Random Tricks and Musings

When I was a kid, I heard this often...

Lacking in mutually-understood history and details of technicalities, it took me years to try to explain "Well, more like Steve Wozniac." And literally decades to realize how *that* was probably misinterpretted.

So, bare with me as I try to reexplain to several different audiences simultaneously.

First, OK, everyone knows Billy-G. I shouldn't have to explain that one, but I will.

As I Understand (I'm no history-buff):

Billy-G didn't design computers nor electronic circuits; he did software *for* computers. And his real claim to fame was actually software he *bought* (not wrote) from someone else.

Most folk who made the statement about me being "The Next" weren't aware of Stevie-W...

Stevie-W, unlike Billy-G, did electronics design, the actual computers themselves. That's a fundamental difference I was trying to get across, but couldn't convey in terms that really struck a chord. 

In their minds, I gathered over many following years, the two were basically one-and-the-same, just from different companies. And the latter, then, was the "runner-up" that few outside the nerddom even know by name.

Not quite.

Billy-G: Software

Stevie-W: Mostly Hardware

Fundamentally different sorts of people. Fundamentally different skills. Fundamentally different aspects of computing. Maybe like comparing a finish-carpenter to a brick-layer. 

Both, mind you, can be quite skilled, and the good ones highly revered. But therein lies the next problem in trying to explain to folk not already in-the-know: It seems many, again, associate a statement like that the wrong-way compared to my intent; thinking something like "oh, finish carpenters are concerned with minute *details*, whereas brick-layers are concerned with 'getting er done'" ish... I dunno what-all other people think, but I know I was yet-again misunderstood when I made such comparisons, so let me try to re-explain:

Well, no. My point wasn't some judgement of the skill-level or quality of craftsmanship or even about the utilitarian importance/necessity of what they do. My point was that what they do are both related to construction, but that we generally hire both when we build a house; because one is good at one thing, and the other is good at the other. 

Maybe I should've chosen electricians and plumbers as the example, instead. But I'll never finish this if I open that can of worms.

Billy-G: Software that the end-user sees

Stevie-W: Hardware, and software in the background that most folk these days don't even know exists.

Which, probably, goes a ways in explaining why so many folk know the former, since his stuff is in your face, while the latter's stuff is encased in beige boxes.

.

Now, during *years* of trying to figure out how to explain this fundamental difference, without *ever* getting far-enough in the conversation to make my *main* point, the end-takeaway often seemed to be "The Next Steve Wozniac." At which point I was so friggin' exhausted... ugh.

.

So, for years I tried [and obviously failed] to rewire my brain to at least get that fundamental concept across to such folk concisely, *so that* I could maybe finally get across the next point:

....

There were MANY folk, probably *thousands,* doing what Stevie-W was doing before he and his work got "picked."

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Now, when I say *that*, folk tend to, it seems, think I'm looking to "get picked." And, I suppose I can understand why they might come to such a conclusion (despite the fact we're nowhere near far-enough along in this discussion for conclusions to be jumped to) because I had to try to work on their level, and explain fundamental concepts from a perspective I thought they understood... which... apparently to me, requires names of celebrities to even be bothered to try to understand. Hey, I'm not claiming that *is* the way they are, I'm saying that as someone who has dedicated a huge portion of my life's brainpower to something few folk seem to understand, is it not reasonable to think that maybe I misunderstand such folk? That's how they seemed to me, so I tried to work on the level they threw at me. "The Next Bill Gates."

.

No, my point was not about "getting picked." My point was: You didn't even know who The Woz is before I told you... And He's absolutely a celebrity name you should know if you know Angelina Jolie and Natalie Portman and Microsoft and Apple and Bill Gates. But, you didn't. And just like you didn't know #2, you clearly don't know that #2's work wasn't really even revolutionary at the time. Things like the Apple I, for which he got picked, were made in garages and basements and bedrooms and dormrooms by the thousands at the time. Only *one* of those thousands "got picked." You see it every day, and yet you don't even know #2 exists.

I'm not trying to be #2, 

I'm not even trying to be one of those thousands. I *am* the sort of person who *does* things similar to what those thousands did. The same sort of person that was so common in that era that there was a RadioShack for them in darn-near every small-to-midsize town across America.

Jesus, I'm so tired of this discussion.

You like working on cars? You trying to be the next John DeLorean? Unlike your dabbling under the hood when you turned 15.5:

This *is* my life's work. I started at 6y/o. I helped family and friends and even headed the school's computer lab at 10. I got two jobs, simultaneously, in the field at 15, *two* careers I kept for a decade. How dare you compare this to your hobby? But, likewise, how dare you compare this to some wannabe celebrity?

.

NOW:

There's a VERY interesting thing going on, these days, in the realm of plausibly bringing some understanding to the folk who need a celebrity to understand.

Apparently at the time before Billy-G was a name folk knew, before Stevie-W was a name folk in the know would've known, a computer was made, en masse  that was essentially forgotten in a couple years time.

Just last month someone famous in these circles shared that he discovered an ebay seller who had been storing nearly a thousand of these computers for nearly 40 years, and was trying to sell them off. He spread the word. Now it's a sensation.

Man, that friggin "The Next..." intro was so friggin exhausting, I've completely lost sight of what I came here to write.

...

Here's the brief summary, maybe later I can give it the more words it deserves than "the intro" leached from me.

...

Announcement of "Vintage Computer You Never Heard Of, 1000 available. But no software exists for it, and it couldn't access it even if it did..." --A call to folk like those thousands of Stevie-W-alikes to try to turn it into something; reverse-engineering, hardware add-ons like disk drives, software programmers .. Gold Mined, Now it just needs to be refined!

Hours later: Son of one of its developers becomes an instant celebrity because he's got inside knowledge about the machine's inner-workings from his father's estate.

This thing might actually be capable of *doing* something.

Days later: Instant celebrity of the machine gains attention of many: including other original developers who have been letting their unloved masterpieces collect rust and dust for 40 years.

Original software acquired.

New affordable Method for loading/distributing software, devised.

Original add-on hardware, barely past prototypes, dug out of dust-heaps.

...

Frankly, I lost interest pretty early-on, as the part that interested me--the reverse-engineering (and later forward-engineering) effort I could've contributed that might've helped make this useless thing useful--was quickly rendered moot by masses of folk far better at it than I, then even their efforts were rendered moot by the discovery of original software, etc.

...

Now, I'm watching as someone--who saw his years of hard work result in nothing but 40 years of rust and dust in his basement, a guy who, at the time of thousands of Stevie-W-alikes, was not unlike the thousands of Stevie-W-alikes, except maybe in being in the top-100's, having been "picked" by a company that didn't get "picked" by the public--becomes [yet another] instant-celebrity for something he did 40 years ago.

Heh. This whole scenario is both ridiculous and heartwarming at the same time.

I'm just glad to see that there are so many folk interested in the technology of the era...

It's been said before, many times, many ways:

That era of computing was basically the last where one person could understand their entire computer, inside-and-out. Where its functionality could be deterministic to such extents as controlling exactly which clock-cycle would toggle a pin.

This, I think, is the level we should be introducing tomorrow's computer-engineers to, *starting* them at. The keystone of computing that still exists, but is burried under so many layers that now it's become commonplace to not even be aware of layers that are already there, so reinvent them atop the others; ever slower, ever more resource-consuming, reintroducing bugs that were squashed ages ago...

They hype it up with terms like "retro" or "vintage" or "8-bit", but I guess that's what it takes to get many folk to even bother considering understanding the machines they use, or design [for]. 

Some of these folk may later design self-driving cars and medical devices... with a fundamental level of understanding I think everyone who could be impacted by those systems [i.e. everyone on the road] should be grateful for.

Here's hoping.

Meanwhile, a tear-jerker as a man's forgotten efforts get some recognition four decades later.

...

Oh, btw, it's called "The Nabu Personal Computer". Heh.

The 8x51 series *has* internal ROM, even the 8051. The 8031/8032 are allegedly "ROMless" versions of the 8x51/52.

What that means to designers/hobbiests is, e.g.: 

You can design for an 8031, with an external ROM, then drop-in any old 8x51, even if its (OTP, mask, etc.) ROM was programmed with code from an entirely different product, or buggy, or whatever.
Find some old 8x51 in some old piece of trash, think it's worthless because it's already been programmed...? Tie one pin to a voltage rail and use it as an 8031 in your own project.

What that probably meant from Intel's perspective:

"Hey, a customer ordered a bunch of preprogrammed 8051's, but discovered a bug before we shipped" and/or "We got a batch of 8051's with flaky ROMs" and "we're sitting on 1000's of otherwise useless 8051's. What should we do with them?" "Remarket them as ROMless 8031's, and let the new customer supply their own ROM chip!"

Forward-thinking, reusability, reduction of eWaste...

And, in this new era of old paper datasheets now scanned and uploaded as pdfs (as opposed to my earlier experience where pdfs only existed for products designed in the pdf-era (THANK YOU to those who take the time and provide that effort!)), I've discovered that many previously zero-search-result ICs on old PCBs scavenged from VCRs, CD players, TVs, Stereo Components, and whatnot, now have full-on datasheets detailed down to instruction-sets and hex operands... 

And many of those, similar to the 8051, have a pin which can be tied to a voltage rail to disable the internal mask-ROM, enabling them, like the 8031, to run off an external ROM.

Wow! SO MANY uC designers, of so many various architectures, even 4-bit, considered this worthwhile! And even if it was purely because they wanted to sell otherwise defective/wrongly-programmed uCs, it *still* benefits the likes of the customer and even the alleged us, that are hardware hackers.

I dunno, I thought it was darn-relevant in the "chip shortage era."

[Inspired by the lack of response to my comment at https://hackaday.com/2022/12/01/ask-hackaday-when-it-comes-to-processors-how-far-back-can-you-go/ and the fact it seems to be blocking my adding the above as a clarification-reply.

Fact is, I've been meaning to document my box full of scavenged PCBs with such uCs, and maybe even turn each into a "NOPulator"]

...

Oh, it finally appeared there, twice, numerous hours later. Heh.

I even got a response suggesting looking into Collapse OS: http://collapseos.org/

(Very Intriguing).

...

Lots more thoughts and My Collection, now over at:

#Repurposing OTP/mask-ROM microcontrollers 

I wonder how many folk training AI have never even trained a dog to shake.

What IS The Speed of Light Squared?

What IS Distance Squared Over Time Squared... ?

What is Time Squared?!

Dunno, BUT:

Well, Acceleration is Distance Over Time Squared...

And Distance Squared is Area

So might Speed Squared be The Acceleration Of Area?

...

"The Acceleration of Area Is Constant" ?

If you were to release a ball down a ramp, its acceleration would be constant, (assuming constant gravity and constant slope).

If you drop a rock in a pond, the ripples propagate outward at a constant speed along the radius... But, interestingly, the Circumference of the ripple has a constant "acceleration" (distance over time squared)

If you were to create a "ripple" in three-D space, say by exploding some TNT in midair, the sound of the explosion would propagate at a constant speed radially in all directions, at the speed of sound... The surface-area of that 3D "ripple" would have a constant acceleration.

So, if all the energy in some mass were released instantaneously, it would create a spherical wavefront whose surface-area would "accelerate" at a constant rate.

E= MC^2

So, then... Energy is usually electromagnetic, right? And ripples in  electromagnetic fields travel at the speed of light...

So E=MC^2 basically says that if you were to instantaneously release all the energy that a mass *can* contain into a burst of electromagnetic energy, then that energy would propagate as an electromagnetic wave-front which has a constant "acceleration of surface area". I.E. a /sphere/ (?)

...

Now, if we think of it this way, and we change our units of time and speed from meters and seconds to something instead related to the propagation of this wavefront, we'll find that the "constant acceleration of surface-area" (i.e. C^2) Is Directly Related to Pi^2, and thus the speed of light (radially) is in fact an integer constant times Pi. (?!)

...

Musings not yet verified.

Note that I later found an article about a  relationship between Pi and C, which derives it through the half-period of a pendulum. Unfortunately, I'm not sure the math works-out, due to the fact that a pendulum's period is not /exactly/ as stated, but only /very close/, under some conditions. However, the fact is those /specific/ conditions seem to come /very close/ to equating C to Pi, in a very similar way as my wavefront-propagation theory does.

...

So, what are the implications?

Dunno, haven't had time to really look into it, yet.

However, one path seems to suggest that gravity, too, is directly related to C^2 (and thus Pi^2), which makes sense if considering, again, the idea of the surface-area of a wavefront's propagation. 

Imagine a brief "pulse" of gravity as the opposite of an electromagnetic explosion... An implosion(?). Its wavefront (pulled into its center, rather than extending away from it) would have a constant acceleration (of surface-area). 

So, now, imagine a constant flow of such energy, much like a constantly-lit lightbulb...

...

I dunno where it goes!

Here's a weird thought just popped-up...

Gravity doesn't /do/ anything, unless there's another object involved. So, until another object comes into the path of its (impulse) "wavefront," that wavefront exists everywhere on the sperical surface. But, when an object comes into its path, does that spherical surface "collapse" onto that object? Much like they suggest a photon may propagate outward in every direction spherically /until/ it hits something? At which point that sphere collapses onto that object, much like an expanding bubble in bubblegum "rubberbands" (spherically!) back to one's face?

...

hmmm...

Think of Conductivity, instead.

Two parallel conductors will conduct better than one...

ConductivityTotal 
     = Conductivity(R1)
        + Conductivity(R2)
        + Conductivity(R3)
        + ....

Conductivity of a resistor = 1 / Resistance

WAY easier to remember, intuit, (and calculate?) than 1/Rt = 1/R1 + 1/R2 + 1/R3 ...