The world's worst video card?

This one might be interesting to you: ▶ this video “The world’s worst video card?” Ben builds a framebuffer display device on a bread board from scratch, you’ll understand what every transistor does at a high level in an hour (don’t miss part 2). That is abstractly what first principles graphics looked like some time ago - pixels were represented by a block of main memory, and the video system simply scanned that memory at the same frequency as the CRT monitor’s beam. I’d say it’s pretty important to remember that what counts as “first principles” graphics has changed over time, and there was a time before frame buffers (the first Pong game was displayed on an oscilloscope) and the way we use framebuffers today is completely different - there is no more direct access to pixels in the same way old terminals used to work. The article here is detailing how we use a higher level API to draw higher level primitives, and the hardware takes care of the pixels. I’d love to hear a little more about your goal... what’s driving you to study the old terminals?

in “A trip through the Graphics Pipeline (2011)” · View on HN

Not the same thing, but you reminded me of this since it's in a similar vein. Ben Eater went through the entire process of building a VGA "video card." Anyone with a basic understanding of logic circuits has enough background to understand it. Worth a watch. Part 1: ▶ this video Part 2: [link]

in “Brown: color is weird [video]” · View on HN

Back in university, we took the steps of: - Breadboarding some CPU components - Breadboarding a very, very minimal CPU. More like a simple Adding + Multiplication machine with 4 registers or so, with a few premade components. - Eventually moving up to microcoding a simulated CPU - Eventually writing binary code to control the microcoded CPU - At that point I kinda cheated and wrote my own assembler because I got sick of checking so many bits. - This project then stopped at an assembly level. - But then we implemented our own ML-variant interpreter and later on ML-variant compiler in OCaml - And later on we had that ML-Compiler compile itself and extended it from there. Pick your poison where to start. Just be aware that breadboarding stuff becomes very... messy very quickly[1]. And I do include Hardware in this, because you needed simpler CPUs to design more complex CPUs. In practice, you want to pick the best combination of a familiar language that is as high level as it can be. But back in the day, that would've been assembly, binary. In the case of C, it went from BCPL, in which a compiler for B was written, in which a compiler for New B (NB) was written, which then turned into C. 1: ▶ this video

in “Show HN: My C compiler compiled itself” · View on HN

> I’m not quite sure what you mean by YouTubeisms The unending barrage of memes, the animations, floating emojis, the music constantly changing pace, the bright colors, "Youtube-voice", etc. etc. Compare it with Ben Eater building a video card: ▶ this video (of course the level of detail is higher but just focus on the style, voice, lack of animations and memes. He cracks a joke here and there, but isn't full of Youtubeisms.) And yes, it's a different genre. And yes, some people hate the genre that youtube is filled with these days.

in “The Cheating Device (ChatGPT on a TI-84) [video]” · View on HN

Some what related: Ben Eater's video series on building a VGA graphics card. In there he calculates the resistors to show colors. ▶ this video

in “Appler: Apple ][ emulator for IBM PC, written in 8088 assembly” · View on HN

Ben Eater has some videos showing the USB protocol on an oscilloscope. [link] [link] And some videos on using chips and breadboards to meet protocols- ▶ this video And a digital protocol too- [link]

in “Ask HN: How do I write a Linux driver for my 15 year old photo printer?” · View on HN

To clarify further, Nvidia and AMD (and probably other small players like ARM, Quallcomm, Imagination) own the patents on core shader tech, which are the building blocks of any modern GPU design. If you want to design a GPU IP that works around all their patents, you probably can, but unless you're a John Carmack x10, your resulting design would be horribly inefficient and not competitive enough to be worth the expensive silicon it will be etched on and probably not compatible to any modern API like Vulcan or DirectX. But if you just want to build your own meme GPU for education/shits and giggles, that doesn't follow any patents or APIs, then you can and some people already did: ▶ this video

in “Nyuzi – An Experimental Open-Source FPGA GPGPU Processor” · View on HN

> Chips that didn't exist in 1978. The overall point you're making is that technology from several years later was better. Not relevant. Years later, even the Apple IIc (1984) wasn't close to a C64, not to mention an Amiga. The thing you're missing is, Commodore had purchased MOS Technology, just like Apple purchased PA Semi to make their own iPhone SoCs, and had spent years investing in custom silicon going back to the VIC in 1979. The Apple II did not have a "video chip". Wozniak had cobbled together a video chip out of a bunch of 74LS TTL chips. Here, learn to built one yourself: ▶ this video That's what I meant by "superior design". Commodore actually had integrated CMOS chips for video, audio, I/O, that they had designed in house and fabbed themselves. The Apple 2, well into the IIc days, was built like a semi-decent Arduino project. Even the Mac had gfx and DMA cobbled out of TTL chips.

in “Why Apple II Is the World's Best Selling Personal Computer (1978)” · View on HN