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MicroMac, a Macintosh for under £5

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Re: MicroMac, a Macintosh for under £5

#131

Post by rbanffy »

dfox wrote: post #91
rbanffy wrote: post #79

It's a shame monitors don't provide 5V from pin9 of the VGA connector... Would be nice to be able to power things from the monitor connection. IIRC, SCART provides +9V.

Pin 9 is there to power the EEPROM in the monitor fromthe computer even when the monitor is turned off, so monitors providing 5V there would lead to same kind of problems as there are with DisplayPort pin 20 and cheap cables that connect this pin through (which would be correct for DP 1.0, but there are no DP 1.0 products).

Exactly. Back then we didn't imagine we would want to power a small dongle out of a monitor port.

Sadly, when people invented HDMI, that was a lot more obvious.

Re: MicroMac, a Macintosh for under £5

#132

Post by roywashere »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #111
rbanffy wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you want cycle-accurate interfaces, it's pointless. Software can provide more than good enough performance and be a lot more flexible at that. As microcontrollers get faster, the cycle-accurate timing becomes less relevant, as you can still match external timings with software and have the support of an RTOS to help with that.

What about power consumption? Could you have a tiny Mac which runs approximately forever on a single charge?

Power consumption is rather tiny I guess, but you would still want a screen!

Re: MicroMac, a Macintosh for under £5

#133

Post by ale42 »

Vexs wrote: post #123
ale42 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might apply to (most) IT devices. But there are devices that require 24 V, or 48 V, or any other voltage that USB-C can't supply, and that for various reasons (space, EMI, possibly even compliance with some safety regulation) can't contain an integrated power supply unit from 120/230 V mains. Of course this should be an exception and most consumer devices can definitely work with the regular voltages and current…

It's a bit silly IMO, but USB PD EPR _can_ support 24v and 48v- for charging laptops, I believe. The day I see a server rack with a pair of USBCs plugged into it is a far day off I hope though.

Didn't know, thanks for the info... I still have to see a power supply capable of delivering those voltages on USB-C though. All the ones I've seen can output 5V, 12V and 19V.

Re: MicroMac, a Macintosh for under £5

#134

Post by ale42 »

lupire wrote: post #112
ale42 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might apply to (most) IT devices. But there are devices that require 24 V, or 48 V, or any other voltage that USB-C can't supply, and that for various reasons (space, EMI, possibly even compliance with some safety regulation) can't contain an integrated power supply unit from 120/230 V mains. Of course this should be an exception and most consumer devices can definitely work with the regular voltages and current…

That's fine but it should be a standard for a entire class of products.

Totally agree. Using something like USB-PD that has voltage negotiation on the wire might increase the price of some appliances (especially those that have just minimal electronics inside), but a standard connector (like just a barrel jack?) would already be nice thing!

Re: MicroMac, a Macintosh for under £5

#135

Post by Wowfunhappy »

rbanffy wrote: post #130
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about power consumption? Could you have a tiny Mac which runs approximately forever on a single charge?

I imagine the power consumption of the compute part would be dwarfed by the display in any case.

I was imagining you'd still plug it into an external display. I guess you could fairly argue that defeats the purpose of a battery, though...

Although, it might be cool with e-ink, low refresh rate notwithstanding.

Re: MicroMac, a Macintosh for under £5

#136

Post by sitkack »

sitkack wrote: post #105
qiqitori wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The PicoGUS uses PIO to implement a PSRAM interface in order to store 1 MB of audio sample data: https://github.com/polpo/rp2040-psram

That is cool, I'll give it a go. It could be made workable for something like a JIT or interpreter (like the MicroMac). Could it be added to the RP2040 address space and used as a native load store target? The neat thing about the ESP32 chips is you can extend their internal memory with external SPI PSRAM chips. https://cdn-shop.adafruit.com/product-files/4677/4677_esp-ps...

Using QSPI RAM with RP2040's SSI in read-write mode http://dmitry.gr/?r=06.%20Thoughts&proj=10.%20RomRam

Re: MicroMac, a Macintosh for under £5

#137

Post by rnewme »

ssl-3 wrote: post #55
rnewme wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would be surprised how much trash there is in the city around us, that you suddenly start noticing when you have a diy project. Let me share you some moments of my own with you. I was leaving university campus with my buddies, talking about building magnetic card reader to check contents of my campus library card. Just as I was explaining magnetic heads to one of the guys I see a random cassette player few meters…

A million years ago, I spent two cold nights standing on my head in the driver's side footwell of my E36 BMW, installing an inexpensive Wal-Mart-sourced CodeAlarm remote starter to make my then-wife happy. It worked great. It could even operate the door locks and roll the windows up with the fob (none of which sounds very special for a modern vehicle, but my car was not equipped with remote-anything from the factory…

I loved this because last year we spent days redoing electrical and wiring new engine (2.8) into friends E36, including radio code and remote install, some vintage god knows how old setup ge found in local Craigslist equivalent, perhaps even the same kit as you had. Love the simplicity of older cars like e36, but I still prefer my E34's - except for window raisers and few other details, surprisingly little electronics to maintain.

Re: MicroMac, a Macintosh for under £5

#138

Post by rnewme »

twobitshifter wrote: post #89
ssl-3 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A million years ago, I spent two cold nights standing on my head in the driver's side footwell of my E36 BMW, installing an inexpensive Wal-Mart-sourced CodeAlarm remote starter to make my then-wife happy. It worked great. It could even operate the door locks and roll the windows up with the fob (none of which sounds very special for a modern vehicle, but my car was not equipped with remote-anything from the factory…

I am more suprised that the BMW outlasted the remote starter!

Old bimmers are surprisingly durable. Esp 30/34/36, although, they're getting a bit rare..

Re: MicroMac, a Macintosh for under £5

#139

Post by rnewme »

tomcam wrote: post #51
rnewme wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would be surprised how much trash there is in the city around us, that you suddenly start noticing when you have a diy project. Let me share you some moments of my own with you. I was leaving university campus with my buddies, talking about building magnetic card reader to check contents of my campus library card. Just as I was explaining magnetic heads to one of the guys I see a random cassette player few meters…

We need to deal with some important issues you raised. > After the date... She quickly learned I'm no stranger to dumpster adventures. Ah, was there another date? > Recently, I was renovating something with my wife Any relationship to dumpster adventuress?

There were more dates, including illegal aquirement of shopping cart on her side for me (she drove it in public transport across half of the city during night), stop sign from me to her (new, unpacked, found on a construction site, NOT removed from street!) and broken fire extinguisher from her again (saw a pile behind a local stadium and somehow got through the fence).

My wife is not the same lady, she prefers store bought items, however she does appreciate my resourcedulness. As a well paid professional and somewhat functional member of society I have minimizedy trash utilization activities (I lack space in our new town).

Re: MicroMac, a Macintosh for under £5

#140

Post by rnewme »

interloxia wrote: post #65
tomcam wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need to deal with some important issues you raised. > After the date... She quickly learned I'm no stranger to dumpster adventures. Ah, was there another date? > Recently, I was renovating something with my wife Any relationship to dumpster adventuress?

Yes, according to a llm. He had a particularly touching moment repairing a broken drone he found with his son. Shortly after the story took a dark turn with the cancer diagnosis. As the condition worsened, he made an effort to document his projects, scavenging 3D printers, partly as a manual and partly as a diary. "The knowledge that my kids would have these memories and skills to carry forward, and perhaps pass on t…

I must disappoint, it is a daughter and she's too small to catch the neighbors kid drones. No cancer either thankfully, but I am writing a sort of life manual/family journal for her. I think it's pretty common thing today. Wife is doing the set up email. For child and mail her thing. No 3D printers harmed yet, but I did ruin one light show galvos to make a plotter, hehe.
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