huntero's comments

huntero | 1 year ago | on: Xilinx HBM2 Internals (2023)

The HBM stacks are on-package for these parts, so you don't have to use any external I/O to interface with them.

You end up with a similar challenge accessing that much bandwidth internally from your FPGA logic though, it looks like the Xilinx HBM IP presents a set of 16 or 32 separate AXI interfaces, each of which gives you about 14.4GB/s of bandwidth (https://docs.amd.com/r/en-US/pg276-axi-hbm/Introduction).

huntero | 4 years ago | on: Time Card and PTP on a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4

PTP is a great choice when you need your time-sync to leave the software domain, for instance, locking an external PLL for frequency and phase aligned clocks.

PTP enabled MAC's and PHY's usually have a dedicated hardware output for a PPS (pulse-per-second) or faster clock, generated directly from the hardware PTP counters.

In the video world, we get great results synchronizing software events with NTP, but whenever you jump to a physical interface (DisplayPort, HDMI, SDI, etc.), NTP-based clocks are far too jittery.

I've seen some work using the PTP hardware in the MAC with the NTP protocol, a sort of hybrid approach, but don't have any first hand experience.

huntero | 4 years ago | on: Ask HN: Who is hiring? (August 2021)

Alcorn McBride Inc. | Full-Time | Orlando, FL | Onsite | http://www.alcorn.com Software Engineer, Design Engineer

We develop audio, video, and show control systems for themed entertainment. You'll find our equipment in the world's biggest theme parks, museums, and attractions.

The hardware (down to the PCB), firmware (from FPGA's to RTOS's), and software (C++/Qt) are all engineered in house. We're looking to hire great engineers with any mix of experience in FPGA's, embedded systems, and desktop application development.

It's amazing to see the things our creative customers do with our products, and it's exciting to work on next-generation tools and hardware to enable our customers to create the "next-big-thing".

If you'd like to chat about it, my contact info is in my profile. For more details and to apply, you can check out the job listings on our website: https://alcorn.com/about/careers/

huntero | 6 years ago | on: Ask HN: Who is hiring? (August 2019)

Alcorn McBride Inc. | Full-Time | Orlando, FL | Onsite | http://www.alcorn.com

Software Engineer, Design Engineer

We develop audio, video, and show control systems for themed entertainment. You'll find our equipment in the world's biggest theme parks, museums, and attractions.

The hardware (down to the PCB), firmware (from FPGA's to RTOS's), and software (C++/Qt) are all engineered in house. We're looking to hire great engineers with any mix of experience in FPGA's, embedded systems, and desktop application development.

It's amazing to see the things our creative customers do with our products, and it's exciting to work on next-generation tools and hardware to enable our customers to create the "next-big-thing".

If you'd like to chat about it, my contact info is in my profile. For more details and to apply, you can check out the job listings on our website: https://alcorn.com/about/careers/

huntero | 8 years ago | on: Ask HN: Writing cover letters for tech jobs

Cover letters might get lost in the HR departments of larger companies, but they're incredibly useful to me when sorting through applications at a small company.

Especially for entry level positions, a well-written cover letter is a much stronger positive signal than a bullet point style resume. Far too often the resume is a regurgitation of university class projects and career center templates.

Think of it like a pre-interview, but you get to choose the questions. Since most entry-level resumes look the same, this is your chance to explain why you stand out. (a passion for the industry, strong open-source contributions, etc)

If the position isn't entry level, my advice is the same. Use the opportunity to stand out and score the interview ( which is where the actual decisions will get made). At a small company, someone will read it.

huntero | 9 years ago | on: Developer Preview – EC2 Instances with Programmable Hardware

Given that the Amazon cloud is such a huge consumer of Intel's X86 processors, even using Amazon-tailored Xeon's, it's surprising that Amazon chose Xilinx over the Intel-owned Altera.

These Xilinx 16nm Virtex FPGA's are beasts, but Altera has some compelling choices as well. Perhaps some of the hardened IP in the Xilinx tipped the scales, such as the H.265 encode/decode, 100G EMAC, PCI-E Gen 4?

huntero | 10 years ago | on: A Large-Scale Study of Flash Memory Failures in the Field

You aren't alone.

The 840 and 840EVO were Samsung's first drives using 19nm planar TLC flash. With TLC flash they were storing 4 bits per flash cell, which at that small process size gave all sorts of trouble with old, stale data. It was a pretty well documented problem: http://www.anandtech.com/show/8997/samsung-releases-statemen...

The newer Samsung TLC drives use V-NAND, which supposedly has lower cell-to-cell interference due to the larger process size and 3D structure: http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/html/pr...

Samsung has some firmware updates and software utilities that should be able to restore the performance of your SSD's.

huntero | 11 years ago | on: Ask HN: Who is hiring? (June 2014)

Alcorn McBride | Full-Time | Orlando, FL | http://www.alcorn.com

Software Engineer

We develop audio, video, lighting, and show control systems for themed entertainment. You'll find our equipment in the world's biggest theme parks, museums, and attractions. We're looking for someone to develop and maintain MS Windows Based GUI applications for the programming, configuration, and control of our hardware products used in the themed entertainment industry.

It's amazing to see the things our creative customers do with our equipment, and it's exciting to work on next-generation tools and hardware to enable our customers to create the "next-big-thing". You'll wear a lot of hats, but your primary focus will be on our desktop software applications. If you'd like to chat about it, my contact info is in my profile.

For more details and to apply, you can check out the job listing on our website: http://alcorn.com/alcorn-mcbride-jobs/

huntero | 12 years ago | on: Apple CarPlay Infotainment System Runs on BlackBerry’s QNX

Many of the same manufacturers supporting CarPlay have already committed to Android support as well (http://www.openautoalliance.net/#press). I would imagine that Apple building on top of QNX allows for the car manufacturers to standardize on a single hardware platform across all mobile integrations.

I doubt that Apple could announce so many automotive partners if the system was completely Apple proprietary, due to both time and flexibility.

huntero | 13 years ago | on: Ask HN: Who is hiring? (January 2013)

Alcorn McBride | Full-Time | Orlando, FL

Hardware/Software Design Engineer

We develop audio, video, lighting, and show control systems for themed entertainment. You'll find our equipment in the world's biggest theme parks, museums, and attractions. We're looking for someone with general knowledge of Digital Video technology and Video Compression. RTOS/Embedded software experience is ideal.

It's amazing to see the things our creative customers do with our equipment, and it's exciting to work on next-generation tools and hardware to enable our customers to create the "next-big-thing". You'll wear a lot of hats(today I'm bouncing between debugging a PC application and working on an FPGA design), but your primary focus will be on our video products. If you'd like to chat about it, my contact info is in my profile.

For more details and to apply, you can check out the job listing on our website: http://alcorn.com/alcorn-mcbride-jobs/

huntero | 13 years ago | on: Ask HN: Who Is Hiring? (November 2012)

Alcorn McBride | Full-Time | Orlando, FL

Hardware/Software Design Engineer

We develop audio, video, lighting, and show control systems for themed entertainment. You'll find our equipment in the world's biggest theme parks, museums, and attractions. We're looking for someone with general knowledge of Digital Video technology and Video Compression. RTOS/Embedded software experience is ideal.

It's amazing to see the things our creative customers do with our equipment, and it's exciting to work on next-generation tools and hardware to enable our customers to create the "next-big-thing". You'll wear a lot of hats(today I'm bouncing between debugging a PC application and working on an FPGA design), but your primary focus will be on our video products. If you'd like to chat about it, my contact info is in my profile.

For more details and to apply, you can check out the job listing on our website: http://alcorn.com/alcorn-mcbride-jobs/

huntero | 13 years ago | on: Ask HN: Who Is Hiring? (October 2012)

Alcorn McBride | Full-Time | Orlando, FL

Hardware/Software Design Engineer

We develop audio, video, lighting, and show control systems for themed entertainment. You'll find our equipment in the world's biggest theme parks, museums, and attractions.

We're looking for someone with general knowledge of Digital Video technology and Video Compression. RTOS/Embedded software experience is ideal.

It's amazing to see the things our creative customers do with our equipment, and it's exciting to work on next-generation tools and hardware to enable our customers to create the "next-big-thing". You'll wear a lot of hats( today I'm bouncing between debugging an iPad app and working on an FPGA design), but your primary focus will be on our video products.

If you'd like to chat about it, my contact info is in my profile.

For more details and to apply, you can check out the job listing on our website: http://alcorn.com/alcorn-mcbride-jobs/

huntero | 13 years ago | on: The Google Nexus Q Is Baffling

I agree with you that the banana plugs were an odd choice, but to be fair, none of the interfaces you listed would be found on a pair of speakers unless they were powered.

The 3.5mm jack would be common sense for a line out, but certainly not for the speaker-out from an amplifier.

The logical connector would be binding post, which allows banana connectors, bare wire, or lugs. As you mentioned, I'm sure these weren't used because of aesthetics. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binding_post

huntero | 14 years ago | on: The Hacker is Watching

I can't find where I read this, but I believe the reset line of the camera module is typically tied to the LED, so it can't be in a powered-on state without the LED being active.

huntero | 14 years ago | on: What really happened aboard Air France 447

It's interesting that First Officer Bonin is able to doom the plane by continuing to hold back on his joystick, even when that action isn't having positive results. Had the other first officer pushed his joystick forward, would the plane begin to dive? I assume that one joystick has precedence over the other...

It seems dangerous to have two joysticks, both capable of controlling the plane, that have no physical or simulated physical link. It means that one pilot could be attempting to control the plane and his actions will have no effect whatsoever if the other seat is panicking (as in this case).

Anyone have any insight into this?

huntero | 14 years ago | on: Monsanto chooses Cloudant to power its genome analytics

When I read the headline I imagined that Cloudant was going to be pretty upset to see this on the front page of HN - but it looks like it was submitted by Cloudant themselves and links to their own press release!

If it must be done, this is the type of deal that you sweep under the rug and never talk about again, much less publicize on a site like HN.

huntero | 14 years ago | on: Why Windows Explorer in Windows 8 rocks

"Reason 10: Can Run Multiple Instances in Different Processes"

I'm not sure "open new window in a new process" really belongs in a windows menu. It's just more junk that only a tiny percentage of their users will understand.

I don't think the idea of a process is anywhere in the technical vocabulary of a typical windows user.

huntero | 14 years ago | on: AT&T Eliminating $10 Text Messaging Plan for New Customers

I wonder if the impending release of iMessage has something to do with this. With so much iPhone to iPhone messaging no longer counting towards text messaging, a lot of users would probably drop from the unlimited plan to the $10 plan - if it was still available.
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