jbqueru

jbqueru, 1 month ago to random

Hmmm. Write Z80 first, then port to 6502? Write 6502 first, then port to Z80? Write 68000 first, then port to both Z80 and 6502? Write a bytecode interpreter on both 6502 and Z80 and then code to that bytecode?

I guess I'm looking for an excuse to think about writing code instead of, you know, actually writing code.

jbqueru, 2 months ago to random

My wife @eugenialoli has been working on installing Linux on various old computers for which a lot of other options are now unsupported.

She's been finding that machines with 2GB or RAM or 16GB of storage tend to struggle, whether while installing the OS, booting, installing common apps or running those apps.

2GB of RAM is an incredibly large amount. As is 16GB of storage.

WTF are we software people doing as an industry that makes us consume so many resources?

jbqueru, 7 months ago (edited 7 months ago) to random

Progress allows me to learn new concepts.

Today's: "Let's factory-reset the TV" followed by "The TV seems to be stuck in a boot loop" followed by "I guess that's how AndroidTV dies."

But now I probably have a 75" brick that I'll need to get rid of.

Edit: somehow, I got it fixed.

jbqueru, 5 months ago to random

I'm riding a train in Europe today, in ideal conditions: no heavy luggage, no connection, within a single state. And it's magical.

While I continue to prefer flying for complex trips (because the airline industry knows how to handle complexity), in simple cases I can't imagine flying when there's a direct high-speed train.

jbqueru, 4 months ago (edited 4 months ago) to random

Poll: I'm going to be writing equivalent code for a variety of targets (essentially porting code to a bunch of targets). How should I organize my code in git?

jbqueru, 7 months ago to random

The things you find when you're moving: H0BBIT BeBox motherboard, serial number and dates indicate 1993.

jbqueru, 10 months ago to random

If you're worried that temperatures are several degrees above the 1980-2010 average, keep in mind that they're several degrees below the 2030-2060 average.

jbqueru, 7 months ago to random

I sold my EV only 2 days ago, and I'm already missing it. My plan after I move is to get a hybrid, because I don't expect that going EV-only will be practical in Greece. However, if I can manage to get a significant capacity of PV panels installed on the house, and according to our budget and needs, I suspect that a hypothetical second car would be an EV.

jbqueru, 1 year ago (edited 1 year ago) to random

Well, I just ordered my first new desktop PC in at least 22 years (!!!). 13900K + RTX 3060 (Edit: I've had other machines in the meantime, either used desktops or new laptops, but no new desktop).

Now, it comes with basic RAM (2x8GB), but I'm going to ugprade that myself.

4x32GB DDR5-5200 CL36, or am I going overkill and should I therefore only get 4x16GB?

jbqueru, 1 year ago to random

I've been away from desktop PCs for so long that I don't have a good instinct for what's reasonable any more (my current desktop PC is from 2010!!!).

Is this a reasonable configuration for photo editing and light coding? i7-13700 w/ 64GB + RTX 3050 8GB, 512GB SSD (+ 8TB HDD for large files, + optical drive). Looking at ~$1500 (US).

jbqueru, 10 months ago to random

I am getting increasingly impressed with the hardware in the ZX80, even though I suspect it could have been even better without major changes.

At the same time, I'm starting to suspect that the emulator I use doesn't emulate the actual graphics hardware, and instead does just enough to allow the ROM code to run. Time to test more emulators...

jbqueru, 7 months ago (edited 7 months ago) to random

Electric cars are cheap to charge, until they're not.

Today, my EV hatchback costs me $2.89 per gallon-equivalent to charge at home, and gets me 131 mpge in city driving. My ICE SUV costs $5.22 per gallon and gets me 16 mpg in city driving. No wonder I don't drive the SUV much.

But, the equation might be different in other cases: Greece, at $20.96 per gallon equivalent for public EV charging vs ICE cars that get 67 mpg isn't as obviously cheaper, even with gas at $7.43 per gallon.

(US units)

jbqueru, 1 year ago to random

One of my wife's laptops just died (old MacBookPro), swollen battery to the point of being likely unsafe. And now one of my Chromebooks just doesn't want to boot (it doesn't even respond to holding the power button for 10+ seconds). I might have to try to open it and disconnect the battery.

jbqueru, 1 year ago to random

Me: oh, that's weird, my HDMI cable doesn't fit in the HDMI port on my monitor.
Also, me: oh, maybe I had it the wrong way, let me try to other way.
Still, me: no, it also doesn't fit, let me go back to the first orientation, making sure it's perfectly aligned.
Finally, me: I'm trying to plug a Displayport cable into an HDMI port.

jbqueru, 9 months ago to random

I look forward to web sites that intentionally only work with an ad blocker active.

jbqueru, 11 months ago to random

Back home from a trip to San Francisco (where I applied for a new French passport as my previous one had expired). 2100 miles, 43 hours of driving, 95 gallons of gas (my car is comfortable but not efficient).

jbqueru, 1 year ago to random

After a bit of a scare when it wouldn't POST, my PC now has 128GB of RAM. (it had aggressive RAM timings that worked with the DIMM that came with it, but not with the new ones I bought).

And now I know that both POV-Ray and Blender are faster on Linux than on Windows.

jbqueru, 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago) to random

I just gave ChatGPT another chance at helping me write some code. I pasted some uncommented chunk of assembly (not trick code), and asked it to comment that code.

The most it was able to guess "intelligently" is that the code had to do with graphics. Beyond that, though, it was quite useless. It tried to comment instructions one by one with their literal meaning, and even got that wrong. It also couldn't group sequences of instructions into logical groups.

(1/4)

jbqueru, 7 months ago to random

I've been reading about RISC-V recently. Very interesting instruction set indeed, no stack, no flags, fixed-length instructions by default. Some oddities beyond 32-bit that seem to make it less straightforward.

For folks who might have written RISC-V assembly, do you use AUIPC "naked" (i.e. without assembler support for pseudo-instructions) when computing addresses? Or do you limit yourself to LUI?

#RISCV

jbqueru, 6 months ago to random

Status: burning out.

We're a few days from flying out as part of the process of moving, I keep having a list of about 10 important things to do before we leave, but I add things to that list about as quickly as I can cross things out.

It feels like it never ends, and I'm worried that we'll leave behind something critically important that can only be done in person.

jbqueru, 1 year ago to random

I'm wondering if installing Ubuntu 23.04 was a mistake, too many things are broken for it to be usable for me. I'm debating downgrading to Ubuntu 22.04, or even returning Mint 20 (which is based on Ubuntu 20.04).

jbqueru, 1 year ago to random

'tis the season of computer upgrades.
-upgrading the HDD with an SSD in my HP Z210, and using the opportunity to replace the dead optical drive. Probably will install Ubuntu (it's currently running Mint).
-upgrading the HDD with an SSD in my wife's Mac Mini (2014). I don't know what distro she'll install on it, she likes to tinker. Mint, maybe?
-got a RAM and SSD upgrade and battery replacement on the way for a Dell 5480 we just got (refurbished - turned out to be much better than expected).

jbqueru, 7 months ago to random

Is there a Risc-V machine that is meant to be programmed bare-metal?

jbqueru, 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago) to random

As I'm unpacking after moving, I'm still missing one computer I'm looking for... but my BeBox is out!

jbqueru, 1 month ago to random

Well well well, it very much seems like I have landed myself a new job. I wasn't looking for one yet, but that one was looking for me and it seems to be a great match. I expect the formal paperwork on Monday.