iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Kat

lak @lak132.at.app.wafrn.net · 02/07/2026

what did canon mean by this

a Sony 70 to 400mm lens on a Canon L1 camcorder. the lens dwarfs the otherwise very large camcorder

Kat @northernpaws.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

Got the second-hand camera body last week and a secondhand XF 18-55mm for video today. Just did a bunch of video tests - I still have a bit to do in terms of lighting and mounting for the camera on my overhead rig, but we’re getting close to being able to look at exploring video content :3

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Kat @northernpaws.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

After a couple years of trying, I’ve realized my X100V just is not working for the more varied workloads I need it for. Recording project videos with it has been nearly impossible which is the main thing I need a camera for currently. So now it’s off to a new home, and I’ve got an X-T4 coming! :3

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Reposted by Kat

Kate @katef.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

okay who wants to go to the park with me and check if the squirrels are actually RAL 700 Squirrel Grey or if they are out of spec

RAL K7 "Classic" standardised colour swatches, spread on a green cutting mat. we're looking at various greens and browns, Mouse Grey and Squirrel Grey in particular. The names seem to bear little resemblance to the actual colours. but you know, gotta name 'em something

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Kat @northernpaws.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

Had about of a breakthrough for several projects this past week - most of my audio related projects require a bit of SDRAM for audio processing. Previously my boards have been expensive due to issues getting it routed efficiently on less than 6 layers, or without BGA components.

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Kat @northernpaws.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

Put out a new free post on my Patreon detailing my motivations for learning to create my own PU cast buttons (and possibly other parts in the future!). Hopefully this is the end of my frustrations trying to find even just basic button caps for designs! www.patreon.com/posts/update...

patreon.com

An update for April - Upcoming Custom Double-Shot Molded Buttons | Northernpaws

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Kat @northernpaws.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

In an effort to make some small bits of progress on projects where I can, I've purchased some supplies to work on the one area that keeps stalling me - backlit keycaps and tactile buttons!

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Kat @northernpaws.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

Sadly things have been so busy lately that I've not had a lot of time to work on my projects - things are finally starting to move forward on me moving to a new place that will both give me more room to work on things, and better access to the resources I need, so that should change soon!

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Kat @northernpaws.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

Made a post on my Patreon giving a small summary of the first couple months of 2026, and a peak at my project plans for the year moving forward! www.patreon.com/posts/plans-...

patreon.com

Plans for 2026: Music Cassettes, Floppy Disks, Retrofuturism, and more! | Northernpaws

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Reposted by Kat

シャポコ🌵 @shapoco.net · 01/03/2026

フットプリント起こすとき #shapoart

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Kat @northernpaws.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

Big win today! After months of dealing with unhelpful tech support, coordinating with multiple people, and waiting for parts.. We finally got an automated cotton candy machine running I’ve been helping a client with since November!

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Kat @northernpaws.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

I started roughing in an idea I've had for awhile for a controller for Elite:Dangerous - a fairly basic navigation/systems panel that connects to the game's local API to display ship status and navigation data, but can also load advanced navigation data from community start charts and plan routes.

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Reposted by Kat

Obsolete Sony @obsoletesony.com · 09/02/2026

why we stop making computers look fresh

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Kat @northernpaws.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

I drove past a local bank last night with a yellow LED bar sign under their logo that flashed a few times and then printed “EFI SHELL VERSION xxxx (xxxx)” across the display in huge letters.. makes me wonder if that is suppose to happen, and what the process is that triggered it - an update maybe?

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Kat @northernpaws.bsky.social · 26/01/2026

Story time: I was having several issues on the music sequencer boards a couple of months ago where it seemed like my sine wave oscillators I was testing were missing most of their bass. At the time I chalked it up to possibly a problem with my oscillator code, even though it seemed fine.

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Kat @northernpaws.bsky.social · 26/01/2026

The schematic and routing for the next revision of my music sequencer hardware is well underway! I decided to swap to using BMA footprints for the MCU and SDRAM, which has ended up saving a significant amount of space and made routing much easier.

A screenshot of a circuit board layout, with a web colourful traces flowing out from a microcontroller to various components on the board.

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Kat @northernpaws.bsky.social · 26/01/2026

Been busy the last couple of weeks - got a couple of PRs merged into Embassy, been cleaning up my sequencer code in various areas to start building the foundation for writing the user interface, and started work on the next revision of the sequencer hardware!

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Reposted by Kat

Jasmine 🌌🔭 @astrojaz.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

WE HAVE A STUNNING NEW CLOSE UP VIEW OF THE HELIX NEBULA FROM WEBB!!! 🌌

$A closeup of a small section of the Helix Nebula, an expanding shell of gas and dust. Thousands of orange and gold comet-like pillars stream upward from the bottom, like thin liquid blown up a sheet of glass. These pillars are around the circumference of the arced shell, which forms a partial orange semi-circle at the bottom. The pillars are more numerous and denser at the bottom, and darker red. They fade to orange and then yellow in the arc. In the top two-thirds, they are thinner and more golden, and it’s easier to see the black background of space. Several bright blue stars, some with diffraction spikes, are scattered throughout. A few larger stars are on the right side. "Webb" is labeled on the right in transclucent white. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)$

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Reposted by Kat

Aura @aurahack.ca · 02/09/2025

【NEW SHIRT】 There's never been a better time to have a shirt with a little guy on it! A little friend-shaped truck! A buddy! Available in four nice pastel colors (and white). 👉 shop.aurahack.ca/products/the...

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Kat @northernpaws.bsky.social · 16/01/2026

Turns out that writing u24 data instead of i24 can cause some really strange results! 😅 The popping was from the audio signal trying to center around the u24 max instead of 0 and causing sharp transitions from my resting value of 0 to the audio data when it started playing.

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Kat @northernpaws.bsky.social · 16/01/2026

Now to try to diagnose why I'm getting a small pop when the codec is initialized, and then why it drops off horribly low at the end of playback.. I think the slow climb back to equilibrium after the drop-off at the end of playback is the DAC automute taking over.

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Kat @northernpaws.bsky.social · 16/01/2026

It’s a little quiet - but I’ve gotten audio playback from the SD card working now! On startup it’s searching for a startup.wav file on the SD card, and then decoding and playing it while the startup routine runs.

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Kat @northernpaws.bsky.social · 13/01/2026

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks on a major overhaul of all the step-sequencer code to take it from its rough bringup state from the last few months into a well-organized project. I’m very happy with how it’s turning out! Nearly at the point I can actually start building out the software side.

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Reposted by Kat

Bailey Townsend 🦀 @pds.dad · 09/01/2026

anything past two decimal points is not needed cause it doesn't make cents

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Reposted by Kat

aki-nyan //nullptr::live @aki.lethalbit.net · 07/01/2026

I have 2 scramblepads and I really need to figure out what to do with them

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Kat @northernpaws.bsky.social · 01/01/2026

Was chasing a problem with the I2S audio buffers overrunning for days, which I originally thought was a code error in the buffers. Turns out it was related to an overrun issue I had with Uart 6 months ago, where the Embassy buffers overrun because the compiler optimization flag is set too low.. 🫠

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Kat @northernpaws.bsky.social · 31/12/2025

And we finally have stable audio! It’s rendering a middle-C sine at 261.5hz perfectly - there’s some variance in the frequency measure by my scope so it jumps between measuring 259-262Hz, but is actually stable.

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Kat @northernpaws.bsky.social · 29/12/2025

And finally managed to solve the driver problems with internal "SD-based" storage IC that have been ongoing since August! Turns out all the Rust `no_std` SD drivers I could find are only written for newer high-capacity cards that use sector addressing, while my 8Gb internal IC uses byte addressing.

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Kat @northernpaws.bsky.social · 29/12/2025

Anyways, now I have a (mostly) tested crate for the nau88c22 codec working! I'm about to add a bunch of utilities to it over the next week that I've been testing, including a PLL formula calculator and some preset register configs for common uses. github.com/northernpaws...

github.com

GitHub - northernpaws/nau88c22-rs: Rust driver for the NAU88C22 audio codec.

Rust driver for the NAU88C22 audio codec. Contribute to northernpaws/nau88c22-rs development by creating an account on GitHub.

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Kat @northernpaws.bsky.social · 29/12/2025

After spending 2 frustrating days on what I thought would be a "quick" weekend project to bring up the audio codec on my synth, it's finally playing and recording audio! Will share a demo video soon.

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Kat @northernpaws.bsky.social · 24/12/2025

A short post about some of the problems I had to diagnose with Embassy’s timer DMA methods when bringing up the addressable LEDs on my board while it was on my mind: www.patreon.com/posts/142083...

patreon.com

Board Bringup: SK6812MINI-E LEDs with STM32 PWM Timers and DMA in Embassy | Northernpaws

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Kat @northernpaws.bsky.social · 21/12/2025

Quick post on some ideas I had over the last week on synchronizing prototyping programs with the protoboards in use with an onboard flash chip *on the protoboard*. www.patreon.com/posts/protob...

patreon.com

Protoboard Local Flash for Portable Modules | Northernpaws

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Kat @northernpaws.bsky.social · 20/12/2025

I spent the last several weeks on this design using dual Hirose DF40C connectors on the bottom. Just as I was almost finished, I went to double check the spec sheet and discovered that despite dozens of boards using this layout, Hirose explicitly recommends against it..

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Kat @northernpaws.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

Gradually pulling together several bits and pieces over the last 3 weeks - lots of work done on an audio processing framework for my pocket sequencer, as well as on an audio processing module for future projects. Got some really cool stuff to show in coming weeks!

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Kat @northernpaws.bsky.social · 07/12/2025

I published a post on my Patreon covering the process of getting the display on my prototype working over parallel with the STM32 Flexible Memory Controller and DMA. www.patreon.com/posts/parall...

patreon.com

Parallel Display Interfacing with STM32's Flexible Memory Controller | Northernpaws

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Kat @northernpaws.bsky.social · 30/11/2025

Uploaded a video of repairing one of my display connectors under my digital microscope! All shots are recorded from an HDMI to USB capture card connected to the microscope's display output. www.youtube.com/shorts/VJzYu...

youtube.com

Fixing Swapped LCD Connector Pins

YouTube video by Northernpaws

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Kat @northernpaws.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

So I’ve been stewing on some ideas for a couple small kits for learning/teaching analog and digital audio design, but being reminded about these kits from my childhood has given me a bigger kit idea - Mini eurorack-like kit, common synth building components, powered with 18650s, with a USB ADC… hmm…

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Kat @northernpaws.bsky.social · 15/11/2025

Making a bunch of progress on a complete case! Realized I needed something with space in the back to hold the 4200mAh battery. Also managed to fit a small panel mount headphone socket in the bottom to solder to the headphone out headers I included on the PCB.

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Kat @northernpaws.bsky.social · 10/11/2025

First bit of interactivity! Spent the weekend refactoring most of the code from the last two weeks, significantly improving the responsiveness of the keypad hander and simplifying the drivers. Now it’s all integrated with the embedded-graphics crate for consistent color typing.

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Kat @northernpaws.bsky.social · 07/11/2025

Prototyping a front display and speaker mount - didn’t leave myself a whole lot of room for solid connection points to the board, so having to use some creative geometry and a layered sandwich design to make a case that fits around all the components

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Kat @northernpaws.bsky.social · 07/11/2025

Finally have some LCD drawing working! The Rust embedded-graphics crate made it surprisingly painless to start drawing graphics primitives, only needing to implement one trait for my display framebuffer.

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Kat @northernpaws.bsky.social · 05/11/2025

Progress! After some confusing memory address alignment problems caused by DMA, I’ve got the LCD running at around 120fps. Some slight tearing occasionally, but I think that can be mitigated by syncing the start of the DMA transfers based on the current scan line.

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Kat @northernpaws.bsky.social · 03/11/2025

The current scope for the project is minimum 8 tracks, but ideally 16 mixed audio and step sequencer tracks per pattern. A project will consist of a max of 128 patterns, with only a couple loaded into RAM at one time (currently playing + next queued).

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Kat @northernpaws.bsky.social · 03/11/2025

After a couple days of work, I’ve to write a custom FMC-based display driver - using an SRAM configuration to talk to the display’s 8080 parallel interface. Now I can start setting it up to use DMA to write framebuffers to the display RAM without using CPU cycles :3

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Kat @northernpaws.bsky.social · 02/11/2025

Photo of the bodge job I also had to do on the LCD connector pins to fix the mode select pins I accidentally inverted. I recently bought a small grinding pen which did an amazing job taking off a small amount of solder mask and exposing the via to patch the wire to.

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Kat @northernpaws.bsky.social · 02/11/2025

Finally got the LCD working consistently! Turned out that there was a significant amount of flux in the FPC port I didn’t initially see that was interfering. Now to get it driven by the FMC’s parallel interface instead of bit-banging, and running at a decent clock speed.

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Kat @northernpaws.bsky.social · 01/11/2025

Dealing with some odd LCD behaviour... after fixing a couple swapped pins, still couldn't get an image to appear on screen but could see it was receiving commands (sleep off, tearing output enable, etc). Cleaned the port and FPC with some IPA and suddenly I consistently got a white image. 1/2

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Kat @northernpaws.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

Added some boot status LEDs using the keypad matrix - I have it programmed currently so it waits for a successful SD card initialisation. But the few times I’ve forgotten to put the card in it was really confusing why it looked like the board didn’t work. Now it’ll show a red LED for the SD card!

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