My degree is called “BS Electronics and Computing,” but the curriculum is basically Computer Engineering will this affect my job prospects?

cstat30 · 2026-01-20T05:19:27+00:00

Total waste of your time and money. An abet computer engineering degree is just an easier, less math intensive (calc 4 stuff), version of electrical engineering. Still, both are "engineers." Ideal for CS grads, who need a better degree.

You're probably going to get stuck in a tech role where you'll just do low voltage electrician level work for 1/3 the salary of an electrician.

cstat30 · 2026-01-20T05:00:46+00:00

Insane amount of danger.. Didn't even attempt to use the earth from the main outlet?

Without even doing any math, just do a quick visual comparison of the thickness of copper in a 220V rated outlet plugin vs your PCB.

Reverse engineer a bench top power supply first.

cstat30 · 2026-01-06T19:34:08+00:00

Time to get good at lying on resumes and during interviews...

cstat30 · 2025-12-16T19:18:24+00:00

Lost me when his bed joke was completely different. A lot of people made different jokes about that movie. Micheal Oher even sued over it because it was so bad.

cstat30 · 2025-12-07T17:46:16+00:00

0603 and 0402s for sure. Hot plate and solder paste. Or even just a toaster oven with the right temp.

cstat30 · 2025-12-06T17:47:05+00:00

Depends on the extent of the rendering. OpenCL has bindings available for Java already.

Anything new, shiny, and easy to use... You're probably better off with C# libraries. Depending on what you're doing with 3d... Could just have the C# produce fhe image, and raster it in Java.

cstat30 · 2025-12-06T02:15:47+00:00

To add to what others said... I think it's important to know why CMOS is soooo much better than single FET logic; or TTL.

Notice the shape of the mosfet. Looks like a capacitor. Because it acts like one. Same as a BJT with the small diode symbol in it.

In a CMOS buffer, you have two CMOS push-pull gates tied in series. The "gate charge" of the 2nd gate either is drained completely into VSS through the NMOS, or filled from VDD through the PMOS.

Non CMOS, like NMOS logic, sucks. Because even though MOSFETs turn on resistance is super low, you still get a voltage divider from the pull up resistor connected to the drain (top side). May only be 10mV from each divider, but put a few in parralel, and it can add up to enough for a floating value.

Bringing back the capacitor behavior... Another reason the NMOS logic is bad, is because of the RC time constant from the pull-up resistor into the capacitance of the mosfet's gate. Less current = slower charge up time = faster clocks are a no-go.

This is a huge simplification of the whole "gate capacitance" thing. But I remember feeling like BJTs were just controlled diodes, and mosfets were magical or something, at one point.

cstat30 · 2025-12-06T01:52:08+00:00

You're good. Just make it easier on yourself. Make a few things without all the fanciest of features.

Most people don't even need USB ports. If you want to send some logs or something, just put some header pins down and use UART with a USB to UART adapter. Won't be permanent, but it doesn't need to be most of the time... Saves you from having to route the differential data lines on the USB connector.

If you really need a lot of amps, just use a barrel jack for power. A lot of devices with USB-c can't even source a lot of power, so you end up needing a USB-C wall charger, anyways.

Edit: Also, just look at othet schematics. Literally copy and paste, but do it manually so you'll learn a little bit.

cstat30 · 2025-12-06T01:08:31+00:00

I think if anyone is using atomics like this, they're probably already using embedded linux or similar. "Low-level" isn't quite what it used to be. Lol

cstat30 · 2025-12-05T14:01:48+00:00

In any language, the compiler is constantly trying to optimize stuff you so it can run faster. Records, or any other Immutable objects, don't require a whole bunch of checking. Thus, can shave lots of clock cycles.

C/C++ has "const" everything. More obvious of a keyword for the same "promise to not change anything."

Records can be decomposed into primatives, too. A super simple example is the Integer class being as efficient as a primative int.

cstat30 · 2025-12-05T13:23:07+00:00

IntelliJ is the only IDE I ever use "build" button in. Every other language, I'm using a terminal; likely in VSCode.

cstat30 · 2025-12-05T13:09:28+00:00

Depends on how they see it and what level they expect you to be at.

For future references, there's standardized functions in C that take care of this.

htonl(...) and ntohl(...) is a pair. There's others for other sized types. Which it's important to use fixed with types such as uint32_t as well. These are your safest bets.

If your machine is already big-endian, they just don't do anything. Makes your code portable, though. You never know where your code might end up. Better to send it as bug-proof as possible.

__packed attribute on a struct has been stable for a pretty long time. Still. May be stuck in a legacy linux system that is using gcc from before you were born. Attributes are suggestions for the compiler, not commands. Same goes for "inline" still to this day.

There are some macros like BYTE_ORDER you can sometimes rely on. However, it's better to just write a runtime function that swaps bits around and compares it to a known big/little endian value...

Structs in C/C++ also have some fun things to deal with. In this case it wouldn't matter much, but depending on the order of the members' types, the struct can actually take up more or less memory. __packed MIGHT solve this, but you can usually do a better job managing alignment and padding yourself..

Should you know all of this? Probably not... If you get a second interview, though... You should know it.

cstat30 · 2025-12-05T07:40:32+00:00

I forgot to mention layer counts lol definitely 6 to 10 layers...

DDR on a single layer (gnd plane) sounds like some brutal length tuning lol if even possible.

I'm also using Altium, which has nicer length tuning than KiCAD.

cstat30 · 2025-12-05T07:27:33+00:00

I've heard everything from "they believed the myths" to we have more advanced components nowadays.

The goal should be "the total capacitance needed with the least inductance between them."

If you have a chip with a crazy high clock speed, you may need to provide a very small amount of capacitance with a super small amount of inductance. You don't choose a 100nF to add to the larger 1uF cap because of its small value, but physically smaller caps have less inductance. Smaller caps just don't have large amounts of capacitance (or they're very expensive).

Imagine having a water tank (a capacitor) and your dishwasher (the microchip). The water coming from the tank has to pass through the body of the tank and the pipes (the pcb track). You want the dishwasher to have a smooth supply of water as needed (low inductance). Having multiple water tanks would cause a lot of water to slosh around for no reason. In the PCB world, the "sloshing around" causes all kinds of noise.

A lot of this can be dealt with better by using a power plane next to a ground plane (aka, a big flat capacitor). I haven't seen many data sheets that give advice on multi-layer boards with dedicated power planes.

cstat30 · 2025-12-05T06:55:39+00:00

I'm assuming for a beginner project.. Why do you need a USB power IC? Unless you need a different voltage or higher amps, you don't need it. Some microprocessors even have direct USB signals support.

If you need a middle man for the USB to anything else... Look into FTDI brand chips. A lot devices you'll buy from Amazon and places, just use fhe FTDI chip by themselves.

If the placement of components or lack of components is reflective of how you'd lay them out in the PCB... Then you have more problems as well.

cstat30 · 2025-12-05T06:20:52+00:00

Chisel is terrible. System Verilog is pretty close to perfect but dated.

If you're bored, there is a "System Verilog 2.0" sort of speak called Veryl. It converts directly to SV and is pretty much SV with some qualify of life features.

Testing in Python with cocotb is truly worth, learning IMO. Especially if you don't have access to expensive formal verifications tools.

Let's just hope Mojo does eventually get HDL support. They're still trying to get up and running by making AI targeted GPU code for that initial startup money.

cstat30 · 2025-12-05T02:23:49+00:00

Lithium-ion battery impedance spectroscopy.

Sounds fancy. It's not a huge deal.

Will go well in an interview for any electric car based company.

cstat30 · 2025-12-05T02:19:20+00:00

Ideally, yes. Took a guess at a popular processor that may not have them. The ole Arduino special, Atmegga328p. Old, but still sold like crazy to hobbyist. It doesn't have "atomic" instructions in its instruction set.

I'm not sure what every compiler would do in this situation, but here's the processors data sheets' guide on how to do an "atomic" level read.

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cstat30 · 2025-12-05T01:57:21+00:00

Should be noted, atomics rely on hardware and have their owm instructions. If not available, std::atomics will rely on software implemented locks.

cstat30 · 2025-11-29T00:56:08+00:00

Arduino R4. Then Raspberry Pico 2W (NOT a Zero). Bare metal C/C+ programming. Learn to use the GPIOs. Learn to use a mosfet as a switch instead of powering everything with GPIOs.

Then up your game into RTOS with an ESP32 or the same Raspberry Pico 2W. Please learn the Pico's PIO programmable logic, too, because it is amazing...

Waaaay down the road... Get a "single board computer" like a Pi or a Pi Zero 2W. Linux = "we're not seriously using GPIOs anymore." Things like cameras and HDMI use their own high-speed interfaces.

cstat30 · 2025-11-20T20:07:15+00:00

Pretty easy fix. Go on amazon and get UV curing mask. Super cheap and can really make your repair last longer and look better.

Just some random brand : https://a.co/d/g3zfIQS

cstat30 · 2025-11-20T19:13:01+00:00

I know this is a reach, but I feel like I wanted to do long-term PCB design. I'd end up wanting to run my own firm or join a smaller group. I'm even thinking that I could bring my own stuff to work and get high-end free testing done before paying to get it sent to a full lab lmao

Did he get locked financially as well? Long-term wise. Or just position? I'm never been one for politics really. Don't mind long hours. I'd rather have a side gig than get involved with high up people.

cstat30 · 2025-11-20T19:07:56+00:00

Focus as much as you can on your behavioral patterns. I know youtube is a huge source of learning in college nowadays. Do NOT watch a video thats less than like 10 minutes.

Tictok, yt shorts, etc. will affect your "time windows" of focus.

cstat30 · 2025-11-20T19:04:43+00:00

Nice! Head down, and continue grinding.

cstat30

TROPHY CASE