<mark_weaver>my first unix box was also a 486, but *much* earlier than linux 1.0 <mark_weaver>I started with my own unix box just a bit before NetBSD was launched. <dsmith-work>I do remember the articles in Dr Dobbs by Jolitz. Porting bsd to the 386 <mark_weaver>dsmith-work: was the soundcard and cdrom integrated somehow? like on the same card or something? <dsmith-work>Yes. The soundcard had a dsp on it and it emulated a SoundsBlaster. It also had a cdrom interface. <dsmith-work>It was cool, because that was the dsp I was using at work at the time. (Analog Devices 21xx stuff) <mark_weaver>ah yes, I have some vague recollection of those soundblaster cards. I think I even had one in the early days :) <dsmith-work>Heh. I wrote a disassembler for that so I could see what was in the sound card dsp image. <mark_weaver>nice, so you actually hacked code for DSPs at the time? <dsmith-work>Yes. We were doing control of dampers for automotive suspension systems. <dsmith-work>There was this fluid that could go from milk to toothpaste in about 5-15ms <dsmith-work>So you compare the relative velocity to the "absolute" velocity. Depending on the directions they are in, you either turn off, or apply a force proportional to the relative velocity. <mark_weaver>I've done a little bit of reading about control theory, but never studied it carefully. <dsmith-work>The dsp basically converted two accelerometers into velocities. <mark_weaver>what is the relative velocity and absolute velocity, more precisely? <dsmith-work>Relative is the velocity between the wheel and the body. <mark_weaver>ah, I see.. so absolute velocity is an estimate of the velocity of the car relative to the road, right? <mark_weaver>excellent! what are the main subjects you have taught yourself? <mark_weaver>(I'm also mostly self taught.. what I learned at university is really only a small fraction of what I've learned in life) <dsmith-work>Well, I went to a tech school to learn electronics. And another to fix mainframe computers. <dsmith-work>Both I guess. We had some digital logic near the end. <dsmith-work>The version before we started using dsp's was all analog. <mark_weaver>yeah, it's so much nicer to be able to just write code. <dsmith-work>Ever try to design a bandpass filter centered at .1 Hz? <mark_weaver>that's pretty low frequency.. I imagine that would be tricky. <dsmith-work>The capacitors are all too leaky for the op amp input bias currents. <mark_weaver>there are some pretty huge super capacitors these days though.. maybe easier now than it was. <dsmith-work>We actually used 1Hz to 20Hz on the side of the filter as an integrator <dsmith-work>And we could CHANGE the algorithm without soldering. <mark_weaver>that does sound like good fun. I never had access to such a thing :) <mark_weaver>born in '70, turned 42 on the day the world was supposed to end. <mark_weaver>or more to the point, when/how did you get interested in it. <dsmith-work>Around 84, 85 I saw microemacs. Hmm. No, it was JOVE (Jakes Own Version of Emacs) <mark_weaver>ah yes, you've done quite a bit of hacking on scwm, haven't you? <dsmith-work>Guy I was working with typed a } and it auto indented and I was sold. <mark_weaver>I don't really know the details of your relationship to that project. <dsmith-work>It bitrotted. I sent in soem patched to bring it up to 1.8 (or maybe it was 1.6) <mark_weaver>I can't remember if I ever tried scwm. but if I did, it was long before I had any strong interest in scheme. <mark_weaver>SICP is what made me fall in love with scheme, and very significantly changed my philosophy of programming. <dsmith-work>The gtk code needs updating. I just have no time, or motivation! to work on it. <mark_weaver>but I didn't discover it until the late 90s iirc, quite late in my programming career. <dsmith-work>The thing that *really* hooked me on scheme, was the ((if flag + *) 3 4) example in RnRS <mark_weaver>those still perform better than transistors in some ways, don't they? <mark_weaver>it's a *completely* different type of device, obviously. <mark_weaver>well, I have to go offline for a while. joining some friends for dinner. nice talking to you! :) <mark_weaver>(I might pick your brain about these tube amps at some future time though :) ***jao is now known as Guest43756
<taylanub>If I have a module (bytestructures procedural), does the file-system representation have to be bytestructures/procedural.scm ? <taylanub>Also, I'll make a syntactic version, and not sure if that's possible and plausible with syntax-rules; would it be worth trying to write it in portable syntax-case ? The procedural implementation uses SRFIs 1, 9, and 11, and bytevectors, and is otherwise R5RS I think. (Bytevectors are also in R7RS-small, so you could also say it's R7RS-small plus those three SRFIs.) <taylanub>(Is there a thing such as portable syntax-case ? How well is R6RS supported ?) <dsmith>taylanub, The bytestructures dir must be in a directory on the load path. <taylanub>dsmith: And must the file be called procedural.scm ? <dsmith>So if you added the bytestructures dir to the load path, then it would NOT find your module. That *would* work if your module was (procedural). <taylanub>While making a syntactic version of my bytestructures implementation, would it be bad practice to simply wrap my `define-record-type' calls, variable definitions etc. in `eval-when' and turn my procedures into macros ? <mark_weaver>taylanub: that strikes me as a suboptimal approach, but it's hard for me to tell without seeing your current code. ***adu_ is now known as adu
<dsmith>mark_weaver, Take a look at figure 4.21 on page 70. That's the skyhook I was talking about. <dsmith>Lookss like they have done some work on getting the harshness out. <mark_weaver>dsmith: fascinating stuff! I've only occasionally thought about all the magic that makes modern cars so comfortable to ride. This reminds me how sophisticated they have become :) <mark_weaver>I'm going to have to wait to another time to dig into this though. I have *way* too much to do for 2.0.8 right now :/ <dsmith>It was a lot of fun working with that stuff. <dsmith>Great! I mean, I'm really thankful for all the work you do for Guile. <dsmith>Especially all the numerics stuff. I sure would have liked to have guile back when I was working with dsp filters.