19 August 2023 - 25 August 2023
Table of Contents
- 1. MIT OCW
- 2. wood chips
- 3. MJK Burial
- 4. SCZ Front Step
- 5. EPLDH
- 6. wktpqb
- 7. Compilers
- 8. Mill Controller #2
- 9. Alum Rock Data Center
- 10. CA Root Key Generation
- 11. Virtual Orchestra
- 12. gat
- 13. RIOT drivers
- 14. mcd05 32 button/led box
- 15. AMD 2900 bitslice computing
- 16. Hitachi HD68B09E CPU
- 17. Rockwell R65F11
- 18. PLD programming
- 19. EPROM Programming
- 20. POSIT
- 21. MAME
- 22. More project ideas
- 23. David Davies
1. MIT OCW
1.1. 18.03sc (differential equations).
1.1.1. Unit III - Periodic Input
2. wood chips
Continuing. Back Side almost done.
3. MJK Burial
3.1. Eligibility Determined at CCCVC
3.2. Hashing out dates with family
4. SCZ Front Step
4.1. Locating source for threshold
4.2. Subthreshold to be fabricated
4.3. Checking for materials in SJ
5. EPLDH
5.1. Investigating quadratic field sqrt(3) integers and rationals.
6. wktpqb
6.1. Start quadratic integer implementation
7. Compilers
7.1. Started hand written WSN parser
8. Mill Controller #2
8.1. Mounted on mill - ready or testing
8.2. Need to investigate new HW/SW for eventual replacements
8.2.1. Old crap ain't gonna last forever
8.2.2. Buildroot/Linux 5.15 PREEMPT + latency tools
First pass done - boots on real hardware
8.3. Alternative architecture
8.3.1. Split off stepper motor controller to separate board
Increase latency tolerance on controller
8.3.2. Use emc2 MODBUS/TCP protocol for stepper and other IO
9. Alum Rock Data Center
9.1. need to check rocky, others? (arch?) for suitability
9.2. recheck ALMA, now that CERN and Fermilab are using it
9.3. Sonic.net has announced that Fiber connectivity is coming to my house
9.4. The end of DSL and static IP addresses as I know it
Started with Northpoint communications in the late 1990's. I guess that's a good long run.
10. CA Root Key Generation
Nice to have an appliance that manages keys. Could just buy something from nitrokey https://www.nitrokey.com/
10.1. Need to be clear on security properties.
Definitely protect against remote access to private keys. How strong does the protection against local access need to be?
10.2. Simple hardware.
10.3. USB Serial interface only but no credentials across USB I/F.
But this potentially exposes the hardware to remote access via the USB I/F when connected.
10.4. Use Sneakernet
Using "disk drive" IO introduces air gap - remote access impossible. Increases attack surface via filesystem manipulation.
10.5. Beagleboard
Found in SCZ. Thought it was in SJ.
10.6. LCD Touchscreen
Unlocks encrypted filesystem. Maybe not needed. See below.
10.7. Morse code PIN
Only need ONE button, and a pass/fail LED. Hardware will never go EOL (Thanks Elena!). Susceptible to remote audio recording of PIN button noise, which could be overcome by using 2FA. Again - what am I protecting against?
10.8. Encrypted Filesystem
11. Virtual Orchestra
11.1. sfz file tests
11.1.1. need tooling to edit sample files
11.2. increasingly skeptical whether quality results are possible
11.3. maybe should treat as platform for concatinative synthesis
11.4. maybe should just accept the limitations and work with it
One should not be disappointed that a guitar can't sound like a flute.
12. gat
12.1. spectrogram done - matches 'octave' output
13. RIOT drivers
Implemented - needs testing.
13.1. WS2801
13.2. Velleman KA03
13.3. Velleman KA05
14. mcd05 32 button/led box
14.1. Recovered schematics.
14.2. Planning software.
14.3. Received STM32F767 Nucleo144 with Ethernet.
14.3.1. Test program running.
14.3.2. Need to consider CoAP multicast discovery.
14.3.3. Consider simpler architecture with STM32F767 as a 'hub'.
14.3.4. Consider CAN interface to hub.
15. AMD 2900 bitslice computing
15.1. Probably my oldest uncompleted project
15.2. Exploring possibilities for something constructive
Create verilog models for 2903/2910 and verify against hardware?
16. Hitachi HD68B09E CPU
16.1. RAM/UART/IO
16.2. Started schematic
16.2.1. Standard peripheral set for 8 bit CPU bringups
Board schematic planned - need Kicad symbols
16.3. Arduino Mega 2560 DMA loader
…Along with standard 8 bit loader
16.4. Generate quadrature clock directly
16.5. Full Bus SW Emulation infeasible
6809 1000ns maximum cycle time too short
17. Rockwell R65F11
17.1. Still evaluating.
17.2. Dev board
Reverse engineered some of a mostly fully built development board with one part missing. As near as I can tell, that one part is some sort of programmable address decoder with a pinout that does not correspond to any part I can find. Kind of like a GAL but with inputs on top and outputs on bottom (as opposed to left and right in a standard GAL). I have no idea what the provenance of this board is and if it ever worked.
18. PLD programming
Looks like Atmel 16V8 is the last 5V PLD part left standing. Maybe not surprising that there still doesn't appear to be a fully open source tool chain for programming. How hard could it be? (!) Could next-pnr generic help? Might be easier to use espresso for logic array and program output logic bits directly for simple stuff.
19. EPROM Programming
Found some software for Needham programmer. Need to check electrolytic caps on ISA board.
20. POSIT
Use POSITs for YRX?
21. MAME
21.1. Subset builds in debug mode
Full debug fails - not enough disk or memory.
21.2. gs6809 serial IO doesn't work right with PTY and other streams
21.3. ampro (Z80/Z80SIO) does work with PTY
21.4. Evaluating what is needed for other emulators.
22. More project ideas
22.1. Zuse Z3 simulation in Verilog
Good excuse for floating point ALU design. Try posit format?
22.2. GMPForth ports to simulators
22.2.1. SIMH for some targets (vax)
22.2.2. MAME looks interesting for microprocessor system emulations
How to support ersatz systems?
22.2.3. Ports to classic figFORTH targets
22.3. GMPASM assembler
May be useful for handbuilt and rare systems (DMX1000?).
22.4. Extracting ISO Superboard Forth ROMS for MAME emulation
22.5. 'bwocl' OpenCL tooling
22.5.1. Offline compilation
22.5.2. Standard Kernel Running
22.6. hardware support for classic 5V CPUs
22.6.1. RTX2000, CDP1802 still available!
22.6.2. 6502, 68000, 320C30, others on hand
22.6.3. CPUs with totally async bus may be supportable without RAM
22.6.4. Could use small footprint monitor in asm (gmpmon?)
22.7. Existing 'retro' hardware still working?
22.7.1. OSI Superboard
Unknown. Composite to VGA adapter didn't seem to work. Needs analysis. Found OSI model 610 board underneath!
22.7.2. Super Jolt
No output. Needs analysis.
22.7.3. Ampro Little Board
Not booting. Needs analysis.
22.7.4. Rockwell R65F11 Demo board
UART sending "NO ROM" at 2400 7N1 as expected with 2MHz xtal. MAME emulator possibilities?
22.7.5. NMIX-0016
Works. Found original prom in a parts stash(!).