• AMD's 12-core Threadripper 1920X is selling for $260 right now.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Which is amazing value - the 12-core 3900X is $500 - but does require an expensive motherboard.
  
  
• US copyright law turns out to be better written than the way it is often enforced.  (TechDirt)
  
  The good Mike Masnick has the keyboard today, pointing out an existing provision designed to scupper copyright trolls. 
  
  If you are sued for infringement, and make a settlement offer, and the copyright holder chooses to go to court, and the penalty ends up lower than the settlement offer (which does happen sometimes), the copyright holder has to pay all costs subsequent to the settlement offer.
  
  In this case the judge required the copyright troll to post a bond against potential costs.
  
  
• Greyish-hat hacker Marcus Hutchins, famous for foiling the WannaCry attack, and infamous for some earlier and less philanthropic activities, has been sentenced to time served and one year of supervised release.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Justice seems to have been served for a change.
  
  
• Damned if you do do, damned if you don't do.  (Six Colors)
  
  Apple, just like Amazon, sometimes listens to your Siri commands.  Because if they didn't it wouldn't bloody work.
  
  
• Turns out US lawmakers aren't entirely stupid.  (ZDNet)
  
  Nobody trusts Facebook, it's only the reasons that vary.
  
  
• UK caught mishandling the EU traveller database.  (ZDNet)
  
  Clearly they should be kicked out of the club forthwith.

Video of the Day

I've renamed the design from the A800 to the A750 because, duh, the processor is the H750.  If I follow up with the second design it will be the A1250 because the processor is the A1.

I've done a keyboard layout which can actually be made if this goes ahead.  Not cheap to order one, because it's all Cherry MX keyswitches, but hey.

I now know how to do AM, FM, and PWM via LFO on a software wavetable synthesizer; the FPGA I was thinking of using has dropped in price by 20%; and there's also a CPLD I can use for under A$3.

Advantage of the CPLD is that it's nonvolatile and starts up in half a millisecond.  Also, cheap.  The problem I had with the FPGA is that it's terribly inviting to use it for system control as well as the video controller, but then if you mess up while reconfiguring the video controller the whole system stops working.

So an $11 MCU for all the hard stuff, a $3 CPLD so that I won't need to suddenly add a random AND gate or latch somewhere, and a $7 FPGA to do video retiming and upscaling from the built-in LCD controller to proper 1080p - only if I can't get that to work in software, which I'll find out after the developer kit arrives.

As a nice touch they're all QFP-100 packages, which is not in any way necessary but is nice and clean.  CPU and custom chips all lined up neatly.  Hmm.  Need a QFP-100 DSP with 16-bit DACs...

That system control CPLD also means I can add a second VGA port running off a spare SPI output, in monochrome or possibly in character-cell colour.  So you can run one screen off that while you tinker with the settings for the LCD controller and FPGA on the other.  The added cost is just six resistors and the D-15 socket itself.

Update: Wait, how many SPI ports does the H750 have anyway?  I've assigned one to the "hard drive", one to console video, one to the TinkerPort, and one for internal expansion (which might be another TinkerPort).  Which is four gone before even thinking of anything else...  Six.  It has six.  Good.

Posted by: Rick C at Sunday, July 28 2019 04:20 AM (Iwkd4)

Posted by: J Greely at Sunday, July 28 2019 04:54 AM (ZlYZd)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sunday, July 28 2019 05:39 AM (PiXy!)

Posted by: Rick C at Sunday, July 28 2019 07:57 AM (Iwkd4)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sunday, July 28 2019 04:21 PM (PiXy!)

Posted by: Hannah Reeves at Monday, July 29 2019 08:36 PM (YvnWV)

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