Caden Kray <
ck1998@yahoo.com> wrote:
[...SBCs...]
My eyes shine when I hear about it, but I'm such a simple person, I
seem to have no real need for any new gadget. I like to study how
things work and I believe that partly why I get to the hardware level
is because I have no need for new hardware---or so I think. On the
computer, however, I have lots of needs.
That's not either/or. Sure SBCs are "hardware" and so is your PC.
Because we process a lot of information, there's always the need to
automate things and it never stops!
That ranges from logging some data with micro-controllers to tasks for
little real or virtual servers.
This hurts my hardware studies. So I'm always listening when perhaps
some day I'll really find a reason to go do something at the hardware
level. 'til then I might just get to talking to a CPU, say, at the
assembly level.
Assembler was nice when we only had a few different CPUs in our reach. Depending on the quality of this translator (macros and other features)
it really could be fun. I used assembler a lot until the mid 90s, but
after seeing the beauty of the 68000 ISA I could not look at the 8086
ISA without horror. Luckily the "universal macro assembler" (some call
it "C") exists and does a much better job than Pascal for low level
stuff.
I could buy one of these things just to see at work something I've
learned in simulators.
So what are you aiming at?
- Attaching some sensors to a micro-controller?
- Building and understanding a system with a general purpose CPU like
6502, Z80, 68000?
This may be fun:
Write 8-bit code in your browser.
<
https://8bitworkshop.com/>
- Using SBCs, so a massively complex hardware of a power that would have
been a PC some years ago, but now fits into the palm of your hand?
All this is fun.
I'm running some stuff on SBCs, just because they are very similar to
PCs now (running Linux or such) and can do some tasks I want to run
permanently without feeding a PC with kilowatts. A Pi1-B+ still is good
enough for some tasks (I run my always-on Weechat on one) and its hunger
should (as I read somewhere) stay below max 3W. I've two Pi2-B attached
to a power supply with an V/A-meter and together they use just below
500mA, so together round about 2.5W and next time I compile something, I
really should remember to look at that V/A-meter. I think to remember
that my Pi4-ers with 8G RAM and 120GB SATA-SSD connected via USB3<->SATA adapter idle (each one) at 3W and hit 6W at full load.
Some Cubietrucks, Banana-Pi-Routers, Routers with OpenWRT, thin clients,
lots of laptops, one netbook and some other old-timers are part of my
zoo too. Most of them are just collecting dust while being unused.
So are lots of micro-controllers from Attiny45 to Atmega1284, ESP8266,
ESP32, PIC32, Propeller1.
For (CP/M) nostalgia I've one SBC-sized Z80 system and ingredients to
build some more, but there is no hurry because emulations are very good
today and need near to no space.
Z80-MBC2: a 4 ICs homebrew Z80 computer
<
https://hackaday.io/project/159973>
That's fun, but Z80 systems with lots of chips are easier to understand
than these boards with lots of functionality stuffed into a blackbox (micro-controller). Reading schematics of Z80 and TTL chip era
computers really was more entertaining. Like exploring a graphic
adventure maze.
Back to SBCs:
Fediverse is the new trend? Running good old mail (and news) created
the original federation and we could run such on SBCs. There is not
even a need to be permanently online and no need to buy domains (use
I2P, Tinc, Tor or similar instead).
"Peernix" instead of "Pubnix" will force you to be the admin and to
learn a lot and all sensible data can stay at home. Only stuff to be
published would be globally visible or even replicated among the peers.
We really should do that!
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