25 November 2023 - 01 December 2023
Table of Contents
- 1. MIT OCW
- 2. wood chips
- 3. SCZ Front Step
- 4. Next arch installs
- 5. opencl
- 6. EPLDH
- 7. wktpqb
- 8. Compilers
- 9. Mill Controller #2
- 10. Alum Rock Data Center
- 11. CA Root Key Generation
- 12. Virtual Orchestra
- 13. gat
- 14. RIOT drivers
- 15. mcd05 32 button/led box
- 16. AMD 2900 bitslice computing
- 17. Hitachi HD68B09E CPU
- 18. Rockwell R65F11
- 19. PLD programming
- 20. EPROM Programming
- 21. POSIT
- 22. MAME
- 23. More project ideas
- 24. David Davies
1. MIT OCW
1.1. 18.03sc (differential equations).
1.1.1. Unit IV - Nonlinear Systems
2. wood chips
Continuing. Slowly
3. SCZ Front Step
3.1. Door sill to SJ to clean up
3.1.1. Patch glued in
4. Next arch installs
4.1. Various i686
4.1.1. Arch/32 requires too much memory (512Mb) for what I have (384Mb).
4.1.2. Alpine linux
Don't like it.
4.1.3. netbsd
Not sure I have the bandwidth right now.
4.1.4. buildroot
Thinking about it.
4.2. cindy
Woefully underpowered HP 14-dq0 notebook. Four mighty (de-)Celeron cores and 64 whole gigabytes of SSD. Mom got it but hated it, so I have it now.
4.3. kiki
Wasted half a day trying to get the BIOS updated in the vain hope of fixing access to the TPM. Total failure. I Did learn that maybe I should check the fwupd website to see if potential hardware purchases are supported. The trick is going to be remembering to do this.
5. opencl
5.1. Studying. Have some examples working.
5.2. Need to look at arrayfire as an alternative.
5.3. This is a bit of a hammer looking for a nail.
6. EPLDH
6.1. MPFI interval arithmetic better alternative
7. wktpqb
7.1. Verifying edge construction (con't.)
7.2. 'gcd' algorithm doesn't work
8. Compilers
8.1. Started hand written WSN parser
9. Mill Controller #2
9.1. Mounted on mill - ready or testing
9.2. Need to investigate new HW/SW for eventual replacements
9.2.1. Old crap ain't gonna last forever
9.2.2. Buildroot/Linux 5.15 PREEMPT + latency tools
First pass done - boots on real hardware
9.3. Alternative architecture
9.3.1. Split off stepper motor controller to separate board
Increase latency tolerance on controller
9.3.2. Use emc2 MODBUS/TCP protocol for stepper and other IO
10. Alum Rock Data Center
10.1. Looks like a power fluctuation took out 'panji'
10.1.1. apache running
10.1.2. roundcubemail installed
Access in internal network only. Currently via SSH tunnel.
10.1.3. Working on updating bind configurtion.
PITA if one is paranoid. Good thing it's a hidden master setup.
11. CA Root Key Generation
Nice to have an appliance that manages keys. Need to make this simple. Really don't have time for a science project. Could just buy something from nitrokey https://www.nitrokey.com/ But I really don't want to spend money on it of I have hardware already.
11.1. 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?
11.2. Simple hardware.
11.2.1. Use some modern device TPM
11.2.2. Or something that uses PKCS11 interface
11.3. 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.
11.4. Use Sneakernet
Doesn't scale. Should use something so cert updates are automatable.
12. Virtual Orchestra
12.1. sfz file tests
12.1.1. need tooling to edit sample files
12.2. increasingly skeptical whether quality results are possible
12.3. maybe should treat as platform for concatinative synthesis
12.4. maybe should just accept the limitations and work with it
One should not be disappointed that a guitar can't sound like a flute.
13. gat
13.1. spectrogram done - matches 'octave' output
14. RIOT drivers
Implemented - needs testing.
14.1. WS2801
14.2. Velleman KA03
14.3. Velleman KA05
15. mcd05 32 button/led box
15.1. Recovered schematics.
15.2. Planning software.
15.3. Received STM32F767 Nucleo144 with Ethernet.
15.3.1. Test program running.
15.3.2. Need to consider CoAP multicast discovery.
15.3.3. Consider simpler architecture with STM32F767 as a 'hub'.
15.3.4. Consider CAN interface to hub.
16. AMD 2900 bitslice computing
16.1. Probably my oldest uncompleted project
16.2. Exploring possibilities for something constructive
Create verilog models for 2903/2910 and verify against hardware?
17. Hitachi HD68B09E CPU
17.1. RAM/UART/IO
17.2. Started schematic
17.2.1. Standard peripheral set for 8 bit CPU bringups
Board schematic planned - need Kicad symbols
17.3. Arduino Mega 2560 DMA loader
…Along with standard 8 bit loader
17.4. Generate quadrature clock directly
17.5. Full Bus SW Emulation infeasible
6809 1000ns maximum cycle time too short
18. Rockwell R65F11
18.1. Still evaluating.
18.2. 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.
19. 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.
20. EPROM Programming
Found some software for Needham programmer. Need to check electrolytic caps on ISA board.
21. POSIT
21.1. Use POSITs for YRX?
No. Existing library is fine.
22. MAME
22.1. Subset builds in debug mode
Full debug fails - not enough disk or memory.
22.2. gs6809 serial IO doesn't work right with PTY and other streams
22.3. ampro (Z80/Z80SIO) does work with PTY
22.4. Evaluating what is needed for other emulators.
23. More project ideas
23.1. Zuse Z3 simulation in Verilog
Good excuse for floating point ALU design. Try posit format?
23.2. GMPForth ports to simulators
23.2.1. SIMH for some targets (vax)
23.2.2. MAME looks interesting for microprocessor system emulations
How to support ersatz systems?
23.2.3. Ports to classic figFORTH targets
23.3. GMPASM assembler
May be useful for handbuilt and rare systems (DMX1000?).
23.4. Extracting ISO Superboard Forth ROMS for MAME emulation
23.5. 'bwocl' OpenCL tooling
23.5.1. Offline compilation
23.5.2. Standard Kernel Running
23.6. hardware support for classic 5V CPUs
23.6.1. RTX2000, CDP1802 still available!
23.6.2. 6502, 68000, 320C30, others on hand
23.6.3. CPUs with totally async bus may be supportable without RAM
23.6.4. Could use small footprint monitor in asm (gmpmon?)
23.7. Existing 'retro' hardware still working?
23.7.1. OSI Superboard
Unknown. Composite to VGA adapter didn't seem to work. Needs analysis. Found OSI model 610 board underneath!
23.7.2. Super Jolt
No output. Needs analysis.
23.7.3. Ampro Little Board
Not booting. Needs analysis.
23.7.4. Rockwell R65F11 Demo board
UART sending "NO ROM" at 2400 7N1 as expected with 2MHz xtal. MAME emulator possibilities?
23.7.5. NMIX-0016
Works. Found original prom in a parts stash(!).