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This is a bit of a random side project. The backstory is that a few years ago, I had a HP printer which eventually ran into print head problems. I had tried to fix it, but was unsuccessful, so I did what I do with things I deem a lost cause: tear it down, salvage the electronics, and throw out the rest.

Recently, I was curious about that printer's motherboard, and what made it tick - and if I could reuse it somehow.

I tried to run it bare, out of curiosity - with just the front panel boards attached. It actually boots after a while - and complains about the cartridge door being open. If the sensor is blocked, it instead complains about a problem with the print head. Well, of course, there's none.

However, we still have: front panel LEDs and buttons, a SD card slot, a LCD panel with some capacitive touch buttons, a USB-B port, a wifi card.

Looking at the chips, we have:

* Marvell 88PA2DU2-BGE1 - SoC
* Hynix H5PS5182FFP - DDR2 SDRAM, 64MB
* Winbond 25Q128BV1-G - SPI FLASH, 16MB
* Macronix MX25L1606E - SPI FLASH, 2MB
* Texas Instruments SC211038 - mystery chip (likely a support MCU)

First thing I did was desolder the 16MB FLASH and plop it in my MiniPro. I expected it to contain firmware code, while the other, smaller FLASH would be for configuration data. I didn't know what to expect regarding the SoC architecture.

I quickly recognized this: big-endian ARM. Odd choice.

The firmware is mapped at 0x0, but the gist of it is compressed with a variant of LZ77. I hacked together a quick and dirty emulator so I could get an idea what's going on.

The next step was to inject code into this device, so I could try to extract more data from it - figure out what the CPU is, how memory is mapped, extract the ROMs if there are any, and so on.

For this, I had a solution in mind.

Since this is a bog standard SPI flash, I thought my FPGA-based SPI FLASH emulator might be compatible. It is! I made a test with the stock firmware and it booted just fine.

From this, it wasn't hard to build a binary that could be injected into the board. However, I had to figure out how to output data. Analyzing the firmware code reveals the existence of a UART-type debug output, but I couldn't find it on the board.

So instead, I did the same thing I did with the WiiU gamepad - use the SPI interface. With a bit of digging, I was able to find firmware code for accessing the configuration FLASH - and confirmed that the two FLASH chips share the same interface. Thus, I knew how to use the SPI interface for my purposes.

A few observations about the hardware, so far:

* At first, I was surprised by the SPI traffic I saw when running my own code - it seemed to be hitting the same addresses in a loop. I eventually realized what is going on - the FLASH is directly mapped to the CPU. I had expected it to be more like the WiiU gamepad, where you have a boot ROM loading a binary from FLASH into RAM, but there's none of that here. The stock firmware eventually decompresses itself into RAM and runs there - while this direct FLASH mapping is convenient for getting things started, I imagine it would be very slow for anything else.

* The CPU is an ARM946E-S. The same model as in the DS. I don't yet know which speed it runs at - the crystal frequency is 27 MHz, but there's likely a PLL inside the SoC that I haven't initialized yet.

Next step is going to be figuring out how to initialize the RAM, so I can run proper code.

Then I can try to reverse-engineer more of the hardware and figure out fun things to do with it. It would be nifty to figure out how to use the LCD.

Current Mood: excited

This is going to be another gaming post. I plan to post about more technical stuff - the Wii U gamepad stuff would be very interesting to get into. But, one thing at a time.

Some people are saying that Hytale is dead now. I don't agree with this take - the initial hype has died down, but in my opinion, the game has a lot of potential.

I've had a lot of fun with Hytale, but I've been playing it less lately.

One reason is mental health, as that's still complicated... things were good in January, but lately it's been complicated again. The path to recovery isn't linear...

The other reason is that I've pretty much exhausted the currently available progression in Hytale. I've seen a lot of the common stuff. I've accumulated a sizeable supply of adamantite, the highest tier of metal that is currently available. I've collected 200 memories - there are 241 in total as of now, but not all of them can actually be collected in survival mode, and 200 is the last milestone that gives you a reward.

So yeah, there isn't much else to do in the game for me. I started building a large castle, but it's the kind of project that will take a while to be completed. Other than that, there is little direction to the game when you've come to this point, which makes it feel shallow. But that's to be expected of an early access game.

The memories quest appeals to the completionist in me. Same reason why I've enjoyed Super Mario Odyssey - constantly getting sidetracked to collect all the moons instead of strictly sticking to the storyline - and B3313, for example. However, such quests are like an exponential taper: the more you go and the longer it takes to progress further, it requires more work for less returns. This can end up being a motivation killer if too much effort is required for too little gain. After all, this is just a game.

Development of the game is, at this point, focused on building a solid base, upon which actual content can be added later. I think it's a good way to approach it in the long run, but it's a balancing act too - you have to keep your community interested somehow, and purely technical changes aren't that interesting to the average player.

So far, I like what I've seen. The movement and combat mechanics are pretty good. I used to think I wasn't a big combat person, but Hytale made me like it. Exploration is interesting, with pretty large and intricate structures that you can find. The scenery in itself also looks quite nice. I'm a big fan of Hytale's visual style.

Speaking of exploration, however, it does start to feel same-y when you've already seen the most common structures. As of now, structures are based on what they call "prefabs", which are basically pre-built templates for various elements, from trees to entire villages. From what I've read, there are plans to add variety through procedural generation.

It would be interesting to see how they carry it out. What comes to mind is larger structures in Minecraft, like mineshafts and strongholds: those are made of basic blocks (individual rooms, tunnels, ...) which are randomly chosen and placed at specific connection points. I don't know the technical details behind it, but that's the basic idea. It also shows the challenges to generating worlds this way: you not seldom find generation oddities in both Minecraft and Hytale. It's also worth noting that Hytale's structures have a lot more detail to them, so making it work nicely could be more difficult.

I like how the development process of Hytale is woven into the storyline. For example, the "Fragments of Orbis" you can explore are previews of things to come, including, among others, the new world generator. One of these worlds features a dragon bound in an eternal slumber, which is code for "this mob isn't programmed yet". Even though I have quite a technical mind, I appreciate this sort of storytelling.

I'm eager to discover what the developers will add to the game. The new world generator (named Worldgen V2) is looking particularly interesting. From what I've gathered, the generator itself is done, and the task is to recreate Orbis in it. There is also concept art and screenshots showcasing ideas for other worlds, which is interesting.

I wonder how this Worldgen V2 will be rolled out. I thought it would be like Minecraft, where whenever the world generator was changed, you had to travel really far to generate new chunks (and have a visible seam where the new chunks begin), or make a completely new world. But someone else on the Hytale server brought up another possibility: crafting a portal leading to "Orbis V2". I didn't think of that, because I wasn't thinking outside the box of what Minecraft supports. This would be interesting, there's an opportunity to wrap this into nice storytelling.

This is what I like about Hytale. It's an ambitious project, there's so much opportunity. I hope the developers will be able to deliver. As I said in my previous post, I feel that they have a clear vision of what they want Hytale to be, and I hope they can stick to this vision. They want it to be a forever game, and I wonder how they plan to do this without making it a bloated mess.

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In less Hytale-y news, I have a few other things I could talk about.

I felt like trying Infdev+, a Minecraft mod based on the Infdev versions. I've been playing a bit with it, and it's been interesting, though I haven't explored it in depth yet. It's largely nostalgia and curiosity, I must admit.

I also have some basic ideas for a game I'd like to make. My idea is color-based mechanics, where for example collecting an item of a certain color would activate blocks of that color, which could either help you progress further or hinder you. This could also be extended to enemies for example: collect the red item and the red blocks materialize, opening up a path, but the red enemies also become active. I can imagine several possibilities for puzzles and such. I just need to actually build the base for such a game.

Another idea, which Nadia gave me, would be that of a "DS consolizer". A random idea we pondered, that basically consists into turning a DS motherboard into a home console. It's a thing for older handhelds, apparently. Doing it with the DS raises several questions regarding input. I kind of want to try and build something, using a FPGA to add the needed supporting hardware...

However I'm also caught into another big phase of melonDS work, which consists into reworking CPU timings to be more accurate.

So, we'll see how that all goes...

Current Mood: creative

I've felt like writing about Minecraft, and the relationship I've had with it throughout the years. One of the reasons is that I realize I've never given modern Minecraft's content a fair chance, mostly due to lack of interest, and it's a bit hypocritical when I find myself interested in Hytale.

I was introduced to Minecraft during the early Classic days, and got into creative multiplayer servers, but that's not what I want to talk about. I'm thinking more about the survival aspect of the game. I discovered that aspect later, with Minecraft Alpha.

I have fond memories of my first Alpha world.

I remember building a starter shack out of wood, then thinking it would be a genius idea to add a lava moat around it to keep hostile mobs away. You guess how that went. I eventually rebuilt that house out of cobblestone, so fire wasn't a concern.

I did a lot of stuff in that world. For a while, I had someething keeping me excited, could feel the desire to go back to my little Minecraft world and continue doing this or that little project.

I found a backup of my old Minecraft worlds. It includes a bunch of stuff over several years. The old Alpha worlds were just "World 1", "World 2", and so on. You had 5 slots and you couldn't yet give them names.

World 1 was my first world. It appears that it was last played in Minecraft Beta, probably version 1.7.3 or so. I tried loading it into modern Minecraft, but it suffered from chunk corruption. So I loaded it in Beta 1.7 instead, and for the most part, that worked.

This was the final iteration of my home. It was rebuilt out of bricks, had more floors added, and so on. The upper floors have remained pretty empty.

home interior w/ lounge area and dog sitting

The interior. I had built an extension with a nice lounge area and a bit of a storage backroom.

I can no longer control the dogs. I guess it's because I've since changed usernames, the Minecraft account system has changed, all that.

It feels like returning to a place you haven't been to in years. It feels oddly familiar, but it's not the same... in some eerie way.

There was a secret piston door in the wall, for no reason other than it was nifty. I had even installed a redstone XOR gate, so it could be opened or closed from both sides.

The door led to this room. It was the collection area for a passive mob trap.

The mob trap itself. It was a pretty basic design, not very efficient. Mobs would fall into the water and eventually drown. Their drops would fall down the chute into the collection area. The pressure plates there were connected to a note block, acting as a simple notification system.

Overhang from the mountain with the mob trap. Old Minecraft did have interesting terrain generation.

Nether portal with netherrack blocks spelling LOL

Nether portal, from the day the Nether was added. There wasn't really anything to do in there, but I had experimented with the Nether blocks for things like non-torch light sources.

I had dug out a tunnel connecting my spawn area to the area beyond the lake. I had even added rails, as a rudimentary subway system. Never really did much in that other area...

I had been digging and mining a lot in the same area, which eventually lead to a pretty large room being carved out. I even made it rectangular. I seem to have used the place to experiment with redstone contraptions. I remember seeing this room with the thick fog they later added when you get close to bedrock, and it's pretty... impressive.

There is also another room which is filled with torches, separated by wool blocks. This happened when a rumor was sprouted that Mojang would make torches burn out instead of being a permanent light source - and that already placed torches would be converted to (permanent) lanterns, but torches in your inventory would remain, well, torches. So this was intended as a torch storage for a scenario that, in the end, has never happened.

There was also an Aether portal. I remember that at some point I had tried the Aether mod. It was certainly interesting, but I felt weird about using items and materials that weren't part of the vanilla game - like I wasn't playing the game as intended.

I remember eventually finding a spider dungeon, and repurposing it into a string farm. Couldn't find my way back to it, though.

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I felt a progressive disconnect as Minecraft changed into its modern form, as changes were made that, well, changed how you play the game.

One such example was the addition of the hunger mechanic.

Before that, food items were just a way to heal yourself up. Given this, and how mob spawning worked, I found that I had no incentive to farm food. If I was running low on food, I could just go out and hunt pigs.

The changes in modern Minecraft make this strategy far less viable. Hunger is something that needs constant maintenance - you can avoid actions that deplete your hunger, like sprinting, but you'll still go hungry eventually. Mob spawning was also changed in such a way that they spawn a lot less frequently, so just hunting them for food isn't really viable beyond short term. In my experience, these mechanics make it required to get some type of farm going.

Not necessarily a bad thing, but it changes how you play the game. Maybe it makes the whole thing feel different...

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Maybe for me the game just gets old after a while... then you return to it, get bored again, and so on.

Besides my singleplayer world, I've also played on several multiplayer servers throughout the years. I fondly remember the early janky SMP.

A lot of it was the social aspect. Old Minecraft didn't have much in terms of progression, so I've always found that once I had built a decent house, and had enough resources to feel comfortable, I didn't really know what to do anymore. There is acquiring more materials to maintain your level of comfort, but after a while, it feels very... same old shit. There is building new things, but part of me has always wanted builds to have a particular purpose. I guess that's my practical, down-to-earth side.

You can also make large builds. Projects that take several days, weeks, months to complete. I think I'm too ADHD for this, but it's always interesting to see what other build.

I can imagine Mojang has been trying to address this feeling by adding more depth to the game, progression, an actual end goal.

From my perspective, all those changes turn Minecraft into something different. Still has the basics of Minecraft, but there's a lot more to it, and it feels that the way I used to play won't cut it anymore. Essentially, I would have to invest time into rediscovering the game, trying to recapture a fresh perspective.

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I can see that what I said about old Minecraft also applies to Hytale in its current form. There isn't much yet to it, and once the progression paths are exhausted and the novelty wears off, it will feel the same way, atleast until new content is added.

The impression I get from Hytale is that the developers have a vision, an idea of what they want it to be. It remains to be seen how well that will be executed.

This brings me to what I feel about Minecraft. That disconnect, like... feeling alienated? I can see a point the game went into a different direction, kind of like switching to a different vision of what it should be. I guess Hytale had the benefit of being a blank slate, for me. I wish I could recapture that feeling about Minecraft...

I don't know. I like the idea of building stuff on an interesting map, making it a cool little world. I just... ADHD.

Current Mood: nostalgic

As I mentioned in the previous post, I've been playing Hytale a lot lately, so I figured I'd make a bit of a review post about it.

I learnt about Hytale from Mongster's video. Mongster makes videos about Minecraft Alpha and Vintage Story, which are always nice to watch, but he also gave Hytale a try in this video...

I immediately liked the visual style and general vibe of this game, so I wanted to give it a try. Haven't been disappointed so far.

I knew nothing about Hytale and its complicated history before getting in. From what I've gathered, this game has been in development for several years, has been acquired by Riot Games, ported to a different engine, and eventually cancelled... and uncancelled. The original author recognized that many people were interested in Hytale, and basically bought it back from Riot Games. This meant starting back from the old engine, so several years of development were lost in the process. The game has been released as an "early access" version, so knowing all this, one can't be too demanding.

So what is Hytale about? As I mentioned in my previous post, it's a Minecraft-esque block-based sandbox game, albeit with a RPG aspect. There are three game modes planned: Adventure, Exploration and Creative. Seeing as Adventure mode isn't available yet, I've been playing Exploration mode, which is akin to Minecraft's survival mode.

At first, I went in blind, wanting to discover the game on my own. But recently I started watching Hytale videos too. It's interesting to see how others engage with the game and what they do. I also want to give multiplayer a try, if I can find interested fellows.

It seems typical for Minecraft players to want to start by punching a tree. I did it too, heh. It is technically possible to do that in Hytale, but it's not the intended way to get started. You craft your first tools by gathering sticks, stones and plant fibers. It's reminiscent of Vintage Story, or similarly themed Minecraft mods. However, Hytale isn't focused on realistic survival.

What's nice is that you get started in a sort of spawn structure, which can act as a safe place until you've got a house going.

me sleeping on a crude bed inside the Hytale spawn structure

Some players set up shop in one of the various structures you can find, restoring it into a proper home. I like the idea, it's nifty, and certainly works as long as you can stop hostile mobs from spawning in your new home.

looking at a medieval guard tower structure

I instead opted to build from scratch, so I could experiment with the various options.

Not the best build ever, but certainly a good start. The layout is very... organic, to say the least. I started with a 6x6 main room and a smaller room to the side, intended to be a workshop. I thought of a second floor for the bedroom, but forgot to plan for the stair to get there, so I ended up grafting it onto the structure. It starts from the back of the main room and runs over the workshop. I quite like this architectural, er, style.

I also underestimated how much space I would need. Turns out Hytale's workbenches are pretty big, and there's a bunch of them. I also ended up digging out a basement for storage.

The bedroom. I haven't really figured out what to use as bedside tables yet, so for now, marble blocks it is.

my kitchen, with chef's stove, campfire, table, storage chests

The kitchen. This was a later addition to the building. It also showcases the Chef's Stove, which is the workbench dedicated to food items. Next to it is a campfire, which serves to cook simple food items.

There is no hunger in Hytale, so food functions a bit like in old Minecraft: it heals you up. Eating food replenishes a bit of health immediately and slowly replenishes some more over time, which is interesting. The Chef's Stove lets you cook superior food items, which replenish more health.

In my experience, Hytale hasn't been hard to figure out, despite the complexity. The organization of all the craftable blocks and items into different workbenches works decently well. The crafting system is pretty straightforward, and the workbenches can also pull items from nearby chests, which is nice - you don't need to load up everything in your inventory first.

That being said, I haven't yet explored every aspect of the game. I think it also helps that I have prior experience with Minecraft, so I don't know how it would go for someone who's entirely new to the genre.

I'm a big fan of Hytale's visual aspect. The scenery is pretty colorful, the designs for the players and animals are cute. I realize it's not for everybody, but I like vibrant colors. I think it goes well with the game's fantasy vibe.

Unlike what some people say, I don't think "colorful and cute" should be "for kids". I'd have a lot to say about this, but it'd be for another post.

You also have plenty of customization options for your player avatar, which is pretty cool. It's neat to see what people make with it. Apparently, you can make custom skins as well, like in Minecraft... The developers even added armor visibility settings, so you can wear armor without it hiding your cool skin.

Another aspect I like is... how to put it? The movement mechanics. Compared to Minecraft, it's easier to get around and explore. For example, you jump two blocks high, as opposed to one in Minecraft. You can even make 3-block jumps by grabbing ledges. In a similar vein, you're also less prone to fall damage. I haven't measured this precisely, but it feels easier to take fall damage in Minecraft.

(EDIT- I did actually measure it, and it turns out you can fall from up to 7 blocks before taking damage, as opposed to 3 blocks in Minecraft. I didn't expect this much of a difference.)

Combat mechanics have also been interesting to figure out. As you go, you find that stronger mobs have more elaborate combat patterns, with offensive and defensive moves. You also get various weapons, which have different characteristics in terms of damage per hit, attack speed, and defense capability. For example, a mace may be a good weapon against a slow golem, but doesn't work as well against a more mobile enemy. All in all, pretty fun stuff.

Makes me think of how I haven't done a whole lot of animal hunting in this game. In my experience, drops from hostile mobs and loot items have proven sufficient to cover my needs in food and leather. It's also possible to capture small animals, but I haven't tried that yet. It isn't yet possible to breed animals, either. Farming is possible, however, and there's some depth to it.

I also have things to say about world generation.

The various biomes I've seen so far are pretty nice. The transitions between different biomes are quite abrupt. The biomes themselves feel small. I don't know if I would consider this a bad thing - there has to be a balance between how large and immersive the areas feel, and how easy or hard it is to get to specific areas. There are options for faster travel, though.

The various structures you can find are also pretty interesting, with many different areas and stuff to find (and enemies to fight, heh). It feels like there's a lot to see.

There are oddities with the world generation, though. For example, I've seen instances of caves intersecting dungeons and causing various oddities. There are also some structures where log blocks break as soon as you touch anything near them, which is probably caused by them being wrongly treated as part of a tree.

I'm not going to go too deep into this, though. The developers have said that world generation is going to be completely redone, so hopefully the new generation addresses those issues. Either way, we'll see what it's like.

All in all, Hytale has been a pretty cool experience so far. It does feel pretty polished for an early release.

At the same time, I feel that there isn't much to it in terms of things to do, beyond getting better tools and weapons.

There is the Forgotten Temple - you collect memories of the various mobs you encounter, and return them to the Heart of Orbis. Doing so unlocks various things, and presumably completing this quest achieves something great, I don't know yet.

This kind of stuff leaves me itching for more.

That's on par with what I'd expect from an "early access" release, though. I believe they've got a pretty good foundation with Hytale, and if taken in the right direction, they can make something great out of it.

Current Mood: excited

Oh yeah, I said in the last post that I wanted to RGB-mod my N64.

Is it January 30th already? Time flies...

So, yeah, the RGB mod.

mod not installed yet, just showing the encoder IC and shit

That's my N64's motherboard in its original state. It's a later revision European console, so it's got the DENC-NUS video encoder IC. A shame it's not the early ones where you can do a RGB mod just by adding a couple wires, but on the other hand, I'm glad DENC-NUS has a wider pitch than the other possible encoder ICs. The pitch is on par with what I've worked on on 68k Mac motherboards (remind me to post about that!), and I feel comfortable working with that.

The mod I got comes with a breakout board that attaches to the encoder IC's pins (there are two, one for DENC-NUS and one for the other encoder types), and a board that generates the actual RGB signals.

The breakout board wasn't hard to install. It's a bit crooked, but it will do the job just fine.

Trouble came later...

The RGB mod fully installed and wired up.

First issue was that I had to attach an extra wire to the motherboard to derive 5V power. One good place to do that is right on the output pin of U13, the 5V regulator. Except I could not get the solder to flow and stick to the damn thing, no matter how hot I ran the soldering iron. It seems that there's a beefy 5V plane in the motherboard wicking away all the heat. In the end, I had to use hot air to get the solder to flow - and pray I wouldn't ruin the nearby capacitor. The solder job isn't pretty, but it makes a good connection, that's what matters.

I need to get a heater plate, it would help a lot in those circumstances. I had similar issues soldering to WiiU gamepad motherboards, and they're also thick multi-layer PCBs with power and ground planes. A heater plate would help a lot. And if I got a jig to hold my hot air gun, that would make a ghetto BGA rework station.

Second issue I had was getting the solder to flow into the vias for the pins connecting the mod's two boards together. Apparently it's just that small that it was finicky to get the solder to attach to the board.

After a quick test to make sure I didn't kill my console, I wired up the RGB output to the A/V port.

In the end, this mod results in pretty decent picture quality. There are minor artifacts, which I attribute to still having a full composite signal coming out of the console. In the instructions for this mod, they remove a resistor in order to get a pure composite sync signal, with no video mixed in. Of course, this suppresses composite video output, so I didn't want to do that.

More importantly, it fixes the issue I was having - NTSC ROMs having weird colors, with oversaturated reds and blues. There's no issue of PAL vs NTSC color encoding when going through RGB, so the colors come out just fine. And with Nadia's patch, the B3313 ROM outputs sound at the correct pitch, so everything is good!

As a bonus:

Summercart label with rainbow reflection

I love how this Summercart label has rainbow reflections. Here, the light was so strong it overwhelmed my eyes - and apparently maxed out my phone's camera sensor, resulting in this interesting effect.

Colors are just so cool and fascinating! Apparently so much, to my brain, that even numbers have colors. Letters and sounds, too. Synesthesia is an interesting take on reality.

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I've also been caught up in different other things.

On one hand, the new OpenGL renderer in melonDS. I've got to a point where my blackmagic3 branch is mostly good, and I'm letting it cool down and fixing some bugs before going and merging it.

Also taking a bit of a break from coding, I've done a lot in the last months. I guess the fact I've gotten so much energy and motivation says something about my mental health.

On the other hand, I recently heard about Hytale, a new Minecraft-esque game that was recently released. I immediately liked its vibe, so I had to give it a try.

Have to say, haven't been disappointed so far. It's an early access release, so a lot of the stuff is still WIP (literally - you encounter those cute "WIP" signs), but there's still quite some interesting stuff to see and do.

Hytale character sitting at a table but the wrong way

I also think the character design is cute! I quite like this game's graphical style in general.

There's still a bunch of quirks in the world generation, too. It seems that seat got placed the wrong way, so I'm not properly facing the table.

I'm excited to see where this game will go. It's also interesting to note that it has a bit of a shared development history with Vintage Story, another similar block game.

Speaking of Vintage Story, that's another game I want to try someday. It's different in that it has a strong focus on survival, in a realistic sense.

It reminds me of when I tried the Alaskan Wilderness modpack for Minecraft, back in May 2025. There is a similar survival aspect to it - in addition to the hunger mechanic, you also get thirst, temperature, seasons, and so on. It also makes the first days more difficult, in a realistic way - you can't just punch trees to craft your first tools, so you have to find sticks and flint. All in all, it was an interesting, refreshing take on Minecraft. However, it suffers from modpack syndrome: it's basically a pile of many different mods, some of which add redundant items, some of which are incompatible and cause problems (for example, No Tree Punching conflicts with another mod in a way which breaks farming, so you eventually have to disable that).

I guess Vintage Story would provide something very similar to that experience, but in a more polished, consistent fashion.

Something I also kind of want to give a try, is the modern progression in Minecraft. I guess I haven't really tried it proper, because I have a different idea of the game, from the old days. I've followed Minecraft from the early Classic days, when hanging out in creative servers and building shit was the fun. I was eventually introduced to Alpha and its early survival mechanics. It was a lot of the same, though - you had to gather resources instead of having an infinite supply, and you had to survive hostile mobs and other threats, but it was still very sandbox-y. There wasn't much actual progression, you would look for diamonds and that was it. For me, part of the fun was hanging out on private servers with friends, figuring out what we could build, or just derping around.

But over the years, a lot of stuff was added to Minecraft. Take the Nether for example, I've seen it on day one and there wasn't much at all to it, beyond collecting glowstone and maybe netherrack for a fireplace. By comparison, the modern Nether feels a lot more fleshed out, with its own biomes, inhabitants, structures, and so on. And you have an incentive to go there if you're following the progression.

It probably didn't help that a lot of the stuff came out at a time where I didn't have much interest in Minecraft, or anything really - largely due to being depressed, having to focus on more important stuff, and so on. I had little interest in gaming in general.

I guess my mental health is improving, so that's great!

I haven't been posting much here lately. Reason is, just haven't had a lot to report about...

The radio was considered mostly good, outside of attempting cosmetic restoration. A friend was making a holder for the "magic eye" tube, so it would properly sit behind its window, but that kind of fell on the backburner... There was also the concern of heat dissipation, I'm not sure how hot that tube gets, but it's worth accounting for.

As far as other projects go, I've mostly been busy with melonDS. I added a cheat import feature, released melonDS 1.1, then went on to tackle the longstanding issue of hi-res display capture. Long story short, the OpenGL renderer wouldn't upscale correctly if display capture was used (as is used to do dual-screen 3D, motion blur, and other fun shit). I started by addressing that particular issue, but the whole project evolved into making a completely new OpenGL-powered 2D renderer. It's been a lot of fun, but also a big project, and I think I need a break at this point.

I've also had kind of a training session for a new job, which would start by May 2026. The training session has been _intense_, but it's also been very interesting stuff. The job itself would be about repairing TV studio equipment, which seems like a good fit for someone like me. I was worried about whether I'd be up to the task, but what I've seen is well within my skills, so that's nice. There is also variety in the types of equipment to repair, so that's good for my ADHD brain.

The other interesting part in this is that I would be paired with their current repair guy - since he wants to have more time for his other projects, he would do this job half of the year, and I would replace him the rest of the time, and that would all be split in 3-month chunks. This is also a special status, which means you receive unemployment benefits when not working, but the job center leaves you alone. When I was told about this arrangement, something lit up in my brain - for me, it could be a perfect way to balance things and avoid burnout. It would bring some amount of change in my life, instead of being kind of a tunnel of "just work".

So, all in all, a great opportunity, and at this point the plan seems pretty reliable to me. It would be a relief to have the whole job situation sorted out.

Other than that, therapy is still going. Mood has been pretty stable lately, not much to report there...

Oh, yeah, minor project, too. A while back, I got a SummerCart to use with my N64, and I wanted to see if I could run B3313 on that. There is a version that was actually fixed up so it would run on hardware, and the ROM was shrunk to 48 MB (from an original size of 96 MB - compare that to the 8 MB of the vanilla SM64 ROM).

I did run into some issues with it, though. B3313 is based off the USA version of SM64, so it's a NTSC ROM - but my N64 is PAL. The ROM runs, but the video is weird - the reds and blues are like, way too bright, and there's weird ghosting. The audio is also a tad too high pitched. The vanilla SM64 USA ROM exhibits the same problems.

Nadia was experimenting with patching the SM64 ROM to try and fix those issues. Her patches did improve things, but the video was still not perfect, still had some ghosting. But then I wondered which issues were from outputting a weird signal over the composite output.

I went and ordered a RGB mod kit for this N64. I guess I'll make a post about it, whenever I'm able to install it.

Current Mood: tired

This is something I've talked about before, and we just got around to fixing it.

The buttons on the front of the radio are as follows: MIXER | SPRACHE | KONZERT | SOLO | JAZZ - it isn't completely obvious because the printings have faded.

They're audio equalizer settings, basically. MIXER enables the separate bass/treble controls, the other ones are presets for common types of radio broadcasts (in 1958, that is).

In our case, the MIXER button was missing. It was problematic because the buttons are spring-loaded, that's how they pop back out when you press another one, but for the MIXER button, both the button and the spring were lost, so it was stuck in the pressed position.

This is the button module, you can see how it's made. For each button, there's a strip of PCB-like material that holds contacts. The strip itself pokes through the front of the assembly, and the end of it holds the spring and the button face.

I tried to remove one of the other buttons so we could measure it and model it, but in the process I accidentally broke its stem. Shows how flimsy those things are... It will get the same repair as the missing MIXER button.

The basic idea for this repair was to make a splint to replace the broken part of the stem, mount an adequate new spring, and make a new button. I decided to keep the pieces separate so we could adjust them together as needed.

The annoying part is that, as far as the MIXER button is concerned, the stem broke off in such a way that when it's in its pressed position, it sits flush with the front plate of the switch module. I couldn't just glue the splint to the edge of the stem, because there isn't nearly enough contact surface to get a strong bond. So this needed more work.

I first disassembled the button module.

You can also see the splint pieces we 3D-printed. The Y shape is designed to grab the original piece from both sides, ensuring a strong bond.

Since the splints are thicker than the original stems, I had to enlarge the openings in the front plate.

Then the splints are glued to the original pieces. Note that the splints are designed so that the thicker section is always intersecting the front plate.

I reassembled the button module with the newly fixed pieces. The splints turned out to be a bit short, but nothing bad.

I added the springs and the second button back. For the first button (the lost MIXER button), I was able to find a spring with the correct diameter and length. It's a bit stiffer than the original springs, but it will do the job. I also dremel'd a random piece of metal to make the small piece that holds the spring on the stem.

I cleaned up the assembly and made sure everything was operating smoothly.

This is the end result. We 3D-printed a new button.

Yes, it's not the correct color. This would horrify purists, for sure.

But well, we do with what we got. A more proper way to make this new button would be to use resin, either cast in a mold or in a resin 3D-printer. That would replicate the original button's appearance. One could even try different dyes to replicate the original color. Then we'd have to figure out how to print a label onto the button, too...

I don't exclude trying to do things more properly, but for now we don't have that kind of means... and hey, this is functional.

While I was at it, I was also able to fix the problem with the AM/FM tuner switch, so now that operates smoothly. The last problem is the magic eye tube not being properly mounted, and a friend is trying to figure out a solution for this.

Another personal post... this time to talk about depression and the relationship I've had to it throughout the years. I hope it will help you, reader, if you're also dealing with depression.

-

As far as I can remember, depression started for me around my puberty. Prior to that, I was pretty much living in my own world, and exercising a sort of denial to keep myself shielded from the ugly truths.

But there's also the intersection of trans stuff in there. Puberty was when I started getting those gender feels, which in a way, makes sense, as it was when I started being flooded with the wrong sex hormone.

Anyway, at that point, depression was a background noise for me. I had low self-esteem, felt disconnected from everything and everybody, felt lonely, had the feeling I wouldn't get anywhere in life.

There was also a pattern I exhibited where I would sometimes feel down because of something, feel the need to ruminate it for hours, and I would seek comfort and reassurance, but I wasn't able to receive any of it. It would turn into something draining and toxic, and sometimes lead to fights. There are deep rooted reasons behind this pattern, which I'm currently getting to.

The pattern wasn't new, but being fully depressed gave it a new dimension. Well, there were times where I was more absorbed into something and less depressed, but the baseline was there.

-

The first change I saw was when I started transitioning. The hormones made a night and day difference on my emotions. I was able to experience the full spectrum of human emotion. I felt that my emotions were more "how they should be", that I could feel and express them more easily, and also, that I had more control over them, which was interesting.

For example, if I was feeling good, I would smile naturally, which was unthinkable to me before - smiles had always felt forced to me.

But it works both ways. Depression was also more vivid, in a way. I remember the first time I felt down: I cried. I was shocked by that.

Over all, the change made me more whole, in a way. I have a trait which I consider very interesting - I'm very well connected to my inner world, and I know very well how I feel, and generally why. Obviously I don't know everything, but it's still a great help to introspection and in everyday life. Having access to my full emotional range can only improve this ability.

At the same time, depression is something that's so deep rooted that even that kind of ability isn't sufficient alone to deal with it. I lacked proper emotional and psychological frameworks to understand it and effectively act on it. There's a lot to be said about Western education, the overemphasis on external reality (concrete, material stuff) at the expense of your inner world (it's in your head, it's fake), or how we're never really taught how to deal with our emotions, how to get to know ourselves, ...

My view of depression at the time was that it was just how things were, it was part of my life, and I had no real power to change that. To me, it felt like an uphill battle: fighting depression with facts and logic, fighting deep impulses very hard, might occasionally work, but the next time it would strike harder. I felt that I had too little to actually prove depression wrong, which would supposedly get rid of it once and for all.

So it was largely just how things were, for me.

-

In 2021, I got an opportunity to try weed. Since I don't smoke, I decided to consume it in edible form. This is worth noting because ingesting weed this way yields different effects than smoking it - it lasts longer, and has more of a psychedelic vibe.

I quickly noticed that I felt different. I was consuming edibles about once a week, or less, but it seemed to be enough to lift the veil of depression. I felt lighter, happier and less plagued by the old depressive thoughts and rumination. I still avoided things I didn't feel confident about, but my mood baseline was elevated.

This led me to the realization that depression wasn't a permanent state, that things didn't have to be this way. I figured out that since my views of myself and the world were different, depression alters my perception. From this point, I was focused on beating depression by proving it wrong, or at the very least, keeping it at bay. You know, fake it until you make it.

This realization was important as it helped me feel empowered to act, and not just remain passive in a defeated state of mind. But it wasn't yet enough...

After a while, the antidepressant effect wore off, and depression tried to fight back harder and harder. The breakdowns would incapacitate me for one or two weeks. It didn't help that I ended up using drugs as an escape - from my own feelings, from boredom.

This doesn't go well. I remember a nightmare I had in March 2022, which was a very clear warning from my subconscious.

( the nightmare )

Following this, I took a break from weed for one month. I was abusing it at this point, and it had adverse effects. The break helped settle things, but the withdrawals combined with real life issues made for very intense depression bursts.

I took drugs again after this, but less often. The fact I had a job helped with moderation, too. But my mindset hadn't really changed. This ended with a very ugly breakdown in November 2022.

-

Following that breakdown, I started an antidepressant, venlafaxine. I had tried antidepressants before, but they never seemed to be efficient. I decided to try another one. The onboarding was rough, especially with the insomnia, but I was desperate, so I kept going.

I was also doing therapy, but before that, it felt like building a sand castle, which would be razed by the next wave of depression.

Venlafaxine was efficient. I felt good about myself, about things, my mood was good. I thought the therapy was finally working. I thought I had finally done it - I was defeating depression.

Except it only lasted about 5 months. Then one of the depression topics returned, followed by another. The dam had burst.

Following this, I thought I had to quit my antidepressant, and I did that. There was another reason for that: it didn't mesh well with Ritalin.

But the depression breakdowns returned. I wanted to cling to the idea that it was protracted withdrawals from venlafaxine, and that it would get better. But it did not get better. It only got worse, infact. I hadn't learnt any way to work with depression, and was solely relying on medicine, so that didn't work out.

-

Past that point, I was pretty defeated. Therapy didn't make a dent. Antidepressants only worked for 5 months.

I felt that I was just broken beyond repair. After all, if a concrete, radical solution like antidepressants failed, how was I to believe that anything else would work? I felt that my best option was to be on the medication merry-go-round for the rest of my life, which was unappealing.

Following some arguments with internet friends that went very poorly, I decided to try therapy again, with another therapist. But it felt similar to the last time, superficial therapy...

-

Things changed when someone told me about IFS therapy. At first, I felt conflicted about it. I thought the model explained things like inner polarization very well, and that it made a lot of sense. But I also thought that it wasn't going to work. After all, if a "real", "concrete" solution like antidepressants didn't work, it was hard to buy that talking to myself would make any change.

The change came with a shift in mindset.

Before, my view of depression was that it was an evil force, feeding from my past experiences to ruin my day, and that I had to vanquish it. I had the idea that depression had to be proven wrong, or at the very least, countered with logic. Unfortunately, it hasn't really worked: depression has its own logic, and even when proven wrong, it will find something else. Or figure out ways to tear down your achievements so they don't matter.

IFS views things differently. The basic idea is that your psyche is a group of different parts with different roles, sometimes extreme, but the parts all have good intentions. IFS provides ways to get in touch with those parts, gain their trust and help them out by providing what they need. There's more to it, but that's the gist of it.

So under this angle, depression isn't so much an evil force anymore. More like parts that are seeking your attention. Much like children, if you ignore them, they tend to get louder.

I find this view to also be very empowering. Now it's not about fighting myself very hard all the time, something which I've always felt was doomed to fail, instead it's about working with myself. IFS also gets to the root of things. In my experience, getting to understand myself has been invaluable. Instead of being like "why am I like this", I know why I am this way, I know that it makes sense, and I know how I can work on it without beating myself up.

But obviously, it's not always smooth. There are parts of me who are scared of what's deep inside, and who understandably try to halt the process. So it can take time to reassure them that it's going to be okay.

Regardless of this, I can already see improvements. My baseline mood isn't great these days, and real life stuff doesn't really help, but depression crises seem much less intense. I don't feel the need to ruminate negative thoughts for hours, or to seek out certain types of negative information. I feel more of an ability to connect with people, and I feel less lonely. That is definitely progress.

-

So that's been my history with depression... I hope to be able to continue improving, and I hope this post may be an inspiration to other people. You're not alone.

Current Mood: contemplative

This is something I was thinking about today. It's a bit connected to the stuff I'm doing with the vintage radio, but also other stuff.

Sometimes I get the idea of making Youtube videos or streams about something - fixing vintage computers, playing Minecraft, or whatever else. The inspiration largely comes from watching videos from other youtubers...

It would be an interesting idea, but actually realizing it is another deal.

First, I don't really have a history of being a youtuber, besides uploading the occasional quick video about something. There's a lot more work in making videos as a regular thing - learning to talk in a way that is engaging, properly structuring a video, editing, ... it's a skill set I'd have to learn.

For example, when I write a blog post, I go from a specific topic I want to write about, and I may have a basic idea of the structure I want, but I tend to write the post as it comes to my mind. But I have time to make sure I don't make a complete mess. It's obviously different when you're recording a video.

But aside from the technical "how to" aspect, there is also the way I relate to hobbies, and the constraints around them.

When I was a child, I was into crafts, making stuff with cardboard, color paper, wood sticks, all that stuff. I was quite creative. Sometimes I had an idea in mind of a thing I wanted to make, but I largely made stuff for the hell of it...

But at some point, that kinda... died down. I notice it didn't feel the same, I felt like I had no idea what to make. I think ADHD played into this, but I can see another factor: I eventually developed a very practical mindset, and only made things if they were going to serve a specific purpose.

I can see some reasons behind this all...

For one, I was likely affected by the way my parents viewed hobbies, activities, personal projects. To them, it seemed to be at best a reward, a privilege I got for living up to their expectations. At worst, a waste of time, time which I was supposed to be spending on "productive" things (in my case, school work).

There's a lot to say about the intersection between neurodivergence and school/work pressure, but that's for another post.

There are also very real constraints that can apply to hobbies. Money, for one. I don't usually spend a lot, so it's typically not a problem for me, but spending related to hobbies or personal projects can quickly add up. For example, the FPGA board I used for the WiiU gamepad project was over $200.

Another constraint I can see is space. In an ideal world, I would have access to a large living space, storage area, workshop, ... But we don't live in an ideal world. Space is expensive. As a result, I'm wary of ending up encumbered by stuff I don't use. One example was a few years ago, when I did some restoration work on 68k Macs. I've had a lot of fun working on the electronics, but outside of that, I haven't ended up using those Macs a whole lot, despite the nostalgia value. It doesn't help that I don't really have a proper setup for them, either, but it all boils down to the lack of space/organization.

It was the same concern I had with the vintage radio - am I going to use it? I don't listen to the radio, and this thing is big, and... In the end, I think it was a good solution to bring it to the hackerspace. Plus, the folks there are always fascinated by it.

But, yeah. I watch youtubers who do this stuff as a hobby - repairing and restoring vintage computers, radios, whatnot. It is very interesting and I learn a bunch from their content. But doing this stuff as a regular hobby is a whole other affair, especially in the logistics department. Supplies, equipment, work area, space to store the stuff you work on, maybe a way to sell it or give it away when you don't want to keep all of it, ...

Also, I'm thinking that doing the same kind of stuff again and again would get old for me. My ADHD brain craves novelty, occasions to learn, all that. So maybe it's just better for me to do those things as they come, and not try to specialize in one particular thing.

Then there's programming, which is also one of my hobbies. There's a lot to say there too.

For one, the space constraint doesn't really apply there, so I'm a lot more free in this regard. Sure, I might end up needing extra hard drives, but I can store a lot of "things" in a computer without it taking a lot of space in the physical world. Similarly, logistics are easier - the work area is the computer.

But also, programming projects can be endless sources of stimulation. For example, emulators - I like to compare an emulator project to a tree. When you're done with the trunk (the emulation core), it branches off in a billion different directions (savestates, support for fun peripherals, network, all sorts of quality-of-life features...). And even in general, I can't say I've ever completed a programming project unless it was something very simple or very specific.

But ADHD also makes this come with its own challenges. It tends to make for a pretty difficult barrier to entry: it may take a lot of foundational work before you can start getting results, and my brain isn't a fan of that. I may also get stuck overthinking aspects of the design that may not be relevant right now. In the end, I find that breaking it down into smaller steps, and doing it step by step, can make it easier, but it's still difficult.

There are also other external factors to whether a project will be successful, it seems... melonDS is my longest lasting project, and by far. It's going to be 9 years old next month, that's pretty remarkable. I have a whole graveyard of projects, most of them having died to ADHD, and none of them made it nearly that far. On the other hand, melonDS has become so popular that I even meet people IRL who use it. It's one thing to receive messages of appreciation over the internet, but it feels completely different when it happens in the real world.

To me, there's also a common element that connects programming to my other hobbies: building and engineering things, repairing existing things, figuring out how they work... It is very stimulating and enriching. Programming is the same sort of stuff, except it's code instead of physical objects.

There are also other hobbies that aren't really linked to all this. For example, I occasionally draw. I'm not very good at it, but it's something I could try to develop. At school, it was a way to pass time, but since then I don't really do it a lot...

Current Mood: thoughtful

I finally received the appropriate vacuum tubes for the vintage radio!

I was so excited that I went to the hackerspace the same day, to try them out. I went with a friend who was also quite interested in the radio.

Once I was there, I quickly swapped in my new tubes. I also checked the coil that is connected to the resistor that was burnt, I was concerned that it might have been damaged, but it measured fine.

(EDIT- I realized I've never brought up that resistor, so, here it is)

This is R10 on the schematic. I noticed it while replacing the capacitors. I don't know how I missed it before, because it wasn't caused by my testing, it was already burnt when I got the radio.

R10 should be 2.2 kiloohm, but this one measured in the megaohm range. I of course replaced it, but I was concerned that whatever caused it to fail could have damaged surrounding components, especially L24.

(EDIT end)

Then I turned on the radio. This time, the receiver came to life! It was a bunch of noise at first, but eventually, we received actual radio signals.

Watch on YouTube

We figured out a bit more about how this radio works.

The visual indicator tube isn't very visible, because it isn't aligned properly. However, it works quite well. It indicates whether the radio is picking up a signal, and how strong that signal is. Nifty!

The Selektiv/Lokal switch seems to change the tuning mode, depending on whether you're looking for a radio station or whether you're already tuned in, it seems to change how sensitive the receiver is. I'm not exactly sure how to describe it, but that's the idea...

The AM bands use the "ferroceptor" antenna. There isn't much on those bands, but I was able to receive a foreign station... not bad, considering the hackerspace is in a basement.

The FM band uses the external antenna. We were able to receive several FM stations quite well.

-

There is still room for improvement with the radio.

For example, fixing that missing button.

There's also a little issue with FM tuning. Pressing the UKW switch moves a mechanism that lets the tuning knob control the FM tuner instead of the AM tuner, but it's not completely disengaging from the AM mechanism, so it kind of tries to control both. I need to figure out a way to fix this.

The FM needle is also not very visible. I should figure out if I can improve it...

I also damaged some of the art on the front panel when I cleaned it, back in July. It's minor, but I feel bad about it...

And last but not least, we need to figure out a way to mount the indicator tube properly, so it's aligned to the window in the front panel.

-

All in all, this is pretty cool. This radio is 67 years old, it was a wreck... and it's working pretty well. Just with new capacitors, and the adequate tubes. That's great!

I'm also not a professional. I have some knowledge of electronics, but this is my first time working with something like this - point-to-point wiring, vacuum tubes, ...

This leaves me wondering what happened to the tubes. It's like someone stole the EF89 tubes from this radio, and someone else tried to replace them. Maybe the ECH81 was moved to the wrong socket, which would explain why there was two of them... weird.

The GT12AY7 was recent, so it's like someone else tried to revive this radio at some point. Probably the same person who added the 3.5mm cable for audio input.

I should have paid more attention to those tubes. Since the other tubes were correct, I trusted them, but I can imagine how such a situation (having completely incompatible tubes in) could cause problems.

I will likely post more about this radio, but this is pretty good for now!

Current Mood: excited

Not a lot to say, these days.

Minor update about the vintage radio... I was looking at the mystery tube (the one with no markings) and it seems to be an ECH81, or something close. There's an actual ECH81 in the radio, and the construction inside is very similar. I don't really have better ways to tell, though.

I'm still waiting for the correct tubes to be delivered to me, so not much else to say. (amusingly, just as I'm writing that, I find out that my order has been shipped, so it should hopefully arrive soon!)

There are other possible projects with the radio. One of them would be fixing the missing button, which would involve some 3D printing and a bit of cleverness.

I spent some time getting measurements for another hypothetical project, too. It's about the WiiU gamepad.

Basically, the gamepad has a debug serial port, which can be used to boot code. The issue is that it's kind of annoying to use. My idea is to make a small PCB that would replace the expansion port, but have an USB port and a switch for UART boot. The PCB could feature an USB-to-serial chip (FTDI or whatever), which would be wired to the debug serial port.

Maybe with clever wiring this could also enable USB charging. I don't know about running the gamepad off USB power, though. The gamepad doesn't support that, so that would probbly require modifying the UIC firmware...

Regardless, PCB design and 3D printing are things that fascinate me, and I want to try someday. This could be the occasion. It doesn't seem very complicated.

Speaking of WiiU gamepad, I started porting lolSNES to the gamepad, as a fun demo of what is possible. I even had the idea of using the wifi card's CPU to assist with PPU emulation. I did manage to get code running on that CPU... I just haven't worked on it in a while. The usual ADHD stuff...

I also have ideas for melonDS, but ADHD gets in the way too. Same problem, the barrier to actually starting a project, the amount of effort that needs to be invested before starting to see something...

Other than that, therapy is underway, the usual. I have a "skeptic" part telling me that it's fake, but the experience I've had the last time tends to confirm it's very real. This is something I could write more about, in a dedicated post...

Current Mood: hopeful

So, yeah...

I still need to post about other projects. The vintage radio stuff is fun, and a nice occasion to learn about different stuff, but it's not all I've been doing lately...

I've also been hyperfocused on the WiiU gamepad again -- trying to get its wifi card's CPU to run custom code, figuring out how to get it up and running and how I could use it as a second CPU for other purposes. My idea was to port lolSNES/blargSNES, my old attempts at a SNES emulator for DS/3DS consoles. I thought the wifi CPU could help with emulating the SNES PPU. At this point, I have things mostly ready, and need to code the actual renderer, but I haven't felt like coding a lot lately.

Sometimes it feels like hyperfocusing on those projects is some form of escapism, to avoid looking at what's inside...

Current situation is, well, not ideal.

Remember this?

"Having to go job hunting certainly doesn't help, because that in itself is pretty depressing. But hopefully, this should be sorted out soon..."

It was not, infact, sorted out. But I won't get in detail in this post, that's not what I want to talk about. Although it would deserve its own post too, eventually.

That does play into my mental health, but that's secondary...

-

What has been surfacing these last weeks is deeper feelings, that have been a recurring theme throughout my life.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: distressed

Lately, (among other projects) I have been replacing the vintage radio's capacitors. Most notably, the paper and electrolytic ones, which are known to be failure-prone at this age.

It can get tricky to work on this kind of circuitry, where there's no PCB and everything is wired point to point. It's a mess. Sometimes you have to get creative.

I also couldn't do all of it in one go, because the schematic is a bit odd. For example, take the way capacitor values are expressed:

* 300 = 300 pF
* 1k = 1000 pF (= 1 nF)
* 2k2 = 2200 pF
* M47 = 0.47 µF
* 5µ = 5 µF

And then there was one capacitor which was labelled "2,2k", which seems to be a print error? The actual capacitor was 22 nF.

There was also a couple capacitors which didn't match the schematic values (ie. 39 nF instead of 33).

So I had to adjust to that...

But eventually, I got all the capacitors replaced. Then I quickly gave the radio a test.

I connected it to my laptop and played music. It was a night and day difference! Suddenly the sound was nice and loud, and there was no distortion. The volume controls were also much less weird.

However, I was still unable to receive any radio station. We even tried running a SDR to see if the radio would pick it up, but nope.

Then I looked back on the tubes that weren't right.

As I said before, one of them is an EF86, instead of an EF89. It turns out their pinouts are different, making them incompatible. The other tube that should be an EF89 is, well, I don't know. There are no markings on it. It doesn't seem to be an EF89, judging by how pins 1 and 6 don't have continuity, so chances are it isn't right either.

Then we have the modern GT12AY7, which is an ECC81 replacement. But we need an ECC85 there. The two seem to be almost compatible. Pin 9 is the filament center tap on the ECC81, while it goes to the shielding on the ECC85. Other than that, the rest matches. So, not great.

This situation would explain why the radio receiver part isn't working. Meanwhile, the audio amplifier involves a different tube (EL84), so there's no problem there...

I ordered replacement tubes for the three problematic tubes. The other ones are the correct types, so for now we'll leave them alone.

Hopefully fixing this should let the radio receiver come to life. I'm excited!

Current Mood: excited

So I almost finished fixing up the tuning strings...

Put the radio back together, as it was time to take it to the hackerspace.

Today, I went there to finish what I had started. Basically, the "ferroceptor" antenna (a ferrite rod with coils, mounted on a swiveling base) is actuated by two thin steel cables, but here that antenna was completely seized. I used WD-40 and got it moving somewhat... then one of those cables snapped, because it was rusted. I needed to get my hands on thin steel cable to repair that... What you find in hardware stores is way too thick. The original cable was 0.3mm or so in diameter.

In the end, I was able to get 0.6mm steel cable for fishing lines. It's thicker than the original, but still does the job just fine. A bit finicky to install, but I got it in place.

Then, while I was at it, I figured I would give the radio a test run.

I hacked together what they call a dim-bulb tester. Basically, connecting the radio in series with an incandescent lightbulb. This way, if the radio has a short-circuit, the lightbulb takes all the energy, in a way -- and nothing blows up.

Combing through the hackerspace's mess, I found a 60W bulb, which was a good match for the radio's 68VA rating. This is important because the bulb also doubles as a visual indication: if there's a short in the radio, the bulb will glow bright, but otherwise it will glow dim. This is also why modern LED bulbs aren't appropriate for this.

For the first test, I removed the radio's tubes and lightbulbs. The idea was to test the transformer alone.

Testing something electrical is always scary for me (and even moreso when said thing is more than 60 years old). I always have some fear that things will blow up. I don't know why, but it seems deep rooted. Most of my nightmares involve something electrical blowing up or malfunctioning in some egregious way.

I plugged the radio in the dim-bulb tester and pressed one of the buttons. Nothing blew up. In fact, the bulb was dim, so it wasn't a bad start. I measured the voltages at the transformer outputs and they seemed reasonable.

So for the next test, I put back all the tubes and lightbulbs.

Again, it was going smoothly, the tubes started to glow...

So far, all seemed fine. I figured there would be issues, but there was nothing egregious. So I went and plugged the radio directly to mains.

I played with the controls, but couldn't seem to receive any radio stations. However, when I tried the audio input, I was able to make the radio play music. It was very quiet at first, but it was something. Messing with the controls eventually got it to a point where it was audible.

We were amused by this outcome. This thing had been left to rot in a basement for who knows how long, then tossed away in the street... not to mention just how old it is. And somehow, it works, to some extent.

Obviously, it's far from perfect. The sound is still quiet, even with the volume turned to the maximum. The controls behave weirdly. I can raise the volume on my laptop, but going too high causes distortion on the radio.

And there's the obvious issue -- nothing came out of the radio receiver part on any of the possible frequency bands. It's a bit of a bummer for a radio.

But atleast we know the audio amplifier part is working. To an extent.

I guess the next task will be to replace a bunch of capacitors. They say paper capacitors are unreliable, and there's a bunch of them in there. There's also a couple electrolytics, which are also likely to be bad. The other capacitors should be reliable.

Heh.

I've been working a bit on the vintage radio lately...

Among other projects. I still need to post about other stuff here, too.

Anyway.

This is the radio case, cleaned up, fixed up and reassembled. It's... better, but still not great. But atleast it has some structural integrity.

I cleaned up the control knobs. I think they turned out great, given how filthy they were -- they look almost brand new.

It's not perfect though. The golden parts are brass, but they're gold-plated, and some of it has come off, so unless I were to have them re-plated, they would tarnish with time.

Either way, this has given me some interest. I've seen some pictures of this radio and I love the way it looks (when it's not left to rot in a basement, of course). The wood veneer, the gold trim pieces, etc.

It makes me want to attempt to restore the case, but I wouldn't know how to do a full restoration. I could strip the old veneer and apply something new that resembles the original finish. I could even use wood putty to fix the damage to the wood. I could probably make that part real nice. But I wouldn't know where to get stuff to remake the missing or damaged trim.

There's also the top front piece, which is a piece of fabric with a pattern. It would need to be washed, but it's glued to a MDF panel. I'm afraid of damaging it if I try to peel it off, so I left it in place.

I guess we will see what the hackerspace folks can do...

-

Regarding the electrical system, I wanted to figure out what was going on with the switch module -- why the mains switch wasn't actuating. Was it broken, was it missing something, was it supposed to be actuated by something external to it?

I took the switch module out, which required removing quite a bunch of wires.

After looking at it, I didn't see anything obviously broken or missing... so I sprayed some WD-40 into it.

And then the mains switch started responding to the buttons.

So the leftmost button, labelled AUS, is the off button. All the other buttons turn on the radio.

It didn't take me long to realize that I could - and should - just have left the switch module in place, and tried WD-40 first.

Atleast, with the schematics and my own notes, I was able to rewire everything as it was. But I could have avoided all of it.

-

While I was at it dealing with the wire spaghetti, I replaced a crusty electrolytic capacitor.

I still haven't found where the loose wire is supposed to go, which is concerning.

There will probably be several more capacitors to replace. I read that in those old radios, paper capacitors are one of the unreliable types (along with electrolytics), and this radio has quite a bunch of them.

As for the tubes, I didn't find anything obviously wrong.

All of them have a good filament. I don't have equipment to test their full functionality, though.

Most of the tubes seem to be original - they're branded Philips Miniwatt, and they're the correct types.

One of them seems to have been replaced in the past -- also branded Philips, but different marking style, and it's an EF86, but the diagram calls for an EF89.

Another one seems way more recent -- it's a Groove Tubes GT12AY7. This seems to be a modern audiophile brand, so it's like someone attempted to use this radio not long ago. It's also not quite the right tube, as it would be a replacement for an ECC81, but the diagram calls for an ECC85.

Overall, those differences shouldn't prevent the radio from working, even if it's probably suboptimal. It's more likely that any problems with this radio will arise from bad capacitors.

-

What I still have to do is to figure out where the damn loose wire goes, fix up the tuning strings, put it all back together, and that will be it for the first phase...

This is a bit of a different type of project for me...

A while ago, I went out to get a kebab, when I noticed this thing that was being discarded near my place:

vintage radio discarded, with case broken apart and electrical system visible

It looked atypical enough for me to have a closer look... I had never seen vacuum tubes irl before. The thing looked like a radio, but from another age, and in poor condition. I went to grab my kebab, but thought about it...

When I returned, it was gone. I entered my building, and saw it sitting near my neighbor's door. Oh, cool, I thought.

I did have some fascination for that vintage radio. I'm not really into radio stuff, but I find ancient technology like this fascinating, and part of me wanted to see it work, see what it could do, etc... so I texted my neighbor about it.

In the end, he said he didn't have time for it, so I could have it if I wanted... he was going to throw it out, so I decided to take it.

vintage Philips radio, in poor condition

The front of the radio. It's a Philips Ouverture 59, apparently some Austrian model? From 1958-59. The markings are in German. No idea what its story has been and how it ended up here in France. Not sure how far it was actually sold, but it does have a mains voltage selector...

Someone added an audio cable with a 3.5mm jack to it. Seems that they used it to play music. The mod connects to existing connections on the back, which are labelled "schallplatenwiedergabe" (translates to "record playback").

Obviously, this poor thing has been sitting for ages in a basement or something of that sort. It's in pretty bad shape. And dirty.

vintage radio seen from back, electrical system and vacuum tubes exposed

The back of the radio. It atleast appears to be complete -- the radio is missing some cosmetic elements, but all the electrical stuff is there. All the vacuum tubes are in, but I don't know if they're good. One of them was supposed to be placed behind the front plate, so you could see its glow through a small window, but it was ripped off its socket pretty roughly, and the pins were all bent, so no idea if that tube will work again.

The electrical system, seen from underneath. The wiring is an absolute mess.

Other than that, it doesn't look too bad. There's some rust, and one of the connection support things is broken, but that doesn't seem too problematic... most concerning is that there's a loose wire, and so far, I haven't been able to find where it should go.

The other unknown is whether those 60 year old components are still good. And good luck figuring out problems arising from bad components, short of checking every single one...

The mechanical elements of this system are another story. They're going to need some WD-40, contact cleaner, you name it. Also, most of the tuner cables are broken, so that will need to be fixed too, somehow.

I haven't tried plugging this thing. I'm not going to try until certain things are taken care of (like that loose wire). I'm always afraid, with electrical things, that they will blow up in some way, and I'm even more afraid with something like this.

Although actually, it wouldn't even do anything if I plugged it right now. The mains power is routed through the bottom switch mechanism -- I can see the contacts through which it would go, but haven't found a way to actuate them as to close the circuit. AKA I don't know how to turn this thing on. Or maybe the switch thing is just broken.

-

As I said, I'm not really into radio stuff, but I'm fascinated regardless. I talked about this vintage radio at the local hackerspace, and they're interested in it, too, so the idea is to bring it there and work on it together, and see what we can do. So this isn't going to be a strictly "me" project, but I might post updates about it.

For now, I took the radio apart entirely and cleaned up the parts, because, god, was it filthy.

Now, my idea is to do some basic repairs before we bring it to the hackerspace. For example, the body is largely made of plywood, but it has been delaminating due to moisture. So, through the power of wood glue, I'm attempting to give it some structural integrity.

For example:

side panels from the vintage radio being repaired

The side panels. In this picture, I was done repairing the left panel. The right one is obviously in much better shape, but you can see some delamination going on in the corner. Wood glue and clamps took care of it.

This mostly serves to repair the radio's body so it won't absolutely fall apart. This thing won't look brand new anyway. Not unless we got into professional restoration, applying new veneer, remaking the missing trim pieces, etc...

On one hand, I'm very "function over looks", but on the other hand, it would feel satisfying to pull that off. And I've seen pictures of this radio in pristine condition, and it looks pretty good. But that's another thing...

The next thing will be to do some basic work on the radio system -- repairing the tuner cables, inspecting the circuitry, hopefully fixing that loose wire, ...

So yeah... stay tuned! (heh)

Current Mood: curious

So, yeah... I haven't been very active here lately...

It's not that I have nothing to post. I do have a bunch of stuff I want to post about. That side project in early 2024 that involved hand-patching a FPGA bitstream to fix a vintage video card. The whole WiiU gamepad project, which is honestly quite fun too.

It's mostly just that my mental health has been pretty bad.

It's complicated.

Having to go job hunting certainly doesn't help, because that in itself is pretty depressing. But hopefully, this should be sorted out soon...

These things also hit sensitive spots for me. I have a long and complicated story. Sometimes it feels like the patterns I've learnt are well ingrained and that I'll never escape them...

I've tried several things before.

Antidepressants never really seemed to be terribly efficient. At best, they're a crutch, but they come with all sorts of not so fun side effects, too...

Therapy never really seemed to make a difference. It generally seemed to be superficial, and trying to address depression with logic... except depression doesn't listen to logic. Though I guess it depends on the type of therapy.

Someone introduced me to IFS therapy and I found it to make a lot of sense. I was even able to find an IFS therapist in my area. I got started in April...

This type of therapy goes deep. It hurts. It hurts because it makes me realize how deep everything goes. Parts of me see this and get scared and try to block the process. It makes me feel hopeless.

But it's also a chance to try and solve all this mess in a way that lasts, if I can get past that.

Hopefully...

Current Mood: depressed

I feel like writing a bit more about melonDS and how I feel about it... if you don't know, melonDS is my DS emulator project. Well, now it's maintained by a small team, but it was originally my project.

melonDS is what I consider my most successful project to this day. It is 8 years old. I can't say as much about any of my other projects, as most of them have either died after a couple years or been taken over by different people after I lost interest, when they didn't just die in the early phases. That's ADHD for you.

This explores some more personal aspects of this project, that I don't post about on the melonDS site.

https://melonds.kuribo64.net/ by the way. It has a lot of juicy technical posts, if you like that. I really should organize it better, make it easier to find certain types of posts, ...

Anyway.

My original idea, back in 2016, was to fork DeSmuME and do my own wifi-related work, away from the team's attitude towards wifi. There's more to be said about this all, but I won't get into it in this post. I'll just say that my goal was to try and get local multiplayer working. Online connectivity (for example, connecting to WFC servers, or using an IRC client) was a mostly solved problem, but local multiplayer (basically any multiplayer mode that doesn't use WFC) relied on more specific hardware functionality, and stubbornly refused to work.

So that was my original idea. Then I looked at DeSmuME's codebase and went, ... nah, I'll make my own, that will be easier to deal with.

At the time, I was also approached by someone else for a joint DS emulator project, but for several reasons (including me moving out at that time), it didn't pan out.

In the end, I was going to have to wait a couple months before starting my first job. Writing a DS emulator seemed like a perfect way to pass time.

There is always a steep curve to starting that kind of project, because the initial phase is mostly about getting some form of CPU interpreter going, implementing various instructions, and there isn't a whole lot of exciting output. But, quickly enough, I got to the point where the DS firmware was attempting to display graphics, so that was exciting.

early screenshot of melonDS depicting a glitched, incomplete DS menu screen

early screenshot of melonDS depicting a glitched, incomplete DS menu screen

Some fumbling later, I had a mostly accurate rendition of the DS menu, and could even boot games... I started posting about melonDS and releasing it. At the time, it was nothing but a mere curiosity; the first release didn't even emulate sound. But I didn't care, I was making it because I was having fun. There were other DS emulator projects cropping up, too, so all this helped revitalize the stale DS emulation scene.

Eventually, I felt confident enough in melonDS's emulation capabilities to try going for the wifi quest. I got to the point where two melonDS instances could see eachother when looking for multiplayer games, but couldn't actually connect. But I had some basic infrastructure in place for this.

And after much research, reverse-engineering, hardware testing, implementing various functionality, status bits, etc...

screenshot of two melonDS instances engaging in Pictochat communication

screenshot of two melonDS instances engaging in Pictochat communication

DS local multiplayer was emulated for the first time.

Of course, it was still very crude, and slowdowns and spurious disconnects were not atypical. But it was something.

What I didn't expect was that this would boost melonDS's popularity. From being a mere curiosity, melonDS became "the wifi emulator". I think it was one of the things that helped make melonDS's success, and helped me keep it going, too.

But it also raised very real questions about the design and structure of the project. If I had to make a DS emulator from scratch, I would do things differently, but I had no real idea what to expect or how to make things work when it came to multiplayer. I knew that the protocol used required pretty low latency, but had no idea which conditions it could work under. melonDS was designed in such a way that one melonDS process would emulate one console. When I first added multiplayer, I used UDP sockets, this way it could theoretically work over the network but also with multiple instances running on a same PC.

Wifi support didn't see much progress then, as I was focusing on other areas of the emulator, and also dealing with bad mental health. I was beginning my transition and dealing with a bad living situation, not exactly ideal. There was also another issue: I had no real idea why local multiplayer connections didn't work well. I knew my system for communication was just tossing frames over the network with no synchronization. I didn't know how much this was responsible for the issues, vs. for example, emulation problems. I didn't know how to approach this, as it seemed gargantuan. There had been some experiments, but everything that was tried seemed to make the problems worse or not fix anything.

In 2022 I decided to dive into it and fix it once and for good. It was the local multiplayer saga. I designed a synchronization mechanism to ensure every packet was arriving on time. The first approach was heavy-handed, but the point was to find what works, and optimize later. There were still issues, which suggested there were emulation issues playing into this again. And my research did indeed uncover some issues, fixing them finally resulted in butter smooth multiplayer. No slowdowns, no disconnects.

The new synchronization mechanism was based on a different system for communication: melonDS instances used shared memory and semaphores instead of UDP sockets. Later, the melonDS codebase underwent a great refactor in order to make it possible to emulate multiple consoles within a single melonDS process. Then local multiplayer could just use a regular memory buffer and regular semaphores to communicate, instead of requiring costly IPC primitives. A separate system was built for LAN multiplayer, to replicate the old "play over network" functionality in a more reliable way. It does actually function decently well over a wired network, but tends to fail to work over wifi networks. It may seem ironic, but it makes sense given wifi networks tend to add more latency in a not-so-predictable way.

Regardless, the refactor was a long and arduous task. It goes to show, it's hard work to maintain a codebase and keep it simple and readable, even moreso when multiple people are involved. It would be ironic if melonDS ended up reproducing the flaws that I observed in DeSmuME's codebase that pushed me to start melonDS in the first place. But at the same time, maybe such is the life of a programming project, as it evolves and more stuff is added...

Now, I'm at a point where I don't really know what to do with melonDS... It has given me no shortage of intellectual stimulation and challenge: local multiplayer, online multiplayer, DSi emulation, OpenGL renderer... I could name the JIT recompiler, but it was written by Generic/RDSuck, and I haven't really touched it much.

Maybe I'm just at a point where I need to work on other things. At the same time, I don't want to abandon melonDS. Even if I'm not the only person working on it, people tend to associate it to me, because I'm the creator and also because most of the posts on the melonDS site are from me.

I feel that it's a lot to carry, at this point. We are a small team, but having a somewhat bigger team would make sense at this point. But it's not something we get to decide, either. It's an open-source hobby project.

For example, an idea I've had for a while was to add netplay: basically, make those local multiplayer games playable over the internet, as some other emulators do. I even had a very janky proof of concept at one point. On one hand, I can see the potential this would have: it could be immensely popular. On the other hand, it's also scary for this reason. It means doing more user support, something I'm not exactly good at. It means a complex system in which things could go wrong in many ways. I don't know how well it would even run.

There is also still work on the emulation front. DSi hardware that is still unemulated or poorly supported. A JIT for the Teak DSP would be nice, as anything that uses that DSP causes melonDS to run at 4 FPS. GBA slot addons that aren't emulated. There are also ideas to revamp the emulator's UI, features that could be nice to add, etc.

There is also much cleanup work to do on the codebase still, especially the frontend part. It doesn't help that I hate dealing with this code, and it tends to be difficult to get the team's input on those things...

Atleast I can be proud of melonDS, I guess.

Current Mood: thoughtful

This was a project that came to my mind when I learnt about old industrial SBCs. Basically, those come in the form of ISA or PCI cards with a full-fledged PC on them. They are connected to a backplane, which is a bit like a PC motherboard but with no logic, just a bunch of interconnected ISA/PCI slots.

There's something I like about this sort of hardware. It's just nifty.

I had the idea of using such a SBC to build a small setup for old (circa 2000) games. For example, take Rayman 2 -- I was able to get it to run through Wine on my laptop, but it had all sorts of audio issues and, given how important sound is to my brain, that wasn't going to cut it.

I saw an eBay listing for Portwell ROBO-6710 SBCs, so I ordered one. It seemed perfect for this sort of project. It is period-correct hardware and has all the needed features for this -- 3D acceleration, sound, etc.

This particular SBC takes the form of a PCI card. However, during testing, I found that it doesn't need to be connected to a backplane. You can feed power into the Molex connector in the top-right corner, and it will run just fine, so that's nice.

SBC connected to keyboard, CDROM drive, power supply

I set up the SBC for testing. The power supply comes from some old tape drive, but it is perfectly suited for this. The CDROM drive comes from a dead computer.

I found that my SBC works fine, so that's nice. However...

The BIOS is locked behind a password. Resetting the CMOS settings achieves nothing, because apparently the default state is to have a password. The default boot order did still allow me to boot from a floppy or CDROM, but... yeah.

The documentation I found online doesn't mention the default BIOS password anywhere. Which is odd, since it goes in detail over a lot of stuff, including the various jumpers, connectors, and their pinouts.

So I ran one of those programs for recovering the BIOS password...

It did find some possible passwords, but I was still stumped... I later figured it out by trial and error. The password is ROB-6710, but the password entry screen assumes the keyboard has the US layout, and my keyboards have a different layout (and also the numpad doesn't work). Once I accounted for that, I was able to get into the BIOS setup and disable the password.

Now I could try and install Windows XP on this thing, but this also gave me trouble.

This SBC has IDE connectors (both regular and laptop form factors), but also has a CompactFlash slot on the back, which is handy. But, as I found out, you can't just use any CF card in there... I got a no-name 32GB card, but I was unable to install Windows on it, and when I was able to, it would fail to boot.

So I got another card from a reputed brand, and this time the process went smoothly. I was running Windows XP on the SBC.

I had to install a filter driver to force Windows to recognize the CF card as a fixed disk. Having XP installed on a removable disk causes some problems, like swap not working. Normally, you're supposed to use industrial CF cards, which are set to be recognized as a fixed disk. However, the filter driver solution also works.

Speaking of drivers, I had to do some digging to find adequate drivers for the SBC. Since it uses laptop hardware, one can look for laptops with the same chipset and get the drivers for those.

I did a test run with Rayman 2, and it runs just fine, so that's great. I noted that it seems to struggle a bit to render smoothly at higher resolutions, so I might have to stick to a 'period-correct' resolution, too. That, or figure out how to get a beefier graphics card connected to the SBC's PCI interface, I guess. But I think the SBC itself will be just fine.

I also took a while to clean up the heatsinks and replace the CPU fan with a larger, quieter one.

The next part of this project is going to be building a case for this SBC. I had a case in mind (from the same dead computer the CDROM drive came from), but it isn't too well suited and would only work if the power supply was external, which sucks a bit. The alternative is to design my own case and either build it out of wood or 3D-print it. Could be the occasion for me to get into 3D printing.

so this is my first post on Dreamwidth I guess

I'll be using this blog to post about various things, from electronics and other fun projects, to writing, occasional drawing, and other fun stuff.

I'm the author of melonDS, a cool DS emulator. I also have other projects, notably, currently: reverse-engineering the WiiU gamepad, building a case for a retro SBC setup, and misc. shit.

I might also post writing or art, depending...

Have fun!

Current Mood: amused

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arisotura

April 2026

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Arisotura's pile of stuff

programming, cursed hardware stuff, writing, ...

Recent Entries

Hacking a printer motherboard

Hytale retrospective, and plans

On Minecraft

On Hytale

N64 RGB mod and misc shit

Status update...

Vintage radio: fixing the missing MIXER button

Depression, the complex beast

On hobbies

Vintage radio: actually being a radio

Stuff

Mental health, depression, attachment...

Vintage radio: the recap

Vintage radio test run

Vintage radio cleanup

The vintage radio

mental health is hard

About melonDS

The retro SBC - introduction

hello world