So what floats your geek boat?

[Ignis Fatuus]

Her usual target is my oscilloscope, usually followed by 'what does it do?'. I don't think she realizes I have two of them yet

I only ever had one, but I did build it myself. I made it graph transistor gain. But the Lissajpous figures were much more interesting.

Sysman, you are right, IT was a Trojan Horse: it looked interesting but in the end it got in the way of things that really were interesting.

[d000hg]

Linux framebuffer graphics. Old school filled polygons and such.

Spod - In "you can stuff your GPU up yer arse!" mode.

Ah, memories - though I did it in DOS. Paged SVGA too, although if you were doing 3D you probably couldn't drive SVGA anyway.

Hours spent scouring your inner scan-line loop to shave off a single pixel. Using fixed-point maths, finding clever ways to avoid having to clear the frame buffer every frame, etc.

My pride was creating a proper s-buffer implementation so you didn't have to depth-test every pixel, but pre-built a set of pixel runs as you processed polygons, before rendering all those runs. Avoided a z-buffer entirely if memory serves... it was probably 17 years ago so I forget the details but it was my first real proud achievement in programming.

[doodab]

Sysman, you are right, IT was a Trojan Horse: it looked interesting but in the end it got in the way of things that really were interesting.

+1

A lot of my interest and ability with computers is a result of using them, or wanting to use them, to investigate really interesting stuff. Which I still do from time to time but it's not my day job unfortunately.

[SupremeSpod]

Ah, memories - though I did it in DOS. Paged SVGA too, although if you were doing 3D you probably couldn't drive SVGA anyway.

Hours spent scouring your inner scan-line loop to shave off a single pixel. Using fixed-point maths, finding clever ways to avoid having to clear the frame buffer every frame, etc.

My pride was creating a proper s-buffer implementation so you didn't have to depth-test every pixel, but pre-built a set of pixel runs as you processed polygons, before rendering all those runs. Avoided a z-buffer entirely if memory serves... it was probably 17 years ago so I forget the details but it was my first real proud achievement in programming.

I too did all that stuff a few(make that 25+) years ago in 68000 and 8086. I'm now doing the same thing with an ARM :-)

Spod - In "I love my Raspberry Pi" mode!

Btw, VGA "Mode X" ftw!

[Ignis Fatuus]

Own design or out of a magazine/book?

I wanted to build a 40MHz one* out of Practical Television but, as ever, never got around to it.

*It used your bog standard VCR97 of immortal memory, and a distributed amplifier using EF184 valves to get the bandwidth.

The usual homemade scopes of the era had difficulty reaching 5MHz.

I still have 3 or 4 VCR97/ACR13 tubes in the loft.

In fact, it's in this:

Practical Television Circuits : R.E.F. Street : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive

The distributed amp is on page 338.

VCR97 naturally
EF80s I should think.

Out of a book, or perhaps cobbled together from various articles + books, depending on what I had or could get from the surplus shop. Can't really remember: it was just about the date that book was published.


I did it for a school physics project, and got an A. I also showed the Lissajous figures (compounded, clipped, and phase-shifted) to the Art teacher and he said I should put them in for a project in Art too. I never did, shame, it would have been nice to have combined the Two Cultures in one project.

[realityhack]

Books, especially science fiction novels.

Art stuff.

[OwlHoot]

I'd love to get into robotics, but I don't have the room to pursue it as a hobby and I can't imagine one will be able to find a well paid contract in it for a few years yet.

In fact I imagine, sadly, the pay for a permie robotics developer, if even those exist in the UK, would be similar to the computer games industry, i.e. notoriously awful (despite being a highly skilled niche area).

[Ignis Fatuus]

I'd love to get into robotics, but I don't have the room to pursue it as a hobby and I can't imagine one will be able to find a well paid contract in it for a few years yet.

In fact I imagine, sadly, the pay for a permie robotics developer, if even those exist in the UK, would be similar to the computer games industry, i.e. notoriously awful (despite being a highly skilled niche area).

I did hear someone on tha radio at the weekend, saying that although genius-level masters at anything are very rare indeed, "ordinary" masters of most skills are much more common than people think, and will work for much less than people might expect. And, he added, success belongs to those who realise that.

[kingcook]

Pint glasses, stolen from pubs. Got about 80 or so in my collection, each of them with a unique label/brand on

[darmstadt]

tulip apparently.

"When are you going to tidy this tulip up?"
"Have you bought more tulip?"
"Move that tulip from there!"
"You smell like tulip!"
"Oh no, not more tulip!"
"You put that tulip there and I'll throw it away."
...