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On 13/06/2010 9:05 PM, Sabrina Kilian wrote:
> Of course. He only responds if I mimic his last type of meow, though.
That will be the one that says "I am here". It is the meow that sounds
strangulated.
> If a person did that I would think I was getting language lessons.
much to their amazement, their cat will come over.
> Anthropomorphizing just leads to new scars, though, as he may not be
> elitist but he is still all fuzz-and-claws.
>
Our tom cat would not scratch if you had bare skin but if your arms or
legs were clothed then that was fair game.
> While teaching a cat to fetch, it is very fundamental that they
> understand the concept that fetching is "getting the ball while it is
> not in your owners hand." When that part isn't taught properly, ouch.
Well done, I only ever trained Bertie to catch and take away never to
catch and fetch.
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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Am 13.06.2010 21:09, schrieb Orchid XP v8:
>>> I have a sinking feeling that if I went to the [extreme] expensive of
>>> getting an FPGA rig, I'd probably then find that I'm too stupid to make
>>> it do anything anyway! :-/
>>
>> Nonsense.
>
> Well, the expensive bit is true enough. I just re-checked the Xilinx
> website and I can't find any starter kits for less than about $200.
> You'd have to buy *a lot* of 7400 chips to approach that price tag.
Try Lattice. Their development kits go as low as $49 (one of them is
currently even on sale for $29).
Or, alternatively, get a "bare" ispMACH 4A5 in 44-pin PLCC package, a
44-pin PLCC socket, the "ispLEVER Classic" development software (you'll
need to register but AFAIK it's free otherwise), the "ispVM System"
programming software (free as well), and an "ispDOWNLOAD"-compatible
programming cable on eBay for a few bucks. At least that's what I did.
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On 6/12/2010 5:06 AM, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>
> It's the 6510, which is similar to the 6502 that everything else used
> but with a few minor alterations. It's not a C64-specific chip though;
> just a different model in the range.
>
But, see, it isn't an off-the-shelf component.
Nintendo did this with the Famicom/NES, They used a 65C02, I think, but
added the audio generator to the CPU....
> This is the part I don't get. Mounting more chips on a board costs
> money, but making an ASIC costs orders of magnitude *more* money.
I think part of the ASIC cost could be design, though. Whereas with
discrete gates you don't have to design them at the transistor level,
but with a custom IC, they must be designed at the transistor level, and
it becomes critical to consider the analog electrical characteristics of
the circuit layout, so it takes a fair bit more work. Judging by the
other posts I've read, the cost isn't in the fab. Which is surprising,
given the clean-room requirements and high-resolution photo-etching
process.
>
> More like, they know their clients need a shaker that's guaranteed to
> work repeatably, so they can charge anything they like.
>
I'm sure there's a point where the cost would be more than the client
will accept. But it takes good engineering and attention to detail to
get a machine that operates repeatably with high accuracy and precision.
> Oh, there *is* electronics. (The mass spec needs to generate several
> kilovolts to ionise the sample, for example.) It connects to a PC via
> GPIB. (No, I've never heard of it either.) So there's a GPIB interface
> IC somewhere. And no doubt all sorts of self-diagnostic sensors and
> stuff. Still, apart from a couple of CPUs dotted around the place and a
> bunch of ADC chips, I wouldn't have thought there's must custom
> _digital_ stuff.
Not heard of GPIB, so I looked it up. Apparently aka IEEE-488 surprised
they're not using Ethernet or something less obsolete... but, there you
go. ;)
>> Maybe not, but they probably have some logic somewhere outside of the
>> CPU to manage signals, enable and disable drives, and such.
>
> You don't just do it all in software? That sounds much cheaper...
You still have to have the hardware to execute the commands of the
software, and depending on the application it could be much more
reliable to have it done in hardware. Some things safety related are not
controlled by software at all... Take the Emergency Stop on industrial
machines, for instance ...
--
~Mike
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On 6/12/2010 1:53 PM, clipka wrote:
> Am 12.06.2010 19:31, schrieb Orchid XP v8:
>
>>>> And since I don't own or want to own an iPhone, why would I know about
>>>> this?
>>>
>>> Maybe by keeping your eyes and ears open to what's going on around you?
>>
>> I don't own an iPhone, I've never (knowingly) met anybody else who owns
>> an iPhone. (I was under the impression that it's extortionately
>> expsensive due to how shiny it is.) And I don't watch TV (probably the
>> only place it's advertised), so... why would I know much about it?
>> (Other than having heard that it exists, anyway.)
>
> I don't own an iPhone either, I've never knowingly met anybody else who
> owns one either until yesterday (and I didn't see the guy use the
> touchscreen), I don't even own a TV set, and only very rarely do I turn
> on the radio. Still I've heard of its touchscreen capabilities.
If you're around any technology at all, you'd have to be living under a
rock not to know ;)
> Computer magazines?
>
> Searching through the internerds because you're curious what's so
> special about the iPhone that everybody's talking about it?
Sure, yeah... or just being 10 ft from anything online that is tech.
> Leaving that aside, the iPhone is not the first consumer device to come
> with a touchscreen - PDAs have been featuring touchscreens at least
> since 2002.
What is groundbreaking about the iphone is it's multi-touch ability.
--
~Mike
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On 6/12/2010 1:57 PM, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> I thought most PDAs come with a stylus? (Or they have a useless
> trackball like that Blackberry I had the misfortune of needing to
> configure...)
They do. And how do you think that stylus works? Touch screen! and one
of the most rudimentary types, too! (Because the more advanced
capacitative touch screens won't work with a plastic stylus.. but the
ones built of a grid of embedded lines work just fine with the stylus,
but are rather inconvenient because they have flexible layers, can wear
easily, and somewhat obscure the screen due to their design, if you look
closely, you can see the little dots that act as standoffs between the
grid points)
An exception to the touch-screen stylus idea is something like a Wacom
tablet, which uses an inductive system (similar to RFID) but, those have
been around for ages ....
--
~Mike
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On 6/12/2010 2:13 PM, clipka wrote:
> They typically do - but AFAIK each and every PDA sold today can also be
> operated with fingers, toothpicks or whatever if needs be. And at least
> /my/ PDA with integrated phone I owned back in 2002 was
> "finger-sensitive", too.
The stylus is usually there for the purpose of being able to write
free-hand or "click" the small UI elements on the screen.
--
~Mike
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>> It's the 6510, which is similar to the 6502 that everything else used
>> but with a few minor alterations. It's not a C64-specific chip though;
>> just a different model in the range.
>>
>
> But, see, it isn't an off-the-shelf component.
How do you figure that?
MOS Technology made the very successful 6502, so they designed an
upgraded version, the 6510. It just so happens that Commodore purchased
the 6510 for their Commodore 64 system. How is that not "off-the-shelf"?
>> This is the part I don't get. Mounting more chips on a board costs
>> money, but making an ASIC costs orders of magnitude *more* money.
>
> I think part of the ASIC cost could be design, though. Whereas with
> discrete gates you don't have to design them at the transistor level,
> but with a custom IC, they must be designed at the transistor level, and
> it becomes critical to consider the analog electrical characteristics of
> the circuit layout, so it takes a fair bit more work. Judging by the
> other posts I've read, the cost isn't in the fab. Which is surprising,
> given the clean-room requirements and high-resolution photo-etching
> process.
Fabricating a 40 nm Intel Core i7 might require high-resolution
photo-etching such that the fab itself is expensive. If you're just
throwing a few logic gates together, you won't be using a 40 nm fab. So
the fabrication costs are quite small; it's setting up the production
line that costs $$$. And, of course, the design costs. But I would
imagine tooling up a fab is astronomically expensive. If you aren't
making 80,000,000 units, it would seem prohibitively expensive.
>> More like, they know their clients need a shaker that's guaranteed to
>> work repeatably, so they can charge anything they like.
>
> I'm sure there's a point where the cost would be more than the client
> will accept.
You wanna bet?
> But it takes good engineering and attention to detail to
> get a machine that operates repeatably with high accuracy and precision.
I wouldn't mind, but most of these devices don't even work very well...
>> It connects to a PC via
>> GPIB. (No, I've never heard of it either.)
>
> Not heard of GPIB, so I looked it up. Apparently aka IEEE-488 surprised
> they're not using Ethernet or something less obsolete... but, there you
> go. ;)
Well, the newest mass spectrometer we have was purchased about 5 years
ago. (Second-hand, obviously. We can only afford to buy the old crap
that other companies are throwing away.) Still, I gather GPIB is
supposedly quite popular in scientific applications. (Could explain why
>>> Maybe not, but they probably have some logic somewhere outside of the
>>> CPU to manage signals, enable and disable drives, and such.
>>
>> You don't just do it all in software? That sounds much cheaper...
>
> You still have to have the hardware to execute the commands of the
> software, and depending on the application it could be much more
> reliable to have it done in hardware.
If all you're doing is cycling stepper motors, it would seem that all
you need is some memory-mapped registers and the analogue electronics to
map a binary digit to a step signal.
> Some things safety related are not
> controlled by software at all... Take the Emergency Stop on industrial
> machines, for instance ...
Then again, that's an extremely simple function.
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>> I thought most PDAs come with a stylus? (Or they have a useless
>> trackball like that Blackberry I had the misfortune of needing to
>> configure...)
>
> They do. And how do you think that stylus works? Touch screen! and one
> of the most rudimentary types, too!
No, I mean... I thought it only registers touches from the stylus.
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On 6/11/2010 10:33 PM, nemesis wrote:
> Designing a GPU for PS4 may sound glamurous, but I guess if you were the
> japanese guy working 30 hours a day under lots of pressure you'd actually think
> of suicide... :P
What I didn't realize was that the Japanese were able to alter the very
fabric of time... 30 hours a day? Really?
--
~Mike
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>> I don't own an iPhone either, I've never knowingly met anybody else who
>> owns one either until yesterday (and I didn't see the guy use the
>> touchscreen), I don't even own a TV set, and only very rarely do I turn
>> on the radio. Still I've heard of its touchscreen capabilities.
>
> If you're around any technology at all, you'd have to be living under a
> rock not to know ;)
I know that the iPhone exists, it's made by Apple, it's ludicrously
hyped and insanely expensive. And, judging from the name, you can make
telephone calls with it. But that's about all I know (or care, quite
honestly). It's not a product that interests me.
>> Computer magazines?
>>
>> Searching through the internerds because you're curious what's so
>> special about the iPhone that everybody's talking about it?
>
> Sure, yeah... or just being 10 ft from anything online that is tech.
That doesn't quite make sense, but anyway... why would I read up on a
product that I don't care about? (What's so special about it? Apple
wants lots of people to buy it. Duh.)
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