I write about the past, present, and future of technology across three sites. imapenguin.com explores retro computing and programming fundamentals, milkcrunch.com covers modern software development and engineering culture, and evadot.com examines commercial spaceflight and the new space movement.
Posts
- Tandy Coco 1 keyboard: it’s nice and clean inside but the plungers on this side are mechanically difficult to press and get hung up. Ideas?
- Without using TI Extended BASIC (yet), this is the shortest I've managed a 10 PRINT on a TI 99/4A. It's not 1 line, but it's easy to understand and has the advantage of making any two characters you want quickly on the fly to randomly print.
- Just arrived. Pretty cool! I was in VAQ-209 from 1994 to 1999.
- Attempt #3 of 10 PRINT on the TI 99/4A: While a far cry from the elegance and simplicity of the Commodore 10 PRINT, this version at least got me to learn how to redefine characters on the fly and make it look much better.
- Take number two is even uglier so I decided to do it a second pass vertically. It's also super slow which is... nice... Next I think we redefine some characters to at least make the "maze" look better. If we can't make it fast or even close to one line, we can at least put some lipstick on it.
- Playing around a little with TI 99/4A BASIC. It's different than what I'm used to, but I do like the IF-THEN-ELSE. Here's try #1 at a 10 PRINT program. Surely we can do better than this.
- Always a good morning when there's @8BitShowAndTell Turbo Macro Pro code to study and contemplate. Happy Tuesday!
- I feel weird opening this but I need the cable… 1982 in the package.
- Traded a Coco2 for my first TI-99/4A "untested." I don't have direct experience with TI hardware. Assumed my experience meant I would be able to fix whatever might be wrong. It works just fine, which is slightly disappointing because I love restoring old computery things.
- I was a guest on @8BitShowAndTell's last video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTxiR4ZKfvo) and in it he gave me a new title. This is a longstanding inside joke between Robin, @DarrenFoulds and me from their 80s podcast (which is on a break). I decided to make it official by getting it in print.
- All computer books should be spiral-bound
- I’m about a year into the DM42 replacing my 32SII that was my daily driver for almost 30 years. Hard to argue with how well that HP stood up to being abused in my laptop bag all that time and still works like a champ. They don’t often make ‘em like they used to.
- Using the old “RF modulator from a broken VCR” trick again.
- Fishing was slow, but the rest was fantastic.
- Still working on these routines. Happy Friday!
- Don’t forget to show your PETs some love. Happy Wednesday!
- ML line drawing routines are working well. Happy Tuesday! #firstprinciples
- Had these two books on my shelf as a kid. Always thought that I should spend the time to understand them. At 11, self-discipline was hard. I might be late, but just finished the first one. Every page, every line of code. Starting the second tonight. First principles is the way.
- Nice and cool in the balsam forrest.
- I’m trying to imagine getting my VIC replacement even close to the size of this thing. Really impressed.