Slowly I get it! When you talk of "computers" you generally mean those 8 bit microprocessor driven toys with a keyboard and a low-res TV screen sold since 1978!?
No, I mean it.. I will not be provoked by Desilva....
Reallly, I'm not going to take the hook...
<gulp> Ah Smile!.........
<RANT>
OK, hold it right there!
Those 8bit computer "toys" as you put them played a major role in bringing
both computing and the computer industry where it is today...
Without the 8bit micros of the late 70s and 80s there would be no PC. period.
The Atari, Commodore, Apple, TRS80, Sinclair, and several more brought computing home.
Their constant competition brought innovation faster than at any other time in the industry, and
when Apple II found it's way into the office by way of "Visicalc" IBM made the counter-move
of creating the IBM PC, (The same machine your "computer" is based from today)
</RANT>
I *know* you were fishing Desilva... [noparse]:)[/noparse]
Crumbs.. You got me off topic on my own thread too.. Grrr.. [noparse]:)[/noparse]
Don't let anyone put you off your stride, I am certain deSilva is just being mischievous!
Now can we get back to the thread please...
Jeff, how do you envisage this book progressing, I am quite interested in taking the Propeller to my local High School, see if I can some of the students interested....
From what you have said so far your book would be the ideal accompaniment to my Hybrid board.
I'm still in Chapter 1 right now, waiting for some pictures to arrive.
Once I get a little more into the next few pages, things should start to fly a bit.
It's hard getting ball rolling, but once it does... [noparse]:)[/noparse]
If you have a good picture of the Hybrid, I'd like to include a page on it.
You need to email a good photo, as well as specs, prices, and contacts.
The outline is centered around the idea of taking a protoboard/spinstudio board/demoboard/PE kit
to the point of adding keyboard, SD, Composite video, and audio connections to create
a microcomputer. Remember, the idea is to provide something that anyone who little, to no
experience can be successful with.
A "how to operate" section will start off with instructions for installing my PropDOS using
from source, or maybe even from binary with propterminal. Again the idea is to create
the easiest route to successful "play" with the propeller. Success will breed continued
interest..
I will either publish with a CD, or off binary downloads from my website for other programs
to get started. If you have written a game spin or interesting program, please expect an
email from me requesting permission to distribute it in binary form. Proper credit will
be given as well as access to the original source code either by link to obex or download.
I've received the blessing to use FemtoBASIC from Mike Green, using modifications
of the 8x8 character font.
So, don't expect expert .Spin coders to suddenly pop up from reading this text, but
I'm hopeful that this will bridge the gap that beginners have to cross to play with
the propeller. When they are finished they will be at a point where they are ready
to begin experimenting with spin.
Building the stuff (assembling, I guess semantics come into play here), combined with some nice gratification after is just the thing! For those so inclined, tinkering and adding on will follow naturally. Point them to the docs, be sure to mention the forums here, and elsewhere, and spark some interest.
The key to the old micros, and this remains true today, is that is is possible for a person to completely understand the machine. This has it's limits of course, but also has some serious rewards.
deSilva said...
Slowly I get it! When you talk of "computers" you generally mean those 8 bit microprocessor driven toys with a keyboard and a low-res TV screen sold since 1978!?
whereas "computers" you generally mean those blue screen of death devils?
Let me say this first ( I think well understood by most people reading this forum regularly): I deeply sympathize with Oldbit's scheme! I did something similar during the last three months, consisting of 238 power point slides at the moment, far from being complete..
Yes, the Altair 8080 redhill.net.au/c/jpg/o-altair-8800.jpg was a computer, and my bespoken notebook is another one... This "technology" was open to the public since the time of the Intel 8008: You could build your own computer "out of the box" since then. An "interesting" computer needs around 4 thousend "switching elements" ( e.g. transistors), most of them were provided in an integrated package from 1971 on.
You are well aware that a state-of-the art notebook contains 4 billions of switching elements in its RAM alone...
Those 1970 computers were not taken seriously by the "community" (Dijkstra's fundamental scorcher: "Microcomputers are not great") www.cs.utexas.edu/users/bushk/transcriptions/EWD634.html. What they did was well understood at that time, there were much more more pressing problems in computer science nobody in the microcomputer scene could even dream of...
This has changed during the last 25 years. "Micro-Computing" has grown up and it is now well understood where the real problems are: The most important is energy dissipation, the second is energy dissipation, the third is energy dissipation.
Enter the next "phylum of computers" http://forums.parallax.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=49611
Microcontrollers started as "all inclusive convenience packs". They generally avoid all problems of "real computers" by staying at the low side, with all their parameters: speed, current, price tag.
So my advocatus diaboli question is just: What can you learn from soldering together a "computer out of the box", 99.99% of which is contained in a (nearly) unbreakable 40-pin package? 0.01% ?
Post Edited (deSilva) : 10/29/2007 10:25:35 PM GMT
Somebody said...
So my advocatus diaboli question is just: What can you learn from soldering together a "computer out of the box", 99.99% of which is contained in a (nearly) unbreakable 40-pin package? 0.01% ?
You are missing the point... From a beginners FUD point of view, what we do here looks like black magic.
Here's what is gained:
1) Successful experience soldering (soldering practice for the beginner).
2) Successful project that encourages you to keep moving forward (overcome FUD).
3) Enjoyment from the project coupled with understanding of what you are playing with.
There's more... But I'm on my way out to a club meeting to meet with a group of beginners. [noparse]:)[/noparse]
Oldbitcollector said...
You are missing the point...
On the contrary - I am "pin-pointing" you
We all know the - sometimes annoying - questions in this forum:
- How do I connect a transistor, a 5V device, a GPS receiver, a nuclear bomb detonator to my Prop?
- Is it safer to use a 5MHz crystal and PLL16X or a 10 MHz crystal and PLL8X
- Should I use VGA or is TV just as well?
So it would be great to have a reference to all that - But this is not your task, I think.
A rarely put question is: But why is it so... This needs good answers, most of them from the elctronics department...
A quite different request is this: "I do not want to use a "board", I want to start from scratch! Please advice!"
I understand that it is this last thing you want to address!?
So, how to avoid to end-up with the demo board?
Or - maybe - this is not even something to be avoided...
Rather it should be explained why the demo board is as it is!?
It appears to me what Jeff is trying to do is introduce more people to the fundamentals of microcontrollers and not how a "computer" works.
I started a few years ago dabbling with PIC's, driven my my curiosity and need to understand how the product's I was using in my day to day business worked.
I started with the trusty old 16F84, looked around the net, found a video generator schematic, built it, loaded the hex file and was instantly hooked.
I found that there was a whole heap of information available out there to get me started and from being a complete beginner 3 years ago I can now build systems from the ground up.
Now I'm no electronics or programming expert and I certainly wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for the help, assistance and encouragement of others.
A whole lot of users of microcontrollers out there don't even want to know how they work or what you can do with them, they just accept that a product containing them works, hell, most of the time they wouldn't even know what a microcontroler is or whether the product they've just bought contains one or more....
But what about those people who do want to know how things work, well, this book could be a good starting point for them!
I know from personal experience that I looked for and purchased similar titles when I first started....
deSilva, I can see your point of view about "computers" and perhaps the title "Designing Your Own Microcomputer: with the Propeller" needs a little reworking.
Let's not let that stand in the way of what is a terrific idea and can only help to attract more users of this fantastic little micro.
I am very happy that Jeff, yourself and many others take the time and effort to contribute to this forum you should all be applauded for your efforts.
You know there's a TV advertisemnet here in the UK for the Government Education Department, it's tag line is... 'Those who can, Teach!" www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiX7CcdkQZk
>>> We all know the - sometimes annoying - questions in this forum:
- How do I connect a transistor, a 5V device, a GPS receiver, a nuclear bomb detonator to my Prop? <<<
Oh, great, now we'll have the NSA, CIA, FBI, DHS, and probably OBL hanging out here!
Oldbitcollector said...
The outline is centered around the idea of taking a protoboard/spinstudio board/demoboard/PE kit to the point of adding keyboard, SD, Composite video, and audio connections to create a microcomputer. Remember, the idea is to provide something that anyone who little, to no experience can be successful with.
Sounds good to me and I look forward to reading it.
Not sure about "Designing your own microcomputer" as the title, and I can understand how people are getting tied up with what a "computer" is, and what in this case a "microcomputer" is or does.
"How to take a Propeller Chip and actually make it useful" seems a more accurate description of what you are doing. For the chosen hardware add-ons, what it is, how it works, how to connect it, how to control it, the software needed and how that can be integrated to other things, plus an example of its use would be very handy for a lot of people, including a wider audience than just Propeller users.
This thread just keeps getting better and better... [noparse]:)[/noparse]
@Desilva, I don't have a problem with the demoboard, as a matter of fact it's one of the products I'm writing about.
However, I do think that buying a demoboard and slapping an SD card on it robs the job of "I built this myself" from
the project. (And I mention that in my text)
@TOMIG Update:
Three enjoyable hours spent at the club tonight. Four of us in attendance. (Our youthful attendies were in NY on
on the Today Show this morning) Beginner topics revolved around how programs are loaded into the Propeller,
where is my program when the power is off. What should I use to solder female headers into my Protoboard
and a comparison of the various types of Parallax Propeller projects and what could I do with them. Some discussion
of the forums and what to expect here. <smirk> as well as some math calculations on the wattage requirements of
Chip's 8x8 propeller matrix. [noparse]:)[/noparse] [noparse][[/noparse] If you can find 4-6 people min in your area, start a club! We're having a ball! ]
The Propeller chip deserves a wider audience than a bunch of EE's.. It's better than that.
From what I can tell being in this forum, there are three catagoies everyone seems to fall into.
1. I'm an EE, I've been working in the electronics field for years.
2. I'm not an EE, but I know enough to be very dangerous with a soldering pencil.
3 The Propeller is the first chip I've every played with and this looks like fun.
I place myself into category two. When I first showed up here, thankfully someone (Mike Green) was
willing to answer some fairly ignorant hardware questions regarding the Propeller Protoboard and
encouraged me to keep working it. I've filled in a lot of gaps in my understanding of electronics and
microcontroller understanding, and because I've programmed in other languages it wasn't stretch to read
the existing spin code and extract a little hair in the process of catching on.
For those that are in category three, this is a scary place. There is a pretty large gap they need to
jump to start enjoying the Propeller. What I'm working on a small bridge over that gap. It's not
the only solution, but it's designed from my perspective. You're view will vary.. NP... [noparse]:)[/noparse]
Give this little chip more credit... It'll hold up under the requirements of a rank beginner....
"How to make yourself a wizz bang box of tricks with the propeller"
"Building a Real Time Digital Assistant (RTDA) with the parallax propeller"
"Chocks away with the parallax propeller, a guide to building a useful computing device"
"Schizotronic, building a system with eight brains based on the parallax propeller"
"Learning the propeller is not a book"
"No interruptions: the propeller as a paradyme shift in microcontrollers leading to global dominations of machines over humans starting with a keyboard and a mouse"
I got the chance to first hand to see the first few pages of the book, What Jeff is doing is to delete the gap between the beginers (like myself) and the real electronic engineers. Don't get me wrong I have a grip on building and working with computers,but I have only a small bit of programming knowledge. Thanks Jeff for including Myself and others like me.
I've been on the road. Just read your Preface... great stuff. Not only are the innards of computer's getting more remote from us, most people do not have a basic concept of what happens when they flip a switch. Calling the a Propeller system a "computer" also bothers me... but for reasons quite different than deSilva states.
The Propeller is so much more than any microcomputer ever offered that it sounds almost insulting to make the comparison.
I think your book could easily be the missing link, here. Hopefully, we will now have a single path that an absolute novice can take... all the way from the Labs to deSilva country.
deSilva said:
"Micro-Computing has grown up and it is now well understood where the real problems are: The most important is energy dissipation, the second is energy dissipation, the third is energy dissipation."
deSilva,
You couldn't be more wrong.
I think you meant to say "heat." As you know, energy is a non-conservative concept, which can be traced backed to Voltaire's mistress,
In calling the propeller with accessories connected a microcomputer, I can draw a tangible image in the mind of someone who can only understand the propeller as an abstract. The Propeller *is* much more, but I'm willing to let a beginner discover it. The shock of what the propeller is possible of is part of the fun. [noparse]:)[/noparse]
I found out that the fun in the propeller proto board is: I can take a diagram, a piece of perf board from my local rat shack, a few resistors, some wire, do a little soldering and presto I made my first audio/composit video adaptor. Best of all they work. Now Thats FUN!!!
Comments
No, I mean it.. I will not be provoked by Desilva....
Reallly, I'm not going to take the hook...
<gulp> Ah Smile!.........
<RANT>
OK, hold it right there!
Those 8bit computer "toys" as you put them played a major role in bringing
both computing and the computer industry where it is today...
Without the 8bit micros of the late 70s and 80s there would be no PC. period.
The Atari, Commodore, Apple, TRS80, Sinclair, and several more brought computing home.
Their constant competition brought innovation faster than at any other time in the industry, and
when Apple II found it's way into the office by way of "Visicalc" IBM made the counter-move
of creating the IBM PC, (The same machine your "computer" is based from today)
</RANT>
I *know* you were fishing Desilva... [noparse]:)[/noparse]
Crumbs.. You got me off topic on my own thread too.. Grrr.. [noparse]:)[/noparse]
Oldbitcollector
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Buttons . . . check. Dials . . . check. Switches . . . check. Little colored lights . . . check.
— Calvin, of 'Calvin and Hobbes.
Post Edited (Oldbitcollector) : 10/29/2007 7:03:03 PM GMT
Don't let anyone put you off your stride, I am certain deSilva is just being mischievous!
Now can we get back to the thread please...
Jeff, how do you envisage this book progressing, I am quite interested in taking the Propeller to my local High School, see if I can some of the students interested....
From what you have said so far your book would be the ideal accompaniment to my Hybrid board.
Regards,
Coley
Once I get a little more into the next few pages, things should start to fly a bit.
It's hard getting ball rolling, but once it does... [noparse]:)[/noparse]
If you have a good picture of the Hybrid, I'd like to include a page on it.
You need to email a good photo, as well as specs, prices, and contacts.
The outline is centered around the idea of taking a protoboard/spinstudio board/demoboard/PE kit
to the point of adding keyboard, SD, Composite video, and audio connections to create
a microcomputer. Remember, the idea is to provide something that anyone who little, to no
experience can be successful with.
A "how to operate" section will start off with instructions for installing my PropDOS using
from source, or maybe even from binary with propterminal. Again the idea is to create
the easiest route to successful "play" with the propeller. Success will breed continued
interest..
I will either publish with a CD, or off binary downloads from my website for other programs
to get started. If you have written a game spin or interesting program, please expect an
email from me requesting permission to distribute it in binary form. Proper credit will
be given as well as access to the original source code either by link to obex or download.
I've received the blessing to use FemtoBASIC from Mike Green, using modifications
of the 8x8 character font.
So, don't expect expert .Spin coders to suddenly pop up from reading this text, but
I'm hopeful that this will bridge the gap that beginners have to cross to play with
the propeller. When they are finished they will be at a point where they are ready
to begin experimenting with spin.
Oldbitcollector
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Buttons . . . check. Dials . . . check. Switches . . . check. Little colored lights . . . check.
— Calvin, of 'Calvin and Hobbes.
Building the stuff (assembling, I guess semantics come into play here), combined with some nice gratification after is just the thing! For those so inclined, tinkering and adding on will follow naturally. Point them to the docs, be sure to mention the forums here, and elsewhere, and spark some interest.
The key to the old micros, and this remains true today, is that is is possible for a person to completely understand the machine. This has it's limits of course, but also has some serious rewards.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Propeller Wiki: Share the coolness!
Can't wait for the next installment [noparse]:)[/noparse]
Baggers.
Let me say this first ( I think well understood by most people reading this forum regularly): I deeply sympathize with Oldbit's scheme! I did something similar during the last three months, consisting of 238 power point slides at the moment, far from being complete..
Yes, the Altair 8080 redhill.net.au/c/jpg/o-altair-8800.jpg was a computer, and my bespoken notebook is another one... This "technology" was open to the public since the time of the Intel 8008: You could build your own computer "out of the box" since then. An "interesting" computer needs around 4 thousend "switching elements" ( e.g. transistors), most of them were provided in an integrated package from 1971 on.
You are well aware that a state-of-the art notebook contains 4 billions of switching elements in its RAM alone...
Those 1970 computers were not taken seriously by the "community" (Dijkstra's fundamental scorcher: "Microcomputers are not great") www.cs.utexas.edu/users/bushk/transcriptions/EWD634.html. What they did was well understood at that time, there were much more more pressing problems in computer science nobody in the microcomputer scene could even dream of...
This has changed during the last 25 years. "Micro-Computing" has grown up and it is now well understood where the real problems are: The most important is energy dissipation, the second is energy dissipation, the third is energy dissipation.
Enter the next "phylum of computers" http://forums.parallax.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=49611
Microcontrollers started as "all inclusive convenience packs". They generally avoid all problems of "real computers" by staying at the low side, with all their parameters: speed, current, price tag.
So my advocatus diaboli question is just: What can you learn from soldering together a "computer out of the box", 99.99% of which is contained in a (nearly) unbreakable 40-pin package? 0.01% ?
Post Edited (deSilva) : 10/29/2007 10:25:35 PM GMT
You are missing the point... From a beginners FUD point of view, what we do here looks like black magic.
Here's what is gained:
1) Successful experience soldering (soldering practice for the beginner).
2) Successful project that encourages you to keep moving forward (overcome FUD).
3) Enjoyment from the project coupled with understanding of what you are playing with.
There's more... But I'm on my way out to a club meeting to meet with a group of beginners. [noparse]:)[/noparse]
Oldbit
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Buttons . . . check. Dials . . . check. Switches . . . check. Little colored lights . . . check.
— Calvin, of 'Calvin and Hobbes.
We all know the - sometimes annoying - questions in this forum:
- How do I connect a transistor, a 5V device, a GPS receiver, a nuclear bomb detonator to my Prop?
- Is it safer to use a 5MHz crystal and PLL16X or a 10 MHz crystal and PLL8X
- Should I use VGA or is TV just as well?
So it would be great to have a reference to all that - But this is not your task, I think.
A rarely put question is: But why is it so... This needs good answers, most of them from the elctronics department...
A quite different request is this: "I do not want to use a "board", I want to start from scratch! Please advice!"
I understand that it is this last thing you want to address!?
So, how to avoid to end-up with the demo board?
Or - maybe - this is not even something to be avoided...
Rather it should be explained why the demo board is as it is!?
And much fun at the "Beginner's Meeting" !
Post Edited (deSilva) : 10/30/2007 1:05:55 AM GMT
I started a few years ago dabbling with PIC's, driven my my curiosity and need to understand how the product's I was using in my day to day business worked.
I started with the trusty old 16F84, looked around the net, found a video generator schematic, built it, loaded the hex file and was instantly hooked.
I found that there was a whole heap of information available out there to get me started and from being a complete beginner 3 years ago I can now build systems from the ground up.
Now I'm no electronics or programming expert and I certainly wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for the help, assistance and encouragement of others.
A whole lot of users of microcontrollers out there don't even want to know how they work or what you can do with them, they just accept that a product containing them works, hell, most of the time they wouldn't even know what a microcontroler is or whether the product they've just bought contains one or more....
But what about those people who do want to know how things work, well, this book could be a good starting point for them!
I know from personal experience that I looked for and purchased similar titles when I first started....
deSilva, I can see your point of view about "computers" and perhaps the title "Designing Your Own Microcomputer: with the Propeller" needs a little reworking.
Let's not let that stand in the way of what is a terrific idea and can only help to attract more users of this fantastic little micro.
I am very happy that Jeff, yourself and many others take the time and effort to contribute to this forum you should all be applauded for your efforts.
You know there's a TV advertisemnet here in the UK for the Government Education Department, it's tag line is... 'Those who can, Teach!" www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiX7CcdkQZk
Enough said....
Regards,
Coley
- How do I connect a transistor, a 5V device, a GPS receiver, a nuclear bomb detonator to my Prop? <<<
Oh, great, now we'll have the NSA, CIA, FBI, DHS, and probably OBL hanging out here!
Sounds good to me and I look forward to reading it.
Not sure about "Designing your own microcomputer" as the title, and I can understand how people are getting tied up with what a "computer" is, and what in this case a "microcomputer" is or does.
"How to take a Propeller Chip and actually make it useful" seems a more accurate description of what you are doing. For the chosen hardware add-ons, what it is, how it works, how to connect it, how to control it, the software needed and how that can be integrated to other things, plus an example of its use would be very handy for a lot of people, including a wider audience than just Propeller users.
@Desilva, I don't have a problem with the demoboard, as a matter of fact it's one of the products I'm writing about.
However, I do think that buying a demoboard and slapping an SD card on it robs the job of "I built this myself" from
the project. (And I mention that in my text)
@TOMIG Update:
Three enjoyable hours spent at the club tonight. Four of us in attendance. (Our youthful attendies were in NY on
on the Today Show this morning) Beginner topics revolved around how programs are loaded into the Propeller,
where is my program when the power is off. What should I use to solder female headers into my Protoboard
and a comparison of the various types of Parallax Propeller projects and what could I do with them. Some discussion
of the forums and what to expect here. <smirk> as well as some math calculations on the wattage requirements of
Chip's 8x8 propeller matrix. [noparse]:)[/noparse] [noparse][[/noparse] If you can find 4-6 people min in your area, start a club! We're having a ball! ]
The Propeller chip deserves a wider audience than a bunch of EE's.. It's better than that.
From what I can tell being in this forum, there are three catagoies everyone seems to fall into.
1. I'm an EE, I've been working in the electronics field for years.
2. I'm not an EE, but I know enough to be very dangerous with a soldering pencil.
3 The Propeller is the first chip I've every played with and this looks like fun.
I place myself into category two. When I first showed up here, thankfully someone (Mike Green) was
willing to answer some fairly ignorant hardware questions regarding the Propeller Protoboard and
encouraged me to keep working it. I've filled in a lot of gaps in my understanding of electronics and
microcontroller understanding, and because I've programmed in other languages it wasn't stretch to read
the existing spin code and extract a little hair in the process of catching on.
For those that are in category three, this is a scary place. There is a pretty large gap they need to
jump to start enjoying the Propeller. What I'm working on a small bridge over that gap. It's not
the only solution, but it's designed from my perspective. You're view will vary.. NP... [noparse]:)[/noparse]
Give this little chip more credit... It'll hold up under the requirements of a rank beginner....
Oldbitcollector
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Buttons . . . check. Dials . . . check. Switches . . . check. Little colored lights . . . check.
— Calvin, of 'Calvin and Hobbes.
Post Edited (Oldbitcollector) : 10/30/2007 2:56:56 PM GMT
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8734787622017763097&q=engelbart
Knowing or un-knowing you will anyhow
"My propeller and other components"
"How to make yourself a wizz bang box of tricks with the propeller"
"Building a Real Time Digital Assistant (RTDA) with the parallax propeller"
"Chocks away with the parallax propeller, a guide to building a useful computing device"
"Schizotronic, building a system with eight brains based on the parallax propeller"
"Learning the propeller is not a book"
"No interruptions: the propeller as a paradyme shift in microcontrollers leading to global dominations of machines over humans starting with a keyboard and a mouse"
THE PROPELLER DIET
How I lost 6 Stone in 3 weeks!!
I've been on the road. Just read your Preface... great stuff. Not only are the innards of computer's getting more remote from us, most people do not have a basic concept of what happens when they flip a switch. Calling the a Propeller system a "computer" also bothers me... but for reasons quite different than deSilva states.
The Propeller is so much more than any microcomputer ever offered that it sounds almost insulting to make the comparison.
I think your book could easily be the missing link, here. Hopefully, we will now have a single path that an absolute novice can take... all the way from the Labs to deSilva country.
deSilva said:
"Micro-Computing has grown up and it is now well understood where the real problems are: The most important is energy dissipation, the second is energy dissipation, the third is energy dissipation."
deSilva,
You couldn't be more wrong.
I think you meant to say "heat." As you know, energy is a non-conservative concept, which can be traced backed to Voltaire's mistress,
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Buttons . . . check. Dials . . . check. Switches . . . check. Little colored lights . . . check.
— Calvin, of 'Calvin and Hobbes.