Doom has been ported to an earbud • Hacker News Board

Re: Doom has been ported to an earbud

#141

Post by iberator » Tue, Jan 27, 2026, 10:43 PM UTC

mlyle wrote: post #54

iberator wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we finally end this Apollo computer comparison forever? It was a real time computer NOT designed for speed but real time operations.1 Why don't you compare it to let's say pdp11, vax780/11 or Cray 1 supercomputer? NASA used a lot of supercomputers here on earth pior to mission start.

> It was a real time computer NOT designed for speed but real time operations. More than anything, it was designed to be small and use little power. But these little ARM Cortex M4F that we're comparing to are also designed for embedded, possibly hard-real-time operations. And dominant factors in experience on playback through earbuds are response time and jitter. If the AGC could get a capsule to the moon doing hard…

What's your project/ cubesat name?

Ps. Try msp430 f model for low power. These can be CRAZY efficient.

Ps. Don't forget to short circuit the solar panel directly to system: then your satellite might talk even 50 years from now such as some HAM satellites from cold war (Oscar 7 I think)

Re: Doom has been ported to an earbud

#142

Post by mlyle » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 12:55 AM UTC

iberator wrote: post #141

mlyle wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It was a real time computer NOT designed for speed but real time operations. More than anything, it was designed to be small and use little power. But these little ARM Cortex M4F that we're comparing to are also designed for embedded, possibly hard-real-time operations. And dominant factors in experience on playback through earbuds are response time and jitter. If the AGC could get a capsule to the moon doing hard…

What's your project/ cubesat name? Ps. Try msp430 f model for low power. These can be CRAZY efficient. Ps. Don't forget to short circuit the solar panel directly to system: then your satellite might talk even 50 years from now such as some HAM satellites from cold war (Oscar 7 I think)

> What's your project/ cubesat name?

NyanSat; I'm PI and mentor for a team of high school students that were selected by NASA CSLI.

> Ps. Try msp430 f model for low power. These can be CRAZY efficient.

Yah, I've used MSP430 in space. STM32F0 fits what we're using it for. The main flight computer we designed, and it's RP2350 with MRAM. Some of the avionics details are here: https://github.com/OakwoodEngineering/ObiWanKomputer

> Ps. Don't forget to short circuit the solar panel directly to system: then your satellite might talk even 50 years from now such as some HAM satellites from cold war (Oscar 7 I think)

Current ITU guidelines make it clear this is something we're not supposed to do to ensure that we can actually end transmissions by the satellite. We'll re-enter/burn up within

Re: Doom has been ported to an earbud

#143

Post by cben » Mon, Feb 02, 2026, 7:18 PM UTC

Caveat to those considering buying PineBuds for "open source firmware": OOTB they come with fully working but proprietary firmware (part source-available SDK, part closed). The hardware is not 100% documented. There is open firmware they can run, but for example ANC has not been replicated yet, at least not well (and personally I love the ANC enough that I kept the factory firmware)-:

- Pine64's general model is selling cheap, quite-good, not-fully-documented hardware with expectation community software will(?) grow around it. Some of their products grow fantastic support, some less so, some remain "dev kit" — do your homework.