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@jhallenworld

From 10/31/2013, 9:07:41 PM till now, @jhallenworld has achieved 3583 Karma Points with the contribution count of 1597.

Recent @jhallenworld Activity

1 day ago • Comments on a post

I found The Advanced TeXbook by David Salomon to be helpful. It shows how to make your own format on top of plain TeX, including table of contents, page numbering, cross-references and insertions.

I also found A Beginner's Book of TeX by Raymond Seroul and Silvio Levy helpful as a quick reference.

Also I have an anti-recommendation for Knuth's TeXBook. I did not find this book helpful at all- too much information buried in exercises (which I don't think is appropriate for a reference), and not enough directly said on how to do useful things. Figure out how to make a table of contents using only the TeXBook..

1 day ago • Comments on a post

I've written code just like this. Another option is to make the entire sort function a C macro. This would be feasible for something simple like quicksort.

But generics provide another benefit: in theory with them, the compiler should be able to determine that two high-level types are actually the same machine type, so in the above example, SORT_ELEMENT_TYPE int and long would not generate duplicate code on many machines.

2 days ago • Comments on a post

Also access to oil was a big deal. Hitler attacking the Soviet Union was at least partially to secure access to oil.

10 days ago • Comments on a post

Around 1990 we (students) inherited a bunch of these. I remember they were pretty slow for the time, and I think the compiler was K&R only...

The terminal was pretty nice, I mean the keyboard had a nice feel. I think it deviated from ANSI in some weird ways, it needed its own termcap entry... ah yes, pt1500 I think- 26 rows!

    pt|pt1500|gt|t0|Convergent Technologies PT:\
 :ae=\17:al=\E[1L:am:as=\16:bs:\
 :cd=\E[0J:ce=\E[0K:cl=\E[2J\E[1;1H:cm=\E[%i%2;%2H:co#80:\
 :dc=\E[1P:dl=\E[1M:do=\E[1B:ei=:ho=\E[1;1H:\
 :ic=\E[1@:im=:kb=\10:kd=\E[B:kl=\E[D:kr=\E[C:ku=\E[A:li#26:\
 :k0=\EOY:k1=\EOP:k2=\EOQ:k3=\EOR:k4=\EOS:\
 :k5=\EOT:k6=\EOU:k7=\EOV:k8=\EOW:k9=\EOX:\
 :nd=\E[C:se=\E[m:sf=\E[1S:sr=\E[1T:so=\E[7m:ue=\E[m:up=\E[A:us=\E[4m:
Here is one on eBay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/125308811771?hash=item1d2cfcb9fb:g:...

15 days ago • Comments on a post

Here is my bell related science-fiction recommendation: Doomsday Book by Connie Willis.

"The drop had been scheduled for noon. If she had come through on time and Probability was right about the slippage, it would be six o'clock in the evening, which was too late for vespers. And if it were vespers, why did the bell go on tolling?

It could be tolling for mass, or for a funeral or a wedding. Bells had rung almost constantly in the Middle Ages—to warn of invasions or fires, to help a lost child find its way back to the village, even to ward off thunderstorms. It could be ringing for any reason at all."

21 days ago • Comments on a post

I work at a product design firm here in the US, we're also organized like this. Engineers that can deliver end up getting more clients, so it does end up somewhat like a law firm (their hourly rates are still higher, which IMHO is crazy..).

We also make cameras, I've become the MIPI expert.

Our bread and butter includes mechanical design, PCB design and firmware / FPGA design. This maybe sounds like basic stuff, but includes things like RF and COMSOL / ANSYS physical and mechanical modeling and simulation.

A startup company in India hired us: they had plenty of software developers, but wanted experts to de-risk the hardware and low level firmware.

https://www.nklabs.com/

24 days ago • Comments on a post

I think these old arguments are moot: all of these entry methods are from having to write equations linearly for the 1950s / 1960s teletype era (including "algebraic"). They all require you to keep a stack in your head.

Newer calculators have "natural textbook entry", where they show the equation in mathematical notation as you enter it, so no stack required in your head. The entry method (shown linearly) for division is: <divide> numerator <down> denominator <right>. The keystroke count is lower than it would appear because you can leave out all of the right-most cursor keystrokes.

The method could be further generalized to eliminate the need to know about precedence on entry. For example ab(c+d+e)*f could be: <mul> a <next> b <add> c <next> d <next> e <done> <next> f. Visually it could show the order of operations either with precedence, or in some new way (perhaps text size changes to indicate order).

It's interesting to think how programming languages could look in the post-teletype era.

24 days ago • Comments on a post

I repaired a Casio fx-602p recently, by harvesting a chip from a broken one, one of the tqfp ASICs. Worth it because eBay price from Japan for a working one is $250. I'd like an fx-603p, but they are going for $350.

This is like the Casio version of HP-41- alphanumeric keystroke programmable with cassette interface.

No plastic heatstakes (unlike HP), but you're hosed if the flex cable to the LCD is broken.

One of the most impressive things recently is the guy who made replacement LCDs for the classic Radio Shack / Sharp pocket computers (they don't use flex cables). That a hobbyist can do this at reasonable price is a sign that we are living in amazing times.

https://www.tindie.com/products/halfbakedmaker/lcd-replaceme...

24 days ago • Comments on a post

So here is my figure drawing exercise: draw a ruler. This is easy to do with xfig. On many tools, it's hopeless, open office draw comes to mind.

29 days ago • Comments on a post

I pay this to get rid of Google's inserted ads, but it's getting hurt by too many in-video sponsorship ads. I would pay for a mode where the content creator gets more money in exchange for automatically skipping their sponsorship ad.

The like/subscribe/become a Patreon is also annoying, but not as bad as actual ads.

1 month ago • Comments on a post

One thing about Kermit- it used to be the gold standard for CLI usability: editing, history, ESC-completion and context sensitive ?-help. I think it was directly inspired by the TOPS-20 operating system.

For example, user types "?" after entering screen

    C-Kermit>screen ? screen action, one of the following:
     clear    cleol    move-to
    C-Kermit>screen _

1 month ago • Comments on a post

Lasers have much higher "antenna" gain. How about using an IR laser to remotely heat a steam engine which runs a generator... I bet overall efficiency is at least an order of magnitude higher.

1 month ago • Comments on a post

Well suppose you want your code to connect with IPI interfaces from Xilinx IP. You end up having to annotate it with magic attributes like this:

    (* X_INTERFACE_INFO = "xilinx.com:signal:clock:1.0 clk CLK" *)
    (* X_INTERFACE_PARAMETER = "ASSOCIATED_BUSIF disp1_tpg_axis:disp2_tpg_axis:ar_tpg_axis:artx0_axis:arrx0_axis:scaletx0_axis:tmrx0_axis:scaler, ASSOCIATED_RESET reset_l, FREQ_HZ 199980011" *)
    input clk;

    (* X_INTERFACE_INFO = "xilinx.com:signal:reset:1.0 reset_l RST" *)
    (* X_INTERFACE_PARAMETER = "POLARITY ACTIVE_LOW" *)
    input reset_l;

    (* X_INTERFACE_INFO = "xilinx.com:interface:rx_mipi_ppi_if:1.0 cam0_rx_dphy DL3_RXDATAHS" *)
    input [7:0] cam0_rx_dphy_dl3_rxdatahs;
It's horrible. Trust me, you will not like when things go wrong in larger block designs.

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