03 August 2024 - 09 August 2024
Table of Contents
- 1. MIT OCW
- 2. SJ grounds
- 3. EDA workflow
- 4. Cross compilers
- 5. SCZ Front Step
- 6. Spacewire-like PHY
- 7. CA Root Key Generation
- 8. Compilers
- 9. Piper dovecot
- 10. Various i686
- 11. piper
- 12. Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH
- 13. SJC weather station
- 14. opencl
- 15. EPLDH
- 16. wktpqb
- 17. Mill Controller #2
- 18. Alum Rock Data Center
- 19. Virtual Orchestra
- 20. gat
- 21. RIOT drivers
- 22. mcd05 32 button/led box
- 23. AMD 2900 bitslice computing
- 24. Hitachi HD68B09E CPU
- 25. Rockwell R65F11
- 26. PLD programming
- 27. EPROM Programming
- 28. POSIT
- 29. MAME
- 30. More project ideas
- 31. David Davies
1. MIT OCW
1.1. 18.06sc (Linear Algebra)
1.1.1. Unit III: Positive Definite Matrices and Minima
2. SJ grounds
Too Busy.
3. EDA workflow
3.1. FPGA programming
3.2. RV32I
Seeing if a very simple RV32I is possible at ~600 ice40 cells. Likely not possible with a barrel shifter unless a multiplier is used. Certainly won't be fast, if possible at all at this size. This comes out to 18 gates per bit, which seems to be a ridiculously low number.
3.3. RTX-2000
Pulled out the RTX-2000 manual. Going to be a slog if I do it.
3.4. Synthesizable sparc v8
3.4.1. Seeing what it takes to make 'bs' synthesizable.
No way. Need to start fresh.
3.4.2. make smaller than picorv32?
Want to see if I can get something substantially smaller than picorv32 - although I doubt it. Better to start with RV32I though.
3.4.3. Found a bug
in load base/offset register instructions.
3.4.4. Found maybe another bug
Not sure about condition codes on 'sub'. Difficulty porting to rv32 leads to questions.
3.4.5. Cleanups
Apparently never run though verilator. Cleaned up.
3.4.6. Need legion
Need to see if the UltraSparc 10 is still running for legion tests.
3.4.7. u10
- Serial port works so boot is trying to do something.
- NVRAM battery is dead. Not a FRU.
Needs an invasive fix or part replacement. NVRAM held MAC address, so that would be unavailable so could explain not booting. DHCP database has programmed MAC for static IP assignment so that at least is recoverable.
- Ordered video dongle.
May help in further analysis. I don't think my analog monitors work anymore, but maybe I'm wrong. Worth checking.
4. Cross compilers
4.1. Toolchain scripts running.
4.1.1. moxie-elf c, c++, and ada.
4.1.2. sparc-elf c, c++, and ada.
4.1.3. riscv-elf c, c++, and ada.
gdb riscv simulator seems to not handle logical right shifts correctly in 32 bit mode. Arithmetic right shift has specific checks for 32 bit mode, but logical right shift does not and is clearly right shifting a 64 bit value.
5. SCZ Front Step
5.1. Mostly complete.
5.2. Needs angled cuts on ends.
5.3. Need to fix mistake under window.
Didn't use the story stick. Grrr!
6. Spacewire-like PHY
Poking that this long-standing problem. Building infrastructure to test if it's possible to construct a PHY layer with acceptable BER to 50 MBit which should be sufficient for 32 16-bit channels at 48 KHz sample rate. Need to re-establish EDA workflow.
Not sure this is practical.
7. 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. Too, bad, though. It kind of is 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. Looking at nitrokey in more detail, it doesn't seem to be any simpler than what I'm doing already.
7.1. First pass done
7.1.1. Based on https://pki-tutorial.readthedocs.io/en/latest/simple/
Interesting that the certs generated fail with openssl sserver testing because the cryptographic algorithms are too weak.
7.2. 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?
7.3. Simple hardware.
7.3.1. Use beagleboard with local interface
7.3.2. Use some modern device TPM
Need to export data for backup.
7.3.3. Or something that uses PKCS11 interface
7.4. 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.
7.5. Use Sneakernet
Doesn't scale. Should use something so cert updates are automatable. But that's a science project it seems.
8. Compilers
8.1. Compiled Wikipedia PL/0 example
8.2. Work out overall plan.
Lots of moving pieces.
8.3. Looking into LLVM MLIR.
Will not use immediately, but perhaps trend in that direction.
8.4. ASDL
8.4.1. current smlnj C++ implementation incomplete
8.4.2. old versions asdl source fail to build with new versions of smlnj
8.4.3. old versions of smlnj not easily buildable on x8664
8.4.4. ancient binary of asdl 1.2 compiler seems to work
but associated libraries are to old to link because of missing ctype symbol
8.4.5. analyzing asdl 1.2 generated code
Most of the code is for serialization, which is going to be replaced anyway, so can be removed by hand.
8.4.6. run in vm?
Analysis of binaries shows that it was built on some redhat os using gcc 2.8.1. Redhat-6.2? No. Tried various ancient Redhat OSs.
9. Piper dovecot
9.1. Update broke dovecot auth.
Looks PAM related, but PAM update failed to fix.
9.2. Set tuffy up as a staging server
So I don't debug on 'production'.
9.3. piper dovecot SSL certificate NOT broken
At least not obviously broken (yet). Further investigation needed.
10. Various i686
10.0.1. netbsd
was installed. But needed the box for something else.
10.0.2. buildroot
builds complete.
11. piper
11.1. dovecot
11.1.1. Raising apparmor error.
Not sure how to resolve.
11.2. pidgeonhole
11.2.1. procmail replacement.
11.2.2. Considering integration.
11.3. httpd
11.3.1. Still stable.
But seems to occassionally mis-serve files.
11.4. SSL cert
Trying letsencrypt with certbot. http problem above may be interfering.
11.5. redmine
Still not sure I want to go down this rabbit hole.
11.6. openvpn
Need to consider cert construction.
12. Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH
12.1. Update
Sometime next year.
13. SJC weather station
13.1. Proper enclosure mostly constructed
13.1.1. Needs a redo on bottom plate
13.1.2. Seems to have improved wireless connectivity somewhat
14. opencl
14.1. Studying. Have some examples working.
14.2. Need to look at arrayfire as an alternative.
14.3. This is a bit of a hammer looking for a nail.
15. EPLDH
15.1. MPFI interval arithmetic better alternative
16. wktpqb
16.1. needs a new approach
16.2. Verifying edge construction (con't.)
16.3. 'gcd' algorithm doesn't work
17. Mill Controller #2
17.1. Mounted on mill - ready or testing
17.2. Need to investigate new HW/SW for eventual replacements
17.2.1. Old crap ain't gonna last forever
17.2.2. Buildroot/Linux 5.15 PREEMPT + latency tools
First pass done - boots on real hardware
17.3. Alternative architecture
17.3.1. Split off stepper motor controller to separate board
Increase latency tolerance on controller
17.3.2. Use emc2 MODBUS/TCP protocol for stepper and other IO
18. Alum Rock Data Center
18.1. May have problem with network power module.
It's only 30 years old or something like that.
18.2. Added Ethernet card to tuffy
Preparing as backup/staging server.
18.3. Need a VPS with static IP
Just use dynamic interface to bind.
19. Virtual Orchestra
19.1. sfz file tests
19.1.1. need tooling to edit sample files
19.2. increasingly skeptical whether quality results are possible
19.3. maybe should treat as platform for concatinative synthesis
19.4. maybe should just accept the limitations and work with it
One should not be disappointed that a guitar can't sound like a flute.
20. gat
20.1. spectrogram done - matches 'octave' output
21. RIOT drivers
Implemented - needs testing.
21.1. WS2801
21.2. Velleman KA03
21.3. Velleman KA05
22. mcd05 32 button/led box
22.1. Recovered schematics.
22.2. Planning software.
22.3. Received STM32F767 Nucleo144 with Ethernet.
22.3.1. Test program running.
22.3.2. Need to consider CoAP multicast discovery.
22.3.3. Consider simpler architecture with STM32F767 as a 'hub'.
22.3.4. Consider CAN interface to hub.
23. AMD 2900 bitslice computing
23.1. Probably my oldest uncompleted project
23.2. Exploring possibilities for something constructive
Create verilog models for 2903/2910 and verify against hardware?
24. Hitachi HD68B09E CPU
24.1. RAM/UART/IO
24.2. Started schematic
24.2.1. Standard peripheral set for 8 bit CPU bringups
Board schematic planned - need Kicad symbols
24.3. Arduino Mega 2560 DMA loader
…Along with standard 8 bit loader
24.4. Generate quadrature clock directly
24.5. Full Bus SW Emulation infeasible
6809 1000ns maximum cycle time too short
25. Rockwell R65F11
25.1. Still evaluating.
25.2. 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.
26. 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.
27. EPROM Programming
Found some software for Needham programmer. Need to check electrolytic caps on ISA board.
28. POSIT
28.1. Use POSITs for YRX?
No. Existing library is fine.
29. MAME
29.1. Subset builds in debug mode
Full debug fails - not enough disk or memory.
29.2. gs6809 serial IO doesn't work right with PTY and other streams
29.3. ampro (Z80/Z80SIO) does work with PTY
29.4. Evaluating what is needed for other emulators.
30. More project ideas
30.1. Zuse Z3 simulation in Verilog
Good excuse for floating point ALU design. Try posit format?
30.2. GMPForth ports to simulators
30.2.1. SIMH for some targets (vax)
30.2.2. MAME looks interesting for microprocessor system emulations
How to support ersatz systems?
30.2.3. Ports to classic figFORTH targets
30.3. GMPASM assembler
May be useful for handbuilt and rare systems (DMX1000?).
30.4. Extracting ISO Superboard Forth ROMS for MAME emulation
30.5. 'bwocl' OpenCL tooling
30.5.1. Offline compilation
30.5.2. Standard Kernel Running
30.6. hardware support for classic 5V CPUs
30.6.1. RTX2000, CDP1802 still available!
30.6.2. 6502, 68000, 320C30, others on hand
30.6.3. CPUs with totally async bus may be supportable without RAM
30.6.4. Could use small footprint monitor in asm (gmpmon?)
30.7. Existing 'retro' hardware still working?
30.7.1. OSI Superboard
Unknown. Composite to VGA adapter didn't seem to work. Needs analysis. Found OSI model 610 board underneath!
30.7.2. Super Jolt
No output. Needs analysis.
30.7.3. Ampro Little Board
Not booting. Needs analysis.
30.7.4. Rockwell R65F11 Demo board
UART sending "NO ROM" at 2400 7N1 as expected with 2MHz xtal. MAME emulator possibilities?
30.7.5. NMIX-0016
Works. Found original prom in a parts stash(!).