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I love a good “PCI Challenge”, where someone tries to see how much functionality they can wring out of PCI devices in a weird situation. Linus Tech Tips has a b

I love a good “PCI Challenge”, where someone tries to see how much functionality they can wring out of PCI devices in a weird situation. Linus Tech Tips has a bunch of good ones: - How crazy of a device can you use with a server motherboard’s PCI hot-swap BIOS feature: https://youtu.be/YigN2mkQMPc https://youtu.be/YigN2mkQMPc - How many PCI extenders can you use with a high end graphics card: https://youtu.be/q5xvwPa3r7M https://youtu.be/q5xvwPa3r7M

marcan_42 6y ago
Ah, but have you ever run PCIe over 115200 baud serial? :) We did that for the PS4 hardware experiments, and that also involved a PCIe hotplug capable motherboard, as we had a PS4 southbridge patched in as a PCIe device on a normal PC, and every time we powered on the PS4 that was effectively hotplugging it. Fun times. These days PCIe hotplug is a consumer technology, it's called Thunderbolt (it's hotplug at the logical layer, not physical PCIe lanes, but to the OS/software it's about the same). PS4 talk including the PCIe story: https://youtu.be/QMiubC6LdTA https://youtu.be/QMiubC6LdTA
- Roritharr 6y ago
  I remember that talk fondly, thanks for all the fun!
- jchw 6y ago
  I read the first sentence of this post without noticing your username and thought, “wait, wasn’t that marcan?” — of course it was :) It’s a good time to rewatch that classic talk (and probably some other old ccc talks, there’s a wealth of great ones.)
  - moron4hire 6y ago
    This is something that I miss about forums of yore and sort of hate about HN, Reddit, and their ilk: the deprioritization of a post author's identity. I miss being able to scan through a forum's post listing and readily pick out names of posters I recognized after being involved in the site for a while. It was an additional signal of post quality (or lack thereof, depending on the user). Here, the username is hidden in a sentence of status text, on the same visual level of the number of minutes ago the post was made, all of which is rendered in a light grey font. It's clearly intentional, and I can't for the life of me figure out why the forum owners don't want users to be able to build a consistent identity.
    - wrs 6y ago
      I think it’s always been that way on HN—it could just be arbitrary, not a deliberate choice. I have noticed around here that if you indicate you might use someone’s identity or history as a signal of quality, you’ll get a lot of “argument by authority” backlash. (Except in the cases of someone who built the thing you’re talking about, and tptacek. :) )
      - geerlingguy 6y ago
        On the flip side, on HN I like that the author is kind of greyed out. I never notice it until after I read comments if I look for it, so I generally don't even notice the OP or a comment author. Other sites like Reddit add little icons and highlights in many places that make the username much more prominent.

marcan_42 6y ago

Ah, but have you ever run PCIe over 115200 baud serial? :) We did that for the PS4 hardware experiments, and that also involved a PCIe hotplug capable motherboard, as we had a PS4 southbridge patched in as a PCIe device on a normal PC, and every time we powered on the PS4 that was effectively hotplugging it. Fun times. These days PCIe hotplug is a consumer technology, it's called Thunderbolt (it's hotplug at the logical layer, not physical PCIe lanes, but to the OS/software it's about the same). PS4 talk including the PCIe story: https://youtu.be/QMiubC6LdTA https://youtu.be/QMiubC6LdTA

Roritharr 6y ago
I remember that talk fondly, thanks for all the fun!
jchw 6y ago
I read the first sentence of this post without noticing your username and thought, “wait, wasn’t that marcan?” — of course it was :) It’s a good time to rewatch that classic talk (and probably some other old ccc talks, there’s a wealth of great ones.)
- moron4hire 6y ago
  This is something that I miss about forums of yore and sort of hate about HN, Reddit, and their ilk: the deprioritization of a post author's identity. I miss being able to scan through a forum's post listing and readily pick out names of posters I recognized after being involved in the site for a while. It was an additional signal of post quality (or lack thereof, depending on the user). Here, the username is hidden in a sentence of status text, on the same visual level of the number of minutes ago the post was made, all of which is rendered in a light grey font. It's clearly intentional, and I can't for the life of me figure out why the forum owners don't want users to be able to build a consistent identity.
  - wrs 6y ago
    I think it’s always been that way on HN—it could just be arbitrary, not a deliberate choice. I have noticed around here that if you indicate you might use someone’s identity or history as a signal of quality, you’ll get a lot of “argument by authority” backlash. (Except in the cases of someone who built the thing you’re talking about, and tptacek. :) )
    - geerlingguy 6y ago
      On the flip side, on HN I like that the author is kind of greyed out. I never notice it until after I read comments if I look for it, so I generally don't even notice the OP or a comment author. Other sites like Reddit add little icons and highlights in many places that make the username much more prominent.