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General purpose MCUs built in to LEDs emulate candle flicker

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Re: General purpose MCUs built in to LEDs emulate candle flicker

#91

Post by kens »

self wrote: post #37
082349872349872 wrote: post #2

Once upon a time, on USENET, someone had a .sig that predicted one day computers would be cheap enough they'd come in cereal boxes and we'd throw them away. That day appears to have arrived.

I searched Google for this recently and could not find it. I tried it again on Google Groups just now and found one reference to it: https://groups.google.com/g/comp.arch/c/Y4C_Zjkb9VM/m/scDk_0... > Killer micros of today are a lot like flourescent lights -- cheap to operate, prevalent, and expensive to turn off. To see a machine standing idle, when you were raised as a child to "use cycles efficiently" is a gut-wren…

Various fortune files attribute the quote to Robert Lucky. I would guess that it was misattributed to Alan Kay since quotes often get attached to famous people.

"In the future, you're going to get computers as prizes in breakfast cereals. You'll throw them out because your house will be littered with them. -- Robert Lucky"

https://web.mit.edu/~mkgray/jik/sipbsrc/src/fortune/scene

Re: General purpose MCUs built in to LEDs emulate candle flicker

#92

Post by throwup238 »

mopsi wrote: post #73
mikepurvis wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a certain point it's more about the semantics of what a "computer" is. I don't know if I'd count an ASIC from a musical greeting card, though; and even within general purpose devices, microcontrollers vs microprocessors are typically delineated by the presence of an MMU.

I feel that the semantics are quickly becoming irrelevant. Many everyday items like sports watches, toys, kitchen appliances, alarm clocks or table radios already have more processing power, more memory and storage, higher resolution screen and better network connectivity than my first desktop. Running Doom on mundane items like key fobs and light bulbs isn't too far away from where we are in 2024.

> Running Doom on mundane items like key fobs and light bulbs isn't too far away from where we are in 2024.

About that... https://www.pcmag.com/news/you-can-run-doom-on-a-chip-from-a...

Re: General purpose MCUs built in to LEDs emulate candle flicker

#93

Post by declan_roberts »

DenisM wrote: post #68
exmadscientist wrote: post #57

> Is it possible to improve on this candle-LED implementation? It seems so, but this may be for another project. Hey, I got paid to do this a few years back! Here's the result: https://evietealight.com/ They're the sort of thing it's not really possible to show off in a photo or even video. What really gets you (or at least gets me) is seeing these things out of the corner of your eye, flickering, just like flames fl…

Still rather odd not to have a video on the page of a product where animation is the key selling point. Maybe a video wouldn’t convey all the benefits of the design, but lack of video does not inspire confidence either.

I came here to ask for a video!!

Re: General purpose MCUs built in to LEDs emulate candle flicker

#94

Post by makerdiety »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #63

I love it. I have noted this article for my talk about how CPUs are free. To appreciate that, you have to understand that when the first microcomputers came out engineers were still in "compute" mode[1], we were lectured that you wouldn't use a hard coded loop to check for a switch closure, you had to use interrupts because otherwise you were wasting all those CPU clocks . And computing at the time was often billed i…

> I have noted this article for my talk about how CPUs are free.

If teeny computers are free, and if I want to re-program them for my own use cases and personal applications, then why do I have to still spend nearly a thousand dollars or two on embedded systems development equipment like microcontroller development boards, JTAGs, ICEs, ROM flashers, UART-based bootloading solutions, and other delicate programming interfaces for small microchips, microcontrollers, and tiny computers? And don't forget microscopes to do power analysis for reverse engineering some old toy that was made to emulate or fake a real life candle's intractable flame properties.[1]

If you can't write code, then what's the point? How would no code be an agent of freedom and expression?

Reprogramming a microcontroller unit with a USB cable connected between it and a laptop computer is convenient. But too bad that's not really the standard for old technology and resources laying around the planet, isn't it? You have to basically be uncanny like MacGyver or inhumanly intelligent like Tony Stark to reprogram the apparently free teeny computers laying around the world.

[1]: https://cpldcpu.wordpress.com/2024/01/14/revisiting-candle-f...

Re: General purpose MCUs built in to LEDs emulate candle flicker

#95

Post by Sharlin »

mopsi wrote: post #73
mikepurvis wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a certain point it's more about the semantics of what a "computer" is. I don't know if I'd count an ASIC from a musical greeting card, though; and even within general purpose devices, microcontrollers vs microprocessors are typically delineated by the presence of an MMU.

I feel that the semantics are quickly becoming irrelevant. Many everyday items like sports watches, toys, kitchen appliances, alarm clocks or table radios already have more processing power, more memory and storage, higher resolution screen and better network connectivity than my first desktop. Running Doom on mundane items like key fobs and light bulbs isn't too far away from where we are in 2024.

Doom on a light bulb is already done: https://hackaday.com/2021/06/15/a-smart-light-bulb-running-d...

Re: General purpose MCUs built in to LEDs emulate candle flicker

#96

Post by ChuckMcM »

crote wrote: post #79
ChuckMcM wrote: post #63

I love it. I have noted this article for my talk about how CPUs are free. To appreciate that, you have to understand that when the first microcomputers came out engineers were still in "compute" mode[1], we were lectured that you wouldn't use a hard coded loop to check for a switch closure, you had to use interrupts because otherwise you were wasting all those CPU clocks . And computing at the time was often billed i…

> at some point I expect to finally see the "blending" of analog/digital chips that allow for a wide range of voltages The irony is that the developments which made dirt-cheap MCUs possible have at the same time basically ruled this out. Digital logic is almost trivial to scale down. With Moore's Law the compute core itself is indeed becoming basically free. However, IO does not scale down: modern chips have far fewe…

I don't disagree at all, this analysis is spot on. The size of discretes on silicon has not shrunk nearly as much as it has for transistors. However, where I am coming from is that because the transistors have shrunk so dramatically it becomes possible to put an entire CPU in the "left over" space after you've placed the discretes.

There was a talk at either Hot Chips or ISSC in 2011? about a mixed mode chip where the die was 2/3rds analog parts and 1/3 digital part. Xilinx, the FPGA maker, came out with the "RF SOC" which has a "huge" analog section with multiple high speed ADCs and DACs and analog reference logic, plus and FPGA fabric, plus a quad-core AARch64 CPU. As I recall Cypress had something similar but the part family is escaping me at the moment.

But I am still looking for chip that integrates an SMPS so that they can run on a very wide range of voltages like the CD4000 series did (and still does). Combined with the ability to source 10's of milliamps like the ATMega and PIC chips did (and still do).

Re: General purpose MCUs built in to LEDs emulate candle flicker

#97

Post by msla »

So is the program of that chip burned into mask ROM (do people still do that?) or could that thing be taken out and repurposed? The datasheet mentions handy-dandy device programmers that plug into your PC and probably mandate the use of a horrible proprietary development environment, but maybe that's only for special evaluation parts?

Re: General purpose MCUs built in to LEDs emulate candle flicker

#98

Post by ChuckMcM »

makerdiety wrote: post #94
ChuckMcM wrote: post #63

I love it. I have noted this article for my talk about how CPUs are free. To appreciate that, you have to understand that when the first microcomputers came out engineers were still in "compute" mode[1], we were lectured that you wouldn't use a hard coded loop to check for a switch closure, you had to use interrupts because otherwise you were wasting all those CPU clocks . And computing at the time was often billed i…

> I have noted this article for my talk about how CPUs are free. If teeny computers are free, and if I want to re-program them for my own use cases and personal applications, then why do I have to still spend nearly a thousand dollars or two on embedded systems development equipment like microcontroller development boards, JTAGs, ICEs, ROM flashers, UART-based bootloading solutions, and other delicate programming int…

Perhaps this helps, perhaps not, but the Cortex-M architecture from ARM defines, as required, a build in debug unit. I can build a standalone JTAG/Development tool for it[1] on a $3 breakout board, and program/debug it for free using GCC.

It has been a pleasant side effect of competition in the embedded space that proprietary (and expensive) tooling has become a problem for getting a chip adopted and so there is more pressure to support open source solutions.

[1] Blackmagic Probe -- https://black-magic.org/

Re: General purpose MCUs built in to LEDs emulate candle flicker

#99

Post by whartung »

kebman wrote: post #23

I really hate these fake LED candles with a passion. Either put an actual candle on the table, or just put a small cosy light that doesn't flicker.

To each their own. I rate the “run for 6 hours each day” technology as a wonder of the modern age along with sliced bread and the Apollo program.

We have about a dozen of these things throughout the house, running everyday. Some on tables, some on counters, some on the wall in sconces.

They turn on and off on their own. Don’t have to worry about a cat knocking one over. We replace the batteries I think every 3 months or so. (Pair of AAAs.)

Yea, easy, safe way to add atmosphere and ad hoc nightlights throughout the house. Modern marvel.

Re: General purpose MCUs built in to LEDs emulate candle flicker

#100

Post by Modified3019 »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #3
082349872349872 wrote: post #2

Once upon a time, on USENET, someone had a .sig that predicted one day computers would be cheap enough they'd come in cereal boxes and we'd throw them away. That day appears to have arrived.

That happened way before. RFID cards for disposable public transportation tickets or those music greeting cards.

I'm pretty sure musical greeting cards are also a thing.
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