first impressions of the Lego smart brick, before I do any actual tearing down: wow, I forgot how good they are at working with plastic.

[timonsku@mastodon.social]

@whitequark ultrasonic knives got quite cheap and are excellent for very precise plastic cutting

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

@timonsku I should get one!

[confusomu@twoot.site]

@whitequark ooh, i love these tiny SMT components. very delightful to look at

[zwol@masto.hackers.town]

@whitequark this is starting to remind me of the bit in A. K. Dewdney's _Planiverse_ where the two-dimensional people have built a two-dimensional electronic computer (well, an adding machine) and because it's rather difficult to make wires cross each other in two dimensions, every single logic gate in the contraption has its own battery

[gsuberland@chaos.social]

@whitequark @timonsku really braindead tip: search "ultrasonic kinfe" or "ultrasonic knjfe", because AliExpress censors the word "knife" in listings

[geoffl@mastodon.me.uk]

@gsuberland @whitequark @timonsku

Or add the word 'kitchen'.

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

ok so this would be the JTAG pins

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

@gsuberland @timonsku lmao

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

also, here's a close-up of the markings on the tiny WLCSP between the BGA and QFN

[geoffl@mastodon.me.uk]

@gsuberland @whitequark @timonsku

Ali Express is now AI express

[geoffl@mastodon.me.uk]

@gsuberland @whitequark @timonsku

No capacity for alt text right now. Soz.

[ldcd@social.treehouse.systems]

@whitequark Calling an ARC CPU industry standard is very funny to me

[maehw@chaos.social]

@whitequark Great to see that you got yourself a #LEGO #SmartBrick. Curious to know what set you got yourself. And eben more curious if you can get JTAG working... or find the relevant test pins. Yesterday, I started sniffing the SPI bus. Unfortunately, the ASIC Chip Select pin was not identified in the test pad matrix when I last looked up published schematics.

[maehw@chaos.social]

@whitequark You'll probably also try to power it with a DC power supply instead of the battery, right?

[snowfox@tech.lgbt]

@whitequark And (checking the datasheet) apparently a log2() accelerator? That seems like an oddly-specific thing to accelerate.

[vfig@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@whitequark oooh looking forward to the self-igniting lego made with this

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

@vfig bullshit. even if you shorted a 45 mAh battery absolutely nothing of sort would happen. try it if you don't believe me

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

@maehw do you know what the WLCSPs are?

[maehw@chaos.social]

@whitequark someone had identified it as a Winbond SPI flash (to be confirmed, I guess).

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

@maehw lemme dump this flash then