kens

30 ms·

1. 571.▲
   by kens 2y ago

   Strangely enough, I used the ticket in the article for the REM train (from Du Quartier, where I was staying).
2. 572.▲
   by kens 2y ago

   It's manufactured pretty much the same as any other chip, using photolithography. Most of the analog components would be CMOS transistors, just larger. They might use a BiCMOS process with a few extra steps to make bipolar transistors.
3. 573.▲
   by kens 2y ago

   I don't think the password authentication helps against cloning. You could start a transaction and stop after you get the password. Then you could clone the card. (The system could invalidate the ticket as soon as they get the UID, but
4. 574.▲
   by kens 2y ago

   The title says "Montreal" and the second photo in the blog post shows the specific ticket. I'm not sure what else I can do here.
5. 575.▲
   by kens 2y ago

   NFC supports passive mode (where one side is powered and the card is not) and active mode (where both sides are powered). So, yes, your phone is probably more reliable because it provides a powered data transmission. An NFC card doesn'
6. 576.▲
   by kens 2y ago

   I don't know personally about the antenna manufacturing, but one web page talks about printable conductive silver ink for producing RFID antennas. https://www.sunchemical.com/product/printed-antenna/
7. 577.▲
   by kens 2y ago

   I don't like the e-waste aspect either, but realistically, the chip is so minuscule that the amount of waste is trivial compared to almost anything else you might discard. The chip is literally the size of a grain of salt. The other fa
8. 578.▲
   by kens 2y ago

   I haven't really looked into the security aspects. I think that you could clone one of the Ultralight chips, but it wouldn't gain you anything because the security is in the backend. It's a lot like a printed concert ticket o
9. 579.▲
   by kens 2y ago

   I think this chip is implemented with a state machine rather than a processor, so it's meaningless to compare their processing power. The Apollo Guidance Computer had about 17,000 transistors, while I estimate that the NFC chip has abo
10. 580.▲
    by kens 2y ago

    Author here for all your NFC chip questions :-)
11. 581.▲
    by kens 2y ago

    Yes, we already powered up the display and got the numbers to spin, although not all of them work.
12. 582.▲
    by kens 2y ago

    Usage Electric (see YouTube) obtained it and sent it to me to see if I could figure out more about it.
13. 583.▲
    by kens 2y ago

    I'm tempted, of course. But without any information on it, getting it working would be very time consuming. I'm trying not to get distracted with too many side projects.
14. 584.▲
    by kens 2y ago

    Author here if anyone has questions...
15. 585.▲
    by kens 2y ago

    Thanks! I've fixed the typo.
16. 586.▲
    by kens 2y ago

    I'm not sure why this old post showed up, but I'm here for your 8085 questions :-)
17. 587.▲
    by kens 2y ago

    > This was good for the development of computers, that there was no initial patent thicket/fight. For context, the ENIAC patent [1] was filed in 1947, leading to the six-year Honeywell v. Sperry Rand patent fight [2], ending in the
18. 588.▲
    by kens 2y ago

    There are many first computers, depending on what adjectives you apply. The "official" claim is that ENIAC is the "first electronic, general purpose, large scale, digital computer". For an interesting exploration of what
19. 589.▲
    by kens 2y ago

    In case anyone ends up here looking for an answer, the relevant chips are the SN75121 and SN75122 for transmission lines and the SN75123 and SN75124 for IBM 360 bus-and-tag I/O (Signetics N8T13, N8T14, N8T24). The relevant IBM spec is:
20. 590.▲
    by kens 2y ago

    The recovery of the Doves typeface from the Thames was discussed on HN in 2015, so this story goes way back. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9017307
21. 591.▲
    by kens 2y ago

    That seems like an interesting, but obscure processor, maybe a little too obscure, even though it spawned the 8096 (MSC-96) line.
22. 592.▲
    by kens 2y ago

    Thanks for the nice comments. The Gameboy CPU sounds like an interesting chip. I'll put the it on my list of processors to look at when I'm done with my current projects. In other words, don't hold your breath :-)
23. 593.▲
    by kens 2y ago

    The article mentions various old chips that interface to the 3270 data stream. Does anyone know what the similar chips are to interface to IBM's bus-and-tag? I saw bus-and-tag interface chips that converted the weird voltage levels a f
24. 594.▲
    by kens 2y ago

    Author here for your 8088 questions...
25. 595.▲
    by kens 3y ago

    My experience was similar. I never really understood the point of sin and cos until I used them to draw circles on a TRS-80. And then it's like "Oh, they are very useful and straightforward functions." And then it made sense
26. 596.▲
    No "Zero-Shot" Without Exponential Data(arxiv.org)

    2 points by kens 3y ago|0 comments
27. 597.▲
    by kens 3y ago

    Yeah, I find picking the audience difficult too. For my blog posts, I want to include the details for specialized readers, but also make the post accessible to the generally technical readers (roughly the HN crowd). (If I wanted to write fo
28. 598.▲
    by kens 3y ago

    > Ken's article doesn't mention it See footnote #5 :-)
29. 599.▲
    by kens 3y ago

    Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed the article.
30. 600.▲
    by kens 3y ago

    Yes, I'm sure there are just two EEPROMs. Someone on Twitter found the datasheet for the module (DPE8M628), which has details: https://www.datasheetarchive.com/datasheet?id=a3c8d65ff60242...