be able to resolve names)
lyric hull
but to what do i set these? i set manual IP to my pcs IP, subway mask to 255.255.255.0 and default gateway to my pcs ip except cahnged the last two to 1, for dns i made it the same as the default gateway
i then went to advanced and added the routers IP address
that should be my routers IP, i used to access it through the browser
echo agate
An easy DNS setting to try out is 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 (Google Public DNS)
echo agate
Is 192.168.8.1 your router's address?
echo agate
Can you ping it to make sure it's reachable? 🙂
lyric hull
aint reachable e.e
now im completely lost xD
oh wait
i got a response
okay so the router is reachable,
what should the default gateway be?
echo agate
Your router's IP.
lyric hull
wait so ip address should be my physical PC's ip?
echo agate
The topmost field in the IPv4 configuration window will be your computer's own IP address
lyric hull
the pcs ip i can get through ip config right?
echo agate
It's arbitrary, you have to pick an IP that isn't used and is on the same subnet as your gateway (router)
lyric hull
sorry for the stupid questions...
sorry for the stupid questions...
so i can pick 192.168.8.210?
lyric hull
but if i do that it tells me when pinging 192.168.8.1 that the host is unreachable
echo agate
Which is indeed weird 🤔
lyric hull
like lemme show yoy my ip config atm
that should be my routers IP unless its something else, its the ip i used to access it in the first place
echo agate
I'm not a networking pro or anything, but I'd expect that configuration to work
lyric hull
okay so i changed something
lemme show
i think its just pinging itself at this point
0ms round trip seems suspicious
pulsar shard
@lyric hull On your latest screenshot, you've given your own computer the routers IP. That wont work
echo agate
Certainly looks like you're using two IPs on a single interface and just pinging yourself
lyric hull
kk ill remove
pulsar shard
Also, what's the reason for using static IP configuration instead of DHCP?
pulsar shard
Ok. And you know for sure, that the IP of the router is 192.168.8.1 ? That's not one of the usual ranges, used by retail routers.
lyric hull
its what i used to access the router with thriugh the browser
pulsar shard
Then that's the IP for sure. 🙂
pulsar shard
Yeah.. So, you COULD just factory reset the router? Also that model has a built in menu, maybe it lets you reenable DHCP?
lyric hull
i can factory reset it tomorrow
echo agate
You might need to flush your ARP cache
echo agate
Address Resolution Protocol, correlates IP addresses and MAC addresses
lyric hull
kk googling and doing brb
pulsar shard
@lyric hull Hmm.. Just realised, that if you've been messing around a lot with your network settings, Windows can act quite crazy. So perhaps a reboot of the system might help? (That would also reset the ARP cache, btw)
lyric hull
i wiped the arp cache anyways xD
still unreachable
urgh
one reboot then i give up
one reboot then i give up
one reboot then i give up
discord on phone acting up
dusty citrus
I wonder what would happen if we couldn't break glucose via fermentation
dusty citrus
haha
Wait till you have to understand how your medications work, just to survive.
What the body does is astonishing.
Since it's icky medical visceral stuff (and your granddaughter is here) I won't go into it. ;)
drowsy zephyr
so uhm, aside from being an ee student, im also really into music arrangements, especially orchestral, here is one of my latest work, it's a cover of PIXL-Sugar Rush
lemme know what you guys think
pulsar shard
@drowsy zephyr I'm not familiar with the original, but it sounds good, however, the song appears quite repetitive to me.
pulsar shard
Hmm.. Electronic music is not really what I prefer, however, I think I could actually fall asleep to that one.. LOL..
Anyways, I think, compared to the original, you've left out quite a bit of the melody? But an interesting recreation anyways. 🙂
dusty citrus
dusty citrus
Weird question.....are you supposed to cook tofu? If so, how?
jaunty current
When I cook tofu, I typically marinate it overnight and then fry it up the next day. (Ginger, Garlic, Soy Sauce, Honey, Sesame oil) Makes a great Banh Mi protein
dusty citrus
Hmmm, sounds good
dusty citrus
@jaunty current I just bought some hard tofu, can I have a simple marinade recipe?
dusty citrus
No you can eat it for breakfast, the way it comes.
We used to put a little honey on it, and eat it .. I guess you would say, raw.
Kind of sticks to the teeth a bit, so a slight adjustment in experience expectation is required to enjoy it the most.
Good vegetarian cooks know lots of tricks to make this stuff appealing.
But it's still okay to eat .. ah .. untreated. ;)
The general practice of changing the color of food (towards a 'brown' color) is technically called something like caramelization. Don't have the spelling on that. I think it's the same base word as caramel candy.
Good cooks can achieve more than one sort of caramelization of a given food (generally by applying heat in some way).
Caramelization or caramelisation (see spelling differences) is the oxidation of sugar, a process used extensively in cooking for the resulting nutty flavor and brown color. Caramelization is a type of non-enzymatic browning reaction.
🧧
dusty citrus
Looks like Dr. C.H. Ting has released some of his work in Forth, for the general public's benefit.
http://forth.org/OffeteStore/OffeteStore.html
Of particular interest to me is his work with the STM32F407 Discovery Board, which I expect is directly relevant to the STM32F405 target from Adafruit.
🛩️
http://forth.org/OffeteStore/2165_stm32eForth720.zip
<< Forth software in ASM and HEX - and a lengthy PDF
dusty citrus
The documentation in that .ZIP is unpacking a lot of mysteries wrt low level Cortex M4 programming notions (THUMB2 in particular).
Since he provided a .hex I might just be able to figure out how to use it. ;) EDIT: yup.
dusty citrus
$ arm-none-eabi-objcopy -I ihex -O binary thisfile.hex thisfile.bin
Looks like no GPIO at all (except the USART itself) since Dr. Ting setup GPIO for port D, which is available on the Discovery but not on the Feather.
velvet nexus
well i just meant its your baby, this feather. i picked it over the teensy 4.0 (my original choice) for a couple reasons
dusty citrus
I grabbed it up when they first released it because I figured it'd sell out until after the xmas shopping season was gone by.
velvet nexus
- its a usb-c driver, so... felt obligated to use an MCU with usb-c port
- neopixel! great for cool status effects
dusty citrus
This Forth from Dr. Ting is a huge short-cut for me. ;)
dusty citrus
I'm not necessarily promoting it. ;) Forthers are rare and inexplicable. ;)
The main thing is his .HEX file runs unmodified on the Feather STM32F405
(once it's converted with objcopy)
velvet nexus
if he implemented it using the STM32 F4 HAL, then im not at all surprised
objcopy just to generate the .bin though, right? not any sort of weird section translations
dusty citrus
I honestly have no idea how it works.
That was a google discovery with nothing read into it.
velvet nexus
haha 🙂
dusty citrus
I was about to give up on the project three or five times.
When I realized I was editing source code for the better part of an hour .. but compiling some other code I hadn't visited during that hour .. I had to try it with the very code I thought I was editing, but wasn't (to change baud rates and test; the target was 115200).
velvet nexus
so one thing i want to point out: this demo application i developed for my driver on the grand central, the neopixel worked as expected. however, i've simply redefined my GPIO pins to get it to run on the stm32 feather, and again the neopixel does not work!
dusty citrus
NPX is 88 on GC
velvet nexus
yeah, and 8 on the feather?
dusty citrus
Also Dr. Ting said something odd about GPIO requiring .. of all things .. clocks.
8 is usual on a lot of Adafruit boards.
velvet nexus
do you care at all to look at my code to see anything obviously wrong ?? 🙂
dusty citrus
I'm exhausted so I'm not even here but normally I'd at least take a peek. I really want to see code on github (only) as their UI is good .. and .. I am already forced to use it for other reasons.
If you're doing stuff that's in C but not leveraging the Arduino IDE that's kind of an esoteric thing.
(Like Atmel Start is)
velvet nexus
nah, just regular arduino, in C
it would be neopixel.h/.cpp, global.h/.cpp, and the project file .ino
whenever you get a chance to look, i'd appreciate it. no rush or obligation though
dusty citrus
There's two different rates you used KHZ800
Just be aware there's another rate possible (maybe why that flag is passed in the parameter list)
Probably KHZ400
If the neopixel thing busts you for too long look at how Dean did it in SeeSaw
And don't forget to 'show' after setting up a color/brightness tuple ;)
(I have absolutely no idea why 400k and 800k both exist but they do)
velvet nexus
yeah, it show()s every time it updates
for the "pulse" and "fabulous" modes, that's very very often (depending on the non-blocking delay defined)
dusty citrus
I basically don't want to see anything blink or change color faster than morse code elements change when you're copying it by ear ;)
I will say that the tuba that @lost condor did was the exception to the rule.
velvet nexus
the pulse effect is beautiful though, it slowly breathes brighter and dimmer
very short delay (frequent updates) with very small color delta. creates a nice and smooth effect
velvet nexus
can you link me to your neopixel code again?
(it worked for me, on my feather stm32)
dusty citrus
haha I'm just laughing that you want it ;)
velvet nexus
don't get me wrong, it was ugly as hell, but working code is better than pretty code!
dusty citrus
velvet nexus
even the example neopixel code that comes with adafruits library does not work for me
dusty citrus
For SAMD21 and SAMD51 (but D21 especially) I had a working user interface in Forth to talk to the NeoPixel strand.
The whatchamacallit NeoTrellis M4 .. had that thing going pretty good, from the interactive Forth prompt.
velvet nexus
hmmm you unconditionally always use a delay between setting the colors and calling show
dusty citrus
I didn't do that much experimentation but it might actually be required for reliability. I don't remember.
I have a bitbanged APA102 driver somewhere that I suspect is faster than anything I could do with NeoPixels.
velvet nexus
hmmm i take that back, it isnt this code that worked, i think it was the forth runtime i flashed to the board
once i opened the serial connection to it, the neopixel lit up blue
but this code you just linked me to also doesnt light up my neopixel
i might just give up for now, this is frustrating
dusty citrus
I may have linked a different branch but I haven't made a commit recently since we talked about this before.
The code I have on my target operates the flashROM of the STM32F405 correctly.
The .bin I published, does not (it's an earlier version).
the neopixel code is probably identical in both versions.
velvet nexus
and youre just using regular arduino, using the Adafruit_NeoPixel library from the arduino library manager?
dusty citrus
yeah but heres the thing:
I made it as dim as it'll go. I did not allow for manufacturing tolerance at all.
So bump up the intensity some. Maybe as much as 15/255ths ;)
dusty citrus
I don't remember any problems.
Obviously it works.
I worked at this a lot when the STM arrived here in early November; so any problems I encountered I solved.
The code base (all branches) should be a reasonable record of good progress, if you look at all branches and commit timestamps.
Look at all the comments to the commits.
Maybe I did something I don't remember. ;)
I was under the impression that the neopixel code was very similar to my other repos' use of it.
It's reused code. ;)
I think this version hasn't been edited since the STM arrived here:
https://github.com/wa1tnr/ainsuForth-gen-exp-m4/blob/master/src/periph/neo_pixel.cpp
(once I realized I was using D8 on the STM32 I didn't bother to edit the comment that's now wrong when in the STM32 context ;)
That's looking old. Probably removed a lot of stuff.
I used a 'master pixel' concept to indicate NeoPixel zero in the array (the onboard NPX as distinct from a second, attached strip of 8 NPX's)
(I had a thermometer with a 8 RGB history to it, so I had nine neopixels total: one onboard and eight on a strip)
I can't believe I'm remembering all this haha
That looks a lot closer to the STM version.
commit b9c1febd6b024c55f384824997765cefcef516da
Author: wa1tnr <wa1tnr@users.noreply.github.com>
Date: Sun Nov 3 16:46:36 2019 +0000
That's the introduction of the neopixel code to this repo.
dusty citrus
https://github.com/wa1tnr/Cortex-Forth-STM32F4x/blob/spiflash-ab-/Cortex-Forth-STM/src/periph/neo_pixel.cpp
Within hours of introduction - branch spiflash-ab-
velvet nexus
oh hoh - i grabbed the latest Adafruit_NeoPixel from github, doing a diff against the version i have installed
and there is a big section in there for clock configuration between some macros:
#elif defined(ARDUINO_ARCH_STM32) || defined(ARDUINO_ARCH_ARDUINO_CORE_STM32)
so maybe it would help if i used the latest library code? 🙂
yeah, there's a lot of code in here for the STM32F405
ah yes, now it works, i feel a little silly
i wonder why the arduino library manager didnt tell me there were updates for that library?
velvet nexus
this runs noticeably faster than my GCM4, which is honestly a little surprising
but SPI and I2C both worked without modification, so i think i'll stick with this feather for the final build of this project
cant exactly tuck a grandcentral away under a touch screen, and i like the neopixel too much to move over to the teensy
dusty citrus
$ git show 88d30a69 | cat | sed 10q
commit 88d30a69c3ee0a5c97dd31e9fa96f2a6724e1ab0
Author: ladyada <limor@ladyada.net>
Date: Sun Oct 13 19:38:57 2019 -0400
fix stm32duino support
diff --git a/Adafruit_NeoPixel.cpp b/Adafruit_NeoPixel.cpp
And there you have it!
I'd clean up all that blathering I did (above) but I'm gheszausted.
velvet nexus
that's alright, only the FBI is keeping logs
just imagine this is IRC, there are no do-overs
next problem - it seems the interrupt handlers with CHANGE (rising+falling edge) detection are not working on here
only the falling edge interrupts work
dusty citrus
Good on you for saying about the lib not updated. That gave me a big piece of the puzzle. ;)
That binfile that made yours blue is literally the only binfile I've put into any repo I have. ;)
Now I see its value beyond the obvious.
Once you saw that blue you were never going to be the same again. ;)
It's in the binfile!
If I have anything at all it'd probably be in
https://github.com/wa1tnr/RotaryEncoder-Arduino-a
After reading Nick Gammon I realized I was doing it wrong.
(haven't implemented Gammon's corrections in any of my code yet)
fickle slate
for(byte mask = 0b10000000; mask; mask >>= 1)
^for looping a mask through all the bits
just thought that for() loop was cute
late fulcrum
I like it
hardy rock
Running Unix System 7 (c.1979) on an emulated PDP11/45 on my Linux PC is surprisingly not weird, but the C compiler has some interesting features. ```$ cat test.c
int idata[] {0, 511};
struct foo {
int x;
int y;
};
struct baz {
char z[4];
};
main()
{
int i idata;
printf("%d\n", i->y);
printf("%d\n", i->z[2]);
i =+ 1;
printf("%d\n", i->z[2]);
return 0;
}
$ cc -o test test.c
$ ./test
511
-1
1```
Among them: No '=' needed for variable initializers, can assign addresses to integers and use integers as pointers with no complaints.
No checking for whether a field name belongs to a structure referenced by a pointer, or even if the pointer ref's a struct. It's just a data type with an integer offset.
And backwards assignment operators (=+) are still honored.
Whenever I feel bad about a design decision I got wrong, I try to think about Dennis Ritchie blowing this one, not seeing the lexical ambiguities of =+, =-, and =&, and having to change the order and fix everything a few years later.
late fulcrum
Fun! I used to work on a LSI-11/23 so that emulator would be a fun step backwards in time for me
polar wraith
Yeah, I helped Dave Stevens write the TCP/IP stack for BSD 2.9 on a PDP-11/70. Those were the days, eh?
late fulcrum
Cool! I was writing a custom memory driver to talk to a Q-bus CAMAC crate adapter
I transitioned to BSD soon after
polar wraith
Nice! C has come a long way since the 70s. I still get to chat with Brian Kernighan on occasion, which is interesting. And I happen to have a copy of "Modern Compiler Design" sitting next top me. I was going to invent a new language because gcc pretty much has C and C++ covered. 🙂
late fulcrum
That's wonderful
hardy rock
@late fulcrum List of machines supported by SIMH includes:MicroVAX I, VAXStation I MicroVAX II, VAXStation II MicroVAX 3900 VAX 11/730 VAX 11/750 VAX 11/780 VAX 8600
late fulcrum
I should look in to that
hardy rock
Although apparently due to copyright issues VAX microcode can't be distributed along with the sim.
A VAX11/780 was the canonical fast superminicomputer in my early programming days, and I logged many hours on an 8650 as a working stiff.
@polar wraith I would have assumed the same, but then LLVM-slash-Clang came along so apparently there must have been room for another. 😁
lost condor
@dusty citrus Hah, thanks. But my tuba doesn't actually have any "fast" patterns either, they all take at least 2.5s per cycle. Not counting the glitter, but that's just sparkles. 😄
hardy rock
Aho & Ullman was the compiler design textbook when I was in college. The Bell Labs guys had Alfred Aho in-house to field any compiler questions they had, which would have been a considerable advantage over us mortals.
polar wraith
@hardy rock I liked the VAXEN. I was there at Purdue when we (more "they") built the first Dual-VAX running BSD 4.2 Reno. It's always handy to be able to go read the source....
I also had the "pleasure" of writing the Unibus to VMEbus adapter card driver so we could run VAX peripherals on a Sun 4/280. sigh That was a painful summer.
hardy rock
Lotta great work got done on them, including stuff at Berkeley that literally made it possible for us to be here chatting with each other right now.
dusty citrus
Haha I was brushing my knuckles on my lapel for simply having access to the local Uni's VAX, and self-teaching [rtfm] about it.
My friend with the access was a prof. there, and one day told me what I was doing with the account raised eyebrows, since his use pattern was so different.
So I had it for about two months.
ocean sigil
I spent a lot of time working with LSI 11/23s back in the 70s and 80s. The first ones had 8 inch floppy drives. We could not use a hard drive since we took them "to sea" on oceanographic research vessels and the hard drives could not withstand the vibration and shock of the ship pounding. When acquiring data we would have to "hot swap" the floppies since they only held 100K or so of data. Good times!
dusty citrus
Rofl 100k. ;) The Wang PC we had at work probably used them.
(Still a great word processor - wonder if it was ever ported. SPFPC was another great text editor.
allowed you to shift text left and right, easily. That was really nice for two column work iirc. Mainframe oriented; the SPFPC version came on a diskette for IBM PC oriented machines.
errant atlas
When I was a freshman in high school (1990), my first computer class was taught using two MicroVAX computers. The school Mascot was a Spartan, so they were called "Sparta" and "Athens". My account was on "Sparta". My girlfriend was taking a computer class in a room full of monochrome Mac's. I was a little jealous of the fact that her computer had games.
jagged siren
Had VAXes and Alphas here in the 80s and 90s (probably up sometime into the 2000s), but all the central ones ran VMS, not anything Unix-like.
sick adder
Having a problem with https://www.adafruit.com/product/2130 -- when I adjust the volume potentiometer with a short metal screwdriver blade, I hear AM talk radio faintly on the speaker. Worse, it was a "news" program discussing US politics.
late fulcrum
Most circuitry can rectify ambient RF. A small (few dozen pf) capacitor, judiciously placed, can help
sick adder
This is what I think I intend it to look like .. I wonder what will come back in the mail...
ooh my last boards shipped out and should be here friday!
polar wraith
Just a note: these Mini-PiTFT displays are really nice! If you use a Pi 3 in a Raspberry Pi Foundation case, it won't fit. And if you have a tall heatsink, it'll short out. You can fix both problems by adding a tall Pi header.
lilac tangle
Yeah, that's what I do with the normal PiTFT displays on the RPi 4 so I can use the Pimoroni Fan Shim
late fulcrum
Back at the end of October, @dusty citrus was discussing the support of utility pole crossbeams, wondering why the beam doesn't split where it's attached to the pole. While I still don't have an answer, I saw this lashup in Arizona showing that the diagonal straps are apparently (and reasonably) used in tension, not compression.
dusty citrus
@late fulcrum Dominion (power company) put out a video I saw recently and he just barely mentions the crossarms. Had two (very short) telephone poles mounted on a flat bed truck, with all the fixin's and 7kv to sport. ;)
idle iron
I need some of those "They Live" sunglasses today.
polar wraith
Guess what I'm working on! Hint: it's not the Raspberry Pi or the Feathers that are showing the temperature and pressure at my desk.
grave crest
Are you using extenders on your RPI pins, @polar wraith ?
polar wraith
@grave crest Yes, extra tall headers, so the pins actually protrude a good distance above the case. Things just don't fit otherwise. Also, kinda interesting, but I have a Raspberry Pi 3 with heat sinks and a Mini-PiTFT, and a Raspberry Pi 4 with smaller heat sinks, but in a case with a fan pulling air directly over said heat sinks. The CPU temp on the Pi 3 that's convectively cooled is currently 54 C, and the Pi 4 is currently 39 C.
late fulcrum
For retrocomputing fans (hi, @dusty citrus ), BGMicro is offering an 1802 kit (CPU, RAM, PROM, sockets, crystal, and power supply) for $10 http://www.bgmicro.com/9Z1510.aspx
dusty citrus
But how can i put the computer together
vital harness
:3 If you liked playing this on the Arduboy, please check out the Steam version, which is currently 50% off! 😄
dusty citrus
subhanallah
hardy rock
Wow!: "It is currently being manufactured by Intersil Corporation" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RCA_1802
I had a chance to play with an 1802 trainer system in 1978 but was quite baffled by it. The next year I read a decent book on 6502 ASM programming and managed to fetch myself up from there but I never got back to the 1802.
late fulcrum
The 1802 is an odd beast. It's amazingly register rich for an early CPU, with 16 16-bit registers, any of which can be used as the program counter or index register.
hardy rock
Is anyone getting one of those kits? I don't want to take on yet another isolate-myself-from-the-rest-of-humanity project but I would do this one if it was some sort of a group thing.
hardy rock
Or these, DSP56002s for 40 cents each... Whoa! https://www.bgmicro.com/ICS1062.aspx
late fulcrum
I'm already breadboarding an 1802, but I grabbed one of the kits as well 🙂
polar wraith
<grumble> I need another ADS1115. I just looked in "the box" and I didn't see one. I can't believe I only have one. Now. Where are the others?
late fulcrum
"She's straightened up, and I can't find anything! All my tubes and wires!"
hardy rock
echo agate
I've got that LP! Solid stuff
hardy rock
My copy is the 1982 edition, which doesn't include "She Blinded Me with Science." Still a very good album though. I'm also a fan of the next one, The Flat Earth, which got much less attention.
sick adder
I really kinda want this calicat printed as big as my printer can go..
polar wraith
(There's a bird outside my balcony who's chirp sounds exactly like the drones in Oblivion. Kinda freaked me out for a second.)
polar wraith
(Observation: waking up and catching up with Discord is like dealing with > 8,000 messages in inbox. "If it's older than a year, archive it.")
umbral phoenix
This is an awesome little 240x135 display: https://www.adafruit.com/product/4383 I'd love to see it on a FeatherWing (would actually be a little surprised if it's not in development), even a BitsyWing. Like the OLED or MiniTFT with Joystick wings... display plus some buttons or other doo-dads.
polar wraith
Pretty quiet in this here server today. I might need to start some shenanigans. 🙂
acoustic flax
Has anyone played with a Turing Tumble? I've only just heard about them. It was a kickstarter project that turned into a product: https://www.turingtumble.com/
polar wraith
Heh. There's a discussion in #general-tech about Raspberry Pi and Arduino memory sizes. And then I think back to the last time I was at The Lab (Lawrence Livermore) a few years ago, and got pulled into an engineering meeting to decide if we could safely increase the supercomputer's page size from 18 to 19 petabytes. Pis to near-exascale-supercomputers. Quite the difference....
dusty citrus
There's a few thousand things that could be called a life preserver - I think they wasted the term on a float vest. ;)
late fulcrum
Another treat for retro CPU fans that like to run 8-bit CPUs with an Arduino: there are RetroShields available for Z80, 6502, 1802, etc: https://www.tindie.com/stores/8bitforce/
hardy rock
Listening to John Mayer sing "if only my life was more like 1983" in a song recorded in 2001 while I'm creating files with 1988 timestamps using Unix System 7 running on an emulated PDP11 via SIMH emulation software which mostly dates from the mid 1990s. Talk about retro...
dusty citrus
What if I wrote a big test essay in Shakespearean?
Like, any Texans here will know the STAAR test or something
Where we must write an essay on some prompt
But I wonder if Shakespearean is “real english”. Funny question
polar wraith
"Shakespearean"? Do you mean "as a script for a play," or "as a series of sonnets?" I'd favor the sonnet personally (14 line sonnets, with three quatrains of four lines each, plus two lines of resolution.) Also, I like the abab cdcd efef gg rhyme scheme. IMHO it's "real English" unless you do it in Olde English a la Spencer. 🙂
(Also, there was a US Supreme Court dissenting opinion that was written completely in Iambic Pentameter. Hysterically funny.)
dusty citrus
Account of a very remarkable young musician.
[Mozart]
In a letter from the Honourable Daines Barrington, F.R.S.
to Mathew Maty, M.D.
November 28, 1769
Also:
May 30, 1667 (of March 6, 1664)
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/toc/rstl/1665/1/1
🔸
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rstl.1665.0002
dusty citrus
So, apparently, C.H. Ting's eForth for STM32F407 Discovery board (runs fine on the new Adafruit Feather) .. allows you to modify the stored code in the flash, from within the REPL context.
Since the kernel is so small (8kb) this is easy to do.
I think the way it works is that the entire thing is held in volatile RAM. You erase a sector of (on-chip) flashROM, 'underneath' the running kernel.
Then rewrite the kernel back to the flash, with the new dictionary definitions you've typed in, during the interim.
Next cold boot, your new definitions are now part of the Forth dictionary 'permanently'.
Looks like he's provided a means to rewrite the flash with the original dictionary, if something goes wrong.
(and you can always re-image the flash with dfu-util though that isn't part of the above development cycle).
I was previously under the impression that this wasn't possible on these Cortex M4 chips.
0 ERASE_SECTOR ok
TURNKEY ok
@dusty citrus eForth. Wow. I learned that around '91 so I could write raw PostScript programs and just pipe them directly into the LaserJets. I should put that on a board just to play with it again!!!
polar wraith
I know a lot of people will be out of position this week, if not already, so I just wanted to say Happy Holidays!!! I hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable time.
hardy rock
Seconding @polar wraith. Also to add: This can be a rough time too for a lot of people, whether because they're away from their loved ones or else their loved ones are as screwy as a lot of ours are and they can't get away from them. If you aren't feeling so merry, keep in mind that you aren't the only one and it'll be over pretty soon, and there are folks who'd love to help if you reach out.
late oracle
Anyone know of a good maker-ish bootcamp in Los Angeles early-mid Jan?
Anything Python, C, C++, Max/MSP, Max for Live, Puredata, Ableton for multimedia, Resolume, Touch Designer, general projection mapping, robotics, animatronics, LED programming, wearable/gestural tech, laser cutting, CNC, SLS printing, any CAD, welding, microcontroller based IoT, microcontroller based midi, anything vaguely like any of these
Also open to online courses but only if they’re really dope and actually hold people accountable. Potentially down to travel to the Bay Area or Portland
polar wraith
@late oracle @swift hatch Might be able to help you here! I'm not familiar with the LA scene, but he probably is.
dusty citrus
@polar wraith > out of position .. that's great ;)
@hardy rock If you aren't feeling so merry, keep in mind that you aren't the only one and it'll be over pretty soon
First on-screen reading of the day, I saw this as I'll be over pretty soon haha
dusty citrus
@hardy rock Yeah, when I was a lot younger, there was plenty that happened this time of year not much to my liking.
I sometimes forget how much I've 'integrated' the past to the point where I do enjoy what I can about these holiday events. Even some of the (past) bad actors are not a problem at all, when encountered.
Just forgetting (truly, and organically) helps. :)
polar wraith
@dusty citrus and @hardy rock I'm fortunate in that my memories of Christmas/New Year's are pretty universally good. Much of the rest of growing up, not so much....
hardy rock
@dusty citrus @polar wraith Hope this year is just as jolly for both of you! And no, I won't be over soon myself. 😄 But I've seen posts of crisis hotline numbers on other services over the past day or two and heard about statistics for mental and emotional issues this time of year. Not intending to drag things down, but I can see how not wanting to spoil the holiday fun could add to the trouble for someone who's going through a tough patch.
dusty citrus
So I have my assembler going, using all open source, for STM32F405.
Working blinky; I can now modify the code and verify it doesn't entirely not work. ;)
It's about 76 bytes to upload to the target.@hardy rock
I think that now counts as bare metal. I'm pressed to think of something even more primitive. ;)
(async dfu-util stand-in and a morse code key? haha)
hardy rock
Way to go, @dusty citrus. That sounds like a big step to get past. As far as more bare metal goes, I don't know where it stands but I've done a no-code blinky on a SAMD21, where a timer device generates an event that toggles the GPIO, with the CPU totally out of the picture. I haven't done enough STM32 to know if that's possible (more than a couple Nuclei and Blue Pills at hand so that's not the issue!) but it was a good exercise to learn more about on-chip devices.
dusty citrus
What are you guys up to?
hardy rock
@dusty citrus Ian Bogost just posted a quote from his book Play Anything on Twitter that included this: "This example might seem foolish or even pompous. We’ve trained ourselves to see commitments as affectations, and only to pursue a commitment ironically so that we can cast it aside if fear overtakes us. But foolishness signals that you’re on the right track. Fun comes from the attention and care you bring to something that imposes arbitrary, often boring, even cruel limitations on what you--or anyone--can do with them. Worldly limitations impose a new and welcome humility, for they force us to treat things as they are rather than as we wish them to be."
He was writing about trying to perfect the process of making espresso but I think it captures the thing that makes us want to do this only using that.
@dusty citrus Drinking coffee, catching up on several hours of Discord messages, deciding what to hack on next... What are you up to?
hardy rock
Yeah, probably not much arriving tomorrow unless a friend or relative gives it to you as a gift! A new robot kit sounds great. Have fun with it. What kind of robot will you be making?
dusty citrus
Its a obstical avoidance robot
But i want to modify it
So it would have a camera and a simple radar
proven olive
Well. "Simple" and "Radar" generally don't go in the same sentence.
Probably the closest you'll get to an actual radar on a robot is going to be this thing: https://www.adafruit.com/product/4010
hardy rock
But sonar is simple and cheap https://www.adafruit.com/product/3942
dusty citrus
@hardy rock That was a good quote.
It only took me four or five uses of an obscure application to generate enough crypto to login here .. four times .. back and forth with the email (also a crypto solution required on the spot -- I'm visiting family away from me resources) .. to login here to see this. :)
looks around for something to steal, to make all that Fort Knox worth it
hardy rock
@dusty citrus Glad you were able to MacGyver your way into joining us this evening. 😄 Speaking of making do with limited resources...
dusty citrus
stone knives and bear claws /spock
late fulcrum
Ben Eater's next breadboard computer video is up! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY3zTUaykVo
dusty citrus
But im really having difficulty with the ultra sonic sensor mounting
late fulcrum
Creativity is very useful in robot building
dusty citrus
@hardy rock That was a chaotic visit, to be sure. ;)
robot nailed me for spelling out PKD to cite A Scanner Darkly ;)
dusty citrus
i dont know why but my arduino that came with the robot is not being detected
late fulcrum
Could be it has a different serial chip and needs a driver for it?
fervent rain
You guys have any ideas as far sourcing old (unused / not working) electronics type parts for cheap (or free)? I want to recycle the parts in my art projects.
At the moment I've been buying LOTs on eBay. FYI I'm located in UK.
Heres some examples of items I've picked up so far
Also... One of the challenges will be to fixing some of these items together somehow. The will all have different types of material.
I dont think super glue or solder will hold up. My plan B is to use rope lol
dusty citrus
I guess around here it's called "Goodwill" and is a type of salvage store that functions through donations.
Generally though that stuff is priced not for scrap but for reuse purposes.
fervent rain
Totally forgot theres one of those sort of ships locally. I'll def have to visit and see if they have anything
dusty citrus
I'm told the posh regions have a retail store at the 'dump' (refuse collection yard where they bury what they cannot truck away to be burned to produce energy).
Around here 'tag sales' can yeild random items that might include electronics cast-offs.
A tag sale is basically: you put your stuff outside your home on tables, and put up a sign that says TAG SALE and people going past stop and browse your items (almost all of which has no marked price).
fervent rain
Ahh I see, in the UK we call those boot sales, that's a good call too. I'm sure people will be throwing stuff out this time of year too
Maybe if I do manage to sell stuff I can give discounts for those that send in old items too
dusty citrus
It seems strange to ship 'value-less' items anywhere. ;)
We're a cast-off society. I don't know the impacts on the future. I suspect they're not all that encouraging.
We don't fix (repair) anything, anymore. That's just wrong.
`s/anything/most anything
late fulcrum
Woo! Strobes!
fervent rain
@dusty citrus basically my idea is to turn these parts into Kitbash robot parts. I will use my art skills to transform regular objects into fantasy / cyberpunk objects.
I will also create a community website for people to DIY their own and sell / trade
dusty citrus
@fervent rain That sounds like a great project.
People need visualizations (I do, certainly).
I had a friend who did some similar art (a bit more firm than canvas, but same geometry as that) with three dimensional objects affixed, using paint in between the 3D elements.
They were mostly tech objects from his sphere (also a programmer).
There was another guy - a coffee shop fixture, long ago .. who decided to take a blowtorch to some kind of .. goo, paste .. and raise textures in it.
He then applied colors to the results, and encased in an acrylic resin pouring.
I kept a napkin drawing he did for me while we were talking, for many years, as a keepsake. ;)
▪️
fervent rain
yeah here's a bunch of other concepts, I realised retro cameras, wires, components, etc could turn my concepts into a reality
https://www.behance.net/gallery/41674807/Atoms4D-Scifi-Concept-Art-Molekskine-Calligraphy-Art
dusty citrus
To the thread on 6502 and Z80 (I don't see it in the scrollback):
https://github.com/jedie/DragonPy/blob/master/dragonpy/sbc09/sbc09.creole
@late fulcrum @hardy rock @polar wraith @proven olive
I'm very interested in simulating the look and feel of period microprocessors such as the Altair, using modern chippery. ;)
I want to throw those toggle switches on the front panel (probably in octal) to load the bootstrap program for the (simulated) period micro. ;)
(probably just for a week, then put it away to gather dust, haha)
@fervent rain I've seen a lot of great projects people have built, then set aside, too nice to just destroy or be rid of, but of no permanent interest to them (they had moved on).
🔸
After a decade or three, their personal collection amounts to a self-museum. ;)
(Sometimes we get to see this stuff at ham radio flea markets, but often only when they've gone 'silent key') (morte)
The clubs that put on the flea markets do ask for donations of unwanted gear.
Maybe they get stuff they don't know what to do with, and have run out of room to warehouse the odd donations that don't fit into their method.
I once got like 9 IBM Model M keyboards given to me because of a similar problem.
I literally needed to borrow a shopping cart to haul it out of their automobile and into my building. ;)
hardy rock
@dusty citrus I've got a 6809 SBC on a shelf in my bedroom!
dusty citrus
Dust that thing off, Tim!
Demo it at the public library for the under age 40 crowd.
hardy rock
And I agree about the front-panel experience with leds and toggle switches.
dusty citrus
This was us a few years ago:
https://www.eastnetpacket.org/images/Eastnet06-17.jpg
(that's a home style server which is why it's so slow to load)
hardy rock
A CDP1802 retro project appeals to me because I feel like I've got some unfinished business with that device. (Also very cool that they're still in production.) But part I'd like to focus on would be the I/O or monitor or whatever that might be.
dusty citrus
I'm also (of course) open to running on real hardware, but I'm not above an emulation.
hardy rock
Yes, like many club meetings I've attended, not much participation from the under-40 demog.
dusty citrus
That guy in the green shirt at the podium in the photo - I think that was his presentation - how to interest younger people in ham radio.
(the meeting was ostensibly AX.25 - centric ;) e.g. tapr.org
hardy rock
I dipped a toe in ham radio in the mid '80s and that was a current topic at that time.
dusty citrus
In 1989 (peak interest for me) I had a packet station going 24/7.
hardy rock
Actually both of those were, packet and how to interest younger folks.
dusty citrus
I was in a good spot and had a 'ringo ranger ii' antenna, and operated simplex (no repeater).
Right now same frequencies are almost devoid of signals.
Back then it was braaaap .. braaaap all day long, and some in the middle of the night, too.
🛩️
(The 2 meter signals were usually generated using standard 2-way radios, handhelds or mobiles, narrowband FM designed around voice telephony standards)
From what I understand almost all the manufacturers of TNC devices stopped production some time ago; and 'nobody' uses packet.
Which means: if you did use it, you'd have essentially free reign on the agreed-upon frequencies for this use case. ;)
145.01 .03 .05 .07 and .09 (megahertz) were common, in Connecticut.
There's a separate (and, I think, single) frequency for TCP/IP.
The above was for AX.25 only (but I think encapsulation was okay for other uses; don't remember).
hardy rock
There was a lot to learn and stuff to buy that wasn't exactly cheap. I guess computers and guitars and bicycles had a stronger pull, and still do tbh.
dusty citrus
haha I have um .. eight bicycles.
Three are essentially folding bicycle geometry with 20" (ISO 406) wheels.
hardy rock
I've ridden my bicycles a lot less since I learned to unicycle though.
dusty citrus
One of those three is permanent geometry (doesn't actually fold) and is a .. um .. mini velo (had to stop and think of what they are called)
hardy rock
Are they a familiar brand?
dusty citrus
I took a bus trip at o'dark thirty in the morning, in February, a few years ago.
There was a Dahon folder on Craigslist that hadn't sold, and the telephone number was in an exchange I recognized.
So I went to Hartford (from Torrington) on the off chance I could catch the owner before they left for work in the morning.
It was an odd 50 degree day in February.
Made the deal happen (from Union Station, by telephone) and rode that bike all over Hartford for the rest of the day.
Half price from new; obviously ridden 20 miles or less from brand new. ;)