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@irdc@derp.foo
- Comment on Microsoft sets 16GB default for RAM for AI PCs – machines will also need 40 TOPS of AI compute: Report 9 months ago:
Ah good. Now I know what specs not to buy.
- Comment on Microsoft is adding a new key to PC keyboards for the first time since 1994 10 months ago:
Sadly Microsoft didn’t specify where on the keyboard the key has to be.
In order to find out, hit the keyboard with your head; wherever your forehead touches the keyboard first is where the key is supposed to be.
- Comment on Work placement rewards om 2044 10 months ago:
I like how the reader is supposed to be familiar enough with the scream box that it doesn’t require any extra explanation.
- Comment on What's your solder of choice? 10 months ago:
I have a similar-sized roll of 0.5mm Felder Sn100Ni+ with their ultra clear flux. Love the shinyness.
Indeed, don’t skimp on solder, especially when soldering lead-free.
- Comment on Why a kilobyte is 1000 and not 1024 bytes 10 months ago:
Yeah, I deserve that. I’m just gonna leave my typo. Thanks for the laugh!
- Comment on Why a kilobyte is 1000 and not 1024 bytes 10 months ago:
1024 = 2^10^
FYFY
- Comment on Welcome to the wonderful world of code obfuscation 11 months ago:
weekend = day_of_week in (“sat”, “sun”) - Comment on [deleted] 1 year ago:
This article is such a mess that I hope it was written by AI, otherwise I’d be worried about the author having a stroke right in the middle of it
- Comment on Hobbyte 1 year ago:
Yeah, hobbit-serial architectures lack performance.
- Comment on Hobbyte 1 year ago:
So the Fellowship of the Ring was made up of an elf, a dwarf, a human, a maiar and one hobnibble?
- Comment on The 8-bit Guy - My Dream Computer is Finally on Sale! (Commander X16 update) 1 year ago:
A non-recursive recursive descent parser isn’t any easier to reason about.
- Comment on The 8-bit Guy - My Dream Computer is Finally on Sale! (Commander X16 update) 1 year ago:
I had been thinking about doing something akin to the X16 but more modern, but realised that the main challenge with launching a product like this lies not in doing the design, but in coordinating all the people that are involved in producing the hardware, software and documentation (and hype, don’t forget hype). And you’ve gotta hand it to David Murray (the 8-bit guy): he’s knows how to do this, and has demonstrated this before with Planet X3.
- Comment on The 8-bit Guy - My Dream Computer is Finally on Sale! (Commander X16 update) 1 year ago:
It’s weird in the sense that software development has moved in other directions. A tagged-architecture stack machine like the Burroughs Large System is weird as well, even though it’s been highly successful and very influential on later designs (eg. Forth, SmallTalk).
- Comment on The 8-bit Guy - My Dream Computer is Finally on Sale! (Commander X16 update) 1 year ago:
Exactly. Something in the spirit of an Amiga 500 (I never had one, so this is not nostalgia speaking) is much more suitable to beginning programmers. Something with a flat address space, an easily memorisable instruction set and rich collection of hardware (blitter, DMA controller, sound generator) to play with. And something that has modern interfaces (HDMI & USB) so the not-so-well-equipped hacker-in-training can also jump in right away.
The Commander X16 isn’t it.
- Comment on The 8-bit Guy - My Dream Computer is Finally on Sale! (Commander X16 update) 1 year ago:
There’s plenty of choices. If you want that retro vibe go for a 68k, if you want something neat but obscure (and are willing to use an FPGA) choose the pdp-11, if you want to go with the flow then use risc-v.
But please something that’s not actively fighting modern (that is, not 1970’s) programming techniques.
- Comment on The 8-bit Guy - My Dream Computer is Finally on Sale! (Commander X16 update) 1 year ago:
People would learn bad habits.
For example, due to parameter passing often being done via the zero page, recursion is unnecessarily hard on the 6502, whereas one could argue that recursion is one of the major skills to master for any programmer.
- Comment on The 8-bit Guy - My Dream Computer is Finally on Sale! (Commander X16 update) 1 year ago:
The 6502 was weird back in the day as well, just weird in an ubiquitous way. It’s registers are too small, it’s stack is too small, it’s address space is too small. Argument passing often had to be done using the zero page, and since none of its registers can hold its entire address space it requires hacks to implement such obscurities as C-style pointers. No current ABI can trace its origin to the 6502 (not even ARM).
Sure, back in the day the alternatives at the price point were worse, but that doesn’t make the 6502 good.
If you want a good CPU design with a 16-bit address space, take a look at the PDP-11.
- Comment on The 8-bit Guy - My Dream Computer is Finally on Sale! (Commander X16 update) 1 year ago:
Though I really like the concept of building a new device which incorporates the inherent ease of programmability of the computers of yore, I think the 6502 is just too weird and limited for doing so. For example, in order to cram a halfway decent amount of memory into the thing they had to resort to bank switching. At the least they should’ve gone with a 65816 (apparently they tried but they initially had some problems with the '816 address bus multiplexing).
- Comment on Siglent SDS1104XE: slanted square wave 1 year ago:
Kinda looks like an impedance mismatch.
- Comment on Calibrating vintage multimeter 1 year ago:
Secondly at least AC alternates, giving your muscles a break and possibly a chance to let go of the wire, DC isn’t that forgiving.
Interesting. Your comment made me read up on all of this. Note that, since V<sub>rms</sub> = 1 ÷ √2 × V<sub>peak</sub>, 230VAC has a V<sub>peak</sub> of 325V, so in that respect, it should be pretty much equivalent to 300VDC. I figured that the ability for AC to induce heart fibrillations was the most dangerous factor in all of this, but I hadn’t figured in that DC induces tetanus and can also temporarily stop the heart.
It’s not the volts that kill you though, it’s the amps (the volts just make it easier). I found a table listing the effects of various amperages. It does present DC as generally more safe when compared against 60Hz AC, but I’m not sure how that generalises to the 50Hz AC we have here. I do conclude however that I should be limiting the output current to something something generally safe, like 20mA (which should be fine for a voltage reference). I’m thinking a PTC at the input and being conservative wrt capacitor sizing should do it.
Some of my co-students in university made an EKG apparatus. Our lecturer demanded that anything connected to the electrodes was to be powered by a single battery.
TBH, when it comes to an EKG apparatus I’d also be worried about common mode across the chest, or the power supply having a disastrous failure mode.
I prefer my Sn60Pb40 (…) The first couple of lead free solder brands I got just didn’t flow right.
Yeah, those were horrid. Even the supposedly excellent SAC305 gave me dull joints (tough it flowed adequately). Still, I can only recommend Sn100Ni+ (supposedly closely related to SN100C): flows well and gives me the shiny joints I crave. Having a good soldering iron (I’m using a Pinecil) helps with solderability.
I do however still have some rosin core Sn60Pb40 for reworking vintage electronics. And I do agree that it’s just better when it comes to wetting ability. The peace of mind when working with lead-free solder really is worth it though, especially with pets or small children.
- Comment on Calibrating vintage multimeter 1 year ago:
my anxiety level is exponentially correlated to the working DC voltage and at 300VDC I’m definitely well in the thick rubbergloves territory.
Having been walloped by 230VAC, which is far more dangerous, I’m not too worried.
Looking at the schematic you linked above, the amperage is going to be low, which is reassuring. As a safety measure, I’m looking into running the thing off of a battery, so that if the worst comes to pass it simply won’t have the power to be dangerous (1A at 12V translates to a mere 40mA at 300V).
I’d be far more worried about using lead solder TBH (love my Sn100Ni+).
- Comment on Calibrating vintage multimeter 1 year ago:
have you contacted a calibration lab? (…) There’s one in the Netherlands www.minerva-calibration.com/calibration-service/
Their pricing for calibrating a device starts at around €400, which is rather more than I paid for this thing and way cheaper than building my own calibrator
(…) I have found an article explaining the build of the sources you need
Thank you! Not having to invent everything from scratch is going to make this a lot easier.
- Comment on Calibrating vintage multimeter 1 year ago:
The device is supposedly a 6½ digit DMM yet I currently don’t even trust the first few digits when comparing it to a 3½ digit handheld Brymen DMM. Being reasonably sure that it’s at least more accurate than the Brymen would be nice, so 3½ digits.
I’ve got another desktop DMM, a 5½ digit GW Instek GDM-8255A, on the way, so I could conceivably just use that one as my local “standard” to calibrate against.
The problem however is that the Philips requires a large amount of references to calibrate against (just calibrating DC voltage requires 0V, 3V, 30V and 300V references). Building all references to recalibrate the whole thing would be rather involved, so I was trying to find an easier way.
- Submitted 1 year ago to askelectronics@discuss.tchncs.de | 8 comments
- Comment on Inside Intel's Chip Factory, I Saw the Future. It's Plain Old Glass 1 year ago:
Seeing as they melt the stuff, I’m not sure the grains need to be rounded.
- Comment on Inside Intel's Chip Factory, I Saw the Future. It's Plain Old Glass 1 year ago:
The problem for chipmakers is not the sourcing of materials itself, but the purity of the sourced material. So don’t worry about public beaches disappearing into Intel’s hopper-feeder.
- Comment on Painting Apple hardware - what colour? 1 year ago:
Thank you, that is indeed helpful.
I’ve found a local supplier that can mix Sikkens ON.00.78 for me, which looks to be close to that colour. I’ve been lightbrighting the plastic for a few days to see how that works out and consider my options.
'll keep you posted.
- Comment on Painting Apple hardware - what colour? 1 year ago:
I know. Sadly, there had been a (by now degraded) sticker on top of the monitor which left a clearly visible discolouration that I believe requires a fairly aggressive retrobright to get rid of, which I’m afraid might damage the plastics.
- Comment on Painting Apple hardware - what colour? 1 year ago:
I understood that to be the “Putty” colour of the Apple ][, not the “Platinum” colour Apple was supposedly using at this stage.
- Submitted 1 year ago to retrocomputing@lemmy.sdf.org | 7 comments