I'm a passionate Systems Programmer who enjoys building robust, performant, and elegant low-level software. I've done my fair share of projects in C, C++, and JavaScript, though nowadays, my language of choice has to be 🦀 Rust 🦀.
I'm a currently based in Seattle, WA, where I'm a member of the Hyper-V team at Microsoft.
Outside of work, I enjoy working on various open source and side-projects. You can find links and info about most of the projects I've worked on below. For the most up-to-date info on what I've been working on, check out my Github profile.
Oh, and I graduated from the Software Engineering program at the University of Waterloo in April 2020 🦆.
I also have a blog where I occasionally write about cool projects I've worked on, or technical topics I find interesting.
Some posts I'm particularly proud of include:
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wideNES - Peeking Past the Edge of NES Games
An explanation and exploration of wideNES, a novel technique I came up with to automatically and interactively map-out NES games in real time. This writeup hit the front-page of Hacker News, and was covered on several tech news sites! (Ars Technica, Hackaday, Kotaku). It also directly inspired WideGB, a project which brought the wideNES technique to the Gameboy/Gameboy Color! -
A Quest to Find a Highly Compressed Emoji :shortcode: Lookup Function
A lighthearted writeup about my adventures in optimizing a :shortcode: to emoji lookup function to take up the least amount of static storage (code + data) as possible. I ended up going down a bit of a rabbit hole learning about perfect hashing, probabilistic data structures, and 2D dynamic programming algorithms, and I thought it'd be fun to share what I learned with other folks 😄 -
Paravirtualized Devices in crosvm - a Performance Panacea for Modern Virtual Machines
A deep-dive into paravirtualized devices, and how they enable virtual machines to reach near-native performance in IO-bound tasks. I compare and contrast two different implementations of a basic RNG device, walking though each device's hypervisor implementation and kernel driver, and discussing how each approach balances performance and complexity.
If anything here catches your eye and you're interesting in getting in touch, I'd love to talk!
Emulation
Growing up, I loved playing retro games on my PC using emulators, and as I learned more about computer architecture and low-level programming, I discovered that I loved writing emulators as well!
I've written emulators for retro game consoles, simple educational VMs, obscure single-board computers, and classic fruit-themed music players. Who knows what systems I'll tackle next...
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clicky
2019+
My most ambitious emulation project yet: The world's first (public) clickwheel iPod emulator. It's still very WIP, but it can already boot some homebrew iPod software!
ts7200
2020
A high-level emulator for the TS-7200 Single Board Computer, a relatively bespoke ARMv4t platform used in CS 452 - Real-Time Programming. Written in Rust.
uwmips
2019
A Rust-y rewrite of my old mips241 emulator. The code is cleaner, and supports new MIPS instructions (as used in CS 230). It even adds a
time traveling debugger!
time traveling debugger!
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ANESE + wideNES
2017-2018
AKA: Another NES Emulator.
The first emulator to implement wideNES, a technique to automatically map out NES games! Written in C++11
The first emulator to implement wideNES, a technique to automatically map out NES games! Written in C++11
AC8E
2017
AKA: Another CHIP-8 Emulator.
A CHIP-8 Emulator written to get a feel for emulator development, and to explore programming in Rust.
A CHIP-8 Emulator written to get a feel for emulator development, and to explore programming in Rust.
mips241
2016
A simple emulator for the MIPS-like VM used in uwaterloo's CS 241.
It includes a fully interactive debugger!
Written in C++11
It includes a fully interactive debugger!
Written in C++11
Open Source
Aside from the few projects highlighted below, I've also made plenty of smaller "drive-by" contributions to libraries/projects I found useful.
Check out my Github profile's contribution activity for more details.
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gdbstub
2020+
An ergonomic, easy-to-integrate, and low-footprint (no_std) implementation of the GDB Remote Serial Protocol in Rust.
QMK Firmware (contributor)
2019
QMK is an open source mechanical keyboard firmware. I've worked to improve RGB lighting effects & systems, and I'm hoping to add Rust support to the project as well.
One-Offs
These don't really fit into any category, but they're still pretty neat little projects!
surface-dial-linux
2020
A Linux userspace controller for the Microsoft Surface Dial. Translates raw HID and evdev events into simulated mouse/keyboard inputs. It also supports haptic feedback!
vrai-tracer
2019
A simple ray-tracer written in Rust. Doubles as a testbed to experiment with various programming techniques and paradigms
(e.g: static vs. dynamic dispatch)
(e.g: static vs. dynamic dispatch)
fusion-kbd-controller-rs
2018
A small utility to configure the RGB keyboard on the Gigabyte Aero 15x. Involved reverse-engineering the proprietary USB protocol using Wireshark.
Playbulb SPHERE Controller
2016
Using WebBluetooth to control a multicolor LED lamp + WebAudio to change color based on mic input.
Hackathon Projects
Ahh, the Hackathon.
A whirlwind weekend of free pizza, soft drinks, and sleep deprivation.
Truly a quintessential part of the CS undergraduate experience!
Here are some of the Hackathon projects that I'm particularly proud of. For a full list of all the hackathon "experiments" I've worked on (including some really dumb ones), check out my Devpost profile.
WINNER
nfinite.space
2016
A cloud file-storage service that leverages space from connected users to store other users' files.
Winner at Hack the North 2016.
Winner at Hack the North 2016.
WINNER
fastify
2017
Leverages the scalability of the BitTorrent protocol and the bandwidth of AWS to "torrentify" arbitrary file links.
Winner at QHacks 2017.
Winner at QHacks 2017.
BigPicture
2016
A collaborative art experiment where users fill in small chunks of a large canvas to collectively create stylized versions of interesting artworks.
Older JavaScript Projects
I don't really work with JavaScript much these days, but from ~2013 to 2017, JavaScript was my go-to language!
Unlike most of my more recent infrastructure/hardware/low-level work, these older projects tend to be much more visual and interactive. If you've got some time to kill, some of these projects can be great little time wasters!
Branch Doodle
2016
A JS reimplementation of a design I used to doodle back in high school. A central seed branches out according to a simple pattern.
bconsole
2016
A drop in replacement for `console` in node.js with line-numbers, log groups, and colors. Published to npm.
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1212!
2015
1212! is a simple little puzzle game I wrote back in high school.
It still receives several thousand visitors a month!
It still receives several thousand visitors a month!
DiceSiege
2015
A small demo of a procedural map generation engine I wrote for a Risk-like strategy game. Rendered with Two.js.
Simple Physics Sim
2013-2014
A simple physics sandbox written when I first started learning JS. It isn't terribly accurate or pretty, but it made for a great project to learn basic JavaScript.
Cellular Automa
2014
A basic Cellular Automa written for a school project.
Conway's Game of Life
2014
A basic implementation of Conway's Game of Life in HTML5 canvas written for a school project.
3D Music Analyzer (WebGL)
2014
Uses the WebAudio API and ThreeJS to visualize a audio stream in 3D realtime. Supports microphone input!
2D Music Analyzer (Canvas)
2014
Uses the WebAudio API and HTML5 Canvas to visualize a audio stream in 2D realtime. Supports microphone input!
University Lecture Notes
CS-137
2015
These are my flavored-Markdown CS-137 notes, written in 1A.
CS-241
2016
These are my flavored-Markdown CS-241 notes, written in 2A.
Email: daniel@prilik.com
GitHub: daniel5151
Hosted with Github Pages
Also, consider checking out @super_visas,
my friend's up-and-coming immigration tech startup!