@distraction.engineer
Engineer of Distractions; Pro/Indie Game Dev (1999+); IGF Finalist (2009); Retro, DIY, C64 nerd; AKA PoV, PoVRAZOR, VA3POV 🐖📻; a them; 🍁 Caretaker/co-creator of the @ludumdare.com online game jam; @facade.music Empathy is punk! Trans rights! 🏳️⚧️💜🤘
I have a much greater appreciation for network ping now: Every packet you send is at the mercy of every chip and magnetic field separating you and who you're talking to. NTP exists only to sync your "time of day" clocks, not the 125 MHz reference clocks of every Ethernet adapter inbetween. 🥲
Of course, crystals themselves aren't perfect. This is why you still sometimes want access to an atomic clock (or an upstream like GPS): to "factory calibrate" your crystals. That said, a crystal can drift based on temperature, so you may want a temperature probe on your PCB too.
Wow. Pedantic. 🤓
Ahhhh! I hadn't realized internal clocks on microcontrollers need calibration! This is why the CH32Vxxx chips still support "more power hungry" external crystals: for calibration!
Therefore, the reason the CH592 omits an internal high frequency clock is because high speed USB & Bluetooth are picky.
I really don't like how the WCH HAL is set up in Zephyr OS, but I think I'm ready to concede. It could be made to generate much better code, but my pedantic efforts needed to improve the core are better spent elsewhere.
So yeah, I'll "make it work like the other ones" so I can start my project. 🤷
Panel 1: Shen is keeled over a chess board in his chair at the park, sweating and gritting his teeth. He thinks "NO! I'M GONNA LOSE!! I'M... FALLING INTO DESPAIR..." Panel 2: It shows the chess board, with Shen's clenched fist on it. Shen is playing the white pieces, and his king is on H1 somehow behind 2 rows of 4 pawns. The black king is on B7 and the black queen on D8 threatens checkmate. Panel 3: A bishop comes in from off the board and takes out the black queen. Panel 4: Overly realistic depicting of Shen dramatically beginning to look over his shoulder, into the light. Panel 5: There's a person diagonal from him behind him with a chess board with just the white pieces set up. He has a confident smile. Sunbeams come down behind him and the wind blows the grass gently. Panel 6: Closeup of that person giving a thumbs up as the beginning of the song "Rap is a Man's Soul!" from Gurren Lagann begins to come on, with the lyrics "do the impossible, see the invisible..." The sun is producing a glare reflection off of his thumb somehow. He had moved his D2 pawn forward to D3 to line up the bishop.
Also hey look, Circle!
I hadn't noticed Mini Dexed was based on this "bare-metal" Raspberry Pi framework, but in hindsight it makes sense.
*cough* I'm slightly disappointed Circle isn't more of a HAL, but I'm biased Zephyr OS brained right now, so meh. 😅
This DAC module was recommended by the Yamaha DX7 on a Raspberry Pi project. I keep thinking I need to add an amplifier for headphone out, though SBCs like the Raspberry Pi do have a "meh" headphone jack available. Still, it would be nice to have a builtin AMP suitable for pro/audiophile headphones.
Oops! I mistook I2S for I2C... which was a concern as I was worried it would flood the I2C bus or be susceptible to occasional pops if interrupted by other devices. 🤦
No longer a problem tho. 😅
This PCM5102 module excites me (DAC with 112dB SNR), though I do wish it had a hole to screw it down. 🤷
Keep the dead-naming fuck Carmack out of this. 🤬
Ya, which is how I see the NPUs as useful for this. I also see it as something small enough to be trained in real-time either "from zero" or from a very light pre-train (i.e. if moving forward, the room I'm in is familiar, and there are no obstructions, I will with high probability continue forward)
Funny shirt with the text "I only give negative feedback", with the picture of a voltage inverting schematic in the middle.
Another funny shirt showing a stereotypical heart rate monitor waveform, but in the waveform is an inverter schematic, and after the inverter the heart waveform is now upside down
Tangentially, I'm kind-of annoyed that so many fundamental circuits in digital electronics are just analog feedback loops. 🤦
I also think volts, amps, resistance, capacitance, & inductance could be explained better. Like if you worked backwards from the schematic above, IMO teaching would be easy.
Power supply schematic for CH32V002 SOC... Literally just a capacitor.
I'm spoiled by the CH32Vxxx chips with their built-in 32 MHz clocks. It makes operating one so ridiculously simple: Just add a capacitor and apply power. Done! 😋
I've been crash-coursing myself in oscillators and op-amps to better understand them. The CH591 SOC my "find-me" project needs an external 32 MHz clock for CPU, USB, and Bluetooth (it can run the CPU at 32 KHz without though). I'm also exploring headphone amplification options for my Cyberdeck. ⚡
I'm a voice in Shrek (video game)
No, it's not generic. It's a specific generalization of a single game. If there's anything generic, it would be a high level decision tree of thoughts like "I should take action", "I should wait", "I should observe", etc.
Folks with prior success are struggling to realize that the game industry has changed completely. It's never going back to how it was. Funding, development, and audiences have all fragmented and that is the "new normal." Only folks who have been scrapping their whole career will weather this change.
This usb3.1 to TRRRRRRRRRRRRRRS looks very sexy...
Okay good, I feel like I've explored that theoretical tangent enough that I can stop thinking about it. 😅
Cool. Given the TOPS rating, it sounds like it's in a similar ballpark to other ARMv9 chips.
The first tier is cheap because it exists entirely within gameplay, deconstructing play into a list of cues and clues.
The second tier is where things get invasive (maybe impractical). It would require capturing clues and cues outside of mere gameplay. Think: how you would describe bluffing. 🤨
The first tier of the idea should be able to capture roughly how a person moves in a game. This should be good enough to broadly emulate a play style, but it will completely fail to account for mind games, strategy, and metagaming.
In other words, a digital zombie. A mindless facsimile.
I'm conflicted.
I accidentally came up with a way cheap NPUs could be used to both capture and simulate how a specific person plays a game. In theory, the data could be as little as 1 MB (in some cases even less), BUT implementing it requires a deep understanding of how good players of a game think
Top view of chip
Bottom view of chip
The SOC I'm considering is the BLE 5.4 capable CH591D from WCH (i.e. CH592 w/ 256k Flash instead of 512k). Yes this is the same chip my Zephyr port is based on. It takes 2.5V or 3.3V, but if it also took 5V that would greatly simplify things. It's USB capable too! I just need a reference schematic.
Inspired by a Great Scott video, I pondered how I'd make a custom "find my" device that's the size/shape/thickness of a USB-A pinout (similar to this FIDO key). AKA, a Bluetooth beeper. Power would be parasitic, requiring you to attach a GND and VCC wire to the device you want to make findable.
I want to see Neo benchmarks.
Imagine there were MILLIONS of 10+ year old computers still in operation today that never got software updates. 🤔
Imagine they had 2.4 GHz WiFi, Bluetooth, 2.3 GHz SiriusXM, 3G radios, and LAN (CAN) networks. 🤔
You could totally turn this into a self-replicating viral mesh network, right? 😅
Not just OnStar, but so many vehicles have SiriusXM radios. Even if it's read-only, it still operates on 2.3 GHz, a hair away from WiFi & Bluetooth (2.4 GHz). Many radio chipset only software locked to frequencies, and a 2.4 GHz antenna is just "less good" at other frequencies.
Car viruses anyone?
Yet all it takes is an infotainment system with on-screen climate controls and boom, you've exposed the bus.
Oh gosh, not to mention all the bazillion vehicles with built-in Sirius radios. You don't need to be a satellite to broadcast a 2.3 GHz signal. Heck, an exploited WiFi chipset could do it.
