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
- I LOVE Mr Hildon's Inner Space Anthology. But every once in a while I get to a part that is... kinda wrong ;-) #commodore
- Been a fan of Dave’s YouTube channel a long time and finally picked up his book. Really looking forward to this one.
- Couple conference calls in a row this afternoon. I pay attention better if I’m doing stuff with my hands so I started building another Eater 6502 breadboard computer. Everyone has two these days right?
- When I was a kid, the USR ports on my #Commodore machines were a mystery. Now, they are crazy useful and easy to understand. Always learning...
- Worlds worst paper tape reader mid week update: I can get a pretty solid 1.4 volt square wave with cheap copy paper. Thicker paper will be closer to 2.4. Both are clear enough waves to be fully usable. Time to fire up the CNC machine to make the mounting brackets. Awesome!
- Worlds worst paper tape reader update:This tiny LED at half this brightness creates a usable signal to this tiny phototransistor through ordinary copy paper. Very happy with the results. Now to build a dark enclosure and wire up 8 of them in a row. This might actually work :)
- It was nice of Chevy to include rod holders in my truck.
- Driving the LEDs on the Corsham KIM clone is cool too. It’s second RIOT is busy with the SD card board, so I’m using a 65c22. Still waiting on parts for the paper tape reader so I figured learning the 6522 was a good evening activity. #commodore
- Whelp, that was harder than I thought to make manually. Already sketching out designs for project number 2: The world’s worst paper punch tape puncher ;-)
- Figured that debugging in binary would be best so gotta wire up some blinkenlights
- Waiting on some parts from Mouser for my "world's worst paper tape reader" project. I don't actually have any tape, so I'm creating it by hand. Might as well have a C64 assist in helping me punch the tape. ASCII format fits my brain the best on an 8 dot 1-inch tape. #commodore
- Happy Friday from KIM-1s (and clones) everywhere. Thanks to @masterhit for taking the time preserve this one from the 70s! #commodore
- Watching a new acquaintance react to “I really love tinkering with old computers” has proven to be a remarkable method for judging someone’s character.
- Super busy with day job today, but this evening starting to layout my first crack at the world’s worst paper tape reader, KIM-1 powered.
- Well, I do have a CNC and a lot of aluminum. Paper tape punch might even be doable.
- I’ve got it in my brain to build an 8 dot 1 inch paper tape reader. Because… science? I dunno.
- Going back through my own Cipher series for fun. I figured Vigenère cipher is a good one to port to the KIM-1. BASIC first, next ML and making use of the seven segments and keypad somehow #commodore
- Well @8BitShowAndTell has me down another rabbit hole. I suspect this one will be MUCH better than that time I had to endure watching Slipstream…
- Had this tool more than a year and still use it all the time. Super useful.
- April snow brings May flowers?