01:05:00
##forth
<nmz->
when you don't know what you're doing or what you're going to do, you get to be creative
01:05:06
##forth
<nmz->
creativity is dead nowadays
01:05:12
##forth
<nmz->
everything in the browser
01:05:36
##forth
<nmz->
all relegated to a 90's UI
01:11:34
##forth
<cleobuline>
forthBot: LOAD ini.fth
01:11:35
##forth
<forthBot>
File ini.fth with MOON loaded
01:11:41
##forth
<cleobuline>
forthBot: MOON
01:11:42
##forth
<forthBot>
Phase de la lune pour Wed November 5 2025
01:11:42
##forth
<forthBot>
🌕 Pleine lune Admirez-la sur les toits de Paris ! Illumination 99%
01:40:53
##forth
<tpbsd>
<KipIngram> Take those first years of the microprocessor era. I missed those - I was a little too young. But those had to be heady days.
01:41:33
##forth
<tpbsd>
KipIngram, and they were heady indeed, I was a 20 year old electronics technician in a sea of rapid change
01:42:47
##forth
<tpbsd>
one day I was recsalibrating floppy drives that used voice coil actuators and light intensity position feedback, the next week it was stepper motors
01:43:36
##forth
<tpbsd>
from PACE 16bit cpus in 1976 to Z80 8 bit cpus in 1978
01:44:10
##forth
<tpbsd>
and all the different PC's and OS's, it was fascinating, never boring
03:11:41
##forth
<forthBot>
Environment for cleobuline inactive, freeing...
10:51:02
##forth
<KipIngram>
tpbsd: I graduated from high school in 1981 and college in 1985, so I was order of a decade further along. Still fun times, but a lot happened during that decade.
10:51:42
##forth
<tpbsd>
KipIngram, yes, you were still in that 'window of rapid change'
10:52:57
##forth
<KipIngram>
When I got active, we had programmable logc, but only very simple stuff - the 22V10 was kind of the "Cadillac" PDL that we all liked to use but our boss tried to get us not to because it was expensive. Nothing yet really much more potent than that.
10:53:16
##forth
<KipIngram>
Then I remember AMD had a PLD they called MACH that was a big step up.
10:53:26
##forth
<KipIngram>
Then just up from there of course as the years rolled along.
10:53:35
##forth
<tpbsd>
KipIngram, after the industries all fought it out and killed off all the small players, 'standards' took over and we traded 'new and utterly different' for standard and boring
10:53:51
##forth
<KipIngram>
Yes, that sounds about right.
10:54:03
##forth
<tpbsd>
it's the way of life I guess
10:54:30
##forth
<tpbsd>
we have been lucky to live in those eras od rapid change
10:54:58
##forth
<tpbsd>
I remember the the GAL's and PLD's etc
10:55:05
##forth
<KipIngram>
I remember in the early FPGA days, when the companies first wanted to start charging money for the design software, I was able to tell them that we wouldn't buy the chips unless we got the software for free. And that WORKED.
10:55:12
##forth
<tpbsd>
back then everything was very expensive
10:55:33
##forth
<KipIngram>
Then a couple or three years later it stopped working - I always figured the companies had reorganized so that those things were in different divisions.
10:55:46
##forth
<KipIngram>
And the software division didn't care about the chip sales - didn't affect their bottom line.
10:56:15
##forth
<KipIngram>
Yeah, in my first job our boss wanted us to limit ourselves to 16R8's etc.
10:56:18
##forth
<tpbsd>
I remember ULTERA branded GAL's ( I think) as it was used in the radioactive ore flow probes
10:56:55
##forth
<KipIngram>
Because of how limited the PLDs were, the big emphasis was on board level design, and that's what I was really good at.
10:57:22
##forth
<tpbsd>
I remember seeing the kits on the desk of the engineer doing the probes, they were off limit to me because of the specialist nature and expense
10:57:27
##forth
<KipIngram>
Then I got into management, and kind of missed out on the transition to higher integration. And to the extent I did do FPGA work, it was exclusively using schematics.
10:57:42
##forth
<KipIngram>
I can kind of hobble along with Verilog, but I never got really expert at it.
10:57:58
##forth
<KipIngram>
I think something is lost in the transition to Verilog (I know some things are gained too).
10:58:05
##forth
<tpbsd>
I never did any work with those devices, Ive been cpu's and mcu's only
10:58:12
##forth
<KipIngram>
I think the SHAPE of a schematic circuit, on the printed page, is a channel of information.
10:58:21
##forth
<KipIngram>
And you lose that when you tranition to a slab of text.
10:58:26
##forth
<KipIngram>
transition
10:58:33
##forth
<tpbsd>
I see what you mean
10:58:50
##forth
<KipIngram>
You can see things like reconvergent fanout and so on.
10:59:29
##forth
<KipIngram>
And while that's not "wrong" per se, it is kind of a red flag - it calls for care about race conditions.
10:59:38
##forth
<tpbsd>
Ive never beenb attracted to those devices for that reason alone, it's the complete solution that a MCU offers that attracts me to them
11:00:53
##forth
<tpbsd>
in essence Im a electronics guy, Ive done a lot of analog design, psu's, servos etc, LNA's, rf
11:01:18
##forth
<tpbsd>
the digital world is only a small part of the electronics I love doing
11:02:30
##forth
<tpbsd>
for instance a upcoming project (now I've finished FURS) is a psu for measuring delivered power accurately over a huge dynamic range, from nanoamps to amps
11:02:49
##forth
<tpbsd>
it's based on a TI patent, so the iseas not mine
11:02:52
##forth
<tpbsd>
idea
11:05:13
##forth
<KipIngram>
I've been primarily digital, and have had the good fortune to know a couple of supremely good analog guys. I have huge respect. I know my way around analog "some," but it's not a forte.
11:06:29
##forth
<tpbsd>
electronics is such a massive field a lifetime is only enough to master a few
11:06:54
##forth
<KipIngram>
My favorite zone to work in was always right there on the boundary between the hardware and the software, when I had both under my control and actually got to decide exactly where to put the boundary, so to speak.
11:07:37
##forth
<tpbsd>
ahh, thats a very specialist area, because pure hardware guys have no software skill and vice versa
11:09:22
##forth
<tpbsd>
I started in the hardware only side, analog and as digital was invented, I assimilated it, then software, tho I didnt learn C until 1997, but learnt machine code and assembly very well before that
11:10:11
##forth
<KipIngram>
I've never really been in any "large team" software projects, but I've managed pretty well where I was writing the software on my own and didn't have to fret over things like coding standards, meshing with others via version control, etc.
11:10:12
##forth
<tpbsd>
hell, I learnt about valves first, by making amplifiers, oscillators, voltage regulators etc
11:10:42
##forth
<tpbsd>
lol, same as me, Ive been a one man band all my working life
11:10:48
##forth
<KipIngram>
I've studied tubes some. We have an old 1938 Zenith radio that belonged to my wife's grandparents that I want to restore at some point.
11:11:08
##forth
<KipIngram>
I think tubes are great - I love how you can so readily understand them from a basic physics perspective.
11:11:25
##forth
<KipIngram>
Heat a piece of metal to loosen up the electrons, and start shoving them around.
11:11:43
##forth
<tpbsd>
I had a RF addiction as a kid, 10,000v at 0.5A transformer, carbon anode beam tetrodes etc
11:12:05
##forth
<KipIngram>
Fun fun. Glad you avoided frying yourself. :-)
11:12:15
##forth
<tpbsd>
... mostly
11:13:34
##forth
<tpbsd>
it was fun times for me, ww2 had finished only 10 years before I was born, and by the time I was a kid, the world was aflood with incredibly cheap 'army surplus' electronics gear
11:14:09
##forth
<tpbsd>
a 500W beam tetrode was aboyt $0.50 brand new
11:14:26
##forth
<KipIngram>
I didn't get into any of it as a kid - really just started learning all that stuff in college.
11:14:53
##forth
<KipIngram>
In high school mostly just inhaled all the science stuff I could get from encyclopedias and so on.
11:15:01
##forth
<tpbsd>
I think that transformer above was $15 and I had to get it trucked to my home, it was oil filled and only moveable on a hand trolley
11:15:18
##forth
<KipIngram>
My dad was an organic chemistry professor, and I was able to glean a little from some of his lower level textbooks.
11:16:05
##forth
<tpbsd>
in my case it was the 1954 ARRL handbook, a kid from school found it in his attic and gave it to me, it started a lifetime of electronics addiction
11:16:26
##forth
<KipIngram>
Lot of good info in those ARRL books.
11:16:39
##forth
<tpbsd>
my mon and dad were nurses, I was on my own
11:16:43
##forth
<KipIngram>
And you can still get one fairly cheap if you are willing to take one a few years old.
11:16:52
##forth
<tpbsd>
hell yeah, it was my 'bible'
11:17:05
##forth
<tpbsd>
I have a collection of them now
11:17:18
##forth
<tpbsd>
just for nolstagia
11:18:02
##forth
<tpbsd>
to me, after the transistor became popular, the ARRL handbooks lost something special
11:18:30
##forth
<tpbsd>
it's probably just that the original authors were very old by this time and retired or dead
11:18:53
##forth
<tpbsd>
so the articles were written by younger people
11:19:01
##forth
<tpbsd>
(just guessing)
11:19:39
##forth
<KipIngram>
Are you a ham? I'm licensed, but not really active. I got my tech license back when there was a code requirement, and then later when they dropepd that I figured, well, I am an EE so the tests for the rest ought to be manageable, so I went ahead and upped it all the way.
11:19:43
##forth
<tpbsd>
what will Forth articles look like when all us old timers/counters are gone I wonder ?
11:20:27
##forth
<tpbsd>
no, being a HAM never interested me, only designing KW power amps :)
11:21:04
##forth
<KipIngram>
There's no telling. I see a lot of tendency toward people wanting to push Forth more toward formal comptuer science. I don't like it a lot - I think Forth's strength is in its simplicity.
11:21:10
##forth
<tpbsd>
lol, carbon granule microphones modulating the grid directly ..
11:22:09
##forth
<tpbsd>
a 12AU7A still doesnt look 'right' to me unless the anode is red hot ;-)