Ryzen overclocking adventure

That was the most expensive CPU, motherboard, memory setup the lion kingdom ever got.  Getting a speed boost over what was $400 in 2010 took a lot more money than it did, but hopefully will last another 8 years.

The #1 trap for young players:  The BIOS uses the mouse to navigate, except when adjusting the CPU core ratio.  That greyed out box needs to be adjusted with the +/- keys.

Accessing higher memory frequencies requires stepping up the CPU clockspeed.  For a Ryzen 2700x, got 2 x G.SKIL 3600Mhz  16GB to really hit 3600Mhz only after increasing the CPU clockspeed to 4.2Ghz.  At 3.7Ghz, the RAM would die beyond 3333Mhz.

The side firing SATA header is a pain.

The ugly plastic thing covering the ports doesn't come off without 1st removing the heatsink over the MOSFETS.  Maybe you can spray paint it.

At 4.2Ghz, it plays an H.265 8192x4096 138megabit video in a 2048x1024 window at a studdering 24fps.  It definitely can't play 8k video on an 8k monitor but might do 4k on a 4k monitor.

Transcoding 8k video to a faster codec, it maxes out all 16 hyperthreads at 4.2Ghz & uses 8 of 32gig of RAM. Not out of memory or taking all day, as it would have been a week ago. Rendering speed of the NASA video was 1/3 realtime.

The faster codec reduced NASA's 139megabits to gootube quality & played back at roughly 70fps. Still constrained to a 2k window.

Fixing junctions in Eagle

It was such a long fought battle for such an obvious solution, the video had to be made.

How to make kids interested in programming

Absolutely hated any higher level language than assembly as a kid. Programming was only a means to draw fast graphics, rather than an end or a way to make money as taught nowadays.  The outcome of the act was the key.

Assembly language was the only motivational language because it unlocked the maximum performance of the machine & it was less contrived than determined by raw physics. Languages like Swift are heavily dictated by bureaucracy.  Don't think kids are motivated by a desire to navigate bureaucracy the way middle management seeking 20 year olds are, although they are somewhat motivated by money.  

8 Bit Guy always hypes the addition of graphics commands to newer BASICs & criticizes the lack of graphics commands on the C64.  It's a very modern reasoning.  We had BASIC graphics commands by 1985, on the x86, but they didn't motivate programming.  The results were slower than assembly language on the 6502 at 1Mhz.  

The lion kingdom will never get back the feeling of turning on the 1st pixel with the 1st poke, clearing the screen in BASIC, then doing the same for the 1st time in assembly language, marveling at how fast it was.