mng2

9 ms·

1.
by mng2 1y ago
I think you're right; I imagine the reporters wouldn't be familiar with physics pedagogy and just picked up the first date they saw in the google search. I was too intimidated to take the honors series in undergrad but I sat in on
2.
by mng2 2y ago
They do have some measurement results in figures 6 and 7. Looks like they didn't nail the center frequencies but at mmWave it's reasonable for a first attempt -- they're still missing something in their model though, same as
3.
by mng2 2y ago
The Litefury/Nitefury/Acorn design has enough I/O for an HDMI output. I've designed a little board with a buffer: https://github.com/mng2/AcornHDMI Even with the fastest speed grade Artix, 1080p out
4.
by mng2 2y ago
They do mention the origin story of Macross a few paragraphs up so it seems like an odd criticism. On the other hand, it's kind of neat to see that alien technology is an outlier according to their analysis.
5.
by mng2 2y ago
Most serious hardware is not going to be open. I think this is mainly because hardware companies need higher margins, because working with physical things costs money. For most companies that use FPGAs, the custom stuff is the secret sauce,
6.
by mng2 3y ago
As the OP says, FPGAs are kind of niche and devoted to specialized applications. For example there's Corundum[0] for in-network compute, kind of exotic and maybe too pricey for a hobbyist. The biggest open-source thing out there is of
7.
by mng2 3y ago
There's the Light Phone if you can live with e-ink. Don't know how capable the music player is though.
8.
by mng2 3y ago
Calls to mind a Hilfinger quote from my CS61A experience: "Mike Clancy makes the tests; I make them harder."
9.
by mng2 4y ago
I've accepted that I'm going to ignore a certain interest for months, maybe years, and then come back to it when my energy for that subject comes back. Of course this means that I have a lot of books and stuff... In recent years I
10.
by mng2 4y ago
The first thing to note is that while HDL coding may look like programming, it is not (mostly). HDLs are for describing hardware, and it takes some time for this to sink in. There are two sides to the coin: understanding digital design in t
11.
by mng2 5y ago
Yeah, I never expected to feel nostalgic for cubes.
12.
by mng2 5y ago
Hi, I have degrees in EE and Physics. It's good that you want to get a well-rounded education, but I think focusing on E&M and circuit design will probably pay the most dividends. Purcell is a physics book, but I think with your ma
13.
by mng2 5y ago
It's indeed a pet peeve of mine when an FPGA project doesn't give example utilization, but in this case they mention iCE40UP5K and M2S025 at least.
14.
by mng2 6y ago
In grad school I taught a electronics lab class where the students would burn through a bunch of HDSP-0772 every semester. I thought about coming up with a replacement, but at the time you could still get them for a somewhat reasonable pri
15.
by mng2 6y ago
Yes, and for example 3dfx's patents for the original Voodoo architecture expired a few years ago. But a fixed-function graphics pipeline is not terribly useful these days. Technology moves so fast that perhaps tech patents should be gi
16.
by mng2 6y ago
>Ultimately it is a strategic business objective to develop entirely Libre hardware, firmware and drivers. What is the thinking behind this? Build it and they will come?
17.
by mng2 6y ago
Kingston has some, I got a couple of KSM32ED8/16HD recently. They are 3200 CL22, though they probably have some room to tighten up timings.
18.
by mng2 6y ago
Besides being able to pack more transistors into a given area, a smaller transistor has less gate capacitance (to first order). This means it can switch faster (smaller RC time constant) and less energy is expended in switching. Thus, going
19.
by mng2 6y ago
There's a product on the market that claims to absorb oxygen, called Repour. I haven't tried it since the cost per use is higher than I'd like.
20.
by mng2 6y ago
I use such a product (Private Preserve) and it works pretty well. I think it is mostly CO2 and Nitrogen, with a smidge of Argon. I don't drink much wine so I have bottles in the fridge that have been there up to a year. When using the
21.
by mng2 6y ago
>What do the authors mean "too complex to deploy on dedicated hardware"? It costs time and effort to translate a software function to HDL/FPGA, so it's not always worth doing. For example you could do TCP/IP in h
22.
by mng2 6y ago
The most reasonable board for hobby PCIe (< $100) right now is probably the SQRL Acorn, it was designed for mining but it turned out to be pretty useless for that purpose. There are cheaper FPGAs with PCIe support coming onto the market,
23.
by mng2 6y ago
>it's almost sure to work Famous last words... >we need to build and fail a lot more You know, that actually describes the early years of fusion research. People thought it would be easier than it has turned out to be. There are
24.
by mng2 6y ago
This is a pretty awesome FPGA for the price but the tool licenses are a few $K if you want to stay strictly legal. For Xilinx you can actually rent a full Vivado tool AMI on AWS, but I'm not aware of any similar offering for Quartus.
25.
by mng2 6y ago
I have done instrumentation work in US HEP. It is fun to do stuff nobody else (or very few) people are doing, in labs with very cool stuff, working with extremely smart people. However there will be a few extremely smart jerks, and leadersh
26.
by mng2 6y ago
Only the most modern FPGAs have thermal protection, but before that they added a CRC check to the bitstream. This leaves open the question of malicious bitstreams...
27.
by mng2 6y ago
I think what they mean is, as a beginner you don't want to try to learn FPGA and SW/HW codesign at the same time. At least I wouldn't advise it, that's really throwing yourself in the deep end. Better to tackle one area
28.
by mng2 6y ago
I operated a 570 for a few years, back around 2006. I don't remember how I decided to get one, but it could run Win2K, my preferred OS at the time, and had a USB port. At the time I was doing most of my work through SSH and X sessions.
29.
by mng2 6y ago
I'd classify it under "hack that is fine if you know what you're doing". Fancier 68K systems would use a PAL for address decoding, primitive programmable logic.
30.
by mng2 6y ago
Klutz books were a huge part of my childhood. I spent hours just looking at catalogs and begged my parents to buy me Goo and yoyos (never did get that SB-1). Thank you for all the witty and charming books.

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