11:38 <whitequark> https://twitter.com/whitequark/status/1415999233136680960

11:39 <ar> whitequark: is that glasgow on usb3?

11:39 <whitequark> connected through a VL670 TT, yes

11:40 <ar> oh, that usb3↔usb2 translation chip?

11:40 <whitequark> yes

11:40 <ar> neat

11:40 <whitequark> it doesn't actually, you know, work

11:40 <whitequark> something's fucked with the data pipe transfers

11:40 <whitequark> (i didn't expect it to work)

13:25 <d1b2> <xabean> (cursed)

13:26 <whitequark> very much so

13:26 <whitequark> that's why i love it

13:27 <d1b2> <xabean> ok now taking bets on how many more hours it takes wq to figure out where the 8051 is inside, and fucking fix the firmware for it and release an errata on github for the IC

13:27 <whitequark> it's an xtensa probably

13:27 <whitequark> i've considered fixing the firmware

13:27 <d1b2> <xabean> lol

13:27 <whitequark> unfortunately, these issues are likely the result of protocol issues

13:28 <whitequark> the firmware could likely work around them on a per-device basis

13:28 <whitequark> but there's a reason these ICs are not sold on open market

13:28 <whitequark> in the VL671 there's a Cortex-M3

13:29 <d1b2> <xabean> mmmm forbidden IC IP

13:30 <whitequark> delicious

13:36 <d1b2> <xabean> whitequark I've got to be honest, I'm really impressed with how capable you are at what I see as silicon voodoo magic, can you tell a small story of how you got here in life?

13:36 <d1b2> <xabean> I'm in tech, infosec and dabble in electronics and I'm super curious how people get so awesome at hardware, that's why I ask

13:43 <whitequark> um

13:44 <whitequark> by being several angel girls?

13:45 <whitequark> honestly, any story i can tell that would actually get to the core of it will sound extremely sad and/or deeply implausible

14:05 <cyborg_ar> whitequark: in my naivety i have wished someone would make a hub with something like that. so i could have 5 hi speed ports at the end of a long usb3 cable without having to share a single usb2 bandwidth

14:05 <whitequark> yes, that's one of the things we want to do with VL671

14:07 <cyborg_ar> in my case its due to my lab layout.. i have my computer about 10 feet from my workbench

14:08 <whitequark> you could use thunderbolt

14:08 <whitequark> and a pcie usb controller

14:21 <cyborg_ar> hmm, that sounds like a better idea. i guess the less usb the better :P

14:25 <cyborg_ar> hmm looks like the cable length is limited to 2m, but i can daisy chain up to 6 times

14:25 <cyborg_ar> what could possibly go wrong?

14:26 <whitequark> there are optical cables

14:27 <cyborg_ar> yeah they cost as much as my entire computer

14:27 <cyborg_ar> i guess i should just put another computer there

14:39 <d1b2> <xabean> raspi, ethernet, power, and one of those kernel modules + userspace drivers that lets you "put" a usb device "on the network" ?

14:39 <d1b2> <xabean> $OLDJOB used to do that for Aladdin HASP tokens

15:02 <cyborg_ar> doesnt sound great if you want usb 2.0 performance. though i guess the newer pi socs have ethernet so that may work

17:57 <kc8apf> just gonna leave this here: https://www.cambrionix.com/products/thundersync3-16-rackmount-thunderbolt-usb-hub

18:11 <gruetzkopf> i'm *this* close to throwing a TBT controller on a m.2 card an seeing if i can bring it up..

19:11 <jevinskie[m]> cambrionix hubs are quite popular with companies that have mobile device farms. Not a fun job, mobile devices hate being used and charged all the time

19:40 <cyrozap> whitequark: If you want another cursed USB3/USB2 TT, Fresco Logic has been producing the FL6000 for several years now: http://www.frescologic.com/product/single/fl6000/

19:45 <cyrozap> What's interesting about it is that it's a completely hardware-only design, so it doesn't need any firmware to work, it has 4 downstream USB 2 ports with one TT per port, so the USB 2 bandwidth isn't shared between them, and there's a (downstream) kernel driver that just makes it appear like a normal USB 3 host controller to Linux: https://github.com/FrescoLogic/FL6000

19:47 <jevinskie[m]> Spiffy! Formula One USB mode :P Any dev boards available?

19:47 <cyrozap> I saw one on Taobao a few years ago.

19:49 <cyrozap> You can also email the company to buy one from them directly, though I've never tried that myself.

19:54 <cyrozap> They seem to be friendly to FOSS developers (or at least they did back in 2017: https://web.archive.org/web/20170828090554/http://www.frescologic.com/partners_b.php), so it may be worth a shot.

20:01 <cyborg_ar> Oooo

20:01 <cyborg_ar> Want

20:04 <cyrozap> @xabean If you're curious "how people get so awesome at hardware", the answer is probably the same as how anyone gets awesome at anything else: Do at least a little bit every day for 5/10/15 years, and the experience just builds up over time.

20:06 <cyborg_ar> Damn why arent there any hubs using that fresco chip? Costs a fortune?

20:07 <electronic_eel> cyrozap: i'm not sure if "a little bit each day" will work well. i think it works better if you are really interested in the topic and dive in for days and experiment and learn

20:08 <cyrozap> cyborg_ar: If you want to extend USB 3 more than two meters, just add a USB 3 hub between each extension cable (powered, if needed). That's what Microsoft did for the 2nd gen Kinect--the "Kinect adapter for Windows" is literally just a single-port powered USB 3 hub internally.

20:09 <d1b2> <xabean> rr.. right. That's not a story though. I could say my "story" on getting into infosec is "My parents had computers in our house in the 80s, I started programming in TI Basic on a TI/99-4A, figured out how to get the TI speech synth to say my name. Graduated to IBM ROM catridge basic & LOGO, then DOS/Win3.1 ... Win<insert the rest of the client OSes here>, discovered Linux at age 13, and dialup Internet at age 15. Once my Linux PC was logged

20:09 <d1b2> into by someone in poland to a default mysql account* I got more interested in security"

20:09 <cyborg_ar> Well what i want is several hi speed (full usb2 bandwidth) ports at the end of a single cable

20:10 <electronic_eel> cyrozap: "a little bit each day" sounds a bit like a doctors prescription (ugh, bitter pills). if you really want to do something, you dive into it and forget time and space around you

20:10 <cyborg_ar> Normal "usb3" hubs are usb2 hubs for usb2

20:10 <d1b2> <xabean> I was interested in things-available-to-$PERSON and life-events that presented opportunities for growth sort-of thing. I can't replicate someone else's life events, but I can acquire books and electronic debugging toys :)

20:13 <DX-MON> I'd point out that with "getting /really/ good" in both electronics and programming at least for me.. has been more than a "little" each day, and used as a coping mechanism and way to socially withdraw for the better part of my life.. it's an unpleasant story at best

20:16 <cyborg_ar> Dont seek to follow the steps of the greats, they are all broken

20:16 <DX-MON> p. much

20:17 <cyrozap> electronic_eel: By "a little bit" I mean like 1-2 hours, and it doesn't have to be literally every day--the point is just to be doing the thing frequently enough that you're able to accumulate experience/knowledge over time. Maybe some days, you spend that time studying. Other days, you can spend it working on a project to enhance your skills. And then on some weekends maybe you spend more like 6-8 hours

20:17 <cyrozap> per day to get some stuff done that requires extended periods of concentration/immersion. And if all that sounds like what doctors say, it's because it works :)

20:17 <d1b2> <xabean> @DX-MON yeah, that's pretty much why I didn't press too hard on it, besides a follow-up clarification

20:18 <cyborg_ar> The holy grail is to practice until you start to crack, then back off a little.

20:19 <d1b2> <xabean> in other news, this thread, and someone mentioning a crystal earpiece for signal tracing is pure gold https://twitter.com/ghidraninja/status/1415772223101620225

20:19 <DX-MON> that said, I started on BBC BASIC when I was a child [gosh, this dates me], going through a pile of M$ langs, ending up in M$-style C++, re-learning everything when I moved to Linux, and then doing my degree - all while putting in hours every day (6+ usually).. in parallel with that, I had an interest in electronics as a kid too which allowed me to participate in a robotics compo when I was ~13-14, and then rekindled by my degree thesis where I learned to make

20:19 <DX-MON> PCBs

20:19 <electronic_eel> DX-MON: hmm, "socially withdraw" and "unpleasant story" doesn't sound like you enjoyed that. re socially withdraw - i first thought that as being bad and so on. but then i learned that my perception of that was based on other peoples expectations and scales. what feels good to me is a different level. and not exceeding that is not a bad thing

20:20 <DX-MON> I enjoyed the social withdrawal, specifically because of the unpleasant story surrounding what caused me to go spend 6h+ a day every day for over a decade with my head as deep as it'd go in tech

20:21 <cyborg_ar> I mean when you have people performing to the level of an art, the tortured artist backstory becomes more common

20:21 <DX-MON> the story shapes the experience and the choices in direction which is why it's inseperable

20:23 <DX-MON> anyway, that's incredibly off topic, so I'll leave it be now

20:27 <d1b2> <xabean> yeah, sorry for dragging the channel off topic.

20:30 <cyborg_ar> We're waiting for Godot^WGlasgow

20:31 <cyrozap> @xabean I'll just leave this for you, make of it what you will: https://youtu.be/Sbpy4a5beZA?t=206

20:33 <cyrozap> And this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq338WwBUpw

20:35 <cyrozap> cyborg_ar: Hopefully, unlike Godot, Glasgow will actually show up at the end :)