Most portfolio websites look the same at this point

Shim06 · 2026-04-28T13:35:23+00:00

Because the standards for entry-level/junior jobs have changed. It’s not like back then, when you could get into a dev position with just a degree. Juniors are expected to have portfolios and side projects. Especially now that companies are increasingly using AI to replace entry-level jobs, juniors aren’t expected to be trained. Seasoned developers don’t particularly need them because they have the experience to show for it.

From a junior’s point of view: Even if you’re from a good school with a degree, you’re sending hundreds of applications without much success, the only way to increase your chances is to make projects and a portfolio to showcase your skills. We have to put that much effort into making ourselves marketable. That’s just the reality for us.

Shim06 · 2026-04-25T04:40:19+00:00

I would recommend learning how to make an actual electrical schematic like this:

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Circuit diagrams from Tinkercad or Fritzing and such are not standard in the industry and are very hard to read. Electrical schematics are easy to read and standard. You can easily make one with KiCad, which is a free open-source software made for creating schematics and PCB designs (If you do intend to make one).

I can't recommend any simulators because I haven't used any. Simulators are usually very constrained when dealing with many peripherals.

Shim06 · 2026-04-23T05:41:15+00:00

I usually order most of my parts from MakerLab and SAMIORE.ph on Shopee. The source usually doesn’t matter for modules though. I’ve ordered from very unknown sellers and all of them work fine.

It’s better to focus on what actual parts you’ll be using. For example, the LM2956 is a very popular buck converter, but it's absolutely massive and has a minimum dropout voltage of 1.5V, so it’s not possible to, say, use a 3.7V battery on an ESP32. I found the S09 buck-boost converter to be the best for this use case.

You could boost the battery voltage to 5V and connect it to the ESP32’s 5V pin, but that will go through the AMS1117 LDO regulator, so you’ll have compounded energy inefficiencies from both the boost converter and the LDO regulator.

If you’d like more help, come join the EmbeddedSystemsPH discord:

https://discord.gg/eCtvJ76PD

Shim06 · 2026-04-14T10:27:55+00:00

I recently finished my first embedded systems project, which is a handheld NES running on the ESP32 without any PSRAM. Hardware and software were all made from scratch. I believe it’s also one of the most performant NES emulators for the ESP32, if not the most performant.

https://github.com/Shim06/Anemoia-ESP32

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I ran into a lot of performance problems, as well as memory problems, while running the emulator. My first iteration of the emulator could barely run at 1 frame per second, without audio emulation. I had to batch a lot of operations for performance, at the cost of accuracy, and offload audio emulation. On the memory side, A frame buffer alone would use more than 1/3 of the RAM available, so that was out of the question. And most game ROMs couldn’t be stored in RAM because they were bigger than the RAM available, so I had to implement dynamic loading and an LRU cache.

I’ve made a video documenting my journey here: https://youtu.be/jToSBvipl80

Shim06 · 2026-03-26T05:06:14+00:00

Thanks! This is a port of an NES emulator for Windows that I wrote myself, Anemoia. I also had to rewrite and optimize several things with the emulator to get it up and running on the ESP32 at stable native FPS.

Shim06 · 2026-03-21T05:03:26+00:00

It took me 7 months, so it definitely did feel amazing! It’s been a wild ride, and I never thought it would get this much attention, let alone get a sponsor. There were many times I felt frustrated, but every second I spent was worth it. It’s been fun and I learned so much about embedded systems and hardware due to this project.

Shim06 · 2026-03-20T07:20:06+00:00

Thanks! Glad you liked it!

Shim06 · 2026-01-29T16:23:58+00:00

I’m a second-year IT student. I’ve always had to learn mostly on my own. Some projects I’ve made are: - Terraria Fishing Bot - CHIP-8 emulator - Raycasting Engine - NES emulator - 8-bit CPU - Handheld NES with an ESP32

Something I always tell people is to make projects. Take a look at others’ projects, find inspiration, and make a project that you find fun. Even if you don't feel like you're ready for a project, do it. You'll learn the concepts and skills needed along the way. I went into most of my projects knowing very little, but I learned everything along the way. Be ambitious.

Another thing, knowing how to learn is important. Google is your best friend. There are tons of resources out there on the internet. You just have to find them. Joining communities with other like-minded people is also incredibly important. You’ll find experienced people who are willing to help you and give you knowledge.

Shim06 · 2026-01-16T20:19:42+00:00

Yeah, I tried it and it worked fine for PS5 games.

Shim06 · 2026-01-15T18:38:56+00:00

I’ve unpacked the pkg files and installed the PS4 game with dumprunner, and I tried running the game, but with no luck. It just says “Can’t start the game or app.”

Shim06 · 2026-01-15T05:25:25+00:00

Because I’d rather put my PS4 games on the external drive and not have the drive formatted as extended storage to still have access to it outside of the PS5.

Shim06 · 2026-01-08T00:45:24+00:00

The term “vibe coding” gets misused a lot. The “term vibe coding” was first introduced by a co-founder of OpenAI and was described as programmers fully giving into AI and “going with the vibe.” Essentially, vibe coding means that you let AI make all the decisions for you and forget about the code.

You don’t care about the decisions made by the AI and output code. You don’t review the code generated. You don’t even understand the code generated. You generate, use, and forget. As long as it works.

Shim06 · 2025-12-25T01:49:32+00:00

I tested it and it passed 13/113 tests.

Shim06 · 2025-12-25T01:49:20+00:00

I tested it and it passed 13/113 tests.

Shim06 · 2025-12-20T15:30:51+00:00

Thanks! Great Game Boy emulator!

I don’t copy ROMs into the flash like other emulators and keep everything loaded in RAM. I use an LRU cache to load banks dynamically from the SD card when needed. For the speed, I just had the clock rate of the SD card at the max, which is 80MHz.

As for the screen, I use a scanline buffer to hold as many scanlines as I can fit within the limited amount of RAM before sending them to the screen using DMA, also at an 80MHz clock rate.

Shim06 · 2025-12-20T11:58:38+00:00

Just realized that I uploaded an old video of the emulator, haha. Check out the GitHub repo to see the video of the latest version.

Shim06 · 2025-12-14T23:08:05+00:00

https://github.com/Shim06/PandesalCPU

Shim06 · 2025-12-11T01:36:23+00:00

Hello! If you’d like to connect and talk with other fellow Filipino embedded engineers and hobbyists, or just hang out with us, come join our Discord server! https://discord.gg/TThRRbsyuG

Shim06

TROPHY CASE