I apologize for saying a cuss but I have had three separate packages, sent from different vendors, delivered via different package carriers, all fail to deliver to me in a two week period for apparently unrelated reasons with the single common thread that in each case the package carrier lied to my face. I'm a bit frustrated.
The funniest of these possibly was when a package was claimed delivered to the UPS Store mailbox at a time that the UPS Store had been closed for several hours, and the carrier claimed that the package had been signed for by "Evan". Neither I, nor the UPS Store, have any idea who "Evan" is. Evan, whoever you are, I hope you're enjoying the bra
Okay! Just now opened what I fully believed was my AliExpress order and … wait. This is not an FPGA development board. This is a figurine of "Trunks" from Dragonball Z.
I really, really hope this is something my wife ordered to be sent to my PO Box and not what my AliExpress order somehow turned—
Okay. What. On. Earth.
Christine became available, and … she has no idea what this is. She did not order this.
It is addressed to me. By name.
This actually happened. I ordered a Lattice ECP5 development board and instead they mailed me a "Dragonball Z" figurine. Either that or an unrelated company in Hong Kong spontaneously decided to send me a "Dragonball Z" figurine. Maybe they're just fans?
Now, I should note, I'm checking right now, and it turns out this "Trunks" figurine they mailed me is actually more expensive than the FPGA development board I actually ordered. By like twenty or thirty dollars. So it's possible I actually got a good deal here. But: I do not need a "Trunks" figurine. I don't even like Dragonball. Why couldn't it have been like… Ultraman. Or Spider-Gwen. SH Figuarts has a pretty good Spider-Gwen figure?
So when I decided to start learning FPGAs, I ordered three separate FPGA devices (the Analogue, and two devboards). I felt kind of silly ordering three, but my thought was, what if one of them is a bust? I was imagining like "what if one of them doesn't work right" or "what if one of them only works with some proprietary Windows software". I was not expecting "what if one of them turns out to be a Dragonball Z figurine" to be what actually happened but apparently I made the right decision anyway
Okay. After an absurdly long and nail-biting process AliExpress has authorized my refund for the FPGA board which turned out to be a DBZ action figure, and I have used the refund credit to buy a second one of the same item. I realized after the first order I should have bought the one with slightly-bumped specs ("i9" instead of "i5") so I paid a little extra and got the i9 SKU this time. I wonder what action figure they'll send me this time
I was trying to get something roughly LUT-equivalent to the Analogue Pocket so I could be sure my work still functions without the Analogue life support system
@mcc talk soothingly to your Trunks figurine. Tell it it's a good FGPA, and you've got a treat for it. You can coax it out of its threat response if you're patient.
@mcc so, the analogue pocket presently relies on Intel Quartus, which is proprietary, and also kind of bloated.
I'm one of the developers of the open source Intel FPGA flow, and, we've made good progress, but I don't know how usable it's going to be in this case since I haven't had time to study the Pocket.
@lofty the pocket uses the proprietary Intel toolchain, and it requires some super expensive proprietary programmer or maybe it overvoltages and dies. But I'm willing to go to quite a bit of bother for the pocket cuz it offers a lot. I'm not willing to go to so much bother for a $30 dev board off Aliexpress
@mcc I have a developer pocket (I mentioned that I worked on the open Intel flow - Mistral - and they randomly gave me one without any communication), and that has a "cartridge" with a USB-C port on it to make updates easy.
honestly I'm a bit annoyed they made the platform closed off to everyone else, but that's analogue for you >.>
@mcc This was a good and exciting thread but also now I want to go on Aliexpress and order weird development boards.
I already have drawers full of weird development boards I am not doing anything with. I don't need any more. It is just an addiction.
But it's not like I NEVER do anything with them. Occasionally, I do. And the results are really cool, and that give the kick that KEEPS THE ADDICTION GOING.
@mcc my limited experience with ordering electronic components from AliExpress included receiving multiple additional deliveries of things I hadn’t ordered. Smart phone cases for phones I don’t own, a package of mysterious seeds, etc.
@mcc@brook If you have absolutely never ordered, or signed up to be gifted, any seeds off the Internet at any time, possibly a "brushing" scam (sellers send small, insignificant items to random people so they can post "verified" reviews for their store using the recipients' names).
If you have ever ordered, or signed up to be gifted, any seeds off the Internet, likely an order that got delayed and you forgot about it; check your Amazon order history.
Regardless, it is a bad idea to order seeds from those random Chinese stores off Amazon, because you are unlikely to get the right seeds whether they arrive on time or not.
@mcc There is a really dissapointed kid out there right now who 10 yrs from now will be an accomplished microelectronics designer.
What got you into Computer Engineering eh? You wouldn't believe it. I ordered a DragonballZ figure but they sent me a programmable gate array dev kit. It sat on my bookshelf for a year before I got bored and figured out how to use it. Next thing you know I was automating dad's lawn mower then I applied to MIT and it was all over.
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