13 Aug 2001 khazad   » (Journeyer)

new job
At last, I got a job. It consists of designing, writing and maintaining software on PDAs. Given my previous experience with Windows API, I'm starting with the Windows CE devices, but the company currently works with Palm too. Most people there are Un*x enthusiasts, and the PDAs just aren't running Linux/NetBSD for the OS comes in ROM (blame HP and Compaq). I had to choose between two positions, this one that I got here in Campinas, and another in Sao Bernardo do Campo, 150 km from here. Even though the other position was for writing Linux device drivers for the hardware the other company manufactures (mostly industrial sensors that are plugged in single-board PCs based on the 386EX processor), the logistics for moving out of Campinas was very complicated and I would need to drop all my open source projects to move. (Here in the state of Sao Paulo getting a phone line capable of dial-up access (i.e., not WLL or cell phone) can take up to 2 years, and I'd need to pay both a rent on the new city and keep paying the apartment here in Campinas. I'd lose money and wouldn't be able to access the net from home for a long, long time, and my projects would die. Not to mention that S.B. do Campo is in the Sao Paulo metropolitan area, one of the most polluted, violent and overcrowded regions of South America, not the place I dream of living in.

MSX / Uzix / FOCA

This week I'm restarting the work on my FOCA compiler system for the MSX/Uzix platform. For those who don't know, check the link, but MSX is an 8-bit computer based on the Z80 processor with nice graphics and sound capabilities popular in Brazil, Japan, Netherlands and Spain in the 1980s. Uzix is a Unix implementation for the MSX, implemented by a college mate who graduated along with me at Unicamp. The system is in development and I committed myself to writing a compiler/linker/assembler system for the lil'machine. I hope to present a working beta of FOCA (Fudeba: Optimizer, Compiler and Assembler) at the Brazilian MSX meeting that will happen in Jau / SP in the first week of november.

eboard
Unfortunately I've slowed down a lot the development, but it's almost done, most TODOs are GUI frills. I hope to have 0.4.x by the end of august.

birthday and guitars
After some months without time to run through electronic component shops to look for the capacitor that was burned in my amplifier, I finally got it and fixed it. Thus today I was able to enjoy my birthday with the volume knob on the loudest and reverb on its finest. I shouldn't be so happy at scaring away my neighbours, but hey :-)

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