2026-01-28 08:23:31 ACTION listens to http://he3.magnatune.com/all/06-Be%20With%20You-Tonethief.mp3  2026-01-28 12:41:03 i'm creating my own little Forth in Rust, and I can implement some builtin in Rust with some API, question is: should i separate the word dispatcher from the run-time? if i don't separate it, every builtin can change everything and there is not invariant 2026-01-28 12:41:18 on the otherside, if i don't, i can't manipulate user-defined words 2026-01-28 12:41:27 by calling other builtin words 2026-01-28 12:41:29 any clues? 2026-01-28 14:55:11 You know, I just keep on running into things I want but can't get because no one sells it, that should be DIRT CHEAP, and I could make myself if I would just get this damn Cortex M4 core module designed and a Forth written for it. The first one I talked about the other day - it was that MIDI "stomp box" for connecting up with my electric guitar. On that one you can buy one with eight stomp 2026-01-28 14:55:13 buttons (a metal box with eight switches mounted on it) and a configurable MIDI interface (so a $5-$10 micro running a serial interface). They want between $700 and $800 for it. And this morning I was thinking about how I'd like a temperature sensor I can put outside and get at over my network. You can buy TONS of those fairly cheap, but all of the cheap ones require you to put an app on your 2026-01-28 14:55:15 phone and that's the only way you can get the data. You have to set up a vendor account and so on. You CAN get ones that work like I want, but suddenly you're in an industrial price tier, like this: 2026-01-28 14:55:23 https://vancoelectrical.com/product/xw-110p/ 2026-01-28 14:55:56 There's just a big "gap" in the market - no one MAKES simple little networkable gadgets, no app, no cloud, no subscription, etc. at reasonable prices. 2026-01-28 14:56:26 It just feels to me like if I just get this project done I not only get to have the things I want but also there's money to potentially be made. 2026-01-28 14:56:48 Lots of places where I could undercut existing prices by a large margin. 2026-01-28 14:58:01 And IF I already had that core module extant, then all of these would be trivially simple projects. 2026-01-28 16:43:53 First, there's the cost of designing a product. For such thing as a stomp box, you'll likely need to design the board /and/ the case, and in my former team, that'd be the job of different members. The case is to be as cheap as possible (for the product at large to have competitive price), yet still sturdy enough to withstand most of typical uses. 2026-01-28 16:43:53 In my former team, for instance, I usually took the digital circuitry, another member took analog (though I could do it too), and yet another took the mechanical parts, including the case. I've never myself acquired skills for mechanical parts design. 2026-01-28 17:13:09 True (on the need to design), but here the major effort of that (in my opinion) would be that core itself (that's where I'd expect the bulk of my time to go, both on the hardware and software fronts). Once it was done, these projects feel like fairly minor efforts to me. The real "effort payoff" would be in making that core rock solid and something you could absolutely count on. 2026-01-28 17:13:29 And these are things I already think about doing just as a hobby thing - so not really "work." 2026-01-28 17:14:22 That's kind of my point, actually - business thoughts aside, I'm just seeing one thing after another I could go and do with fairly little effort, IF I had this one big preliminary step "in the bag." And this Forth system I'd run on it is something on my list of things to do anyway. 2026-01-28 17:14:43 So I'm beating myself up a little this morning for letting it languish the way I have. 2026-01-28 17:15:00 But I never beat myself up for long, so hopefully it's not unhealthy. 2026-01-28 17:16:18 And if I did pursue any sort of business aspect of it, I certainly wouldn't be going out and talking to investors. I'd just try to "shoestring" it. 2026-01-28 17:16:54 The low-hanging fruit would be all I'd be interested in - the goal wouldn't be to establish a long-term business around any one particular product line. 2026-01-28 17:18:11 In the case of the stomp box, the goal would never be to compete head-to-head with the existing $700 product; I wouldn't be expecting to appeal to high-end bands and so on. But you'd think there would be a fair number of "wannabe acts" out there who would consider getting for $150-$200 what would otherwise cost them $700. 2026-01-28 17:18:40 Or just people like me with a hobby-type interest in music. 2026-01-28 17:19:25 I'm just never going to dish out $700 for something like that, especially now that I'm retired. A quarter of that I might consider, if it got me the same functionality. 2026-01-28 17:20:06 Back to the hobby only perspective, if I had my Cortex core done and a Forth running on it, I'd certainly consider $40-$50 of parts to crank out my own box. 2026-01-28 17:20:31 And that's just one thing, of the several I've bumped into the last few weeks. 2026-01-28 17:21:15 That little core just feels like a thing of huge utility to me personally, and the fact that it might open some other doors (small scale business possibilities) is just bonus. 2026-01-28 17:22:14 For hobby work I probably wouldn't do a new PCB for every project - I'd probably just have a "core PCB" that I could easily mount on a breadboard, and then breadboard the project-specific circuitry. 2026-01-28 17:22:54 I don't mean one of those white push-in breadboards - I just mean an array of plated holes. 2026-01-28 17:23:29 The main point on my mind here is "I need to get this damn thing done." 2026-01-28 17:23:59 Other decisions can be postponed. 2026-01-28 17:42:36 There's this concept of 'implied warranties,' so that something sold as a 'knife' must be able to cut, and something sold as a 'stompbox' must be able to withstand stomping by most of the buyers - which might be heavier use that you're imagining yourself. It's something that needs research. 2026-01-28 17:42:37 That's why, I believe, Olinuxino boards are sold as "electronic kits" rather than "computers" - the latter would've been subject to stricter regulations and such. 2026-01-28 17:43:49 Yes, there's definitely that kind of thing to consider. I'd probably adopt an "overkill" approach to that. 2026-01-28 17:44:08 Kind of the way we built bridges and buildings before we had computers to optimze everything so finely. 2026-01-28 17:44:37 I think that's part of why things don't last the way they used to - back then they COULDN'T "approach the margin" the way we can these days. 2026-01-28 17:44:55 So there was a pretty healthy amount of safety margin just naturally arising from those limitations. 2026-01-28 17:45:50 I do have some PCB designs of my own to ponder about in my spare time, but I doubt I'll try making business around them. I think I'd just OSHW them and try to make sure Chinese factories know of the designs, and can manufacture them with ease. 2026-01-28 17:46:38 And honestly, just from watching some of the rock music performances from over the years, the last thing anyone should expect from such folks if ro them to be "gentle." :-) 2026-01-28 17:46:44 "from" 2026-01-28 17:46:53 Ooops. 2026-01-28 17:46:55 "for" 2026-01-28 17:47:04 "is for" :-| 2026-01-28 17:47:25 ACTION hates fumble-finger moments. 2026-01-28 20:06:59 KipIngram, Ive always made all my own enclosures, out of aluminium and often galvamised sheet steel, all I used was a $ 29 sheet metal bender and a 12" set of metal shears a friend made me 2026-01-28 20:09:14 I always used a A4 sheet of sticky backed paper and a FLOSS CAD drawing system and my laser printer to design the mechanical layout, print it, stick it to the sheet of metal for cutting and drilling, then fold the shape in the metal folder above 2026-01-28 20:10:24 I always wanted to make a 1 meter square 'markout NC table' that did the markout using a metal scriber birect from the CAD 2026-01-28 20:12:08 KipIngram, and I handwire my own boards like this https://mecrisp-stellaris-folkdoc.sourceforge.io/_images/pvb-vice-c1.jpg 2026-01-28 20:13:04 KipIngram, so you can definitely do it all at home in a small workshop as I have done the last 40 years 2026-01-28 20:14:02 cost of metal for the stomp box would be les than $1 and you could park a truck on it 2026-01-28 20:14:34 which would break the switches but not the metal box 2026-01-28 20:53:24 my old 'plang2' API selection tool, now being ported to FURS: https://mecrisp-stellaris-folkdoc.sourceforge.io/_images/plang2-in-use.png