Comments for BrassTacks (wpc)

Comment on Linux/BSD with “Lisp personality”? by ajzimm3rman

ajzimm3rman — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 17:27:44 +0000

Sounds very interesting, and something I would go along with completely.

Comment on Symbolics Rev. C Keyboard Secrets by asciilifeform

asciilifeform — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 15:51:54 +0000

Argh, I suppose I should have actually read your post – you have already read my code. Sorry about the confusion.

Comment on MacIvory Keyboard Support Software by asciilifeform

asciilifeform — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 15:50:10 +0000

Just a moment ago I commented on one of your older entries, but here goes.

Having no Lisp Machine, I have entirely reverse-engineered the keyboard protocol “with my bare hands” (oscilloscope.) Here (http://lmkbd.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/symkeys.asm) is the table of keycodes for the Old Style Keyboard (new style is probably identical.) If you look at the schematics (http://www.asciilifeform.com/images/3.png) and PIC16F84 code in the rest of my project, you will see how to connect the device and what the protocol looks like: you simply toggle the clock line to increment a counter, and the keyboard will toggle a data line if the key corresponding to that counter value is pressed. My current code simply lights an LED if any key is pressed, but it should be easy to extend it to transmit PS/2 keycodes (unfortunately, I have not had the time to finish this project.)

Good luck!

Comment on Symbolics keyboard to PIC, step 1 by asciilifeform

asciilifeform — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 15:43:11 +0000

These pieces of my half-completed project may help you:

http://www.asciilifeform.com/images/3.png

http://lmkbd.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/

Comment on Ordering a Lisp machine by thekevinmackay

thekevinmackay — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 00:39:25 +0000

Cool. I just Wikipedia’d MacIvory to guess what you might be doing with one. Looks like dead technology. Are you self-training as a computer architect?

Comment on Ordering a Lisp machine by jaoswald

jaoswald — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 20:45:38 +0000

MW is a “megaword”: the MacIvory uses a 40-bit word. The Lisp machines don’t address memory at the byte level; some of the bits were used to distinguish between address pointers, integers, machine instructions, and other data types. That allows the machine to automatically detect illegal array accesses and automatically manage dynamic memory allocation. Another 8 bits per word are used for ECC (error correction coding) to allow correction of single-bit errors. So a 8 megabyte memory board is 1.3 MW of MacIvory memory.

I haven’t seen any compromising pictures of you on the web, yet.

Comment on Ordering a Lisp machine by thekevinmackay

thekevinmackay — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 15:54:33 +0000

Oh, and whats a MW of memory?
Sounds very powerful.

Comment on Ordering a Lisp machine by thekevinmackay

thekevinmackay — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 15:52:57 +0000

Joe,

I google searched “communicating with GPIB synthesizer example code” and your blog came up on page 1. You must be prominent in the field. I envy your PhD.

On a separate note, both my full name and e-mail address were “already in use” when I set up an account to leave this comment. Somebody has apparently set up a me blog behind my back. I hope there are not pictures…

BR,
Kevin
kevin_mackay@ltx.com

Comment on Dell 2007FP and xorg.conf by jkayser

jkayser — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 03:49:26 +0000

Thank you for posting your “xorg.conf” file. Windows clearly has Linux beat when it comes to hooking up new display hardware. Don’t get me wrong; I have worked on UNIX machines for 25 years, and I really love UNIX. However, hooking up the 2007FP to CentOS was a real struggle. Hooking it up to Windows Server 2003 was trivial — load the 2007FP drivers (which were shipped with the monitor) and run.

I tried using your “xorg.conf” file, and discovered that some of the settings depended on the video card. I have a different video card (ATI Mach64 3D Rage IIC) with 4MB of video RAM. Since I have less video RAM, the 1600×1200@60 mode would not work with 24-bit color, but only with 16-bit color. As a result, I had to tweak both the DEVICE section and the SCREEN section as well.

If any of your other readers want to try this, be forwarned that you should probably figure out which resolutions and color depths your video card will support (I used Windows Server 2003 to figure this out), and then modify BOTH the DEVICE section (for your video card), and the SCREEN section (for which color depths and screen resolutions your video card will support).

Thanks again for your initial post and “xorg.conf” file. It was a huge help!

Comment on Venting about Linux by josephoswald

josephoswald — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 21:14:23 +0000

I suppose Binford is right; Slackware does aspire to be a distribution for UNIX purists, and not necessarily the ready-for-the-desktop distribution. Perhaps I need to get around to downloading an Ubuntu ISO and installing that instead. Or, follow your example of Fedora Core.