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High School Dropout, Self-Taught Chip Designer
circletimessquare writes "The QVC television shopping network has recently found a hit in its product the C64, which emulates the classic Commodore 64 in a small form factor, a joystick. But the story of the designer of the product is more interesting than the product. Meet Jeri Ellsworth [NYTimes. You know what that means], whose life story emulates the golden age of garage-based computer design. She is proof that the passion of the homebrew electronic hobbyist is still a viable force in an age when well-funded and well-staffed corporate design teams dominate chip design."
The soul-saver strikes again (Karma Free, for your pleasure):
Reg Free Link
is she HOT?
Enjoy:
YAMHILL, Ore. - There is a story behind every electronic gadget sold on the QVC shopping channel. This one leads to a ramshackle farmhouse in rural Oregon, which is the home and circuit design lab of Jeri Ellsworth, a 30-year-old high school dropout and self-taught computer chip designer.
Ms. Ellsworth has squeezed the entire circuitry of a two-decade-old Commodore 64 home computer onto a single chip, which she has tucked neatly into a joystick that connects by a cable to a TV set. Called the Commodore 64 - the same as the computer system - her device can run 30 video games, mostly sports, racing and puzzles games from the early 1980's, all without the hassle of changing game cartridges.
She has also included five hidden games and other features - not found on the original Commodore computer - that only a fellow hobbyist would be likely to appreciate. For instance, someone who wanted to turn the device into an improved version of the original machine could modify it to add a keyboard, monitor and disk drive.
Sold by Mammoth Toys, based in New York, for $30, the Commodore 64 joystick has been a hot item on QVC this Christmas season, selling 70,000 units in one day when it was introduced on the shopping channel last month; since then it has been sold through QVC's Web site. Frank Landi, president of Mammoth, said he expected the joystick would be distributed next year by bigger toy and electronics retailers like Radio Shack, Best Buy, Sears and Toys "R" Us. "To me, any toy that sells 70,000 in a day on QVC is a good indication of the kind of reception we can expect," he said.
Ms. Ellworth's first venture into toy making has not yet brought her great wealth - she said she is paid on a consulting basis at a rate that is competitive for her industry - "but I'm having fun," she said, and she continues with other projects in circuit design as a consultant.
Her efforts in reverse-engineering old computers and giving them new life inside modern custom chips has already earned her a cult following among small groups of "retro" personal computer enthusiasts, as well as broad respect among the insular world of the original computer hackers who created the first personal computers three decades ago. (The term "hacker" first referred to people who liked to design and create machines, and only later began to be applied to people who broke into them.)
More significant, perhaps, is that in an era of immensely complicated computer systems, huge factories and design teams that stretch across continents, Ms. Ellsworth is demonstrating that the spirit that once led from Silicon Valley garages to companies like Hewlett-Packard and Apple Computer can still thrive.
"She's a pure example of following your interests and someone who won't accept that you can't do it," said Lee Felsenstein, the designer of the first portable PC and an original member of the Homebrew Computer Club. "She is someone who can do it and do it brilliantly."
Ms. Ellsworth said that chip design was an opportunity to search for elegance in simplicity. She takes her greatest pleasure in examining a complex computer circuit and reducing it in cost and size by cleverly reusing basic electronic building blocks.
It is a skill that is as much art as science, but one that Ms. Ellsworth has perfected, painstakingly refining her talent by plunging deeply into the minutiae of computer circuit design.
Recently she interrupted a conversation with a visitor in her home to hunt in between the scattered circuit boards and components in her living room for a 1971 volume, "MOS Integrated Circuits," which she frequently consults. The book concerns an earlier chip technology based on fewer transistors than are used today. "I look for older texts," she said. "A real good designer needs to know how the old stuff works."
Several years ago Ms. Ellsworth cornered Stephen Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computer, at a festival for vintage Apple computers and badgered him for the secrets of his Apple I
Maybe in 20 years she can design a P75. That will show those corparte giants who is boss.
the open chip design movement....
You forgot well-lawyered, for when an uppity innovator dares challenge the corporate status quo. Sadly, all it would take is one lawsuit (ore even the threat thereof) to shut her down.
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
Heres the article w/o registration. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/20/technology/20joy stick.html?ex=1261198800&en=0e285af90f620c58&ei=50 90&partner=rssuserland
It seems as though nostalgia always sells. I went to a local mall recently and there was a stand that was selling something similar to these-it was an N64 shaped controller with a decent collection of SNES games right in the controller. I know if I had money I'd buy it for a young relative to experience the joys of my own childhood. Wouldn't you?
keep your pants on boys ... she's kind of cute
vodka, straight up, thank you!
damnit - i really did mean to post as AC ...
She is NOT a self-taught CHIP DESIGNER. She is a self-taught FPGA programmer. There is a world of difference, the former is impossible, the latter is trivial.
The good thing from this story is that I hope employers will open their ears and eyes to the fact that university is USELESS to form engineers when the drive is not there, and that university is just a replacement for forced military service.
We've covered this before, and everyone debated the included game list. But, it does pose the question...what sounds does an army of salivating nerds make? ;-)
Start rolling out the "She is hot" and "I'd like her to play with my joystick" comments.
One more thing, can Slashdot's editors please stop whining about NYT's registration? To read their news for free just for filling in some info seems like a generous trade.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
...to replace the one she is using now when it is overrun with marriage proposals from /. users.
and see what all of the fuss was about.
I hate stupid rules... Rules that make sense I don't mind... But the stupid ones just really bug me!
When will someone create a 'joystick' with 30 different kinds of porn, instead of having to use that old 'internet' thing.
if you use firefox, check out the extension bugmenot - it let's you bypass all this registration crap.
She?? did this? That is great! I believe this is the first woman I've heard of who has dropped out of school and started a garage-computer company. I'm not being sexist, but it really is the first time I've heard of it.
http://github.com/gbook/nidb
I was just telling my wife about this last night.
Even when you think that any industry is too hard to break into because there are big companies dominating it, one can still create something that is better or worthwhile to people. Even for the sake that some people want to shop somewhere else, or buy a different brand.
I mean, think about it, for 50 years cars were being made and the corporations that made them became big 800lb gorillas. But then look, here comes Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Geo, Saturn, Lexus, Kia and now Scion.
So there is room, just take a look at the history of open source software.
Just think what Ms. Ellsworth could have achieved with a proper education. If anything this story shows how the education system fails for smart people.
Is starting to have an effect! From the article:
Her efforts in reverse-engineering old computers and giving them new life inside modern custom chips has already earned her a cult following among small groups of "retro" personal computer enthusiasts, as well as broad respect among the insular world of the original computer hackers who created the first personal computers three decades ago. (The term "hacker" first referred to people who liked to design and create machines, and only later began to be applied to people who broke into them.)
This column actually notes the distinction between hackers and crackers, well, sort-of... Anyway it sure is refreshing!
Now if only we could come up with different words for good lawyers and bad lawyers. How about Clawyers?
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
There's a picture of her "girl"friend in another story.
Let us hope there are many more people just like her here in America. If there are, the future will be very interesting. If there aren't, we'll find ourselves a nation of passive consumers without any initiative.
Yes, I know it's a tiny bit off topic, but I wanted to reinforce something that seemed to be overlooked. In a previous Slashdot article, everyone was wondering how to get kids into tech, and how important it is to push extra (and internal) curricular activities at school. I said that that wasn't necessary, and this story goes to prove it. I gotta say, this is a really interesting read... what I wonder is how much more she could have done if she had gone to college and been an electrical engineering major...
- dshaw
Cmdr Taco would hit it!
I'D hit it!
time to kill some kitties
The C64 was based on the 6502 processor. So was the Apple ][. Maybe someone will come out with an Apple ][ in a joystick. If Apple was really smart, they would put an Apple ][ inside an IPod.
:P
The problem with the IPod, you can't claim that your joystick is bigger than anyone else's joystick.
Finally, a non-geek news entity getting their termonology somewhat accuarte:
Her efforts in reverse-engineering old computers and giving them new life inside modern custom chips has already earned her a cult following among small groups of "retro" personal computer enthusiasts, as well as broad respect among the insular world of the original computer hackers who created the first personal computers three decades ago. (The term "hacker" first referred to people who liked to design and create machines, and only later began to be applied to people who broke into them.)
"Sadly, all it would take is one lawsuit (ore even the threat thereof) to shut her down."
Suit from whom? Commodore is no more. Sue based on what? Patents? Trademark? Copyright? I don't think you even know, and just want to live up to your moniker.
Also while what she did is nice. What she did is easier using old chips as templates, as opposed to a brand-new chip.
dont mod up, it's some kind of warped karma whoring troll
Actually, you are right if you are discussing the same device I linked to. If you're talking about the Commodore 64 emulator that this thread is about, I don't know about the legalities involved with C64 roms, due to them being atleast 20 years old or so. It would be interesting if someone could shed some light on legal issues that Miss Ellsworth could possibly face regarding this, if any?
She gets a consultants fee for something that very few people could do and she could do it quickly? I'm no business person, but she should have seriously tried to get a percentage of these joysticks.
Oh, wrong site.. Sorry.
Bel, the mostly sane.. "Of course I can't see anything! I'm standing on the shoulders of idiots." -- Me
If you spent as much time and effort doing independent projects in computing and research as they have you doing off the wall homework and cookie cutter projects, you'd be well on your way to writing sentences this long.
God spoke to me.
smart people don't need school. only dumb people. I'm dumb too, so don't feel bad. some of the very best in IT have no college degree at all. They just pick it up on their own. These aren't your normal programmer and they don't fit in the normal definition. There are also plenty of idiots in the IT field with no degrees, so having no degree doesn't meant anything.
She looks like a conniving elf in the picture. So in Slashdot terms, yes she's hot.
"Now if only we could come up with different words for good lawyers and bad lawyers."
Plaintiff. Defendant.
School is only a method of pointing you in the right direction to become educated and if you learned enough they give you a piece of paper that says you have learned stuff. If it weren't for regulations in such areas almost every job could possibly be done by a person who never graduated from high school or college. A person who is motivated enough will learn without the need of school. They can go the the library them self and learn information. They can read stories about how other people did things, they can educate themselves without the need for school.
I would like to think school is more a Map to show you were you can go for success. But just like driving on the road you don't always need a Map common since and some exploring will help you get to your location as well, sometimes (usually) a little longer then normal but sometimes a lot quicker. As well with schooling like driving with a Map if you don't know where you are or where you are going the Map is useless.
That said dropping out of school is still often a bad idea, because while you may get there by chance if you had a better education it will give you at least basic directions to start out on, training people with good research skills and the ability to learn for themselves.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
So, she should have (it's pretty funny to see basic mistakes coming from someone telling someone else to stay in school) gotten into debt to get a boring, mind-numbing cubicle-drone job, AND get into debt for it?
Fuck, you're a GENIUS!
very cute
"She is NOT a self-taught CHIP DESIGNER. She is a self-taught FPGA programmer. There is a world of difference, the former is impossible, the latter is trivial."
Impossible? What about the guys who invented the first chips? Did they go to some class that taught how to build chips which will be invented in the future?
You can buy the same books that they have at schools. You can learn the same things on your own that you'd learn in schools. Some people (such as myself) are tinkerers, and we learn better by experimenting on our own than we do sitting in a classroom.
I find it funny that I've also heard people saying you need to go to school to be a programmer or work in the computer industry. Most of us geeks know that's also false.
Just curious really, the article said that you could play the games without changing cartridges, so I assume that its a HD in there, but I was wondering if any of the QVC watching slashdotters has played with it.
From the quote at the bottom of the page:
How can you think and hit at the same time -- Yogi Berra
Geos are rebranded suzukis
geeky beyond belief
What I found interesting about it was that the article hints that you could hook up a keyboard to the device and a drive and have a computer. They keep getting better and better games in these things. Pretty soon PS one in a gamepad.
.. cough..cough)
Slashdot covered the release of the device here.
slashdot coverage of the device commodore game device
I discovered..
(when I submitted the story 12 hours ago
...and she's pretty too! :D
You see? That's exactly what's wrong with geek chicks... Not a single shot for anything sexy...
I'm tiured of people saying to need to pass high school. I didn't and I am making 60k a year. Ok, mainly because I'm a fricken genius with this shit, but still.
[NYTimes. You know what that means]
That they're just making shit up?
Dont you hate it when you're looking for -1 Martyr and you get Funny?
Uh she built race cars for profit too.
That is REAL engineering not the geeking off BS you homos do between checking out all male porn and posing as teenage sluts on chat sites.
Give her her props she deserves 'em.
"Just think what Ms. Ellsworth could have achieved with a proper education. "
How do you know she doesn't have a proper education? Who says that learning on your own isn't proper?
Maybe Bill Gates should have stayed in school and got a degree. He could have been rich, I tell you!
Wouldn't kick her out of bed..... Unless she wanted to go at it on the floor: http://www.hal-pc.org/~bbaker/kfest2003-4.html
This nerd crowd must surf FuglyNasties.com for porn or something if they think she's hot.
She's pretty hot, she's smart and ONLY a geek would even think of bringing back the C64 like this.
The important question, is she single?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
if you use firefox, check out the extension bugmenot - it let's you bypass all this registration crap.
That's nice but it should be automatic done when you click submit for Slashdot.
Come-on guys!
We have a way to keep spammers at bay from our slashdot accounts but we are stumpped for NYT reg-BS?
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
Men are usually fat and hairy, they're rarely hygenic, they fart in public, they care not for others' feelings... just what do women find attractive in men? Thank God they do though. I especially thank the lord some desire my proclivities. For I am the Marquis de Sade, and you are just a loser geek. More power to the lesbian babe with a hardon for hardware!
SMACK!
Your piss is far from frosty, sir.
Of course some guys like that 70's hair with no bangs look. We all have our preferences. She's just not mine.
So she designed a joystick. Big deal.
This is for all of you people who have said you need to be institutionalized in an education system with a forced curriculum of subjects that have nothing do to with what you want to do in life. This is proof that motivation, willpower, and talent are perfectly acceptable ingredients to successfully building your own education and career path.
I'm only in college because I do not have the motivation to go out and learn all the stuff by myself. I enjoy having structured (but not overbearing) objectives to my learning path. I could probably be done a lot quicker if I did not have all these boring and uninteresting "liberal arts" program classes (you know, literature, humanities, etc.) that do not relate to my degree or build on skills useful for becoming at what I want to do.
Remember, there is no one path to success. This person built her own success without listening to the majority of voices that say you have to follow a certain path to succeed.
She's turning up a ton of hits on Google
s worth.txt
Here she is at the XGamestation booth: http://www.xgamestation.com/view_media.php?id=109
Here's another article on her:
http://home.att.net/~rmestel/articles/on_road_ell
Intel hired knitters for wiring the first set of chips back in the day.
Cobol was designed by a Grace Murray Hopper.
Frances Elizabeth Snyder Holberton was involved in Fortran's development.
Ada Lovelace wrote first program to calculate Bernouli numbers.
If you're going to troll, learn how to troll right.
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
Of course, as a woman, she's not limited by having her brain between her legs.
Sorry. I meant to say that you can really do something in software. The sentence wasn't that long. Came off flat retarded. It just seemed to me that College was incredibly difficult and in specialized areas I'd never use in order to "round off the education".
I would have been much better off doing independent projects that forked over the $100,000 I paid to do a bunch of hoop jumping.
It feels so much nicer to focus on work and drive research than it does to do all sorts of random tasks in order to make you a Renasance(sp) thinker.
I'm all for this girl, and Bill Gates, showing that college isn't necessary. At the same time, I think its highly important that people never stop their education. If you can't do lots of independent research, and learn on your own, you should definately keep up with college.
God spoke to me.
College is a good thing, so let's get that off the table right out of the gate.
She clearly has a different way of learning and passion for what she does. Who's to say secondary school would help at this point? The biggest thing she has going for her right now is her view of how things work. The schools are going to take her down a path already taken by lots of people. It's a good path, but not the only one for sure.
In a few years, she will have a very interesting mix of current thinking mixed with old school stuff sprinkled with creativity and passion. We just might see some very good products come from that mix.
All I am saying is that what she can get done is not limited in any way by not going to school.
Your other point rubs me the wrong way too. She dropped out of school because it did not address her interests well enough. Getting kids interested in the tech means getting them the means to access and make use of it. In her case, she had other access. (I too was sucked in by HAM radio operators --good crowd if you are technically inclined --thanks guys!)
Lots of kids drop out because their passion lies outside the school. This tells me our high schools need some work. For every story like this we don't hear about the 100 dropouts that don't connect and end up making minimum wage or enter crime / drug scenes.
Good for her, but we can't hold her story up and say our schools are fine, that's all.
Blogging because I can...
She moved to Walla Walla, Wash., and began attending Walla Walla College
Wallahi?!
It really makes you question your role in society...especially when it seems that women are portrayed like idiots or dumb blondes in the media. Or that all I should care about is makeup, clothes, and hair (trust me I'm not that obsessed - just ask my husband). Sometimes even today I ask myself "what they hell am I doing?" "Why didn't I do elementary ed like every girl I know?" It is still something I struggle with even today.
I always wished I could have had another woman to look up and admire for their technical achievements. I almost never thought it would happen in my lifetime. Congratulations to her on her long list of achievements, and hopefully she can encourage another generation of woman to get into tech....especially engineering!!
but only after she was making money running her own show (Selling remote controlled cars). This is a very important point.
So many kids get jobs in school doing things they don't like, (Restaurant, Gas Station, etc) but they don't try to make money doing what they like. Why not do what you like? You're not going to make a ton of money anyways, so why not make it doing something you like.
Start up a business, do something you enjoy. Don't worry about being old enough, or the possible legal obligations, just do it! Sure it can fail, but once you learn how to make money on you're own your set. There's no need to jump though these bureaucratic hoops once you can make your own way.
I really think that it's worth mentioning Jeri's other much more interesting and complicated project, the C-One. If you think the C64 joystick/computer is amazing, take a look at the C-One and you should be substantially more impressed:
http://c64upgra.de/c-one/
She's CLEARLY reading this...
Why did you drop out of high school?
Dude, the chick designs microprocessors. Where the fuck is your head? I think the better question is: what do you do in your spare time?
Why bother.
Nevertheless, nicely done...
That was the vaguest article I have ever read. She is a consultant who makes things go and does stuff. Got it.
So, did she really design a custom IC all by her self with no tools and then get a fab to spend millions/billions on her custom chip based on her paper drawings that had never been simulated?
Or, did she design an ASIC?
Or did she simply program an FPGA?
Her "C-1" computer sounded like it was either an FPGA, or an emulator, but certainly not a custom chip.
If I am wrong and she really did design chips, what CAD programs was the high-school dropout able to afford, or were chips so small back then that you really could do it on paper?
Just think what Ms. Ellsworth could have achieved with a proper education.
MUCH LESS
For the really creative problem solver types like her, school is a dangerous reconditioning of one's mind and social outlook. If you're not suited for it, excessive schooling/socialization can kill both your entrepreneurial spirit and your creative talent.
It is NOT ironic in the slightest that so many great innovators were drop-outs.
Sadly, all it would take is one lawsuit (ore even the threat thereof) to shut her down.
-- Just like it happened to this poor sap [tinyurl.com].
Beware the sig in the parent post. The link is not work-safe, and the context makes it look like it's relevant to the discussion:
With all the girl-geek comments going around, has anyone checked to see if Stroker is on the C64 joystick?
Thanks, but my name is not Fuck.
She is gorgeous (Where's "Grits Boy" when you need him), but I think the fact that she hacks around with hardware and brings video games to kids makes her extra-attractive. *sigh*
---
Play Six Pack Man. I
Large photo here.
Apparently she works from prison. Note what she's holding up as a sample of her work.
3D Printing Tips and Tricks at Zheng3.com
Not only that, but even with an engineering degree from a recognized school, you won't create anything worth having while you're slaving away at your mind-numbing cubicle drone job. You'll just attend meetings, work on some tiny part of a huge project that ultimately gets cancelled before it's ever released, and then finally get canned.
Sorry, but a silly joystick running 20-year-old video games is a far greater achievement than most individual engineers will ever achieve working for large companies.
I am just waiting for the mod of this to run sarge.
Respectively, it was the Prism (Toyota Corolla), Metro (Suzuki Swift) and Tracker (Suzuki Escudo and later the Vitara for the post-Geo model), and Storm (Isuzu Impulse)...?
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
She should learn VHDL and design the program the whole C64 on FPGA :D
The day of mask design is long gone
Or look at the author of the article. Isn't he was the one responsible for whole kevin mitnick public affair? I guess something to ponder.
One only need to have been part of one of these mythical "well-funded and well-staffed" corporate teams (or to know someone who has been part of one) to know that the garage-based tech hobbyist is nowhere near extinction. High-power staffing and funds are nothing--NOTHING--next to the power of a real vision. A single person with a great idea and a little know-how can lay waste to any corporate team. Don't get so caught up with the corporate facade that you start to doubt it. Watch how many little companies with great ideas that corporations buy up. They do it so regularly that it hardly makes the news anymore. The real ideas aren't coming out of boardroom discussions.
And remember that IBM was once the indomitable corporate force and Apple and Microsoft were the little start-ups. That's why people who talk about how Linux won't change anything make me laugh. I don't even use Linux, not even a big fan of it, and I know it has yet to make its biggest impact. That's how this stuff works. Give it time. History repeats itself.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
So.. uh.. how do you feel about dating guys you meet on /.?
"Jeri"? Shouldn't that read "Jerry"? Almost looks like a girl's name or something.
"A real good designer needs to know how the old stuff works."
I won't argue with that!
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
You sarcastic comment only holds if you believe that the only measure of achievement is money. Personaly I don't believe real achievement can be measured in money.
I had to make that sarcastic comment. It was there for the taking and sounded funny.
But I agree with you that money is not the ultimate measure of success.
"She is someone who can do it and do it brilliantly."
;->
Ah yes, the entire Slashdot audience can now play Stroker-64. What, it doesn't include that gem of a C64 game? Somehow I don't think that is going to matter...
I love this story, but I have to wonder something here... Didn't the C64 come with schematics? I don't remember for sure, but I know that computers of that era commonly came with them or had them available. If that is the case, did she really reverse engineer it or was it most of a... "hmm.. I have schematics, I can understand them, how about I just translate them to an FPGA and see if I can make it go?"
Even if that was the case, she still deserves props for thinking of doing it in the first place and then making it happen. I don't mean to make light of her accomplishments or anything.
Consults Google... Yep, there were schematics available. here is one place to see them.
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
Does anyone know what she did (or did not do) on the legal issues of recreating the C64 and building in not only 30 games (where it would likely be very hard to find the owners of those games and obtain the ights), but the Commodore kernel code as well?
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
will it run Linux?
Hot grits!
Looks or no looks, she just made sexiest geek alive for 2004 in my book.
Uhhhhh Why do fucking people put that in their posts? It's not witty or clever, it just makes you look like a stupid asshole. STOP DOING IT!
The Geo Metro was a Suzuki Swift.
The Geo Prizm was a Toyota Corolla.
Beware. I was at work, jerk.
How many "she is hot" posts are required to give her the Slashdot Certified certification. With a NY Times article about her skills and a Slashdot story that comments endlessly on her looks, she must be walking on air. And I must say that these 15 minutes of fame are more than well deserved. :-)
Cheers,
Adolfo
Stephanie Kwolek is probably one of the better known female engineers, though she's materials not electrical. She is one of the two people directly responsible for the creation of Kevlar. Got on the order of 28 patents before retiring,a nd these are all real patents for innovative products, not software BS.
While women are still fighting the stereotypes of the past, there are examples of women excelling in almost every field, even traditonal male only roles such as CEO (eg Carol Bartz, CEO and president of Autodesk).
The young lady in question is a major, major (*major*) exception. School has killed the creativity of too many bright stars, true. But far more people have failed by not getting an education than the other way around.
ur links are busted.
found the right ones through google
those pics are on this page:
http://homepage.mac.com/kznight/PhotoAlbum4.html
autodidact
i admire her, the successful self-taught person is an inspiration to any of us toiling away on a part-time hobby, with big dreams
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Not a greater achievement than what she would have designed in school. She really designed an FPGA of the now extinct 6510 processor, really a trivial task. That processor is very simple compared to a mips. It's 8-bits and CompE worth his salt would be able to re-implement the proc in less than a month including substantial design verification. Hell we had 7 weeks to implement a compaq alpha compatible integer processor, with all the goodies, Out of Order execution, 2-way superscalar, caches, and branch prediction. Now other than that the difficulty of re-implementing the VIC chip and SID(I think) would be the most difficult but still not terribly hard considering much of the tedious reverse engineering has been done in the software projects.
Still it is impressive for someone with no formal training although it comes as no surprise. Plenty of people have the desire to learn and in my mind that is what is really important. I believe that most people have the capacity to anything if they desire it badly enough. This does not only apply to technology either.
You're a prick, gumbi. Nice to make fun of a girl on what's probably one the happiest moments of her life. Hopefully she won't read the comments from /.'s virgins and shut-ins.
scion Audio pronunciation of "scion" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (sn)
...i like your definition better though, those things are HIDEOUS.
n.
1. A descendant or heir.
2. also cion (sn) A detached shoot or twig containing buds from a woody plant, used in grafting.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
Why would I ever want to be locked-in into this joystick????
It appears that it's properly licensed.
Commodore isn't exactly the big juggernaut it was 20 years ago...I'd venture to say that the owner of the brand is not exactly "well lawyered". Rather than aim to shut her down, I think they gladly paid her for the idea in hopes of finally making money off the brand for the first time in ages.
Of all the big names of the past I'd say Commodore is the safest bet on the emulation scene. The other big players 20 years ago? Apple, Atari, IBM, perhaps you could include Tandy and TI in there as well. There are still big companies behind all those brands, and in some cases they have demonstrated a willingness to defend their rights to those brands even if they no longer support those old products.
Jeri's a sharp cookie, she has gotten in on the leading edge of a craze. Those retro joysticks (a lot of them pirate NES knockoffs) are all over the malls this Christmas...it's quite possible they will be a real craze next year. Whether they'll remain popular in the long haul I'm not sure. In any case, the original NY Times article is right, Jeri has all the hallmarks of becoming another Woz or Burell or Dr. Roberts. I'd ventrue to say there'll be more neat stuff to come from here in the future.
Chip designer?
This title implies that the designer also has knowledge of analog systems. Fine, you can design logic/FPGA's. Digital systems are possible to learn by reading a book or two; Analog/mixed-signals design requires intensive schooling.
Let's see you design a moderate-gain opamp with even a decent bandwidth that doesn't go into crazy positive feedback.
About 2 years ago, I posted to ask slashdot about free chip design software. A friend had recently started to turn his life around (after jail, etc.) and went to school for chip design, but was having trouble finding a job using those skills, and was starting to forget the skills he learned. I was looking for either Windows (he has a PC) or Solaris apps (I would give him a Sun U5). Specifically he trained on Cadence's packages. So, what free software are they referring to? (btw, my ask slashdot was never picked up). Cadence doesn't offer a "student edition" of their software. Indeed, most of the vendors didn't.
Digital systems are indeed possible to learn by yourself. It is much harder to learn the compensation, stability-analysis, and frequency response of analog chips however.
Industrial quality mixed-signals systems still require rooms of MSEE's or PhD's to design.
"I wouldn't call it trivial, but yeah... when I read "Self-Taught Chip Designer", I was surprised."
Think of the difference between CS and code monkey.
FPGA designer can be thought of as a subset of chip designer. There's some skill overlap, and I think that's were the confusion is coming from.
There is however a difference, and if you're a money making enterprise? Getting the wrong tool for the job, will hurt you in the end.
There's another thing to keep in mind, as far as differences between hardware and software. Software is more tolerant of mistakes, and amiable to the compile-recompile that learning incurs.
Hardware is less tolerant of mistakes, and the design-test-redesign-retest process can get expensive. FPGA's minugate some of this, but only within the limitations of the technology.
Go outside, and you'll see the limits of self-taught. At least with a good university program with fabbing capability, one can learn beyound what self-taught would give you.
That's why universities and colleges haven't disappeared, in the face of self-taught.
Yes, you can buy the same books that Universities use to teach, but you will never learn from someone who's been in the field you want to pursue for 20-30 years at least. That's the key difference.
Also, there are certain subjects that require a good Professor to explain. C/C++ syntax, basic Verilog, can all be picked up by reading a book and trying things out. It is MUCH harder to design RF systems, high-speed digital systems (where you basically have to being modeling analog effects into digital systems), and apply the various EE-theory classes that you thought were useless. You can't just go into the lab and tinker around and come out with a stability compensated high-frequency amp...it requires years of schooling and theory courses.
This is not to belittle digital designers; designing cost-effective and fast digital systems is also extremely difficult, but it's easier to learn the ropes of.
was a woman
ada lovelace
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I wish it were different.
Clever kids get bored out of their minds doing "busy-work", but that's what you're graded on.
Welcome to socialized education.
Note: This is not meant to be a troll. All the kudos goes to her for doing this and I'd get one m'self except for.... ...what is it about the C64 that people still find so facinating years and years later? I ask because, while I did some standard BASIC programming on it, I did the same thing with the Apple ][ and the TI-994/A. I thought the graphics and sound were pretty good on them too, so it's clear I never "got" the C64, but just want to know what makes it special.
Note, I'm not saying "I don't think it's special", I'm saying "I know it's special to a lot of people...tell me why."
How about Radia Perlman?? !!
All those feats were accomplished by men and then presented as having been done by women. Those women basically rode in on the coattails of men who did the work. Read the book !
I weep silently in my cube for the good ole days...
when they ban enctryption only criminals wi$21*J *#JF$%!@#$':
I'm halfway through the responses and haven't yet encountered a single comment about the greatness of this project!
/. disappoints once again.
I think that this inllustrates the fact that schools are not for everyone, and also speaks volumes about the support her father gave her in raising and educating her and giving her the confidence to achieve her goals.
See my art -> http://herbevore.deviantart.com
These are the types of people that young girls in school should be pointed towards as role models, rather than idiot actresses and trendy pop stars. This is a girl who actually accomplished something in her life besides just looking pretty.
And yes, it did take me three tries to type "pop stars" correctly (came up with "porn stars", "pop tarts", and "pop starts" before doing it right).
Check this.
Notice the yellow front teeth.
http://www.benheck.com/
-or-
http://www.classicgaming.com/vcsp/
It's not just the PSOne, though: he also has handcrafted hand-held NES, SNES, a brand new PS2, and (the source of the URL and the beginning of all of this madness) a plethora of hand-held VCS units (AKA the Atari 2600.)
This man is amazing! And if I had a few extra hundred dollars just lying around, I'd probably try and buy one of them from him.
What is the difference between a small revolutionary change and a large evolutionary change?
"Her hobby produced a chameleon computer called the C-1. Changing its basic software could make it mimic not only a Commodore 64, but ultimately more than nine other popular home computers of the early 1980's, including the Atari, TI, Vic and Sinclair."
Best Buy happens to be selling just such a device that is designed to play old Atari games. It's sold by Atari but I wonder if they are using her design.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
..this is Gupta. How may I help you?
Intel hired knitters for wiring the first set of chips back in the day.
Cobol was designed by a Grace Murray Hopper.
Frances Elizabeth Snyder Holberton was involved in Fortran's development.
Ada Lovelace wrote first program to calculate Bernouli numbers.
I just wish that the pictures that they stick in text books were the "young" versions. Have you seen any of the pictures of those women? They all are ancient grandmothers! Couldn't they have found some pictures of when they were younger?
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/20/technology/20joy stick.html
is a better link (no password)
and yes, she's something ain't she
/\/\icro/\/\uncher
Obviously you haven't seen the chip fabrication category on eBay!
C B-Equipment_Semiconductor-Manufacturing_W0QQcatref ZC4QQfromZR13QQsacategoryZ45043QQsocmdZListingItem ListQQsocolumnlayoutZ3QQsojsZ1QQsosortpropertyZ1 )
( http://business.listings.ebay.com/Semiconductor-P
It said she had a barn.... . . .
Southeastern Virginia REPRESENT!
Commodore Business Machines, LTD was located for many many years in the building at 1200 Wilson Dr., West Chester, PA. Today, that building is occupied by QVC. I find it interesting that QVC is hawking a machine that has the name of the product built in the same building that QVC is in now.
If you have a map, are in the wilderness and don't know tthe area you can die. As simple as that.
You need a guide that has been there, done that, and got the T-shirt.
Those guides are called teachers.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Now tell us keemosabee, how do you educate millions of people cost effectively in the real world (you could stop invading countries half world away and using the money on education, but note I said real world ).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
*250,000 units for sale
*NTSC only (forget it if you have a PAL TV)
*games include ~ 30 original legally released games ported
*128K RAM, 2M ROM
*256 colours
*SID sound, 3 voices
Robert also suggests enterprising hackers can "... solder on a serial port ..." for that true C64 feel keyboard and drive
References[1] www.aroundmyroom.com/blog/images/c64dtv/index.htm
[2] groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.sys.cbm/msg/7e6
peterrenshaw ~ Another Scrappy Startup
Look, I'll get down to it.... :-)
We all love geek chicks.
Yadda, yadda, yadda...
Congrats to Jeri on her success, and now here are some pix of her, enjoy.
pic 1
pic 2
pic 3
pic 4
Karma police, arrest this man, he talks in maths....
this vs. this . (Claire Forlani)
Vivin Suresh Paliath
http://vivin.net
I like
From the article:
"Her hobby produced a chameleon computer called the C-1. Changing its basic software could make it mimic not only a Commodore 64, but ultimately more than nine other popular home computers of the early 1980's, including the Atari, TI, Vic and Sinclair."
I assume that the "could" is a theoretical "could" and that not all of these have been developed.
The disclaimer on the C-one site seems to indicate that there is much work to be done:
http://c64upgra.de/c-one/disclaimer.htm
[obvious]
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
From the newsgroup article:
... While in China, she tired easily of the food."
"In her quest to get the C64 DTV just right, she traveled to China and stayed there for a week
She got tired of food in Hong Kong in only one week? Surely this must be a typo. The food there is most excellent. All you single geeks lusting after her better look into this one.
^_^ shes my type, also a drop out, heading for a 400K+ a year salary ^_^
:)
fuck american schools
Elizabeth Rather http://www.forth.com/
sorry to break this but, at least according to this post http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=133384&c id=11141509
she is not biologically a female. That post was in the context of talking about how hot she is, but I think it's relevent here too. Of course that guy might've been making it up but what would be his motivation?
Here is a moderately comprehensive index of women scientists throughout history. Some names are linked to biographies.
The woman who commands most of my respect, geek-wise, was Mary Annings. She discovered her first new species of dinosaur at age 12, and a second at age 20. She made a living collecting
(and extracting as necessary) fossils, which she sorted and indexed. It is said that she inspired the tounge-twister "she sells sea-shells by the sea shore". Anyone who can run their own business at age 12, AND make enough to feed herself and her siblings, AND have enough time to recognise a new discovery, is deserving of enormous respect.
There are two women in history I respect as leaders. Margret Thatcher, although I despised her policies, has few equals when it comes to getting things done.
However, Britain has had one female ruler who was stonger still. Bodicca (also known as Queen Bodaccea) was betrayed, abused, molested and torured and her father (the King at the time) was savagely murdered in front of her. The tribe she belonged to (the Icini) were scattered and - if caught - butchered. She managed to gather the survivors up, get herself accepted as ruler, turn them into a near-invincible fighting force, and kicked the Imperial Roman army very nearly out of Britain entirely. Most British currancy today bears the figure of a woman in iron-age battle-dress. This figure is derived from the historical Bodicca. Even the legend of "Robin Hood" hasn't had that kind of a grasp on society.
To me, it seems obvious that women have been significant in many disciplines, throughout history. It begs the question of how much further along society could have been if more had been encouraged. Given the sheer number of names on the list, it also begs the question of why feminists are NOT pointing to such an established, proven history to push for greater equality. The future isn't known, but the past is.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
My father always said anyone could do heart surgery. He's dead now. I was recently prosecuted for taking my children to the vet instead of a real doctor. Actually he wasn't a real vet either, he was a self taught taxidermist. For some reason all our pets have died young, but we have a lot of stuffed animals to play with. Luckily for me, the judge was a self taught carpark attendant, and I got off.
If you steal this sig, the only people who will profit are professional criminals.
Hacking your C64 'retroconsole' joystick
It's a common myth that formal education somehow stifles the entrepreneurial urge. This line is usually supported by counting the number of high-profile billionaires were high-school dropouts.
However, it ignores the fact that there are actually *two* areas where people with a lack of formal education are common: one is the billionaire's club. The other is prison. I can tell you which place the uneducated are likelier to end up.
Also, it ignores the fact that most billionaires went to the best schools and universities that money can buy, anyway. The likes of Gates and Wozniak are always the anomaly, not the rule.
I know UPN ran a show on them, but the mullett is back? I see at least two mulletts, and a couple possibles.
Personally I think she's beautiful, but then again I go on brains before I'll even consider the beauty.
Just passing along this bit of trivia. The QVC HQ and studios are on the site of the former Commodore plant in West Chester, Pennsylvania (outside Philadelphia).
How can she design chips without a frabrication plant?
Sure you can fiddle around with autocad and many other cad electronic design tools but that does not make someone an electrical engineer or chip designer.
It makes me wonder how she got started and how she got hired and who invested in her idea's and got her work to the fabrication plants that built her products.
http://saveie6.com/
Many male geeks here joke that they hack or make case mods to gain chicks.
But in reality its yourselves who get all the attention here.
So this means making case mods and building chips or hacking code will have men knocking on your doors.
Just do not let their long hair, bears, and unsanitariness bother you.
http://saveie6.com/
That's so awfully wrong it truly qualifies as libel. Your statements make it ridiculously clear you did not go to school with Jeri. And that you have never met, known or even talked with someone that has every spoken with her.
Perhaps, as another poster indicates, you've confused Jeri with an entirely different person. If so, you should stand up and apologize. Whatever the case, what you've written is libelous and it's on you now.
Sex change? Jeri a him??? Please.... She may play for the other team, but she's as XX-chromosome a female as you're ever going meet. Something you've quite obviously never done.
For all you know she had the money to buy the software and equipment. The article mentioned TWO prior businesses that she was successful at (race car customization and PC sales), so while she isn't Bill Gates, she probably has enough cash to finance appropriate equipment for her current profession.
We are the 198 proof..
that being said, and considering that any woman that greets 10 seconds of fame....she will be in Playboy next month?
We're like rats, in some experiment! -- George Costanza
CmdrTaco would only have hit it before "Jeri's" sex-change. Now that He is a "She", Taco's lost all interest.
Obviously, I don't know squat about the desgin of THIS unit, but I *am* familiar with the C64's design!
:)
Why in God's name would you emulate the tape drive as a means to load software?
It would be one hell of a lot easier to just have the program loader (you know, the piece that lets you pick what game in the joystick you want to play) swap in the right bank of ROM (for a cartridge game), or RAM image, point the virtual 6502's program pointer at the right place (or just twiddle the magic address up there in page $FF and "hit" the "reset" line) and boom! Software running, no extra crap in the way. And you can use the tape buffer.
The "live image" for disk-based, copy-protected games could be scooped easily from a running C64, using.. oh what the hell was it called.. there was some cartridge, possibly by Epyx, where you hit the reset button and BOOM! It dumped RAM to disk, including the position of the program counter, so you could restore saved games in games which didn't save.
Damn, why can't I remember the name of that cart?
Anyhow. You'd think it would be more worthwhile making save-to-disk games work (whoever heard of save to tape??!) by backing up data to RAM... you could probably get away with just writing some custom code and point the kernel jump table at it.. I'd be willing to bet that most games (even heavily copy-protected ones) didn't bother doing anything fancy when *writing* to disk. The "proper" kernel API for disk I/O would be trivial to emulate.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
A BSEE exposes you to a wide range of subjects and you don't really have enough time to learn much about them. The degree is more about teaching you how to think like an electrical engineer. It does not teach you creativity, intelligence, or motivation.
All of the specialized knowledge comes with doing projects. As a hobbyist, she was able to identify and acquire all of the knowledge required to complete this project. I think this is a great accomplishment.
Dallas is a small town, but I could not remember Jeri; which I should because I would have remembered a female geek of such cailber in the same class as me. :) The last name sounded familiar, and when I read the parent's post I knew he was correct. I remember JJ as a big C64 fan and very talented with electronics. I haven't lateley had much contact with anyone I went to high school with, so I had no idea he had a sex change.
So basically, I really think you are wrong about this being libel. If you doubt me, check my slashdot username in the FCC database. I'm a ham and I was first licensed while in high school in Dallas, OR.
Just think what Ms. Ellsworth could have achieved with a proper education. If anything this story shows how the education system fails for smart people.
Hmmmm. Dropout with insightive computer knowledge capitalizes on industry standard. so, a Slashdot comment in an alternate reality might be....
"Commode-Door announced yet another security bulletin. So much for Scari Jeri and a bugfree system."
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
My question is which one of us is gonna be nerdy enough to collect all the pics of her and make a fan site?
Well, I don't know what to make of your statement. There was a famous female electrical engineer, Lynn Conway, who along with Carver Mead at Caltech wrote an influential book on VLSI design.
Conway looks quite attractive, no? See http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&lr=&q=lynn+
Except for one thing: Conway was born as a male, and underwent a gender transformation in 1968.
Now I ask you: If you claim that society discriminates against females and that females are brow-beaten and brainwashed into looking a certain way and behaving a certain way, why would a person born as a male who fathered a child bother to cross over to the "weaker" side and engage in the very stereotypes you despise?
Conversely, when you say
maybe it says something biologically about you.
Unfortunately, males with the same interests also often feel like outcasts. My ex-wife thought of electronic hobbies as a typical male weakness, and she was a physics major who I assumed would be more sympathetic. Also don't overestimate the "fellowship" of male geeks, because its often a fragile and a shallow comraderie. Just be clear that some of the messages from society are because you are a "geek" and not just because you happen to be a woman.
College degrees only serve as a marker to make money by. But most that money is used to pay off college debt.
Library, used book store. YOu can finance your own education within a year.
ala Good Will Hunting...
I'm a male who got a lot of "negative support" I also know of women who got extra encouragement in science and math because their female. Of course, maybe your from one of the "red states" which we expect to be socially backwards.
I'm tired of this revisionist crap. She "programmed" a hypothetical machine, she did not do electronic computer programming as most people understand it. I give credit to Grace Hopper, but Ada Lovelace deserves more credit for being a mathematician, and less for her "programming."
98% of programmers these day hold degrees in Business Administration.
1% hold degrees in Engineering, math..
1% hold one in Computer science.
Intel 4004 - The World's First Single Chip Microprocessor http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa09299
Intel 4004 cpu
Inventors of the Modern Computer Series
Microprocessors - The Chip - Federico Faggin, Ted Hoff and Stan Mazor
interviews with and biographies of the inventors - Federico Faggin, Ted Hoff, and Stan Mazor.
By Mary Bellis
In November, 1971, a company called Intel publicly introduced the world's first single chip microprocessor, the Intel 4004 (U.S. Patent #3,821,715), invented by Intel engineers Federico Faggin, Ted Hoff, and Stan Mazor. After the invention of integrated circuits revolutionized computer design, the only place to go was down -- in size that is. The Intel 4004 chip took the integrated circuit down one step further by placing all the parts that made a computer think (i.e. central processing unit, memory, input and output controls) on one small chip. Programming intelligence into inanimate objects had now become possible.
rest at the URL.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Wow, little suprised to see Walla Walla college listed on New York times. Most of my friends chose to go there, unfortunate it got a a bad light from a highschool dropout though considering it is one of the best computer engineering programs in the state.
Tulip owns the rights to all the Commodore 8-bit IP, but they have ignored all the Commodore emulators and ROM images out there on the Internet. They supposedly do monitor comp.sys.cbm so I'm sure if they felt like it, they could probably issue a cease-and-desist order. After all, anything newer than Steamboat Willie will never go out of copyright ;-)
But Jeri does have the rights to the C-1 hardware and was duly commissioned by companies that had duly licensed the rights for the DTV joystick.
A home computer for the new millenium, only in the style of the home micros of the previous decades, but with none of their disadvantages:
The purpose of this project would be to bring back the fun of home computers, where hardware was standard, the O/S did not block access to the hardware, you could just take the computer with you and operate it anywhere.
I am willing to help writing the operating system, the window system and the compilers. Of course it would use Unicode inside out, so there shall be no language problems.
The company that hired Jeri had aquired rights to the ROM's and other Commodore IP already. Commodore 8-bit IP is owned by a Dutch company named Tulip.
LaCreole Middle School, Dallas, Oregon, 1989
(Sorry about the editorial comments on the other pictures, that was my sister's doing and that's why I don't have any of my HS yearbooks any more)
I'm not trying to embarass anyone, but Slashdot demands proof, so there you go. As far as I'm concerned that does not diminish Jeri's accomplishments one bit. It should however, give all of you guys making comments like the upskirt stuff something to think about. Oh, and Mal, I expect you to apologize.
Because (RTFA) she, from scratch, created a single chip that performs all the functions of the multiple chips that were in a Commodore 64, including customized extensions, as the C=64 didn't have games built in. This is not an "old computer in some strange box". And this chip fits inside a joystick, is powered by a battery, and, unlike some other hobbyist work (the GPL'ed sparc implementations anyone?) this has seen real-live production, in a system that costs $30ish. Oh, and she hid easter eggs (BASIC, keyboard/periph support) in it to boot.
(yeah yeah ihbt ihl hand)
Your comments imply that the only jobs for BS/BA's are cubicle jobs! Cubicle jobs are actually in the minority (even if I do have one - I didn't need a degree to get it). Her achievement is remarkable because of her lack of formal education.
Perhaps you should consider that the ability to make billions (or even the relatively paltry millions) in this type of person is because of something they have regardless of education. They'd have it whether they completed third grade or have a PhD. No formal education would wash it out of them, no formal education can instill it.
Most of us will never achieve greatness of any sort (if we did they'd have to elevate the requirements for greatness, wouldn't they) regardless of our education. A good tertiary education, however, improves income opportunities, it is a proven fact (Google for income levels by education level for the proof if you want).
All that said, having a PhD isn't a guarantee you'll be wealthy and being a high school drop out isn't a guarantee to send you to jail - but that would be the way I'd bet.
BTW: I think enough of the device that I purchased one. I am also following the C-One project in the hopes it will be available for consumer level users (rather than developer) real soon now. The C-One is really impressive and makes the C64DTV look like a toy (wait, the C64DTV IS a toy!).
jbs
Some people are already hacking the thing and writing code for it! http://thedarkside.ath.cx/dtv/
Have you never played Delta?
I don't like trolls and mod against me if you like, but I'd prefer if you'd reply.