2023-01-20 00:08:41 <KipIngram   > I think if you had a touch screen calculator, then you'd use it in portait mode as usual.  But when you were programming it, you'd turn it landscape and have a view that looked more like a Forth block layout.
2023-01-20 00:09:02 <KipIngram   > Or maybe if your eyes are keen and you write short definitions portrait would be ok for that too.
2023-01-20 00:09:16 <KipIngram   > But at any rate, it wouldn't have the "one step per line" format typical of most calculators.
2023-01-20 04:29:44 <Stalevar    > KipIngram, ok, I got the arduino and made it blink the LED, but there is long time still until I can get the CPU
2023-01-20 04:30:08 <Stalevar    > Unless I pull one out of ZX spectrum I have, but I don't want to do it
2023-01-20 04:30:24 <Stalevar    > Though it has a socket so it might be OK
2023-01-20 06:42:39 <KipIngram   > If it's a DIP in a socket you can probably move it without too much trouble, but I understand.  Never fun to maul something inadvertently.
2023-01-20 06:44:05 <boru        > If it's a ZIF socket, a pair of pliers ought to do it.
2023-01-20 06:44:29 <KipIngram   > Your most important input to the Arduino will be BUSACK.  If it's high, you want your Arduino outputs floating.
2023-01-20 06:44:41 <KipIngram   > You could pre-prep a little code to be confident of that.
2023-01-20 06:46:09 <boru        > AVR has hung around like a bad smell. Don't encourage it.
2023-01-20 07:45:26 <KipIngram   > Stalevar: I suspect you'll be able to get this v0 bit pulled together fairly fast.  Heck, if you WANTED to (and if you have enough I/O) you could hook up just the Z80, and let the Arduino "be the RAM" so to speak.  It would supply hte clock, read the address bits in, and supply the requested data from a table.  I know that's not really your goal, but I don't see why it wouldn't work.
2023-01-20 07:45:57 <KipIngram   > I guess the Z80 might have some requirement on its clock frequency, and consistency of frequency, that would interfere with that, but on the other hand, it might not.
2023-01-20 07:46:07 <olle        > Anyone here a manager?
2023-01-20 07:46:14 <KipIngram   > I've been one.
2023-01-20 07:46:26 <olle        > KipIngram: Did you do an MBA or such?
2023-01-20 07:46:38 <KipIngram   > No, just engineering through a PhD.
2023-01-20 07:46:52 <olle        > Ah kk
2023-01-20 07:47:04 <KipIngram   > When I was doing that kind of work it was for small companies that were very "technically led."
2023-01-20 07:47:09 <olle        > Mm
2023-01-20 07:48:07 <KipIngram   > I had about 65 folks on my team at the peak.
2023-01-20 07:48:24 <olle        > Oh cool :)
2023-01-20 07:48:46 <olle        > I started to read up on decision therory and org behav
2023-01-20 07:49:05 <KipIngram   > Fun years, but really because we did some really cool work - the managing part definitely involved some headaches.
2023-01-20 07:49:11 <olle        > Hm
2023-01-20 07:49:40 <KipIngram   > I don't think I could ever be a manager in my current work environment.  It's just a totally different kind of culture.
2023-01-20 07:50:20 <olle        > How different?
2023-01-20 07:51:02 <KipIngram   > Um, well, for one thing it's hard for me to actually tell who is "responsible" for things.  Back in the day our arenas of responsibility, and our arenas of authority, were totally clear.
2023-01-20 07:51:08 <KipIngram   > It's really murky where I work now.
2023-01-20 07:51:18 <olle        > Yeah can be like that
2023-01-20 08:06:29 <KipIngram   > Yeah, I think if they told me I had to manage something I wouldn't be really sure what to do.  Whereas in the old places it was utterly clear.
2023-01-20 08:08:43 <olle        > Start with making a clear decision protocol probably ^^
2023-01-20 08:15:25 <Stalevar    > KipIngram, yeah, I have this idea too. And yeah, it's in DIP package. Still I do not want to pull the chip out of the computer, at least right now
2023-01-20 08:15:57 <Stalevar    > I have another idea, maybe make Arduino display something on tiny LCD I have bought some years ago?
2023-01-20 08:16:59 <KipIngram   > Is it "just a panel," or does it have some built in controller and RAM?
2023-01-20 08:17:15 <KipIngram   > If it's just a panel, then you've got to supply a well-timed continuous flow of frame data.
2023-01-20 08:17:26 <KipIngram   > Which can be a pretty tough job.
2023-01-20 08:18:06 <KipIngram   > If it's got some built-in smarts then you may just be able to had it data and have it display it.
2023-01-20 08:18:09 <KipIngram   > hand
2023-01-20 12:44:04 <KipIngram   > Holy cow, guys.
2023-01-20 12:44:17 <KipIngram   > I used to be VP of Engineering for a seismic company here in town.
2023-01-20 12:44:41 <KipIngram   > Severe internal political strife - I held it at bay for a while but eventually got sidelined, and soon after moved to IBM.
2023-01-20 12:45:10 <KipIngram   > Anyway, I exercised my stock options have held some number of shares in that company ever since, just in case they accomplished something.
2023-01-20 12:45:17 <KipIngram   > Well, looks like they are officially a fail.
2023-01-20 12:45:38 <KipIngram   > Got a notice today that the investment company that held most of the shares is exiting their position.  For $1.
2023-01-20 12:46:01 <KipIngram   > An obscene number of shares, which means that they diluted my bit down to less than nothing anyway.
2023-01-20 12:46:08 <KipIngram   > But I guess that's the end of that story.
2023-01-20 12:46:18 <KipIngram   > I can forget about that ever being something nice.
2023-01-20 12:46:47 <KipIngram   > It's really criminal the games they play with stock in companies like that.
2023-01-20 12:46:59 <KipIngram   > They can make your "equity share" worth absolutely nothing if they want to.
2023-01-20 12:47:15 <Zarutian_iPad> You got no stock-options? like a put option or such?
2023-01-20 12:47:32 <KipIngram   > Oh, I had options, and I exercised them.
2023-01-20 12:47:44 <KipIngram   > Didn't cost me that much, because my strike price was good.
2023-01-20 12:49:49 <Zarutian_iPad> so, a nice dodge out of a crappy situation then
2023-01-20 12:51:36 <KipIngram   > Yeah, looks like they've really screwed the pooch.
2023-01-20 12:51:49 <KipIngram   > I won't share the content of the letter, but it's about as damning as you could imagine.
2023-01-20 12:52:00 <KipIngram   > The VC is basically just saying "we're outta here."
2023-01-20 12:53:27 <Zarutian_iPad> so basically that made seismic detection equipment got itself office politics posioned?
2023-01-20 12:56:11 <thrig       > obviously the work of counter-revolutionary strata
2023-01-20 12:56:27 <Zarutian_iPad> reactionaries!
2023-01-20 12:57:16 <KipIngram   > Well, that is my feeling about the situation, but obviously I was involved in it and am potentially biased.
2023-01-20 12:57:36 <KipIngram   > I replaced a guy as engineering VP, but he remained with the company.  He was highly connected with the investors and the board.
2023-01-20 12:57:46 <KipIngram   > And he spent the entire time I was there trying to undermine me.
2023-01-20 12:57:55 <thrig       > mmm social primates
2023-01-20 12:58:04 <KipIngram   > I like to believe I helped make some progress, but I'm sure he'd tell it differently.
2023-01-20 12:58:22 <KipIngram   > I had the CEO on my side, but he never wanted to come to Houston much - he lived in Denver.
2023-01-20 12:58:42 <KipIngram   > The end run the other guy made was to convince the board that there was "chaos" in Houston and we needed someone "in charge" there.
2023-01-20 12:58:56 <KipIngram   > So a Chief Operating Officer was added, in Houston, and he technically became my boss.
2023-01-20 12:59:04 <KipIngram   > And he landed on the other guy's side.
2023-01-20 12:59:40 <KipIngram   > So I didn't get fired, but later on I got removed as engineering VP, and fairly quickly after that I left and joined IBM.  Well, not IBM yet, but IBM was in the process of buying the little place I went to.
2023-01-20 13:00:06 <KipIngram   > Turned out really good, because when I joined the new little place the guy gave me 500 shares of their stock to come one week earlier than I otherwise planned to.
2023-01-20 13:00:19 <KipIngram   > And that wound up getting me a bit over half a million bucks when IBM closed the deal.
2023-01-20 13:01:43 <KipIngram   > The first place I worked in Houston, the job I'm really the proudest of, flirted with a big financial deal, but it didn't materialie.  By rights that's really where I should have made a big slug of money, but I didn't.  Then the whole IBM thing felt like it just dropped money in my lap for nothing.
2023-01-20 13:01:48 <KipIngram   > Weird how the world works.
2023-01-20 13:03:44 <KipIngram   > Because at that first place I feel like I truly made a difference, over a substantial period of time.
2023-01-20 13:04:10 <KipIngram   > That guy was dealing with VC's in 2001, summer, and got offered a pretty good deal, but he wanted more and kept dickering.
2023-01-20 13:04:23 <KipIngram   > Then in October the stock market crashed and the VCs went home.
2023-01-20 13:04:43 <KipIngram   > On hindsight, looking at how that company has done, he really, REALLY should have taken that deal.
2023-01-20 13:05:18 <KipIngram   > They're still around, but they're smaller than they were in 2000.
2023-01-20 13:05:31 <KipIngram   > That was the place I had the 65 people.
2023-01-20 13:05:51 <KipIngram   > And I think I'll always look on it as the best job I ever had.
2023-01-20 13:07:31 <KipIngram   > I left that one in the summer of 2002, to try a consulting practice.  And the place did nothing but shrink after that.
2023-01-20 13:08:04 <KipIngram   > Part of it was just that it was a tough time for the tech sector in general, but I think a big part of it was just that the company's market had a shelf life.
2023-01-20 13:08:12 <KipIngram   > We made programmers for semiconductor devices.
2023-01-20 13:08:31 <KipIngram   > In the late 1990's, a lot of devices were hard to program, and it really took specialized equipment and expertise.  We were very good at it.
2023-01-20 13:08:44 <KipIngram   > But going forward from there it just kept getting easier and more trivial to program chips.
2023-01-20 13:08:55 <KipIngram   > These days you hardly need anything sophisticated.
2023-01-20 13:09:02 <Zarutian_iPad> stupidly hard to program I might add.
2023-01-20 13:09:02 <KipIngram   > So it was just an expertise that was dated.
2023-01-20 13:09:11 <KipIngram   > Indeed.  Many a headache.
2023-01-20 13:09:24 <KipIngram   > But the guy that owned that place was very sharp technically.
2023-01-20 13:29:20 <KipIngram   > All the clever analog stuff some parts required was handled by circuitry he designed.  That was all already there when I joined the company; I mostly just wrapped more and more capable digital wrappers around it.
2023-01-20 13:29:41 <KipIngram   > Made the things faster.
2023-01-20 19:12:27 <KipIngram   > I recall Actel non-volatile FPGAs were particularly hard to program.  There was some special thing they needed that differed from other devices.
2023-01-20 19:12:56 <KipIngram   > Anti-fuses?