Coder by profession, electronics tinkerer as hobby. Been back in .SE for too long now after working&living in .AE, .MY & .TH for 12 years. :sadface:
Stockholm, Sweden
Joined April 2007
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This is from the operators guide from one of the earliest arcade games - Gran Trak 10 - made in 1974. It seems like even back then in ancient times people were trying to cheat the system and get free plays by electronic means.
I bought some 2Mbyte parallell static rams from ebay for less than $3 each (Digikey $18) fully expecting fakes. But all are within specs for access times & standby current (at 3.3v 25C - so not fully qualified). They are top-polished and remarked though. Good enough for me 😁 – at Norrtälje, Sverige
[thread] I had planned to use my DE-10 FPGA trainer to make this, but realised that I can get 3 ns resolution for my SRAM tester using a cheap and easy RP2350 instead. It tests with fixed patterns, walking bits and LFSRs. And then runs speed tests three different ways.
This 55ns 16Mbit SRAM responds in 27ns from assertion of /OE. 33 ns from assertion of /CE and 39ns when the address bits are changed. So now I can verify cheap probably counterfeit RAMs I get from Ali before putting them into my boards.
I've been keeping my eyes open for the most unloved Intel x86 CPU and just found a pack of 5 ES80C188EB20 for $10. They're basically an 8088 that does DC-20MHz with integrated peripherals like a UART, DMA, PIC, and memory decodes. A DOS machine will be hard but maybe CP/M-86?
I've never seen a resistor symbol like this. If it was a capacitor I could have guessed that the extra bar denoted the outer-foil pin, but now I'm at a loss. It looks very KiCad but I can't find the symbol there - so is it just a custom symbol for fun?
Ideas please? I got 209 pcs of AM27C128 (16K*8 PROMs) for almost free. I can direct drive 40x40 LEDs at 25pfs for 10 minutes. Or make a DES (or DES3) flow-through crypter. But meh... Is there anything more exiting and fun to do? – at Norrtälje, Sverige
I recently picked up a few old computing books for my retro-bookshelf. Whenever I find any interesting reference books with mostly timeless usage I can't help myself from getting them, especially when they're just a few euros each. :nerd: – at Norrtälje, Sverige
I got some old 68xx stuff. A 6800 CPU from 1975, and two PIOs from 1976 - they are XC (engineering samples) apparently the same as the great Woz used for the Apple-1. Now I just have to decide a worthy project for them... Maybe a SWTPC clone. – at Norrtälje, Sverige
This makes an old greybeard like me all warm and fuzzy inside, reminiscing about happier and simpler days in the very early era of computer communications. Bang paths were cool and very direct.
This is a bit annoying. I picked up a Komplete Kontrol M32 midi controller for cheap with 2 missing encoder knobs. I thought I could just replace them all with new ones. But they are conductive to allow touch as well as rotation. So I need to find right-sized all-metal ones. – at Sweden
My UNIX V7 port to MMU-less 68000 is coming along nicely. I can now boot into single user mode, then exit out into multiuser to enable more terminals. And then I've ported a 68K C compiler so I can self-compile code inside the UNIX. #HELLORD
After using Unix and Linux for 30 years I just realised that "tar" is actually "Tape ARchive" and not just a metafor for glueing a number of files into a blob with the sticky substance tar. ;-) I probably knew this instinctively already, but never actually thought about it.
ALT A "tarball"
Yes! I Finally got hold of HERO for the Atari 2600 console. My collection of ~150 carts feels much more complete with it 😁. I'm excited to play it since it's said to be one of the better old original games. Many of the new homebrew games runs rings around this though ;-) – at Sweden
My Gmail was at >95% capacity (19GB) so I spent a while purging mails. But I saved the first mail I got there - apparently this was only 3 months after the closed beta started so I must have gotten an invite to register. I can't really recall that, but it was 22 years ago...
Just for fun I'm porting the original 1979 UNIX V7 (PDP-11) to run on a 68000. I've gotten so far that I can from the console start the first UNIX boot loader that pulls in the fake-kernel and run it. Pre-K&R C syntax and endianness problems makes it a bit extra challenging ;-)
