From paulmacd at acm.org Tue Dec 2 09:16:32 2025 From: paulmacd at acm.org (The MacDougals) Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2025 10:16:32 -0500 Subject: [TriEmbed] Monthly meeting 12/8 at 7:00pm in person at The Forge Message-ID: <000001dc639e$a5017130$ef045390$@acm.org> We will have our normal monthly meeting on Monday 12/8/25 at 7:00 pm Agenda: - Welcome - Announcements - P.O.T.M. - Show and Tell The plan for this month is to meet in person at: The Forge Initiative 1012 Investment Blvd, Suite 103 Apex, NC 27502 ---> Paul -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at soper.us Wed Dec 3 13:19:14 2025 From: pete at soper.us (Pete soper) Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2025 14:19:14 -0500 Subject: [TriEmbed] Also online and recorded! Re: Monthly meeting 12/8 at 7:00pm in person at The Forge In-Reply-To: <000001dc639e$a5017130$ef045390$@acm.org> References: <000001dc639e$a5017130$ef045390$@acm.org> Message-ID: As well as being at the Forge the meeting will also be online at the usual Jitsi URL: https://meet.jit.si/TriEmbed The meeting will be recorded. Pete On 12/2/25 10:16, The MacDougals via TriEmbed wrote: > > We will have our normal monthly meeting on Monday 12/8/25 at 7:00 pm > > Agenda: > > - Welcome > > - Announcements > > - P.O.T.M. > > - Show and Tell > > The plan for this month is to meet in person at: > > The Forge Initiative > > 1012 Investment Blvd, Suite 103 > > Apex, NC 27502 > > ---> Paul > > > _______________________________________________ > Triangle, NC Embedded Interest Group mailing list > > To post message:TriEmbed at triembed.org > List info:http://mail.triembed.org/mailman/listinfo/triembed_triembed.org > TriEmbed web site:https://TriEmbed.org > To unsubscribe, click link and send a blank message:mailto:unsubscribe-TriEmbed at bitser.net?subject=unsubscribe > Searchable email archive available athttps://www.mail-archive.com/triembed at triembed.org/ > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From scottghall1 at gmail.com Thu Dec 4 12:38:35 2025 From: scottghall1 at gmail.com (Scott Hall) Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2025 13:38:35 -0500 Subject: [TriEmbed] Long distance Tesla power backup ... Message-ID: ... no fossil fuel saving here: https://youtube.com/shorts/-BDGv6smiZY?si=eaSticNP6qxCb7-5 -- Scott G. Hall Raleigh, NC, USA scottghall1 at gmail.com *”**Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.” -- Henry Ford* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From paulmacd at acm.org Tue Dec 9 09:33:24 2025 From: paulmacd at acm.org (The MacDougals) Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2025 10:33:24 -0500 Subject: [TriEmbed] Coherer Message-ID: <000001dc6921$295de990$7c19bcb0$@acm.org> I stumbled upon this today. Wow, blown away. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMkdnj698-0 ---> Paul -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From petesoper at gmail.com Tue Dec 9 16:23:14 2025 From: petesoper at gmail.com (Pete Soper) Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2025 17:23:14 -0500 (EST) Subject: [TriEmbed] Coherer In-Reply-To: <000001dc6921$295de990$7c19bcb0$@acm.org> References: <000001dc6921$295de990$7c19bcb0$@acm.org> Message-ID: That is amazing. The Wikipedia article below is worth reading for more details. The behavior was mentioned almost 200 years ago. The persistence of conduction after the RF field stops seems like magic. There is no hint of how this works in the wiki. Maybe YouTube guy explained it? (I confess I didn't listen to all he said.) The 19th century stuff mostly used iron filings and carbon particles as compared to the aluminum of the YouTube. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coherer?wprov=sfla1 Pete -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at soper.us Mon Dec 15 09:19:32 2025 From: pete at soper.us (Pete Soper) Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2025 10:19:32 -0500 (EST) Subject: [TriEmbed] Updates on Arduino licensing Message-ID: IMO Adafruit nails it with respect to the slippery slope many users will find themselves on as they are steered to online accounts and cloud based tools. https://thenewstack.io/adafruit-arduinos-rules-are-incompatible-with-open-source/ Pete -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at soper.us Thu Dec 18 16:50:25 2025 From: pete at soper.us (Pete Soper) Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2025 17:50:25 -0500 (EST) Subject: [TriEmbed] ACM pubs becoming open Message-ID: https://dl.acm.org/openaccess Pete -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at soper.us Sat Dec 20 11:33:26 2025 From: pete at soper.us (Pete Soper) Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2025 12:33:26 -0500 (EST) Subject: [TriEmbed] what's more basic than assembly language? Message-ID: The blog below caught my attention on Hacker News and got me thinking about bottom up understanding of computing. This is about projects relating to some kind of demo/contest event for FPGA's (field programmable gate arrays), but the author goes into some detail about how entertaining "toys" like a VGA graphics generator can be made. That led to thinking about whether learning to work with FPGAs would help somebody to understand how computers "really work". But a little more thought made me ask myself whether a modern programmer even needs to know about, let alone understand machine language. Not clear that this is relevant. (but I'd love it if at least one CS course would show how decompiling a single C++ statement leveraging overloading, polymorphism, grotesque layers of header references, etc can result in an avalanche of machine code) Anyway, I haven't even finished this and I'm talked out of the supposition. :-) But perhaps some of you might be interested in playing with FPGAs, as the hobby level hardware is very cheap and tools and examples are plentiful. https://www.a1k0n.net/2025/12/19/tiny-tapeout-demo.html Pete -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mikelisanke at gmail.com Sat Dec 20 12:07:30 2025 From: mikelisanke at gmail.com (Mike Lisanke) Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2025 13:07:30 -0500 Subject: [TriEmbed] what's more basic than assembly language? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Pete, There are many courses for an Engineer in Computer Systems science/engineering. And they include HLD and ISA and bit-slice and architecture. And yes, also compiler and interpreter design and machine language programming bootstrapping into assembly language and boot loaders. There are as they say the Whole Nine Yards. Many of us really old timers learnt machines from the ground up. I was younger than most when many many CPUs MPUs were being shoveled onto the mass market for embedded systems And the newest thing, personal computers. Most had no tools and had many of us using one system (with BASIC and DOS) to boot assembly languages for other cpu on bare hardware. I recall as a HS hobbyist typing in my own hex editor into memory the boot block of DOS on an (at the time smallest) 8" Shugart 128K floppy diskette. Those were the days. And when I got to UF their Computer engineering lab had US play with bitslice to build our own ALU. But fortunately, before even seeing the hardware in the lab... I simulated it on one of my PCs in my apartment; and was done in a half hour vs 2-3 that others had... coding by hand, pencil and paper, and using hex-keypad to key into raw HW. That was the best fun and learning of its time; I've often wondered how much it was repeated as "kids today" take for granted that infrastructure is Just There. So much so, that when I ask about Cross Platform tool development, nobody in Triangle Linux Users Group wants to volunteer to talk,,, I would but it's gotten way more complicated to keep Toolchains up to date (and functional) that Egg on Face is always a likely occurrence. Thanks for your musing this AM and the memories it brought back. QED On Sat, Dec 20, 2025 at 12:33 PM Pete Soper via TriEmbed < triembed at triembed.org> wrote: > The blog below caught my attention on Hacker News and got me thinking > about bottom up understanding of computing. This is about projects relating > to some kind of demo/contest event for FPGA's (field programmable gate > arrays), but the author goes into some detail about how entertaining "toys" > like a VGA graphics generator can be made. That led to thinking about > whether learning to work with FPGAs would help somebody to understand how > computers "really work". But a little more thought made me ask myself > whether a modern programmer even needs to know about, let alone understand > machine language. Not clear that this is relevant. (but I'd love it if at > least one CS course would show how decompiling a single C++ statement > leveraging overloading, polymorphism, grotesque layers of header > references, etc can result in an avalanche of machine code) > Anyway, I haven't even finished this and I'm talked out of the > supposition. :-) > But perhaps some of you might be interested in playing with FPGAs, as the > hobby level hardware is very cheap and tools and examples are plentiful. > > https://www.a1k0n.net/2025/12/19/tiny-tapeout-demo.html > > Pete > _______________________________________________ > Triangle, NC Embedded Interest Group mailing list > > To post message: TriEmbed at triembed.org > List info: http://mail.triembed.org/mailman/listinfo/triembed_triembed.org > TriEmbed web site: https://TriEmbed.org > To unsubscribe, click link and send a blank message: mailto: > unsubscribe-TriEmbed at bitser.net?subject=unsubscribe > Searchable email archive available at > https://www.mail-archive.com/triembed at triembed.org/ > > -- Best regards, Mike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mikelisanke at gmail.com Sat Dec 20 12:15:08 2025 From: mikelisanke at gmail.com (Mike Lisanke) Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2025 13:15:08 -0500 Subject: [TriEmbed] what's more basic than assembly language? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: BTW, using a ROM to sequence data to DMA for driving apps was very common. I put the phase table for 3Q motors in ROM and use mpu to pull out the correct A B and C sinusoid values to drive the motor amp. I scaled and generated the values for the table offline. I knew how to drive the sine wave. Also, at JC we learned on an IBM 1620 (nickname CADET). where CADET means Can't Add, Doesn't Even Try. It used Addition tables loaded in memory from IBM punched card (Holerith was an IBMer) that loaded the table from the cards at IPL. 🤣 On Sat, Dec 20, 2025 at 12:33 PM Pete Soper via TriEmbed < triembed at triembed.org> wrote: > The blog below caught my attention on Hacker News and got me thinking > about bottom up understanding of computing. This is about projects relating > to some kind of demo/contest event for FPGA's (field programmable gate > arrays), but the author goes into some detail about how entertaining "toys" > like a VGA graphics generator can be made. That led to thinking about > whether learning to work with FPGAs would help somebody to understand how > computers "really work". But a little more thought made me ask myself > whether a modern programmer even needs to know about, let alone understand > machine language. Not clear that this is relevant. (but I'd love it if at > least one CS course would show how decompiling a single C++ statement > leveraging overloading, polymorphism, grotesque layers of header > references, etc can result in an avalanche of machine code) > Anyway, I haven't even finished this and I'm talked out of the > supposition. :-) > But perhaps some of you might be interested in playing with FPGAs, as the > hobby level hardware is very cheap and tools and examples are plentiful. > > https://www.a1k0n.net/2025/12/19/tiny-tapeout-demo.html > > Pete > _______________________________________________ > Triangle, NC Embedded Interest Group mailing list > > To post message: TriEmbed at triembed.org > List info: http://mail.triembed.org/mailman/listinfo/triembed_triembed.org > TriEmbed web site: https://TriEmbed.org > To unsubscribe, click link and send a blank message: mailto: > unsubscribe-TriEmbed at bitser.net?subject=unsubscribe > Searchable email archive available at > https://www.mail-archive.com/triembed at triembed.org/ > > -- Best regards, Mike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at soper.us Sat Dec 20 12:43:15 2025 From: pete at soper.us (Pete Soper) Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2025 13:43:15 -0500 (EST) Subject: [TriEmbed] what's more basic than assembly language? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <59d161e6-4219-46b1-89b9-4c766793c1c2@soper.us> This reminds me of a graduate compiler construction course I took in the early 70s. A buddy and I wrote our compilers in a high level language. The others used Univac 1100 assembler. Buddy and I had our compilers going early and made them way past the specs the prof dictated, polishing them until they glowed. With 24 starters there were eight survivers of the course. Then in the last class the prof mentioned he'd blown his budget for machine time.  He looked at my friend and I and we went bright red as the others sat oblivious. The host language compiler was some painful number of times more expensive to run than the assembler and linking would have been cheaper too. I guess this could segue into a chat about bloatware. :-) Pete Dec 20, 2025 1:08:12 PM Mike Lisanke : > Pete, There are many courses for an Engineer in Computer Systems science/engineering. And they include HLD and ISA and bit-slice and architecture. And yes, also compiler and interpreter design and machine language programming bootstrapping into assembly language and boot loaders. There are as they say the Whole Nine Yards. Many of us really old timers learnt machines from the ground up. I was younger than most when many many CPUs MPUs were being shoveled onto the mass market for embedded systems And the newest thing, personal computers. Most had no tools and had many of us using one system (with BASIC and DOS) to boot assembly languages for other cpu on bare hardware. I recall as a HS hobbyist typing in my own hex editor into memory the boot block of DOS on an (at the time smallest) 8" Shugart 128K floppy diskette. Those were the days. And when I got to UF their Computer engineering lab had US play with bitslice to build our own ALU. But fortunately, before even seeing the hardware in the lab... I simulated it on one of my PCs in my apartment; and was done in a half hour vs 2-3 that others had... coding by hand, pencil and paper, and using hex-keypad to key into raw HW. That was the best fun and learning of its time; I've often wondered how much it was repeated as "kids today" take for granted that infrastructure is Just There. So much so, that when I ask about Cross Platform tool development, nobody in Triangle Linux Users Group wants to volunteer to talk,,, I would but it's gotten way more complicated to keep Toolchains up to date (and functional) that Egg on Face is always a likely occurrence. > > Thanks for your musing this AM and the memories it brought back. QED  > > On Sat, Dec 20, 2025 at 12:33 PM Pete Soper via TriEmbed wrote: >> The blog below caught my attention on Hacker News and got me thinking about bottom up understanding of computing. This is about projects relating to some kind of demo/contest event for FPGA's (field programmable gate arrays), but the author goes into some detail about how entertaining "toys" like a VGA graphics generator can be made. That led to thinking about whether learning to work with FPGAs would help somebody to understand how computers "really work". But a little more thought made me ask myself whether a modern programmer even needs to know about, let alone understand machine language. Not clear that this is relevant. (but I'd love it if at least one CS course would show how decompiling a single C++ statement leveraging overloading, polymorphism, grotesque layers of header references, etc can result in an avalanche of machine code) >> Anyway, I haven't even finished this and I'm talked out of the supposition. :-) >> But perhaps some of you might be interested in playing with FPGAs, as the hobby level hardware is very cheap and tools and examples are plentiful. >> >> https://www.a1k0n.net/2025/12/19/tiny-tapeout-demo.html >> >> Pete >> _______________________________________________ >> Triangle, NC Embedded Interest Group mailing list >> >> To post message: TriEmbed at triembed.org >> List info: http://mail.triembed.org/mailman/listinfo/triembed_triembed.org >> TriEmbed web site: https://TriEmbed.org >> To unsubscribe, click link and send a blank message: mailto:unsubscribe-TriEmbed at bitser.net?subject=unsubscribe >> Searchable email archive available at https://www.mail-archive.com/triembed at triembed.org/ >> > > > -- > Best regards,  Mike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From carl.nobile at gmail.com Sat Dec 20 16:40:46 2025 From: carl.nobile at gmail.com (Carl Nobile) Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2025 17:40:46 -0500 Subject: [TriEmbed] Video from last meeting on 2025-12-08 is published. Message-ID: Hi all, The video from our last meeting is on YouTube. ~Carl https://youtu.be/lxPS9Obmb1E -------------------------------------------------------------- Carl J. Nobile (Software Engineer/API Design) carl.nobile at gmail.com -------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mikelisanke at gmail.com Sun Dec 21 10:37:45 2025 From: mikelisanke at gmail.com (Mike Lisanke) Date: Sun, 21 Dec 2025 11:37:45 -0500 Subject: [TriEmbed] what's more basic than assembly language? In-Reply-To: <59d161e6-4219-46b1-89b9-4c766793c1c2@soper.us> References: <59d161e6-4219-46b1-89b9-4c766793c1c2@soper.us> Message-ID: We too used Lex and Yacc and a c compiler to create full parsers in a single term. Fascinating how much Tools solve so many problems. And BTW this is why they expect great things from LLM AI... it's just exponential growth in the power of the tools. On Sat, Dec 20, 2025 at 1:43 PM Pete Soper wrote: > This reminds me of a graduate compiler construction course I took in the > early 70s. A buddy and I wrote our compilers in a high level language. The > others used Univac 1100 assembler. Buddy and I had our compilers going > early and made them way past the specs the prof dictated, polishing them > until they glowed. With 24 starters there were eight survivers of the > course. Then in the last class the prof mentioned he'd blown his budget for > machine time. He looked at my friend and I and we went bright red as the > others sat oblivious. The host language compiler was some painful number of > times more expensive to run than the assembler and linking would have been > cheaper too. I guess this could segue into a chat about bloatware. :-) > Pete > > Dec 20, 2025 1:08:12 PM Mike Lisanke : > > Pete, There are many courses for an Engineer in Computer Systems > science/engineering. And they include HLD and ISA and bit-slice and > architecture. And yes, also compiler and interpreter design and machine > language programming bootstrapping into assembly language and boot loaders. > There are as they say the Whole Nine Yards. Many of us really old timers > learnt machines from the ground up. I was younger than most when many many > CPUs MPUs were being shoveled onto the mass market for embedded systems And > the newest thing, personal computers. Most had no tools and had many of us > using one system (with BASIC and DOS) to boot assembly languages for other > cpu on bare hardware. I recall as a HS hobbyist typing in my own hex editor > into memory the boot block of DOS on an (at the time smallest) 8" Shugart > 128K floppy diskette. Those were the days. And when I got to UF their > Computer engineering lab had US play with bitslice to build our own ALU. > But fortunately, before even seeing the hardware in the lab... I simulated > it on one of my PCs in my apartment; and was done in a half hour vs 2-3 > that others had... coding by hand, pencil and paper, and using hex-keypad > to key into raw HW. That was the best fun and learning of its time; I've > often wondered how much it was repeated as "kids today" take for granted > that infrastructure is Just There. So much so, that when I ask about Cross > Platform tool development, nobody in Triangle Linux Users Group wants to > volunteer to talk,,, I would but it's gotten way more complicated to keep > Toolchains up to date (and functional) that Egg on Face is always a likely > occurrence. > > Thanks for your musing this AM and the memories it brought back. QED > > On Sat, Dec 20, 2025 at 12:33 PM Pete Soper via TriEmbed < > triembed at triembed.org> wrote: > >> The blog below caught my attention on Hacker News and got me thinking >> about bottom up understanding of computing. This is about projects relating >> to some kind of demo/contest event for FPGA's (field programmable gate >> arrays), but the author goes into some detail about how entertaining "toys" >> like a VGA graphics generator can be made. That led to thinking about >> whether learning to work with FPGAs would help somebody to understand how >> computers "really work". But a little more thought made me ask myself >> whether a modern programmer even needs to know about, let alone understand >> machine language. Not clear that this is relevant. (but I'd love it if at >> least one CS course would show how decompiling a single C++ statement >> leveraging overloading, polymorphism, grotesque layers of header >> references, etc can result in an avalanche of machine code) >> Anyway, I haven't even finished this and I'm talked out of the >> supposition. :-) >> But perhaps some of you might be interested in playing with FPGAs, as the >> hobby level hardware is very cheap and tools and examples are plentiful. >> >> https://www.a1k0n.net/2025/12/19/tiny-tapeout-demo.html >> >> Pete >> _______________________________________________ >> Triangle, NC Embedded Interest Group mailing list >> >> To post message: TriEmbed at triembed.org >> List info: >> http://mail.triembed.org/mailman/listinfo/triembed_triembed.org >> TriEmbed web site: https://TriEmbed.org >> To unsubscribe, click link and send a blank message: mailto: >> unsubscribe-TriEmbed at bitser.net?subject=unsubscribe >> Searchable email archive available at >> https://www.mail-archive.com/triembed at triembed.org/ >> >> > > -- > Best regards, Mike > > -- Best regards, Mike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mikelisanke at gmail.com Sun Dec 21 15:03:19 2025 From: mikelisanke at gmail.com (Mike Lisanke) Date: Sun, 21 Dec 2025 16:03:19 -0500 Subject: [TriEmbed] =?utf-8?q?Fwd=3A_LIVE_Events=3A_Innovators_Day_Webinar_?= =?utf-8?q?Series_=E2=80=94_Your_Guide_to_What=E2=80=99s_Next_in_FPGA_Innova?= =?utf-8?q?tion?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Just to follow up on Pete's trigger of conversations of early computing and how we used much simpler tricks (like Addition tables) in computing (creating ALUs is artwork; and listen if you haven't to Risc-V ISA talks). so some might be interested in many of the talks (I can't really keep up with but want to). Here's just one example; 1st I saw after Pete's note about FPGA. ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Embedded Webinar Date: Fri, Dec 19, 2025 at 10:07 AM Subject: LIVE Events: Innovators Day Webinar Series — Your Guide to What’s Next in FPGA Innovation To: Innovators Day Webinar Series: *Your Guide to What’s Next in FPGA Innovation* [image: Header] Sponsored by: [image: Altera] REGISTER NOW Explore the sessions from Innovators Day 2025, as one-hour bits, and later on demand; created for engineers, architects, developers, and technical decision makers building next-generation systems. Discover new techniques, tools, and architectures that are transforming how teams design with FPGAs. Watch keynotes and partner demos and speak with an expert that share practical ways to accelerate development, improve performance, and solve real-world challenges. Featuring insights from Altera experts and ecosystem partners, each session delivers actionable guidance that helps you move faster and innovate with confidence. REGISTER NOW Not able to attend? Register now and after the event you will receive an e-mail to the recorded presentation. To ensure email delivery to your inbox, please add ecd-ecasts at osm.events to your address book or your safe sender contacts list. ------------------------------ To view this email as a web page, click here . This email was sent to mike.lisanke at 1network4everything.com Please review our privacy policy You may change your email preferences at any time. OpenSystems Media | 3120 W Carefree Hwy, Ste 1-640, Phoenix, AZ 85086 -- Best regards, Mike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: