s1axter posted on Mon. February 25th 2008 at 11:03 AM PST
Embedded.com has an interesting article on the perceived obsolescence of assembly by some professions. I've spoken with a number of programmers and engineers, and almost every one, with the exception of low level computer engineers, says 'Nobody programs in assembly anymore'. This might be true for desktop applications, server applications, or web service engineers, however nothing is further from the truth for embedded engineers. I've always believed that to understand how something works, you need to know how it is implemented. This article shares this thought and asserts that any good embedded engineer needs to understand computer architecture and thus assembly. That or you are going to be stuck with this:
"If a Java-only developer ever pondered CPU design, can you imagine the horribly-complex room-full of logic he'd envision? 'Here's the circuit that implements a formatted print instruction.'"
What do you do and when was the last time you programmed some assembly?
s1axter posted on Fri. February 22nd 2008 at 03:52 PM PST
Dean Kamen's company, Deka Research (creators of the Segway), has been working for the past two years on a prosthetic modular arm to help amputees. The arm weighs in around 50 7.5 lbs and has an impressively wide range of motion. From the IEEE Spectrum article:
"The arm has motor control fine enough for test subjects to pluck chocolate-covered coffee beans one by one, pick up a power drill, unlock a door, and shake a hand. Six preconfigured grip settings make this possible, with names like chuck grip, key grip, and power grip. The different grips are shortcuts for the main operations humans perform daily."
This is really cool but I don't know about the foot controls, what happens when the guy walks?
doomerz posted on Fri. February 22nd 2008 at 09:50 AM PST
Nvidia has revealed its latest creation: The GeForce 9600 GT GPU! They are claiming that it is an increase of 116% over its predecessor and for under $199. This comes at the perfect time for me since I am in the market for a new graphics card.
From the Article:
The new GeForce 9600 GT GPU shows an improved performance-per-watt ratio compared to its predecessor as well as improved compression efficiency. In addition to 64 stream processors-each individually clocked at a blazing-fast 1625 MHz-and a 256-bit memory interface running at 900 MHz, the GeForce 9600 GT GPU is designed for the new PCIe 2.0 bus standard and features backwards compatibility with the original PCIe standard.
firewire posted on Thu. February 21st 2008 at 08:54 PM PST
Media has always been a large part of the entertainment industry and battles are won and lost fighting for customers. Tuesday February 19th Toshiba announced that they would no longer develop HD DVD devices. Most of us know that comming out of the turnstile Sony grabbed the market with their Blue-ray hi-definition media. The battle between the two media's has lasted long enough and was started by Sony in 2000. Toshiba then announced its own version of high definition discs known as the HD DVD in 2002. From the begining Toshiba was the underdog. What sealed the deal was the news that Toshiba recently lost Warner Brothers, one of the largest film producers to Blue-ray, as a supporter. Many have debated which company would win in the battle for the masses and now we finally have a winner.
You can view the New York Times article here. You can also view the timeline of the HD DVD and Blue-ray battle here.
s1axter posted on Mon. February 18th 2008 at 12:43 PM PST
Due to a number of requests for info on the VHDL traffic light controller video on youTube, I thought I would post a quick write up.
"In college my Junior year lab included a project to construct a simple traffic light controller using only digital logic. This means no microcontroller, no 'if' statements nothing but pure hardcore logic. The intent of the lab was to implement a state machine in a realistic application. This article is a collection of pictures and a very general explanation of my solution, plus a VHDL implementation of it."
If you are interested in digital logic or VHDL, take a look.
s1axter posted on Wed. February 13th 2008 at 10:49 PM PST
Back in July 2007 I posted an article on setting up a Slackware file server using Samaba. In the latest rewrite of GI the article was lost since it was not a review. Well, tonight I updated the site a little more and make the 'reviews' section an 'articles' section and reposted the Slackware How-To.
s1axter posted on Fri. February 8th 2008 at 07:36 PM PST
Take a look at this tutorial from PC Magazine on adding an M-Audio Micro USB audio interface to a guitar. The Micro USB comes with M-Audio's Session software for recording your newly modded guitar. This isn't something for a guitarist with a favorite guitar as you need to drill and route out part of the body.
Embedded.com: Is Assembly Language Obsolete?
S1axter's Tech Log of Crazy Stuff
Embedded.com has an interesting article on the perceived obsolescence of assembly by some professions. I've spoken with a number of programmers and engineers, and almost every one, with the exception of low level computer engineers, says 'Nobody programs in assembly anymore'. This might be true for desktop applications, server applications, or web service engineers, however nothing is further from the truth for embedded engineers. I've always believed that to understand how something works, you need to know how it is implemented. This article shares this thought and asserts that any good embedded engineer needs to understand computer architecture and thus assembly. That or you are going to be stuck with this:
Dean Kamen's company, 
Nvidia has revealed its latest creation: The GeForce 9600 GT GPU! They are claiming that it is an increase of 116% over its predecessor and for under $199. This comes at the perfect time for me since I am in the market for a new graphics card. 
Geeksinside.com is running a comment contest!
Due to a number of requests for info on the VHDL traffic light controller video on youTube, I thought I would post a quick write up.
Take a look at this tutorial from PC Magazine on adding an 
