Posts

Android Phone Screens under a Microscope

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Did you ever wonder what an Android phone screen looks like under a microscope? So did I. So at the start of this weekend, I got the microscope out and took some photos, collected in one picture below. The results are amazing. What looks white to the naked eye, is really a large field of RGB (red-green-blue) elements under magnification. All colors are, of course, obtained by adjusting the brightness of each RGB element appropriately, as illustrated in this picture too.

Chess for Android v5.4: Adjudication

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I am rolling out Chess for Android version 5.4 on Google Play . Besides minor improvements, the major new feature consists of draw and resign adjudication during chess engines tournaments. As shown below, a new tournament dialog has been implemented which shows, besides familiar older options, a section for draw and resign adjudication. If during a game, after the given move number and during the given move count, the score drops below the requested draw score (in cp) or exceeds the requested resign score (in cp, either consistently for white or for black), the game is adjudicated rather than played in full. This feature has been requested many times by tournament managers to avoid wasting time playing e.g. boring drawn games until the 50-move rule applies. See this talkchess posting for an example game. As usual, let me know if you encounter problems with the new release. Also, I could use some help translating the new strings into several languages (most will display Eng

Micro-KIM Tutorial: The Memory Map

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Let’s revisit the Micro-KIM memory map, introduced in the third tutorial. +-----------+ | 2K EPROM  |$1fff | monitor   | | program   |$1800 +-----------+ | 6532 RIOT |$17ff | I/O, timer| | and RAM   |$1740 +-----------+ | optional  |$173f | I/O, timer| | and RAM   |$1400 +-----------+ |           |$13ff | 5K RAM    | |           |$0000 +-----------+ Since the default kit (without any expansion) only uses the lower address bits to access 8K, memory repeats itself every 8K. You can verify this by storing and inspecting values in, for instance, addresses $0000 and $2000. Any value stored in one address will show up in the other. Although an interesting factoid, there is no reason to let Micro-KIM programs address anything outside the range $0000-$1fff. Addresses $0000-$13ff contain 5K free RAM (another interesting factoid: the Micro-KIM actually wastes 3K of its 8K RAM chip to keep compatibility with the original KIM-1). This memory region can be used to store da

Micro-KIM Tutorial: Available as Single PDF

If you were following (and hopefully enjoying) the Micro-KIM tutorial, you may have noticed a rather long silence after the last posting. Unfortunately, my day job and a move plus remodeling claimed most of my spare time. However, I plan to continue the tutorial really soon again! In the meanwhile, I have made all previous tutorials available as a single PDF on my Micro-KIM website , where you can also find the source code of all examples. Future tutorials will be added to this PDF to keep the collection available as a single file.

New Chess Graphics for Chess for Android

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Bryan Whitby, who contacted me earlier to tell about very cool USB chess board projects , contacted me recently with a very generous offer to use his awesome chess graphics in Chess for Android . I am very thankful, since these graphics look really good, and combine well with the various board types already supported. So, expect an updated on Android Play and my website really soon! And, thank you Bryan!