Comment Re:ROTFL! (Score 1) 148
Oh man... this is spot on. This... I can't even... oh no.
I feel so empty right now. WHAT HAVE I DONE WITH MY LIFE??
Comment Re:68k has no MMU; how can Linux run? (Score 1) 147
uClinux - can be built without MMU support. There's no memory protection, and program binaries have to be patched up by the loader, so that address references reflect the physical memory address at which the binary is loaded. http://www.uclinux.org/
Comment Thanks for crashing my web server! (Score 5, Informative) 147
Thanks for all the comments! This "68 Katy" is my project. The video is a good overview, and lots more tech details are at http://bigmessowires.com/2014/... and the rest of the site. I've built a couple of other home-made CPU / computer projects in the past, including "Big Mess o' Wires" a few years ago, but this was the first time I tried to add a real OS. Cramming Linux into 512K was a challenge!
The CPU is a 68008, which is a low cost version of the familiar 68000 with an 8-bit bus and fewer external address pins. It has a max of 1 MB of total address space. It’s paired with a 512K 8-bit SRAM, and a 512K Flash ROM (of which 480K is addressable – the remaining 32K is memory-mapped I/O devices). My 68008 runs at 2 MHz (it was unstable when tested at 4 MHz), providing similar performance to a 1 MHz 68000. That’s pretty slow, even in comparison to 68000 systems from the early 1980s, which were typically 8 MHz or faster. So frame rates in the latest games aren't great...
Comment Re:Kind Of Vague (Score 2, Informative) 547
What, seriously? You were forced to work 40-50 hours per week actually writing software, without the union-mandated 5 hours per day for updating your blog and watching funny YouTube videos?
Why do people seem to think that being asked to actually WORK at work is some sort of heinous crime?
> reasonably smart people that study and learn a usable skill shouldn't have to live like that. Not in the US.
They should get to work in some gilded office and get their asses kissed for doing 30 minutes of actual work in a day?
Comment Data center "porn"? (Score 4, Insightful) 88
What's with the trend of calling technical info "porn"? A while ago on Wired, there was an article on "nanotech porn". It really reinforces the stereotype that tech guys are all a bunch of creepy bearded child molesters, whacking off to photoshopped images of Catherine Janeway in their mom's basement.
Comment Re:A lenient definition of "make" (Score 1) 187
I am reading this, and if that was an offer to pass on some old Augat boards, I'd *love* to have them! They're getting tough to find! My email address is on the stevechamberlin.com website if you want to contact me.
If I ever said Big Mess o' Wires was only 7400 logic, it was a lie. My original goal was to use mostly 7400 logic. In the end there were also quite a few 22v10 PALs as you noticed, and two LSI chips related to audio and video RAMDAC.
Comment Forget C and Fortran (Score 4, Insightful) 569
If you're doing this to gain experience that will help you land a job, forget about C or Fortran.
Otherwise, it depends on what kind of software job you're looking for. Games and application development tend to be C++. Web-related software is more likely to involve Java.
First Look At Windows 7 Beta 1 898
The other A. N. Other writes "It seems that Microsoft couldn't keep the lid on Windows 7 beta 1 until the new year. By now, several news outlets have their hands on the beta 1 code and have posted screenshots and information about this build. ZDNet's Hardware 2.0 column says: 'This beta is of excellent quality. This is the kind of code that you could roll out and live with. Even the pre-betas were solid, but finally this beta feels like it's "done." This beta exceeds the quality of any other Microsoft OS beta that I've handled.' ITWire points out that this copy has landed on various torrent sites, and while it appears to be genuine, there are no guarantees. Neowin has a post confirming that it's the real thing, and saying Microsoft will be announcing the build's official availability at CES in January."
Richard Garriott Quits NCSoft 149
unc0nn3ct3d writes "In a shocking update on the seemingly endless troubles plaguing NCSoft, Richard Garriott — the king of online games, creator of The Ultima Series (and consequentially Ultima Online), as well as the recently troubled Tabula Rasa — has announced that he would be stepping down from his position at NCSoft. Apparently motivated by his recent trip into space, perhaps he has found a higher purpose while orbiting so high above the earth."
Comment no two pairs can be the same distance apart (Score 1, Insightful) 265
In your example, the distance between 0 and 3 is the same as between 3 and 6. Not a Golomb ruler.
Distributed.net Finds Optimal 25-Mark Golomb Ruler 265
kpearson writes "Distributed.net's 8-year-old OGR-25 distributed computing project has just proven conclusively that the predicted shortest 25-mark Golomb ruler is optimal. 'The total length of the ruler is 480, with marks at positions: 0 12 29 39 72 91 146 157 160 161 166 191 207 214 258 290 316 354 372 394 396 431 459 467 480. (This ruler may alternatively be expressed in terms of the distance between those positions, which is how dnetc displays them: 12-17-10-33-19-...).' 124,387 people participated in the project and two people found the shortest ruler, one on October 10, 2007 and the other on March 24, 2008."
White Space Debate Intensifies As Vote Approaches 94
Ars Technica reports that the debate between broadcasters and white space supporters has intensified after each side recently made inflammatory comments and suggested that science would vindicate their position. Several organizations are pushing to delay the upcoming white space vote, in part because it takes place on the same day as the US presidential election. We recently discussed Google's claim that a test of this system was rigged to fail. From Ars:
"The broadcasters contend that adjacent channel interference would be significant even at the 40 mW level proposed by Kevin Martin. In fact, they claim that such a device would interfere with digital television signals when the viewer is 25 miles from the television tower and the whitespace device is 10m or less from the TV set. At 50 miles from the television tower, a whitespace device within 50m from a set could allegedly cause interference. The broadcasters also want several safeguard requirements put on the technology that go beyond the new, lower-power transmission levels."
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