diff --git a/train.py b/train.py
index 5db73a8..581635d 100644
--- a/train.py
+++ b/train.py
@@ -12,6 +12,7 @@ $ torchrun --standalone --nproc_per_node=4 train.py
 import os
 import time
 import math
+from contextlib import nullcontext
 
 import numpy as np
 import torch
@@ -56,11 +57,14 @@ min_lr = 6e-5 # minimum learning rate, should be ~= learning_rate/10 per Chinchi
 # DDP settings
 backend = 'nccl' # 'nccl', 'gloo', etc.
 # system
-device = 'cuda'
+device = 'cuda' # examples: 'cpu', 'cuda', 'cuda:0', 'cuda:1', etc.
+dtype = 'bfloat16' # 'float32' or 'bfloat16'
 compile = True # use PyTorch 2.0 to compile the model to be faster
 # -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 exec(open('configurator.py').read()) # overrides from command line or config file
 # -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+# various inits, derived attributes, I/O setup
 ddp = int(os.environ.get('LOCAL_RANK', -1)) != -1 # is this a ddp run?
 if ddp:
     init_process_group(backend=backend)
@@ -74,6 +78,10 @@ if gpu_id == 0:
 torch.manual_seed(1337 + gpu_id) # note: each worker gets a different seed
 torch.backends.cuda.matmul.allow_tf32 = True # allow tf32 on matmul
 torch.backends.cudnn.allow_tf32 = True # allow tf32 on cudnn
+device_type = 'cuda' if 'cuda' in device else 'cpu' # for later use in torch.autocast
+# note: float16 would require us to change the code to use a GradScaler
+ptdtype = {'float32': torch.float32, 'bfloat16': torch.bfloat16}[dtype]
+ctx = nullcontext() if device_type == 'cpu' else torch.amp.autocast(device_type=device_type, dtype=ptdtype)
 
 # poor man's data loader, TODO evaluate need for actual DataLoader
 data_dir = os.path.join('data', dataset)
@@ -156,7 +164,7 @@ def estimate_loss():
         losses = torch.zeros(eval_iters)
         for k in range(eval_iters):
             X, Y = get_batch(split)
-            with torch.amp.autocast(device_type="cuda", dtype=torch.bfloat16):
+            with ctx:
                 logits, loss = model(X, Y)
             losses[k] = loss.item()
         out[split] = losses.mean()
@@ -226,7 +234,7 @@ while True:
         break
 
     X, Y = get_batch('train')
-    with torch.amp.autocast(device_type="cuda", dtype=torch.bfloat16):
+    with ctx:
         logits, loss = model(X, Y)
 
     optimizer.zero_grad(set_to_none=True)