EEVblog #1155 - Mailbag

[EEVblog]

More from the Mailbag.

Mailbag
PO Box 7949
Baulkham Hills NSW 2153
AUSTRALIA



SPOILERS:
CrowPi Raspberry Pi Learning kit: https://www.elecrow.com/crowpi-compact-raspberry-pi-educational-kit.html
And scratch programming.
Play With Junk Youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCf98WFQLzORUfCinbycwXXQ
LED Claytons Nixie Clock kit & Muzio - Music Reactive Led Lamp
https://8x8x8item.com
Sipeed MAIX : The World First RISC-V 64 AI Module for edge computing:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/sipeed-maix-the-world-first-risc-v-64-ai-module#/

[johnlsenchak]

This made  me laugh,  "That crazy  Aussie  Bloke !"

[coppercone2]

you know that crowpi thing is actually pretty cool because with something like that, if you do embedded systems, you can do all the tedious bits of your work like on vacation or in weird places of your house that you don't normally work in for increased mental clarity.

All those things on the PCB are going to be the additional features to your main control process, but it would be nice to be able to get all the peripherals of the program running first.

It intrigues me from a workflow prospective in terms of getting the system skeleton going moreso then most development boards.


Missing one thing though, you need a banana socket for a wrist strap. And a hammer with a small grounding rod in case you want to work outside. That thing makes me want to work outside.

[MT]

Nixies made of plexiglass/perspex/acrylic is a bit better, same principle.
https://youtu.be/miqN2gR1Zns?t=509

[jazz]

I think Dave is having another DiodE moment with RISC-V

It's definitely pronounced "risk five" and not "risk vee".

See the official RISC-V website https://riscv.org/risc-v-isa/ :

RISC-V (pronounced “risk-five”)

[maginnovision]

I think Dave is having another DiodE moment with RISC-V

It's definitely pronounced "risk five" and not "risk vee".

See the official RISC-V website https://riscv.org/risc-v-isa/ :

RISC-V (pronounced “risk-five”)

I'll be honest, I don't care. I see that as risc vee also. If it's 5 they should have written the number or explain where the other 4 are(in the name).

[cdev]

That CrowPi seems like a great setup for teachers to use for computer education in schools. At least for the next year or two.

A bit pricey for kids, but for teachers its a nice package.

[tsman]

The inability to change the connections or easily connect your own peripherals came up months ago when they sent out review units before release. They said it was by design and you're supposed to pull off the short ribbon cable stub connecting the Raspberry Pi to the rest of the CrowPi unit if you want to use the breadboard. Not a good solution if you want to use the breadboard and some of the integrated peripherals together.

I guess they had already started production of the PCB and didn't want to change anything. Silly though since just a few minor reasonably cheap tweaks would have made it far more flexible.

[mtdoc]

The CrowPi kit looks pretty cool. Just bought one for a Xmas present for my nephew who is 13 and heavily into robotics at school - coding using Vex IQ.  I'm hoping this will motivate him to move onto Python and something more flexible.

[Kleinstein]

The idea with the light pipe display is not new at all. Just a few days ago I came across an old (early 1970s or late 60's) calculator that used a similar display (no LEDs but incandescent lamps).

[jazz]

I think Dave is having another DiodE moment with RISC-V

It's definitely pronounced "risk five" and not "risk vee".

See the official RISC-V website https://riscv.org/risc-v-isa/ :

RISC-V (pronounced “risk-five”)

I'll be honest, I don't care. I see that as risc vee also. If it's 5 they should have written the number or explain where the other 4 are(in the name).

Admittedly it may not be immediately obvious that V is a roman numeral in this case, but roman numerals are not that uncommon, so it's not totally unexpected.
RISC I through IV were previous designs, and you can read about them here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_RISC (SOAR is RISC III and SPUR is RISC IV)

Anyhow, I am not the RISC-V police, so anyone can pronounce it as they please. I was simply pointing out that there is an intended, established, industry-standard way of pronouncing RISC-V as "risk five".

As in Dave's Diode-Story, he (and others) simply may have never heard anyone pronounce it as intended before, or may be unaware of the intended pronounciation with the V in it as a roman numeral. That's why I was pointing it out. After all, how are you supposed to know if no one tells you?

[maginnovision]

I think Dave is having another DiodE moment with RISC-V

It's definitely pronounced "risk five" and not "risk vee".

See the official RISC-V website https://riscv.org/risc-v-isa/ :

RISC-V (pronounced “risk-five”)

I'll be honest, I don't care. I see that as risc vee also. If it's 5 they should have written the number or explain where the other 4 are(in the name).

Admittedly it may not be immediately obvious that V is a roman numeral in this case, but roman numerals are not that uncommon, so it's not totally unexpected.
RISC I through IV were previous designs, and you can read about them here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_RISC (SOAR is RISC III and SPUR is RISC IV)

Anyhow, I am not the RISC-V police, so anyone can pronounce it as they please. I was simply pointing out that there is an intended, established, industry-standard way of pronouncing RISC-V as "risk five".

As in Dave's Diode-Story, he (and others) simply may have never heard anyone pronounce it as intended before, or may be unaware of the intended pronounciation with the V in it as a roman numeral. That's why I was pointing it out. After all, how are you supposed to know if no one tells you?

I understand roman numerals and know it's supposed to be 5. I really dislike the acronym + numeral though. RISC five is a mouthful but RISC Vee works well.

[Fungus]

It's definitely pronounced "risk five" and not "risk vee".

See the official RISC-V website https://riscv.org/risc-v-isa/ :

RISC-V (pronounced “risk-five”)

How about Apple OS-X?

[Kilrah]

Same thing, OS Ten sounds just crap so people keep calling it OSX reglardless of how many times Apple has been trying to change that over the past nearly 2 decades...

[CJay]

Same thing, OS Ten sounds just crap so people keep calling it OSX reglardless of how many times Apple has been trying to change that over the past nearly 2 decades...

Mostly because it annoys the hell out of the Mac fans we have here in the building.

It's the only reason I built a Hackintosh too.

[HeywoodFloyd]

"Edge computing" is computing at the edge... the idea being you give edge devices like sensors ability to do some processing, e.g. aggregating data, or formatting it in specific ways (like sending a JSON structure saying "I am sensor XYZ sitting at position P and I am reading temperature T at time t" except perhaps less verbose.
It's all part of the new fangled scale of computing going from the data centre and cloud through the more diffuse "fog computing" (Cisco came up with that name) and out to the edge. If devices don't have enough computing power, they push their data to a more capable layer.