5 ms·

How does a USB keyboard work? (2021) [video]

170 points by marbu 4y ago

proto_lambda 4y ago
Ben Eater makes amazing educational videos, unfortunately he's been MIA for half a year now. His patreon sneakily got updated from a "per video" to a "per month" payment model a couple months ago (this has since been reverted) and I cancelled my membership after I didn't get any explanation for over a week, and there have been no other signs of life as far as I know.
- VBprogrammer 4y ago
  Yeah, I'd wondered what he's up to. At the same time, people have their own lives and sometimes shit happens. Changing the terms for existing patrons though does sound slightly shady. I'm surprised that is allowed without some kind of confirmation on the platform.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- cmeacham98 4y ago
  I'm very surprised Patreon would let a creator switch that without asking for existing patron's consent, it seems ripe for abuse and borderline illegal.
  - judge2020 4y ago
    They hope their creators will inform them it seems, although maybe there is a patreon-initiated email informing backers when they make this change (I just can't find any evidence of it). > Letting your patrons know about billing changes in advance is most important when switching from per creation to another option. Patrons may want to upgrade their subscription if they know that their pledged amount will be x 1. Say Patron F is at your $5 tier with a monthly max of 2 creations per month. When you switch to monthly, their subscription amount defaults to $5 a month -- they may want to increase to $10 a month to account for the change. https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000118666-Can-I-change-how-I-bill-my-patrons- https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000118666-C...
    - cmeacham98 4y ago
      IANAL, but this still looks very suspicious to me. Agreeing to pay someone $5/month is not the same as agreeing to pay them $5/video (or vice versa). Charging me for something I never authorized is a form of fraud, no?
      - xeromal 4y ago
        I'm sure the ability to do so is buried in 50 pages of terms of service.
        cmeacham98 4y ago
        Terms of Service don't override the law or CC networks' rules.
        lozenge 4y ago
        If their class action waiver holds, that's fairly irrelevant.
- protoster 4y ago
  I'd give Ben the benefit of the doubt and assume it was a mistake since up to that point he has been a class act. As for the radio silence, I'm afraid that this could be something bad. I've seen other examples of creators doing great work who are seemingly impossible to dislike, and STILL receive harassment to a point of not wanting to continue (e.g. Handmade Hero)
  - OJFord 4y ago
    Well, nevermind anything nefarious, life can throw unexpected things in the mix too. This Old Tony was similarly away for a while recently (now back) after a family member died. I imagine it only gets more difficult to return too, once people notice and maybe you see them asking in comments, on Reddit or HN, etc. 'where' you've gone, and start to feel some need to not only return but explain your absence. I check occasionally for new videos, I enjoy them and hope there's more to come, but I don't need to know 'why', it's none of my business, and he doesn't owe me anything. (I'm not a Patreon supporter, that apparent change is a bit different of course, perhaps just a mistake as you said.)
    - protoster 4y ago
      All I want is a simple "channel on hiatus for personal reasons" post somewhere.
      - martinmunk 4y ago
        Def. agree on this one. I'm reminded of the closure viewers of the YouTuber Bosnian Bill got about his disappearance, by Lock Picking Lawyer doing an explanation video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ASQQboFg98 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ASQQboFg98 But I do also understand not all creators have a relationship with another creator which as much overlap of audience that it is possible.
  - stagger87 4y ago
    > I've seen other examples of creators doing great work who are seemingly impossible to dislike, and STILL receive harassment to a point of not wanting to continue (e.g. Handmade Hero) Are you saying that Casey Muratori is "seemingly impossible to dislike"? Isn't he still doing HH?
- Handytinge 4y ago
  He was around for sure in Feb, I was emailing him and he replied.
seanalltogether 4y ago
Are there any tools on mac that shows how much bandwidth is being used on a usb/thunderbolt port? I've always suspected that I'm saturating the connection from laptop to hub but don't have a definitive way of knowing for sure. When I move my second monitor off the hub and plug directly into a different usb port on my laptop I seem to have less problems.
- LaputanMachine 4y ago
  CL!ng may be what you're looking for [1]. The app is available in the App Store, but I have not tested it. [1]: https://egpu.io/forums/mac-setup/monitoring-thunderbolt-bandwidth/#post-56524 https://egpu.io/forums/mac-setup/monitoring-thunderbolt-band...
- mikequinlan 4y ago
  You can use a cable like this https://www.amazon.com/Wiredge-Display-Charging-Braided-Compatible/dp/B09QC4QKPQ https://www.amazon.com/Wiredge-Display-Charging-Braided-Comp... Note I am not recommending this specific cable; it is just the first one that showed up in my search.
  - akelly 4y ago
    That cable only shows power draw not bandwidth. And I'm not aware of a cable that does show bandwidth.
- MrLeap 4y ago
  Wireshark has usb tools, might be derivable.
HPsquared 4y ago
Is there anything like this on how optical mice work? It'd be interesting to see how the sensor and algorithm works.
- zargon 4y ago
  A USB mouse just sends x/y distance traveled over USB HID protocol. All the details are integrated into silicon. The sensor is a camera and the processor diffs the images to calculate the distance. To learn about the algorithms for that you could look into patents by Avago or PixArt.
- rasz 4y ago
  Look into HP patents around 1990-99 on optical paper sensors. Afaik mouse sensor came from research into large format plotter paper tracking. US Patent 5,729,008. Interview with inventor: Oral History of Travis Blalock https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmqa9XJED-Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmqa9XJED-Q https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2018/10/102717371-05-01-acc.pdf https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/20... "each array element had nearest neighbor connectivity so you would calculate nine correlations, an autocorrelation and eight cross-correlations, with each of your eight nearest neighbors, the diagonals and the perpendicular, and then you could interpolate in correlation space where the best fit was. " all in analog domain another one from HP/Agilent/Avago: Oral History of Gary Gordon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxxoWhCzIeU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxxoWhCzIeU also this https://blueironip.com/hp-capshare-how-a-failed-product-yielded-huge-revenue/ https://blueironip.com/hp-capshare-how-a-failed-product-yiel...
- dangrie158 4y ago
  https://youtu.be/SAaESb4wTCM https://youtu.be/SAaESb4wTCM

170 points by marbu 4y ago

Ben Eater makes amazing educational videos, unfortunately he's been MIA for half a year now. His patreon sneakily got updated from a "per video" to a "per month" payment model a couple months ago (this has since been reverted) and I cancelled my membership after I didn't get any explanation for over a week, and there have been no other signs of life as far as I know.

VBprogrammer 4y ago
Yeah, I'd wondered what he's up to. At the same time, people have their own lives and sometimes shit happens. Changing the terms for existing patrons though does sound slightly shady. I'm surprised that is allowed without some kind of confirmation on the platform.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
cmeacham98 4y ago
I'm very surprised Patreon would let a creator switch that without asking for existing patron's consent, it seems ripe for abuse and borderline illegal.
- judge2020 4y ago
  They hope their creators will inform them it seems, although maybe there is a patreon-initiated email informing backers when they make this change (I just can't find any evidence of it). > Letting your patrons know about billing changes in advance is most important when switching from per creation to another option. Patrons may want to upgrade their subscription if they know that their pledged amount will be x 1. Say Patron F is at your $5 tier with a monthly max of 2 creations per month. When you switch to monthly, their subscription amount defaults to $5 a month -- they may want to increase to $10 a month to account for the change. https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000118666-Can-I-change-how-I-bill-my-patrons- https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000118666-C...
  - cmeacham98 4y ago
    IANAL, but this still looks very suspicious to me. Agreeing to pay someone $5/month is not the same as agreeing to pay them $5/video (or vice versa). Charging me for something I never authorized is a form of fraud, no?
    - xeromal 4y ago
      I'm sure the ability to do so is buried in 50 pages of terms of service.
      - cmeacham98 4y ago
        Terms of Service don't override the law or CC networks' rules.
        lozenge 4y ago
        If their class action waiver holds, that's fairly irrelevant.
protoster 4y ago
I'd give Ben the benefit of the doubt and assume it was a mistake since up to that point he has been a class act. As for the radio silence, I'm afraid that this could be something bad. I've seen other examples of creators doing great work who are seemingly impossible to dislike, and STILL receive harassment to a point of not wanting to continue (e.g. Handmade Hero)
- OJFord 4y ago
  Well, nevermind anything nefarious, life can throw unexpected things in the mix too. This Old Tony was similarly away for a while recently (now back) after a family member died. I imagine it only gets more difficult to return too, once people notice and maybe you see them asking in comments, on Reddit or HN, etc. 'where' you've gone, and start to feel some need to not only return but explain your absence. I check occasionally for new videos, I enjoy them and hope there's more to come, but I don't need to know 'why', it's none of my business, and he doesn't owe me anything. (I'm not a Patreon supporter, that apparent change is a bit different of course, perhaps just a mistake as you said.)
  - protoster 4y ago
    All I want is a simple "channel on hiatus for personal reasons" post somewhere.
    - martinmunk 4y ago
      Def. agree on this one. I'm reminded of the closure viewers of the YouTuber Bosnian Bill got about his disappearance, by Lock Picking Lawyer doing an explanation video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ASQQboFg98 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ASQQboFg98 But I do also understand not all creators have a relationship with another creator which as much overlap of audience that it is possible.
- stagger87 4y ago
  > I've seen other examples of creators doing great work who are seemingly impossible to dislike, and STILL receive harassment to a point of not wanting to continue (e.g. Handmade Hero) Are you saying that Casey Muratori is "seemingly impossible to dislike"? Isn't he still doing HH?
Handytinge 4y ago
He was around for sure in Feb, I was emailing him and he replied.

seanalltogether 4y ago

Are there any tools on mac that shows how much bandwidth is being used on a usb/thunderbolt port? I've always suspected that I'm saturating the connection from laptop to hub but don't have a definitive way of knowing for sure. When I move my second monitor off the hub and plug directly into a different usb port on my laptop I seem to have less problems.

LaputanMachine 4y ago
CL!ng may be what you're looking for [1]. The app is available in the App Store, but I have not tested it. [1]: https://egpu.io/forums/mac-setup/monitoring-thunderbolt-bandwidth/#post-56524 https://egpu.io/forums/mac-setup/monitoring-thunderbolt-band...
mikequinlan 4y ago
You can use a cable like this https://www.amazon.com/Wiredge-Display-Charging-Braided-Compatible/dp/B09QC4QKPQ https://www.amazon.com/Wiredge-Display-Charging-Braided-Comp... Note I am not recommending this specific cable; it is just the first one that showed up in my search.
- akelly 4y ago
  That cable only shows power draw not bandwidth. And I'm not aware of a cable that does show bandwidth.
MrLeap 4y ago
Wireshark has usb tools, might be derivable.

HPsquared 4y ago

Is there anything like this on how optical mice work? It'd be interesting to see how the sensor and algorithm works.

zargon 4y ago
A USB mouse just sends x/y distance traveled over USB HID protocol. All the details are integrated into silicon. The sensor is a camera and the processor diffs the images to calculate the distance. To learn about the algorithms for that you could look into patents by Avago or PixArt.
rasz 4y ago
Look into HP patents around 1990-99 on optical paper sensors. Afaik mouse sensor came from research into large format plotter paper tracking. US Patent 5,729,008. Interview with inventor: Oral History of Travis Blalock https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmqa9XJED-Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmqa9XJED-Q https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2018/10/102717371-05-01-acc.pdf https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/20... "each array element had nearest neighbor connectivity so you would calculate nine correlations, an autocorrelation and eight cross-correlations, with each of your eight nearest neighbors, the diagonals and the perpendicular, and then you could interpolate in correlation space where the best fit was. " all in analog domain another one from HP/Agilent/Avago: Oral History of Gary Gordon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxxoWhCzIeU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxxoWhCzIeU also this https://blueironip.com/hp-capshare-how-a-failed-product-yielded-huge-revenue/ https://blueironip.com/hp-capshare-how-a-failed-product-yiel...
dangrie158 4y ago
https://youtu.be/SAaESb4wTCM https://youtu.be/SAaESb4wTCM