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
- Adding very large integers in 8 Bit BASIC · imapenguin
- More CPU testing. The 65c02s with the transceiver is consistently slower. Gonna have to break out the scope and look carefully at timing and propagation delays. Same machine, same code, different CPU setups. #commodore
- Had my romulator for about a year. Unfortunately came pre assembled with square header pins which are VERY hard on sockets. Anyone have any adapter ideas for square headers? Can’t get them off without removing the cpu socket so I’m reluctant to desolder 80 pins if I can help it
- Fun with strings anyone? Making and breaking codes Part 14 - VIC Cipher on the unexpanded Commodore VIC-20. Who needs more than 3583 Bytes of Memory? Not this guy. #commodore
- Alrighty this VIC-20 is now running a brand new WDC65C02S manufactured recently thanks to the @AtticThe adapter. Now the only part left without an easy to source or modern replacement is the VIC chip. I did hear some nutball is making a replacement for that though. #commodore
- Took me a minute to figure out what these are. There’s a 100 foot section of my daily walk lined by Rugosa roses. Sometimes called potato roses. Can’t wait to see what they look like when they bloom.
- Been using these in one form or another for 40+ years and still not remotely tired of them.
- Tough choice this evening. Both worth the time.
- RGB green for the win! The real reason for the RGBtoHDMI purchase is for my MiniPET case build. Currently code named WoodPET. Coming soon to theaters near you. Er, my office. One of those. #commodore
- I have tried about a half dozen solutions to get reasonable color 80 columns out of my flat Commodore 128. The RGBtoHDMI is hands down the winner here. #commodore
- Most asked question of the drop in VIC chip replacement is: when will I be able to buy it. The trick is that I would be TERRIBLE at supporting a “consumer” product. Apparently “I find you too annoying to answer this question” is not a good tech support response. #commodore
- Friday VIC chip replacement progress: this is an NTSC VIC-20 without a VIC chip (or internal clock) running as PAL off of the FPGA (clocks and video)outputting composite correctly. No RAM access yet, but I'll take a square box at this point. Happy Friday! #commodore #vicsrevenge
- MOS paper tape format · imapenguin
- How is today the first day I've ever heard of SpaceVim?
- Green is the best color.
- Not that I'm surprised… I need ONE 74HCT245N for a @AtticThe adapter. Do I have one in my huge parts inventory? Not one. But if you need 74LS245Ns, I'm your guy. Mouser has 12,500 back-ordered until May 2023. Sigh. #commodore
- Not that I need another project, but I’ve been gathering things I need to make a PET 2001 replica out of wood. Working chicklet keyboard: check. Gonna disassemble and do a restoration and preservation session. Anyone have one that can measure the case for me? #commodore
- Deep woods #Vicsrevenge VIC drop-in FPGA progress: Finally have an internal pixel clock 4.434Mhz driving a composite (no color yet) pulse with the correct timings for a 2µs character width (225.5ns per pixel). Probably doesn't seem like much but it matters a lot to me #commodore
- Watch out for computers full of electronic debris. #appleiie
- When I said “drop in VIC replacement” did you take that as “true to the original in every respect”? Because Composite video with the VIC-20 colors is a royal PIA. VGA is much more easier. I know, I know, there are no shortcuts. This is also why I gave myself a year. #commodore