janco

My notes from Quantum Computing and Open Hardware tracks are here, if somebody is interested: https://j-marjanovic.io/notes-from-fosdem-2019.html

my notes:

* HardCaml - DSP for FPGA/ASIC, * embedded SW in OCaml (running on Xilinx MicroBlaze), * HardCaml example: AXI interface, GPIO, SPI, cordic, * FPGA: LUTs and regs, BRAM, DSP,

skip to 9:40 if you are familiar with FPGA, skip to 17:50 if you know HDLs, go to 37:10 for a demo

* HardCaml datatypes: registers, wires (can be used before they are assigned), memory, ...

* API: arithmetic, logic, `pipeline`, `reg`, bit selects, `width` --> useful for HW generation, `inst` - use VHDL and Verilog in HardCaml

* signed and unsigned types: checks at compilation, * `bits` = non-synthesizable, `signal`= synthesizable, * `Always` ~ Verilog `always` - used mainly for FSM

* built-in cycle-accurate simulator: supports multiple process, MicroBlaze simulator (instruction set simulator)

* terminal-based waveform viewer and VCD export

* formal verification: SAT solvers - boolean function --> SAT/UNSAT

* software: Ocaml -> bytecode -> Ocaml interpreter for MB, C-stubs in Ocaml library, no signals, no threads, no Unix

* code for HardCaml available on Jane Street GitHub

clearly not, it is missing "blockchain" somewhere in the title

Latency measurement from car side?

Keep in mind that this is scientific community, so most of the (official) communication is anyway in English, and from my personal experience people don't have a problem switching to English anyway.

There is also an International Office (https://guest-services.desy.de/international_office/index_en...) providing help when dealing with government and city administration.

DESY | Software Developer, Firmware Developer | Hamburg, Germany | ONSITE | http://www.desy.de/

DESY is one of the world’s leading research centres for photon science, particle and astroparticle physics as well as accelerator physics.

MSK (Maschine Strahlkontrollen) group develops, builds and operates complex control systems for beam control and beam diagnostics for FLASH, PETRA III and European XFEL. The newly-established MicroTCA Technology Lab at DESY will adapt, develop and market the high-end electronics for external customers in research and industry.

Tech stack:

  * Hardware: mostly FPGA (Xilinx high-end)
  * Platoform: MicroTCA.4
  * OS: GNU/Linux
  * Software: DOOCS, EPICS, Python

Firmware developer: http://www.desy.de/v2/docs/1498038584.pdf (in German)

Software developer: http://www.desy.de/v2/docs/1497019079.pdf (in German)

DESY | Software Developer, Firmware Developer | Hamburg, Germany | ONSITE | http://www.desy.de/

DESY is one of the world’s leading research centres for photon science, particle and astroparticle physics as well as accelerator physics.

MSK (Maschine Strahlkontrollen) group develops, builds and operates complex control systems for beam control and beam diagnostics for FLASH, PETRA III and European XFEL. The newly-established MicroTCA Technology Lab at DESY will adapt, develop and market the high-end electronics for external customers in research and industry.

Tech stack:

  * Hardware: mostly FPGA (Xilinx high-end)
  * Platoform: MicroTCA.4
  * OS: GNU/Linux
  * Software: DOOCS, EPICS, Python

Firmware developer: http://www.desy.de/v2/docs/1498038584.pdf (in German)

Software developer: http://www.desy.de/v2/docs/1497019079.pdf (in German)

Australian Synchrotron is already using three giant flywheels as an UPS, here is a short presentation. I am sure that you will be able to find enough information to determine if doing this would be feasible on a commercial scale.

http://www-conf.slac.stanford.edu/wao2012/talks/Thu_Aug9/McG...

`FLT_EPSILON` represent the minimum difference between two adjacent floats around 1.0; it should be scaled according to the input argument. E.g. your `equal_float` returns `true` for 2e-6 and 4e-6 which are clearly not the same number.

A better comparison would check for zero somehow like this:

    bool zero(float x) { return std::abs(x) <= std::abs(x)*FLT_EPSILON;  }