The BBC Micro, Lovingly Simulated In VR

April 14, 2024 by 5 Comments

The BBC Micro was many peoples’ first exposure to home computing, and thanks to [Dominic Pajak], you can fire up this beloved hardware in WebXR. Is it an emulator? Yes, but it’s also much more than that.

The machine, the CRT, the keycaps, and even the sounds of the original keypresses are all brought to life as accurately as possible. The result is not just an emulator. It’s a lovingly-made BBC Micro simulator you can use with a VR headset. Or just use your browser and type on your real keyboard if you like.

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Dump A Code Repository As A Text File, For Easier Sharing With Chatbots

April 14, 2024 by 16 Comments

Some LLMs (Large Language Models) can act as useful programming assistants when provided with a project’s source code, but experimenting with this can get a little tricky if the chatbot has no way to download from the internet. In such cases, the code must be provided by either pasting it into the prompt or uploading a file manually. That’s acceptable for simple things, but for more complex projects, it gets awkward quickly.

To make this easier, [Eric Hartford] created github2file, a Python script that outputs a single text file containing the combined source code of a specified repository. This text file can be uploaded (or its contents pasted into the prompt) making it much easier to share code with chatbots.

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A Slew Of AI Courses To Get Yourself Up To Speed

April 14, 2024 by 12 Comments

When there’s a new technology, there’s always a slew of people who want to educate you about it. Some want to teach you to use their tools, some want you to pay for training, and others will use free training to entice you to buy further training. Since AI is the new hot buzzword, there are plenty of free classes from reputable sources. The nice thing about a free class is that if you find it isn’t doing it for you, there’s no penalty to just quit.

We noticed NVIDIA — one of the companies that has most profited from the AI boom — has some courses (not all free, though). Generative AI Explained, and Augment your LLM Using Retrieval Augmented Generation caught our eye. There’s also Building a Brain in 10 Minutes, and Introduction to Physics-informed Machine Learning with Modulus. These are all quite short, though.

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Logic analyzer capture, showing the rails constantly oscillating at a high rate

When Your Level Shifter Is Too Smart To Function

April 13, 2024 by 9 Comments

By now, 3.3V has become a comfortable and common logic level for basically anything you might be hacking. However, sometimes, you still need to interface your GPIOs with devices that are 5 V, 1.8 V, or something even less common like 2.5 V. At this point, you might stumble upon autosensing level shifters, like the TXB010x series Texas Instruments produces, and decide that they’re perfect — no need to worry about pin direction or bother with pullups. Just wire up your GPIOs and the two voltage rails you’re good to go. [Joshua0] warns us, however, that not everything is hunky dory in the automagic shifting world.

During board bring-up and multimeter probing, he found that the 1.8 V-shifted RESET signal went down to 1.0V — and its 3.3 V counterpart stayed at 2.6V. Was it a current fight between GPIOs? A faulty connection? Voltage rail instability? It got more confusing as the debugging session uncovered the shifting operating normally as soon as the test points involved were probed with the multimeter in a certain order. After re-reading the datasheet and spotting a note about reflection sensitivity, [Joshua0] realized he should try and probe the signals with a high-speed logic analyzer instead.

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M17 Digital Communications Go From Strength To Strength

April 13, 2024 by 6 Comments

The world of amateur radio is like many other fields in that there has been a move underway from analogue to digital modes. In fact, amateur radio has often led the way in digital innovation.  There’s a snag, though: many of the digital speech modes are proprietary. To address this along comes the M17 project, an effort to create an open digital communication protocol for radio amateurs. We’ve looked at them more than once in the past few years, and as they’ve come up with several pieces of new hardware it’s time for another peek.

First up is the Remote Radio Unit, described as “a comprehensive, UHF FM/M17 “repeater in a box,” optimally designed for close antenna placement, enhancing signal strength and reliability.” The repeater forms the “other half” of the UHF handheld radio chain and will be crucial to the uptake of the protocol.

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PicoNtrol Brings Modern Controllers To Atari 2600

April 13, 2024 by 10 Comments

While there’s an argument to be made that retro games should be experienced with whatever input device they were designed around, there’s no debating that modern game controllers are a lot more ergonomic and enjoyable to use than some of those early 8-bit entries.

Now, thanks to the PicoNtrol project from [Reogen], you can use the latest Xbox and PlayStation controllers with the Atari 2600 via Bluetooth. Looking a bit farther down the road the project is aiming to support the Nintendo Entertainment System, and there’s work being done to bring the Switch Pro Controller into the fold as well.

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Who’s Afraid Of A CRT?

April 13, 2024 by 25 Comments

Older consumer electronic devices follow a desirability curve in which after they fall from favour they can’t be given away. But as they become rarer, they reach a point at which everyone wants them. Then, they can’t be had for love nor money. CRT TVs are now in the first stage, they’re bulky and lower-definition than modern sets, and thus thrift stores and dumpsters still have them in reasonable numbers. To retrogamers and other enthusiasts, this can be a bonanza, and when he saw a high-end late-model JVC on the sidewalk [Chris Person] wasted no time in snapping it up. It worked, but there were a few picture issues, so he set about fixing it.

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