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
- Probably only funny to me… I was working out some resistor ladders for the VIC replacement project and got two values wrong. Think anyone would mind #commodore 64 colors on their VIC-20? Happy Wednesday!
- I wonder if there's any value in writing a VIC chip and 6502 protocol decoder. Hmmm #commodore
- New stretch goal: get the most accurate pixel timings on VIC-20s possible with equipment I already have. We'll have to resort to... dun dun dun... math! #commodore
- Before day job two steps back on the VIC replacement project: since PAL was progressing nicely I switched to NTSC to catch up but broke something along the way. Hmm… that isn’t right AT ALL #commodore
- I’ve always wanted an original Commodore PET 2001, but they are now crazy expensive. What’s a guy to do? I’ll just make one :)
- Today marks the first time in history that a human has managed to wrestle a tent back into the bag they sell them in. Rainy day garage projects…
- This might be my favorite thrift store find to date. And it’s fully working. We will add all the things.
- No one is ever going to accuse me of being good at surface mount soldering. But they are at least on and it works :) #commodore
- My all time favorite book is $1 at the thrift store. Never mind I already own like 7 copies…
- I'm still SUPER tempted to use VGA instead of composite for the VIC-20 VIC replacement. Much of this is known but in multiple places. Probably will make a dedicated page for all of the calculations I do for myself. If others can use it, then cool. #commodore
- Replaced the 65c02s adapter on the Vicky Twenty with @shieladixon’s board of who was very kind to send me a couple from the UK with a nice note and postcard. Not using a transceiver seems to be working fine on this board and definitely takes up less space. #commodore
- Fixing a friend’s VIC-20 and I hastily assembled a character ROM adapter. I then spent an embarrassing number of Mississippi’s wondering why it didn’t work. Details Michael, details. #commodore
- Good grief, these are still waaayyy too long. I’m gonna have to break down and buy an IDC cable connector crimper. Until then, let’s get the VIC-20 memory map more organized in my Verilog shall we? #commodore
- Back on the VIC chip FPGA replacement this evening after a needed break. Having to level shift both directions between the VIC-20(5V) and the FPGA(3.3V) is a recipe for a crazy breadboard mess. Working on tidying it up. Looking better already.#vicsrevenge #commodore
- Happy Thursday! #commodore
- This is what I settled on for the @TexElecUSA #commodore PET keyboard arrangement using ANSI 104 keycaps. Now I need to get stickers printed but I’m very happy with the way this is turning out. Went with Cherry MX blacks on this one.
- Today’s side quest: take these 208 ANSI keycaps and come up with a reasonable arrangement for my #commodore PET replica keyboard. Should be interesting.
- Not terrible for an inexpensive signal generator.
- 14 pounds (not a typo) of the last of the local Mangalitsa we bought over the winter is spending all day on my ancient, beat up, hand me down smoker. It’s a hard knock life. :)
- This afternoon’s festivities include soldering $60 worth of Cherry switches #commodore