2013-01-03 00:04 Jurting_pc2 has quit [Read error: Connection reset by peer] 2013-01-03 00:07 hey guys I am new 2013-01-03 00:07 * sagex expects to be hazed 2013-01-03 00:13 we prefer to avoid that and get to the work instead. 2013-01-03 00:17 jianju has joined #qi-hardware 2013-01-03 00:18 _whitelogger has joined #qi-hardware 2013-01-03 00:18 Greets, all. Having trouble booting from USB on a Dell 17R SE 7720 running Windows 8 with a secure boot partition. Can anyone shed some light on the subject? 2013-01-03 00:24 FrankBlues has joined #qi-hardware 2013-01-03 00:27 FrankBlues has quit [Remote host closed the connection] 2013-01-03 00:54 wpwrak: http://developer.mips.com/clang-llvm/ 2013-01-03 00:54 you might be interested in trying it out 2013-01-03 00:59 oh, thanks, but i'm very comfortable with gcc so far :) 2013-01-03 01:00 you know, with the years, that certain anxiousness to reject everything that's been around disappears a bit as some things have earned your trust, and you've learned to not pay attention to a lot more, too 2013-01-03 01:02 jianju: i find your problem description to be amazingly self-explaining. windows 8 plus "secure' boot with usb added for fun... and you're having booting problems :) 2013-01-03 01:03 jianju: alas, you're unlikely to find help for your problem in this channel as most people here stay well clear of just those causes 2013-01-03 01:04 sagex: now that you mention it, we actually have some depolarized bits piling up in /dev/null that could use some cleaning ... 2013-01-03 01:05 wpwrak: you clearly didn't see much of gcc internals ;) 2013-01-03 01:05 on the other hand, you don't exactly need to hack on them, either. 2013-01-03 01:05 sagex: but there's actually no single dominant topic here, so the fact of you being here, new or old, doesn't tell us all that much 2013-01-03 01:06 whitequark: the fact that i've been rather successful in avoiding to do that in the last 20 years or so suggests that you may be right :) 2013-01-03 01:07 wpwrak: ... or that you were avoiding that precisely because they were so arcane 2013-01-03 01:07 well, 20+ years. damn, how time flies 2013-01-03 01:07 s/were/are/ 2013-01-03 01:07 whitequark meant: "wpwrak: ... or that you are avoiding that precisely because they are so arcane" 2013-01-03 01:07 oh, gcc has a certain reputation :) 2013-01-03 01:08 lets hope it keep it 2013-01-03 01:08 but then, i know enough about compilers that i don't presume i'll really understand what one is doing without spending a considerable amount of time on it 2013-01-03 01:08 LunaVorax has quit [Remote host closed the connection] 2013-01-03 01:08 so if the compiler actually happens to add obscurity on top of intrinsic complexity, that actually helps :) 2013-01-03 01:09 wpwrak: (anxiousness to reject everything) sometimes I think that it would be cool to replace every thing GNU for the same reasons as GCC 2013-01-03 01:09 but then I very clearly understand that it would bring even more compatibility problems 2013-01-03 01:09 ah, and "one" refers to a specific implementation. i've written "real" compilers before, so i know the drill 2013-01-03 01:10 real compilers for what language btw? 2013-01-03 01:10 wpwrak: (compilers) certain codebases have this intrinsic property that you can look at it and more or less understand what a certain self-contained module does, and how 2013-01-03 01:11 wprak: thx 4 replying all the same. I took a chance that someone here would know the trick. I'll keep looking. 2013-01-03 01:11 wpwrak: LLVM is one of them. this is the main reason I like it, and not the age of either of us ;) 2013-01-03 01:11 naw, don't fight the gnu. most of the gnu-ish things are pretty stable and not overly offending. we even got used to --option, even though everbody hated it back then 2013-01-03 01:12 * kristianpaul loves the not very maintained gnu screen 2013-01-03 01:12 xiangfu has joined #qi-hardware 2013-01-03 01:12 kristianpaul: one i created myself, called "Cora". some weird mixture of my impressions of pascal, C, and forth-ish languages 2013-01-03 01:12 forth ah :) 2013-01-03 01:12 wpwrak: (don't fight the gnu) exactly. it took me some time to become accustomed to it. also, --option is awesome--I can't work in BSD's at all :) 2013-01-03 01:12 kristianpaul: some people prefer newer alternative, tmux 2013-01-03 01:12 kristianpaul: ran on cp/m where it beat turbo pascal in code density :) i also ported it to ms-dos but there, the competition was stiffer 2013-01-03 01:13 whitequark: yeah sure but as it works as good as my procmail :-) 2013-01-03 01:13 * whitequark uses postfix... 2013-01-03 01:16 wpwrak: ah you really like/learnt to fight chip resources constrainsts dont you? :-) 2013-01-03 01:16 wpwrak: it seems to me that at least in certain parts of IT, newcomers mainly learn the most recent new cool thing 2013-01-03 01:16 kristianpaul: my later forays into compiler/language design didn't involve traditional code generation, so they probably don't count. i'm rather proud of my umlsim language, though, which adds object orientation in an almost clean way to C :) 2013-01-03 01:17 wpwrak: ten years ago in webdev it was PHP. five years ago Ruby. now it is Node.JS, which is oh god horrible 2013-01-03 01:17 whitequark: and they fight the old stuff, for obvious reasons :) 2013-01-03 01:18 wpwrak: not only fight, but also copy 80% of it at the very beginning 2013-01-03 01:18 whitequark: much like oldtimers dislike the new stuff, also for obvious reasons :) 2013-01-03 01:18 wpwrak: it is sometimes hard to understand if you dislike something new because it's new or because it's actually horrible 2013-01-03 01:18 whitequark: yeah, copy 80% until it works, then add 20% fresh problems :) 2013-01-03 01:19 I can't stand node.js. it was created by professionally unfit people. on the other hand, rust (which is even newer), is really good IMO. 2013-01-03 01:19 for example. 2013-01-03 01:19 i think in many cases things are basically equivalent. so there's no gain in actually learning the new thing. plus you have a lot of existing work that won't cooperate with it. 2013-01-03 01:20 FrankBlues has joined #qi-hardware 2013-01-03 01:20 i don't even know what "node.js" is supposed to be. i've heard of javascript, though :) 2013-01-03 01:20 (learning) a whole lot of new things is actually a reiteration of old things. now functional programming is cool again. if your intent is to become a better programmer, you can as well return to '80s and read some papers. 2013-01-03 01:20 node.js is basically a standalone javascript engine which is supposed to work as a webserver 2013-01-03 01:21 note that javascript is strictly single-threaded, so you are confined to prefork. also you get all other "good" parts of JS, most importantly the fact that everything is done with callbacks. 2013-01-03 01:21 so all the processes which are commonly written in a blocking way are suddenly non-blocking, because js requires you to do it 2013-01-03 01:22 kristianpaul: well, those chip constraints were in the bad old BASIC days. it still makes me kinda feel guilty to need more than a handful of kB for a program. back then, your imagination was the limit of your universe, but its diameter was always 1 kB (ZX81), later 3.5 kB (VIC-20). 2013-01-03 01:22 wpwrak: and you're stuck with mile-long callback chains. and don't forget errbacks! 2013-01-03 01:22 interesting. a language optimized for writing bugs ? 2013-01-03 01:23 besides that, it doesn't actually introduce any new or even slightly interesting concepts, except for the fact that you now *might* run identical code in your browser and on your server 2013-01-03 01:23 like, for example, validations for forms 2013-01-03 01:23 because you, of course, can validate everything without a roundtrip to the server. like username uniqueness. 2013-01-03 01:24 wpwrak: there's also MongoDB, a NoSQL database promoted by roughly the same kind of people 2013-01-03 01:24 i love those client-side validations. so much fun to read those security issue bulletins ... 2013-01-03 01:24 by default, it returns _before_ it actually writes the data to disk, _to achieve better results at benchmarks_ in order to bash relational database 2013-01-03 01:24 *databases 2013-01-03 01:25 let's just say that, as the universe gets older, the amount of noise increases :) 2013-01-03 01:25 this is just so wrong on so many levels I don't even know where to start :) 2013-01-03 01:25 it is also quite fun to watch people praising NoSQL as the new big thing, given that BerkleyDB actually predates relational databases 2013-01-03 01:26 (there are very nice and useful nosql solutions, but for 99% you need an rdbms/only rdbms) 2013-01-03 01:26 naw, even unit write() returns before data is written to disk. normally, that's okay. what's a bit troubling is that it's hard to insert barriers. 2013-01-03 01:26 wpwrak: relational databases issue such barriers before returning from a transaction. of course. 2013-01-03 01:26 heh, yes, or postgres 2013-01-03 01:26 this is the whole point of transaction. and you need to go additional lengths to ensure your journaling FS won't munge that 2013-01-03 01:26 postgres is RDBMS :) 2013-01-03 01:27 sure. and it's *ancient* 2013-01-03 01:28 rz2k has quit [] 2013-01-03 01:28 besides, the oldest database is still the file system. a lot of people seem to forget that. 2013-01-03 01:28 well, not exactly ancient, but surely not new 2013-01-03 01:29 we use postgres everywhere in our webdev company and <3 it 2013-01-03 01:29 of course, it lacks the benefit of vendor lock-in, since you can just poke around with ls, cat, rm, and friends 2013-01-03 01:29 hehe 2013-01-03 01:29 (postgres) kewl. it's nice that it's getting some love even today. 2013-01-03 01:30 it's basically what is used everywhere except the simplest sites (for which mysql is ok too) 2013-01-03 01:30 and it still improves quite a bit 2013-01-03 01:32 wpwrak: (SNR ratio) my solution to keeping with that is stay sane is as follows: look at every single new cool thing. learn it. evaluate it by technical merit, but never, ever, by userbase. try to keep my opinion with myself. don't switch unless it has actual tangible benefit. 2013-01-03 01:33 s/is/and/ 2013-01-03 01:33 whitequark meant: "wpwrak: (SNR ratio) my solution to keeping with that and stay sane and as follows: look at every single new cool thing. learn it. evaluate it by technical merit, but never, ever, by userbase. try to keep my opinion with myself. don't switch unless it has actual tangible benefit." 2013-01-03 01:33 mth has quit [] 2013-01-03 01:33 nice, but eventually you'll get bored with the new thing of the week 2013-01-03 01:34 wpwrak: not sure I understand you here 2013-01-03 01:34 "hey look, they're doing that mistake from 5.18 years ago again" :) 2013-01-03 01:34 oh, let me explain it another way 2013-01-03 01:34 so with time you look for additional competence indicators 2013-01-03 01:34 "know something? don't like it? don't give a fuck, it will go away by itself." 2013-01-03 01:34 most certainly. 2013-01-03 01:35 not knowing it might be actually dangerous, because good new things tend to eat your own pie 2013-01-03 01:35 but if they're not good... who cares 2013-01-03 01:35 mth has joined #qi-hardware 2013-01-03 01:36 "good" alone is not enough. unless you're looking for a cause to fight for, it still needs to come with a somewhat broad acceptance. 2013-01-03 01:36 and again, with time, you're less eager to find causes to fight for. 2013-01-03 01:36 wpwrak: nice limits, well thats actually even less what implement a cpu on a fpga with built ram so still room for creativity dont you think? 2013-01-03 01:37 not because a lack of energy (well, sometimes too) but simply because eventually you solve or reach a truce with the most pressing need or issues 2013-01-03 01:37 so the number of fights to pick shrinks 2013-01-03 01:38 kristianpaul: those fpgas have excessive resources ;-) 2013-01-03 01:38 wpwrak: I don't agree with the acceptance part 2013-01-03 01:38 when Rails took off, it was a fringe framework in a very, very fringe language 2013-01-03 01:38 wpwrak: exactly :-D 2013-01-03 01:38 from japan 2013-01-03 01:39 after Rails took off, there is now a Rails clone in every single language, and that's certainly a good thing 2013-01-03 01:39 kristianpaul: alas, it also shows in the price. i would hope to see wolfgang's nice work also to have an effect on cplds. they're often a lot more accessible, yet they're rarely seen in the open hardware scene. 2013-01-03 01:40 wpwrak: i think was azonenberg who said was going to work on cheap cplds 2013-01-03 01:41 it's indeed impressive that an idea from japan makes it. that doesn't happen very often, for a number of reasons. but lack of originality usually isn't one of them. 2013-01-03 01:41 kristianpaul: kewl 2013-01-03 01:41 kristianpaul: soon we'll have to solve the fpga board problem 2013-01-03 01:41 wpwrak: the bga thing? 2013-01-03 01:42 wpwrak: (japan) there are communication problems even right now, but they're not threatening to the ecosystem or anything like that 2013-01-03 01:42 kristianpaul: well, maybe ... 2013-01-03 01:42 kristianpaul: seems that wolfgang isn't very concerned with dealing with the potential of his work just yet 2013-01-03 01:43 wpwrak: I heard that with other japanese projects, there was some degree of nationalism, and it didn't help at all. Basically original developers expected everyone else to treat them as higher-ups and not peers. Very fortunately, and somewhat unexpectedly, none of the Ruby folks do that. This is probably the main reason Ruby is where it is now. 2013-01-03 01:43 wpwrak: well one single man work dont get time to realize all that potential :) 2013-01-03 01:43 kristianpaul: in particular, it would be a great seed for a community. but that community will need hardware to play with. 2013-01-03 01:43 wpwrak: hardware and facilities 2013-01-03 01:44 kristianpaul: xiangfu's bga boards could work for that, but you'd have to produce them since bga is diy-hostile 2013-01-03 01:44 wpwrak: not all people will want to understand chip foorplanning for just making a blinking led... 2013-01-03 01:44 wpwrak: indeedn xiangfu's board are just right, anyway you could use a single bus for the rest of the comunication 2013-01-03 01:44 kristianpaul: i'm not talking about all people. i'm talking about those who understand what this means. obviously, we're not millions :) 2013-01-03 01:45 wpwrak: ahmm =) 2013-01-03 01:46 kristianpaul: nevertheless, this is significant work. he's forcing open a door where there was previously a wall. with the right spin, this could be great. 2013-01-03 01:47 consider linux - back then, the whole hacker world was ready. and then linus provided the seed. he's great, but he couldn't have done everything himself. but he didn't have to, since lots of people had been waiting already for this opportunity. 2013-01-03 01:48 emeb has quit [Quit: Leaving.] 2013-01-03 01:48 and of course, not "people on the street" but capable developers 2013-01-03 01:48 wpwrak: it's way easier with software 2013-01-03 01:48 and people with business ideas :-) 2013-01-03 01:49 xiangfu's boars have the problem that you need to industrially produce them. they're non-diy. not sure if wolfgang is prepared to do this. 2013-01-03 01:49 whitequark: yes, software is always easier :) 2013-01-03 01:49 wpwrak: besides, things with fpgatools (I assume you're talking about them) look way more interesting in this discussion than before, for me 2013-01-03 01:49 where can I read more about it? 2013-01-03 01:50 whitequark: software, been there, did it, we won. no on to the next challenge, hardware :) 2013-01-03 01:50 s/no/now/ 2013-01-03 01:50 wpwrak meant: "whitequark: software, been there, did it, we won. now on to the next challenge, hardware :)" 2013-01-03 01:50 wpwrak: but he could use other friendly slx9 models but to be honest bga will soon or later there for diy 2013-01-03 01:50 later be there* 2013-01-03 01:51 kristianpaul: i don't think so. bga is inherently unfriendly because you can't inspect it. 2013-01-03 01:51 wpwrak: (we won) yeah! and I think that it is the right time to go after it. 2013-01-03 01:51 wpwrak: yes sure 2013-01-03 01:51 wpwrak: what about manufacturing BGA modules which expose all pads? this isn't that expensive yet is suitable for diy perfectly 2013-01-03 01:51 whitequark: you mean, besides the source ? :) i don't think there is anything else 2013-01-03 01:51 wpwrak: discussion maybe? ok, source it is :) 2013-01-03 01:52 we don't need "BGA adapters". the chip in question is available in a QFP package 2013-01-03 01:52 ah 2013-01-03 01:53 as soon as those slx9 QFP still avaliable i dont see problem either 2013-01-03 01:53 it's just that no fully DIY-able design compatible with our needs exists yet 2013-01-03 01:53 anyway bistreams should be same no? 2013-01-03 01:53 xiangfu: Hi 2013-01-03 01:53 also, there is an LX9 board that's not too expensive: http://www.em.avnet.com/en-us/design/drc/Pages/Xilinx-Spartan-6-FPGA-LX9-MicroBoard.aspx 2013-01-03 01:54 varies between USD 90-120, depending on where you are 2013-01-03 01:54 wpwrak: ohhh, C only. I would even agree on using Python, but only C? not friendly, especially for prototyping. 2013-01-03 01:54 C is perfectly suitable for this 2013-01-03 01:54 besides, this is a rock-bottom low-level interface. you don't want to start wasting your cycles already there 2013-01-03 01:55 i mean, what's next ? memcpy written in Common LISP ? 2013-01-03 01:55 hum? 2013-01-03 01:55 wpwrak: 1) you would be correct if the interface and its goals were set in stone. but the project is in very early stage. 2013-01-03 01:55 wpwrak: yes nice board still remember is not real price and is subsided some how 2013-01-03 01:56 2) memcpy in common lisp doesn't inherently have to be slow. there is plenty of evidence to prove that, including, I suspect, literal memcpy implementations in CL. 2013-01-03 01:56 kristianpaul: that's not the issue :) 2013-01-03 01:56 whitequark: if you memcpy in CL is fast, it's not native :) 2013-01-03 01:57 wpwrak: why? 2013-01-03 01:57 kristianpaul: the issue is that, once fpgatools go public, people will want to join the effort. maybe just to play. maybe to contribute. 2013-01-03 01:57 wpwrak: yes correct 2013-01-03 01:57 kristianpaul: now, what hardware do they use ? build a frigging BGA board ? no way. design their own ? maybe. buy something ? yes, most would like that. 2013-01-03 01:58 wpwrak: as per examples: PyPy for Python, Maxine VM for Java. all of the above are meta-circular VMs written completely in their target language and yet achieving native speed on operations like memcpy. 2013-01-03 01:58 kristianpaul: so there's a point in the continuum and that's the avnet board. available, has the LX9, not too expensive, but has certain issues. 2013-01-03 01:58 wpwrak: besides, that's not what I'm trying to communicate at all. 2013-01-03 01:59 kristianpaul: Hi 2013-01-03 01:59 xiangfu: hey :) 2013-01-03 01:59 morning there 2013-01-03 01:59 wpwrak: if you can hack on something while wasting 10x less time on the quirks of your language, it's worth whatever bad runtime performance if it's not literally hours. history proved that countless times. 2013-01-03 01:59 wpwrak: I improved: http://en.qi-hardware.com/wiki/Mini-slx9#mini-slx9-qfp144. 2013-01-03 02:00 whitequark: yeah, the thing is that the runtime of certain languages isn't suitable for such low-level operations. so you out them out of the box. kinda like gcc builtins. 2013-01-03 02:00 wpwrak: _when_ your project matures and _if_ you actually need that speed, you simply go and rewrite it in C. it's really easy once you have an architecture which is known to work 2013-01-03 02:00 wpwrak: the plan was switch bga with fab-made pcb. since I think I have enough experience on home made pcb. 2013-01-03 02:00 wpwrak: and you can trivially replace it part by part with all modern dynamic languages. 2013-01-03 02:00 xiangfu: oh nice wfp board 2013-01-03 02:00 whitequark: you'd be surprised by the number of people who are extremely comfortable with C ;-) 2013-01-03 02:00 kristianpaul: good morning 2013-01-03 02:01 wpwrak: you forgot your cups :) 2013-01-03 02:01 wpwrak: again, not what I'm trying to communicate here 2013-01-03 02:01 xiangfu: mmh, now that's a lovely sight :-) 2013-01-03 02:01 wpwrak: I'm comfortable with C. I just don't see the point to do something for a week if I can do it in one evening, with a negligible performance penalty. 2013-01-03 02:01 kristianpaul: I will send the package tomorrow. EMS was on holidays. 2013-01-03 02:02 xiangfu: sure no rush ;) 2013-01-03 02:02 still need to write the forth part.. 2013-01-03 02:02 xiangfu: so you decided to adopt azonenberg's design ? 2013-01-03 02:02 wpwrak: yes. basicly modify from azonenberg's board. remove the ft232 chip. get the serial pins out for blue-tooth serial modular. 2013-01-03 02:02 wpwrak: yes. 2013-01-03 02:02 ah good ! 2013-01-03 02:02 hellekin: you didn't read what i wrote after i got back home :) 2013-01-03 02:02 so getting back to qfp? 2013-01-03 02:02 I might have missed it :) 2013-01-03 02:02 kristianpaul: no. 2013-01-03 02:03 ahmm 2013-01-03 02:03 * kristianpaul got lost 2013-01-03 02:03 kristianpaul: just another experience. I have plan to switch to fab-made-pcb + bga. 2013-01-03 02:03 wpwrak: as a trivial example, my flash decompiler is 8KLOC. eight thousand. it beats every single commercial one out there. yeah it works for five minutes on a single real-world file, but no one cares 2013-01-03 02:03 that was earlier experience no? 2013-01-03 02:05 earlier experience was the pre-made pin out pcb. only pins out. 2013-01-03 02:06 so if i got right the diy experience is mostly done and what remain is out source manufacturing the boards? 2013-01-03 02:06 i'd avoid bga. this is not a good moment for it. bga has its place when you do serious quantities or have space constraints. right now, we have none of that. 2013-01-03 02:07 without bga, you have the option of selling fully assembled board or just the pcb. since all the parts are from digi-key anyway, it's not too hard to make virtual kits. 2013-01-03 02:08 a pcb can be shipped as mail. very cheap and still reasonably quick. 2013-01-03 02:09 wpwrak: my ruby implementation is almost ready for generating first useful code, and it's something like 4KLOC together with dependencies. tell me you can do the same in a month of full-time work in C, and I'll switch everything I have to it. 2013-01-03 02:10 wpwrak: the xilinx new chips are all BGA. no qfp. 2013-01-03 02:10 wpwrak: so if woflgang switch slx9 to 7 seriles. I have to use bga. :) 2013-01-03 02:11 whitequark: i wonder why you think C is generally inefficient. especially things that deal with bytes and such, instead of strings, are extremely straightforward there 2013-01-03 02:11 wpwrak: experience with large codebases in both kinds of languages? 2013-01-03 02:11 xiangfu: yeah, 7 would break all this. but then, is this coming ? 2013-01-03 02:12 kristianpaul: (source manufacturing the boards) no. those experience make me can make demo board fast, under controlled. :) 2013-01-03 02:12 wpwrak: bytes, mostly, yes. but here is a project with a good amount of quite complex routing logic. it really doesn't go well with C (compared with more dynamic counterparts). 2013-01-03 02:12 whitequark: not really. lots of BASIC, Pascal, C. done some assembler, shell, Perl, Python (and of course Cora :). but for really big things, only C. 2013-01-03 02:13 wpwrak, you are awesome 2013-01-03 02:13 wpwrak: out of that list, only Python and Perl are dynamic HLLs, and it is generally hard to write big things in Perl for unrelated reasons 2013-01-03 02:14 (plus the usual fringe languages, lisp, cobol, and all that. but that's just extremely superficial knowledge) 2013-01-03 02:14 sagex: thanks ;-) 2013-01-03 02:14 whitequark: when a project outgrows perl, i switch it to C :) 2013-01-03 02:15 wpwrak: doh. sometimes I'll just find a few free weeks and show you how things should be done, with my code :) 2013-01-03 02:15 kristianpaul: what i don't know is what wolfgang is planning to do about the board situation, if anything 2013-01-03 02:16 kristianpaul: the board i sent to you only have 1 pins out. 1 led, 1 DONE LED. the jtag pins name at back. 2013-01-03 02:16 wpwrak: me either... lets he speak by it self soon :-) 2013-01-03 02:16 whitequark: you know the risk in trying to teach that old dog is that he may just enjoy the meal (-:C 2013-01-03 02:16 xiangfu: well i do not plan more than a blinking led with the j1 cpu 2013-01-03 02:17 kristianpaul: ok. so you are using the Verlog code? right? 2013-01-03 02:17 kristianpaul: so i looked around a bit, and for LX9, the situation is relatively bleak. the only thing halfway decent i found is that avnet board. (which is nice but has issues) 2013-01-03 02:18 there's also the question on whether we still consider such boards to be disposable (because experiments may destroy fpga internals) 2013-01-03 02:18 wpwrak: well, I don't really care what you personally like, and I shouldn't. I think that if you'll see the actual benefit, you'll jump across yourself. 2013-01-03 02:18 disposable = board has to be very simple or modular 2013-01-03 02:18 wpwrak: but have to finish this ruby thing first. 2013-01-03 02:18 non-disposable = more convenient logistics 2013-01-03 02:20 kristianpaul: the UCF file I am using: https://github.com/xiangfu/mini-slx9-board/blob/master/firmware/blinking.xc6slx9-2-ftg256.ucf 2013-01-03 02:20 whitequark: (jump) i feel like a fish in water with C :) and i know enough of object-oriented principles and their application to C that i doubt it'll ever outgrow my needs. maybe my discipline may fail me from time to time, but that can happen in any language. 2013-01-03 02:21 xiangfu: yes all here https://github.com/kristianpaul/j1soc 2013-01-03 02:21 xiangfu: and yes i steal all your ucf and makefiles :-) 2013-01-03 02:21 kristianpaul: I can do quict test here too. in case you want more feedback. once you finish the j1soc. 2013-01-03 02:21 kristianpaul: great. 2013-01-03 02:22 xiangfu: ah yes, well no forth code yet.. 2013-01-03 02:22 but i will ping you when have dont that part 2013-01-03 02:22 also will need load that in bram 2013-01-03 02:22 another option would be to move from LX9 to something else. there are also relatively cheap boards for non-LX9 chips. the question is how hard or easy it would be to adapt wolfgang's work to them. from what i've heard about what he's doing, this should be quite feasible, but may require some serious amount of grunt work. 2013-01-03 02:22 wpwrak: sometimes forks take over the original projects, you know ;) 2013-01-03 02:23 whitequark: yet most die within a week ;-) 2013-01-03 02:23 wpwrak: a week is optimistic :D 2013-01-03 02:23 (but may require some serious amount of grunt work) yes. and he have to understand the chip details again. (just like wolfgang done with slx9) 2013-01-03 02:23 wpwrak: looking at github stats, most don't even see a single commit 2013-01-03 02:24 whitequark: "within" is "<=" ;-) 2013-01-03 02:24 yeah yeah :) 2013-01-03 02:24 whitequark: so it also includes the ones that already end after sobering up :) but then, the zero-commit ones are a bit suspicious 2013-01-03 02:25 wpwrak: well, it's just that on github you're one click away from a fork. it is much more like a git-clone. 2013-01-03 02:26 so you gotta have a lot of forks which aren't forks in traditional OSS sense. for example, the typical workflow is fork-commit-pullrequest 2013-01-03 02:26 whitequark: yeah, some may just fall asleep on their mouse :) 2013-01-03 02:27 wpwrak: I think it is a side effect of github being a "social network" whatever that means. Some people mistake "fork" for "like" or something like that. 2013-01-03 02:27 ;-)) 2013-01-03 02:27 I mean that seriously btw 2013-01-03 02:27 the facbook culture :) 2013-01-03 02:27 kristianpaul: you are using the tqg144. the board I send to you are bga. the different is the clk pin and led pin are different. 2013-01-03 02:28 wpwrak: kind of 2013-01-03 02:28 s/the board I send to you are bga/the board I send to you is bga/ 2013-01-03 02:28 xiangfu meant: "kristianpaul: you are using the tqg144. the board I send to you is bga. the different is the clk pin and led pin are different." 2013-01-03 02:29 ahm ok 2013-01-03 02:29 well easy change ! :-) 2013-01-03 02:29 xiangfu: so the idea is to produce one of these boards for fpgatools users ? 2013-01-03 02:30 "users" being pioneers, of course :) 2013-01-03 02:31 wpwrak: not sure. if someone want buy. we can sale. but the target is make some product for consumer. make some real money. 2013-01-03 02:31 kristianpaul: yes. 2013-01-03 02:32 heh :) 2013-01-03 02:33 xiangfu: so what would the customer product be like ? fpgatools seem to be very very far from that 2013-01-03 02:33 * kristianpaul thing same 2013-01-03 02:33 think* 2013-01-03 02:33 wolfgang already target on j1 soc. 2013-01-03 02:33 in fact, i've been wondering if wolfgang had given up for good on making money :) 2013-01-03 02:33 lol 2013-01-03 02:34 wpwrak: I don't know. 2013-01-03 02:34 hmm, what would be the consumer demand for a j1 soc ? 2013-01-03 02:35 is J1 SOC the milkymist soc? 2013-01-03 02:35 synthesized in asic? 2013-01-03 02:38 no no 2013-01-03 02:38 no no no :p 2013-01-03 02:38 wpwrak: is just a small target 2013-01-03 02:38 i dont see any consumer demand eithe 2013-01-03 02:38 kristianpaul: what it is then? 2013-01-03 02:38 but fpgatools need do more that a counter anyway 2013-01-03 02:40 whitequark: http://excamera.com/sphinx/fpga-j1.html 2013-01-03 02:41 ahh, the forth critter 2013-01-03 02:41 it is used as a simple yet real target for fpgatools, right? 2013-01-03 02:43 (consumer demand) depends on what we want the product do with j1 soc inside. 2013-01-03 02:50 xiangfu: well ... are there plans beyond J! ? as far as i know, J1 was the next step towards making a better "proof of concept" 2013-01-03 02:50 what i don't see in all this is something sellable to end customers 2013-01-03 02:50 no plan. 2013-01-03 02:50 on the other hand, it's something that ought to be very suitable for attracting sponsorship from interested parties 2013-01-03 02:50 wpwrak: j1 or anyother small cpu can do actually something i think 2013-01-03 02:50 ( to end customers) I am not very clear on this. have to talk with wolfgang. 2013-01-03 02:51 Do you guys know of that Bittware board with an FPGA alongside an Epiphany chip? 2013-01-03 02:51 usually, when there's some cartel in charge of things, there are many powerful entities who are silently suffering but will be more than happy to exercise their muscle as soon as they see a way out of their misery 2013-01-03 02:52 kristianpaul: oh, sure j1 can do "something". but then, i can get a chip that does quite a few "something"s for 1/10 of the price of that fpga :) 2013-01-03 02:53 urandom__ has quit [Quit: Konversation terminated!] 2013-01-03 02:53 wpwrak: ;) 2013-01-03 02:54 kristianpaul: now the question is what all this is supposed to connect to. maybe it's just wolfgang needing to work off some stress and there's no goal besides breaking the fpga conspiracy. 2013-01-03 02:54 breaking fpga conspiracy 2013-01-03 02:54 :-) 2013-01-03 02:54 jeje 2013-01-03 02:54 kristianpaul: or maybe he's got some commercialization plan but isn't telling anyone 2013-01-03 02:55 kristianpaul: or something else :) it's rather obscure 2013-01-03 02:55 haha 2013-01-03 02:55 maybe indeed 2013-01-03 02:55 kristianpaul: it may also be that he doesn't see a way to turn this into income, yet there is. 2013-01-03 02:57 but is too early? 2013-01-03 02:57 well you need a plan to build on it 2013-01-03 02:58 not sure about timing. depends on the goals. if there' s specific goal but it's still far out, perhaps keeping a low profile is good. 2013-01-03 02:58 yeah 2013-01-03 02:58 oh guys whats happening 2013-01-03 02:58 and you just announce fpgatools may get public officially ;) 2013-01-03 02:59 but then, if it's just to work off the frustration of fpga closedness, it would be beneficial to "go public" soon 2013-01-03 02:59 megharsh has quit [Ping timeout: 264 seconds] 2013-01-03 02:59 and i think a blinking led is convincing proof of concept 2013-01-03 03:00 kristianpaul: hmm, did you use "you" as "someone" or as "Werner" ? 2013-01-03 03:00 (obviously, i hope there will be some sort of announcement in the fpgatools future :) 2013-01-03 03:01 (and i do keep on putting hints into my monthly statistics. they're also reminders for wolfgang that he could be a little less secretive :) 2013-01-03 03:02 jianju has quit [Ping timeout: 265 seconds] 2013-01-03 03:05 jianju has joined #qi-hardware 2013-01-03 03:05 wpwrak: werner :) 2013-01-03 03:06 reminders oh yes i noticed most of then 2013-01-03 03:06 hehe 2013-01-03 03:08 anyone use their nanonote to do something bizarre 2013-01-03 03:08 kristianpaul: good. so they weren't imperceptibly subtle :) 2013-01-03 03:09 sagex: ah, welcome to the nanonote club then :) 2013-01-03 03:10 sagex: of course, bizarreness is in the eye of the beholder. would this count for you ? http://downloads.qi-hardware.com/people/werner/ubb/vga/web/ 2013-01-03 03:10 (at least i tried to find a reasonably bizarrely-looking angle when taking the pictures :) 2013-01-03 03:13 megharsh has joined #qi-hardware 2013-01-03 03:27 FrankBlues has quit [Remote host closed the connection] 2013-01-03 03:38 jianju has quit [Ping timeout: 272 seconds] 2013-01-03 03:42 jianju has joined #qi-hardware 2013-01-03 04:00 Maroni has joined #qi-hardware 2013-01-03 04:04 DocScrutinizer05 has quit [Disconnected by services] 2013-01-03 04:04 DocScrutinizer06 has joined #qi-hardware 2013-01-03 04:27 jianju has quit [Ping timeout: 255 seconds] 2013-01-03 04:30 DocScrutinizer06 is now known as jOERG_rw 2013-01-03 04:30 jOERG_rw is now known as DocScrutinizer06 2013-01-03 04:30 DocScrutinizer06 is now known as DocScrutinizer05 2013-01-03 05:42 porchao has joined #qi-hardware 2013-01-03 05:42 porchaso0 has quit [Ping timeout: 252 seconds] 2013-01-03 05:57 wpwrak: I just stumbled upon a problem and invented a solution for it 2013-01-03 05:57 then someone else realized I was going to rewrite `make' 2013-01-03 05:57 did they stop you? 2013-01-03 05:57 hozer: I've to support Windows, and my data format is not serializable 2013-01-03 05:58 but at least I'd have a thing to steal code from 2013-01-03 05:58 so are you installying cygwin and make now? 2013-01-03 05:58 hozer: rewriting the part of make I need :3 2013-01-03 06:00 actually using make would be a terrible idea, as the amount of interfacing required to use that tiny part of the old tool will probably be far higher than the algorithm itself 2013-01-03 06:00 but it was a fun discovery nevertheless 2013-01-03 06:00 I'm even solving basically the same problem: compiling translation units while obeying dependencies 2013-01-03 06:01 heh 2013-01-03 06:01 seems like we need a new title: code Archeologist 2013-01-03 06:01 and he does what? 2013-01-03 06:02 or engineering archeologist 2013-01-03 06:02 find a problem, look for old code that solves it 2013-01-03 06:02 this should be a prerequisite to be named an engineer even jokingly 2013-01-03 06:03 the amount of real (and imaginary) problems not yet solved by anyone publicly is vanishingly small... 2013-01-03 06:04 it should be, but if that were a requirement most universities would cease to exist as they are 2013-01-03 06:05 maybe they should, then? 2013-01-03 06:05 the solution to renewable energy storage is sitting in 25-30 year old ammonia tanks 2013-01-03 06:05 hm. 2013-01-03 06:05 could you elaborate? 2013-01-03 06:05 Yet DOE continues to talk about 'advances in fundamental blah blah blah for hydrogen storage' 2013-01-03 06:06 also that sounds quite... smelly. and not exactly safe in case of a rupture. 2013-01-03 06:06 There's more hydrogen in a truck loaded with pressurized liquid ammonia than a truck full of liquid hydrogen 2013-01-03 06:06 how come such obvious thing isn't mentioned anywhere? 2013-01-03 06:07 well, the big tanks are atmospheric pressure but -33f 2013-01-03 06:08 smaller ones are pressurized .. http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/cropsystems/dc2326.html 2013-01-03 06:10 http://7el.us/Solar/Thermo.pdf or http://freedomfertilizer.com 2013-01-03 06:11 so basically, instead of making ammonia the way we've done it since the 1920's when Haber and Bosch figured it out (by using natural gas or coal for the hydrogen), we just use electrolysis to get the hydrogen, and the same haber-bosch reactor 2013-01-03 06:12 hozer: this is an awesome idea. are there any other reasons (except for the ammonia being quite dangerous to handle) everyone is pursuing hydrogen stuff? 2013-01-03 06:12 hydrogen is a pain to store 2013-01-03 06:13 it either needs 5000psi (dangerous), or near absolute zero 2013-01-03 06:13 and then, even as liquid, it's very low density 2013-01-03 06:13 so about the only place the mass-energy-density of H2 makes sense is a rocket 2013-01-03 06:14 whitequark: where are you located 2013-01-03 06:15 hozer: Russia 2013-01-03 06:16 http://www.protonchemie.com/NFUEL.html is not too far from you 2013-01-03 06:16 well, I can't say that for sure, Russia is big ;) 2013-01-03 06:17 Moscow to be more precise :) 2013-01-03 06:17 ah, proton did an ammonia handling terminal in Estonia 2013-01-03 06:19 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TogliattiAzot 2013-01-03 06:21 hm, interesting 2013-01-03 06:22 thanks for telling this, I never heard about ammonia storage before 2013-01-03 06:22 (as a hydrogen repository, that is) 2013-01-03 06:24 you can burn ammonia in engines or tubines directly too 2013-01-03 06:24 I'd worry about releasing ammonia into atmosphere accidentally 2013-01-03 06:24 through I'm not sure what would be the consequences of doing that with hydrogen 2013-01-03 06:25 but for places like Iowa that grow a lot of corn (which needs a lot of nitrogen), 20GW of wind turbines would make enough electricity to make the ammonia 2013-01-03 06:25 do you have cats? 2013-01-03 06:25 not at the moment 2013-01-03 06:25 well, if you clean the catbox you have an ammonia release ;) 2013-01-03 06:26 yeah, trace amounts of it. urea hydrolizes very slowly. 2013-01-03 06:26 the nice thing about NH3 is it's self-alarming. You know very quickly if there's a leak 2013-01-03 06:26 whereas here you could trivially get a large-scale chemical accident if your turbine malfunctions 2013-01-03 06:26 hm 2013-01-03 06:27 what if there isn't a small leak? on the page you've linked me to ( syntax do |s| 2013-01-03 06:27 s.operand :tuple 2013-01-03 06:27 end 2013-01-03 06:27 errrr 2013-01-03 06:27 this one: http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/cropsystems/dc2326.html 2013-01-03 06:27 it lists quite a lot of hazards. failure of a safety valve, for example. 2013-01-03 06:28 that could quickly release a lot of ammonia without much warning signs 2013-01-03 06:28 I don't want to be anywhere near that tank in that case. 2013-01-03 06:28 yes 2013-01-03 06:28 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNkdAs1e7Cw 2013-01-03 06:29 now here's the thing... what happens if you have a natural gas leak in your home 2013-01-03 06:30 I used to haul ammonia tanks when I was in high school ... my dad had (well still has) an applicator 2013-01-03 06:30 and then I decided I never wanted to deal with that stuff again 2013-01-03 06:30 and 15 years later I'm doing a feasibility study on wind energy to ammonia 2013-01-03 06:31 hozer: I have an electric stove here. I don't like natural gas either. 2013-01-03 06:31 Also: here, almost all length of the pipes is routed outside so that all leaks just spill to atmosphere, as opposed to accumulating and exploding in the basement 2013-01-03 06:32 natural gas isn't dangerous unless it explodes, ammonia is 2013-01-03 06:34 I wouldn't advocate putting NH3 in a home 2013-01-03 06:34 I'd rather not see it in a city either 2013-01-03 06:34 but it is probably fine for long-distance transport 2013-01-03 06:35 or long-term storage 2013-01-03 06:35