2024-01-01

Hello 2024

Happy 2024

Another year has passed, the number labeling it was incremented once again, and I did have a look back through my journal.

How did I fare with the 2023 resolution?

Rereading this post was a bit surprising. There were only two items along the lines of "it would be really nice to have these items completed":

building a carputer --- done if there is working satellite navigation and maps on the device.
Creating a board for my microcontroller stuff featuring working rs485 communication, power supply, rfm69 radio link. --- done if demonstrated to work including firmware

/en/2023/20230101-Hello-2023.gmi

carputer

Well, I bought an Odroid M1 device in order to make the carputer, but I somehow bricked it. Well, not exactly, but I have no idea how to get out of its current unusable state. So I decided to use a small Dell Latitude notebook with a big battery instead to create a navigation system. The battery will last for maybe 6 or 8 hours. And let's face it: I do need navigation only when closing in on the destination.

The notebook is installed with Debian. It does handle an external GPS mouse and runs navit to show the previously downloaded maps and to run the navigation. It does exhibit some hiccups at startup, but it does work. So, yes, while the form factor is not exactly embedded, it does solve my need. So I consider this done!

rs485 comm board

I did design such a board with KiCAD and I did order 5 prototype boards. I did find a mistake I made, of course, but I could work around it with some cutting and rewiring. There are 4 functional groups on the printed circuit board:

drop down voltage converter 12 to 3.3 Volt --- I don't currently have all the required parts available, so untested.
drop down voltage converter 12 to 5.0 Volt --- same state
rs485 transceiver --- not yet tested
rfm69hw radio transceiver --- I have placed one module and an antenna. I can power it on and talk to it on the spi bus. I can read its version register: 0x24. It took me some head scratching, however, to find out that it needs to have the /reset pin floating. No, not high, but rather highZ! And I did have to find out that the required bit order on the spi bus is different for the radio module on one hand, and the display module on the other. After that I could talk to the radio and at least make it scream into the void. I could see a powerful signal including harmonics (yikes!) on the gnuradio waterfall, powered by a SDR (software defined radio) USB dongle. But the firmware is not completed to send and receive packets.

Clearly these projects are not complete. But I have advanced a lot further than I would have hoped. Currently my eye sight is not good enough to consider soldering. So it will be a while.

Most notable in 2023

I did add only 19 posts to the gemlog. Only? Relative to what? And what if there is not a whole lot on my mind worth publishing? Add, that I prefer to write about tech topics. So it is not surprising. I still did update the gemlog, that's what is important in my humble opinion.

It seems to me that the content of gemini space has grown a lot and covers a lot more than what I am interested in. I do miss a few things that disappeared, too. However, that's life, I guess.

I did try a number of things computy, of course, and some I have written about:

I did write a very minimal finger daemon

/en/2023/20230114-bws-finger.gmi

I did retrace the hoc program presented in "The UNIX Programming Environment" by Brian W. Kernighan and Rob Pike. This was actually fun to do. It clearly demonstrated how far computers have advanced since 1993, when I did this first.

/en/2023/20230116-hoc-revival.gmi

I did prepare for the Old Computer Challenge, learning a few unexpected things along the way. Most importantly, but to exactly no ones surprise, current firefox is completely unusable within the constraints of the challenge.

/en/2023/20230715-occ-0-preparations.gmi

I did participate in ROOPHLOCH 2023, allthough not in a very geeky way. However, I did try something I had not done before.

/en/2023/20230916-roophloch-3.gmi

I was bitten by a not so obvious quoting problem in one of my scripts. I could find the error and even find a fix for it. This problem even has an entry in the Bash FAQ

https://git.sr.ht/~ew/ew.backup-script

https://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashFAQ/050

I did try to understand and use openrc and s6 as alternatives to systemd. I did not get very far, but alpinelinux is using openrc, so I can give this another try.

With a little help from google and knowlegable folks online I did break into a Dell Latitude after forgetting the UEFI password. However, my success indicates, that these systems need more to really secure them. I mean, if /I/ can get in, anyone else can, too. Security is hard.

Due to some unforseen conditions I managed to pick up Spanish again. This time I chose a modern approach via internet. I'm still in my comfort zone, but I have spent some time on this. Nice surprise!

2024 resolution?

I'm not willing to add anything to my todo list. I'm still recovering from a severe problem with my eyes, and if that goes all well, I'm happy.

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