Author Archives: e8johan

A few bits of RAM

Posted on September 17, 2015 by e8johan

The growth of RAM is one of the things that boggles my mind. The available RAM of an average computer has increased many magnitudes during my days as a computer nerd and now I have far more RAM than I … Continue reading →

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The first Unix

Posted on September 15, 2015 by e8johan

We can learn a lot from the past – you may even experience aha moments. Reading the source code of the first edition of Unix is such an experience. The simplicity of it all, combined with the knowledge that this … Continue reading →

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The Raspberry Pi Screen Announced

Posted on September 8, 2015 by e8johan

The Raspberry Pi foundation has just released a long blog post announcing a Raspberry Pi touchscreen, available from $60 + local taxes. The screen is connected using DSI/DSP, meaning that the final connector on the Pi finally has a use. … Continue reading →

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800×600 Video Output for Small Systems

Posted on September 2, 2015 by e8johan

The Mesa-Video is a low cost, low power, small open source hardware/software solution for providing graphics from embedded projects. It is, basically, a graphics card with an UART interface. The graphics card side of the solution can display text and … Continue reading →

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NodeIT – stackable IoT

Posted on August 19, 2015 by e8johan

The NodeIT by Sweet Pea’s is an extendable, minimal IoT thing being launched on kickstarter right now. The project has already been funded, but is still open to additional backers. Based on the ESP8266, the core module, called ESP210, provides an … Continue reading →

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Understanding ARM

Posted on August 14, 2015 by e8johan

As a follow up on Raymond Chen’s in-depth look at Intel’s Itanium, he has posted a set of links to an introduction to ARM. Also an interesting read. Part 1 – Processor features Part 2 – How Windows uses the … Continue reading →

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Understanding Intel’s Itanium

Posted on August 12, 2015 by e8johan

Raymond Chen has written a multi part series on the Intel Itanium processor architecture. It really helps you understand the CPU architecture from a software development and performance optimization perspective. To quote Raymond: The Itanium may not have been much … Continue reading →

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Built to Scale

Posted on June 23, 2015 by e8johan

Taking on the most complex, miniaturized part of a computer and going in the other direction takes a special kind of mind. Doing it “because I want to” takes it to the next level. James Newman is building a CPU … Continue reading →

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An embeddable C interpreter

Posted on June 2, 2015 by e8johan

If you like scripting and embedded systems, but feel that Python, Lua, Javascript and the rest are too high level, I give you picoc. The picoc interpreter, created by Zik Saleeba, is an embeddable, minimal C interpreter environment that you can … Continue reading →

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Transistor level Atari 2600 simulation

Posted on May 18, 2015 by e8johan

Based on the work from visual6502.org, Greg James has put together a transistor level simulation of the Atari 2600 console. The entire project is available from github. The simulator runs slowly, but that is the trick. Everything is simulated at half-clock … Continue reading →

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