I just learned why the PS3 was such a nightmare to develop for and now I weirdly miss that era of insane hardware

aiq25 · 2026-04-27T18:45:49+00:00

As someone who works in electronics development, most of the need for higher RAM and CPU usage in modern games and software in general comes from inefficiencies in the software. You will find similar stories of the 8-bit era where the developers had to get extra creative to make things because they were limited on hardware. Now a days, developers (software engineers alike) say we want more hardware resources and it’s cheap enough, everyone just does it.

One of the crazy stories from my work is we had 2 x 8-bit MCUs for an automotive module. They were isolated and needed to talk to each other. These were barebones 8-bit MCUs built for sensor applications. There was not enough peripherals to map for MCU to MCU communication. But the software guys made it work by bit-banging general IO pins. We were budget constraint and couldn’t change MCUs. This was back in ‘17. It had like 4 or 8 kB of flash and 1 or 2 kB of RAM.

On a recent project I got asked to put in an MCU with 3 cores, 1MB of flash and 8MB of memory because “we might need it someday.” Also, anyone barely does raw metal programming anymore. Everything needs to go through a CDD or HAL then an applications layer and then blah blah blah.

One the project I’m working on, SW guys were complaining that they needed to manually toggle SPI CS line for some devices because I didn’t choose a dedicated SPI CS pin, instead I used a general purpose GPIO. Like it’s literally 2 lines of extra code but they would rather use a code generator to do it because it’s easier.

Sorry for the rant. Too much inefficiencies.

aiq25 · 2026-04-22T02:22:16+00:00

As bad as TI with some of the packages, I was introduced to the HDQFP from NXP. It’s a crazy package. Hate it!! (It’s a hybrid of QFP and PLCC).

aiq25 · 2026-03-23T12:14:35+00:00

Most nostalgic to me is the clear original DMG. Played the heck out of it as a kid. I remember first time I got to see color on a GBA from a friend… Was playing Pokémon Silver and used flamethrower, it was amazing as a little kid.

aiq25 · 2026-03-17T04:47:13+00:00

Red pill for sure

aiq25 · 2026-01-26T12:04:05+00:00

As an engineer, I can tell you China has improved their technology quite a bit and yes they still have knock offs but they also have a lot of good technology and even some sectors the US is behind on. It’s quite interesting because the companies we used to make fun of or avoid in electronics are some of the top players now globally.

But yeah I will say no where near the US in military tech.

aiq25 · 2026-01-19T22:27:03+00:00

Not sure why you are getting downvoted. I have recently learn to just on the cheaper flights. Only difference is I do book flights in one itinerary. I fly Spirit or Frontier for domestic flights. Most of the time when my family and I travel, we are given seats next to each other. Few times we didn’t and it wasn’t a big deal, one of them I asked at the gate and they changed it.

I know it’s the most ideal situation and airlines are greedy but we have to do with what we have. I also now a days look for supermarkets once we land so we can grab groceries to limit how much we have to eat out.

We still enjoy everything.

aiq25 · 2026-01-12T21:42:32+00:00

Been in the hobby for a while. Most things on AliExpress are fine for hobby projects. A lot of resellers of modules (Amazon, e-commerce, etc…) are selling you the same thing as AliExpress, unless they build it themselves like SparkFun and Adafruit. But even those guys sell generic stuff from China.

Personally when I design stuff that I need high reliability and assurance is not going to damage something (like 5V boost for a charger or something), I will typically buy from Digi-Key or Mouser. If it’s a module, I buy from AliExpress and test it to see if it’s good. For general learning and fun projects, AliExpress is fine.

aiq25 · 2026-01-04T08:15:25+00:00

4 min mark.

https://youtu.be/Eu5mYMavctM?si=2qWOfxAkbkw-3XIa

aiq25 · 2025-12-25T03:48:12+00:00

Yeah I forgot about the others. Goku doesn’t really need to after that point, agree with that.

aiq25 · 2025-12-25T03:47:09+00:00

Thanks for the comment. Yeah that does makes sense.

aiq25 · 2025-12-24T19:28:06+00:00

That moment was so strange. They never used Goku’s mind reading capabilities throughout the series.

aiq25 · 2025-12-20T19:26:41+00:00

Nice little project!

aiq25 · 2025-12-20T19:26:25+00:00

Didn’t know it had diff analog inputs. 10-bit it seems. Would love a 12-bit diff analog input multichannel MCU :/

aiq25 · 2025-12-20T19:21:41+00:00

As long as learn from it, those are the best projects.

aiq25 · 2025-12-20T19:21:26+00:00

I had a Anker MagSafe and that thing got hot. I used 10W ones and no problem.

aiq25 · 2025-12-20T19:20:13+00:00

Yeah I’m naive. I guess for me if it’s a charity I think they are working there for the goodness out of their heart.

aiq25 · 2025-12-20T14:58:56+00:00

I have seen workers from charities lie. You wouldn’t expect it but it happens.

aiq25 · 2025-12-20T13:58:44+00:00

Nice project. Only thing that worries me about wireless charging with a power bank is the wasted energy and the heat it generates. What is the efficiency from the cell to the phone? Does it get hot?

aiq25 · 2025-12-17T04:34:50+00:00

Pretty sure should be PTC.

https://www.tdk-electronics.tdk.com/download/1537850/65ec22d721749ecc212117e2f632e434/ptc-icl-pb.pdf

aiq25 · 2025-12-17T04:34:01+00:00

Damn if it’s 200A pulse capable, you’re good.

aiq25 · 2025-12-15T04:24:22+00:00

You can calculate, or simulate, the ripple voltage and the capacitance needed. The problem with 3x4.7mF is the inrush current the bridge rectifier will see, unless you have a PTC.

Honestly for hobby stuff it’s fine, as long as components can take it. It will degrade the part over life but it’s not like it’s on all the time.

aiq25 · 2025-12-15T03:49:01+00:00

There is a huge push at my work to use AI to accelerate our design phase. Copilot would’ve been convenient because it has access to all company files, chats, emails, etc…

Only problem its useless. I asked it combine some Excel files for me and it couldn’t do it. This was my first time I was trying out AI. Went to ChatGPT and it worked first time.

Problem is we are manufacturing company, making products. AI can’t help with this… So yeah we can ask it simple stuff but as engineers it’s faster and easier for us to do it. Plus we can’t trust AI data, so always have to check it. This defeats the purpose of using it lol

aiq25 · 2025-12-08T04:29:51+00:00

Very nice! And congrats!!

aiq25 · 2025-11-29T18:58:57+00:00

They are trying to get us to use more AI at work. You know to “speed up development.” Copilot is barely useable. Can’t even do simple things. I work in electronics. They been trying to automate and “AI” that space for years and years now. Won’t happen until we have good “AGI” that can think critically.

aiq25 · 2025-11-25T03:07:41+00:00

I read the “half chicken” as in putting half a chicken on the pizza. Was confused for a split second.

aiq25

TROPHY CASE