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
RSS- I have been looking for a physical copy of this book for some time. The cover on it is a little rough, but the rest of it is in okay shape and usable. SUPER happy to have found this. #commodore
- Occurs to me that using an Assembler on a Commodore 64 and then loading that program onto a KIM-1 isn't cross assembling. It's just assembling and loading. Not only isn't "cheating" but kinda feels good. #pedanticfridaythoughts #commodore
- Only have 1 RIOT chip until my second one arrives from overseas so had to modify the classic Asteroid by Stan Ockers (1976ish) for the KIM 1. Another surprisingly playable game on such a simple interface. Loading paper tape format files over serial from a real C64 ;-) #commodore
- Sooo many great programs to explore on the KIM-1. Spent a bit of time during lunch learning how the seven segments are wired. There is a surprising amount of example code out there with really clever techniques. KIM tribute to @8BitShowAndTell seemed appropriate #commodore
- Got conferences and shows coming up the next few months so my badge needs updating. Converted Style’s C64 fonts to binary format and I think I’m getting close on the correct screen colors. I think I’ll also implement a 10 PRINT demo on it #commodore
- Looking forward when I feel comfortable enough to do a 10 minute prototype for an idea on an FPGA platform. Microcontroller for now. Need to put in the work on learning FPGA better #therearenoshortcuts
- At a party: “Play any sports?” Me:”Football for about 40 years.”
- Did a full restoration of my wife’s Grandfather’s TI-58C. They are notorious for bad ram and this one needed replacing. Also converted it to a DC wall plug. Now accepts assembly language programs and the built in functions work. Very cool late 70s tech. But .27 amps, yikes!
- These are a few of my fav-or-ite things.
- I managed to enter all 196 Bytes of Lunar Lander by Jim Butterfield (BYTE April 1977) by hand with no errors on the first try. Such a fun game and a great way to learn 6502 Assembly programming the hard way. #commodore #shortcutsareboring
- Got this KIM-1 replica together in a couple hours tonight. Was a fair bit of soldering but now I can computer like it’s 1976. 17 instructions to do a counter. Tomorrow morning we’re playing Jim Butterfield’s Lunar Lander on this thing! #commodore
- My KIM-1 replica came way faster than I expected. Should be awesome. #commodore
- Mentioned yesterday I've been going through this Math for Deep Learning book this week. The examples are all in Python, so I've been reimplementing every one in Julia. This not only gets me to really think about what I'm doing, but strengthens both my Python and Julia chops
- Tearing through this book during breaks this week. Highly recommended.
- The Apple Lisa was released 39 years ago today. While it was a market failure it was crazy innovative. If you think about it, the computer you use today doesn't REALLY do anything more than this computer did.
- This group in my collection contains some really fantastic articles. April 1977 was one of my favorite issues of the whole BYTE magazine run. Never mind that I was 2 years old when it was printed ;)
- Well the fix was to reflow the solder joints around the connector. Must have had a cracked or marginal one. #commodore
- Hmm, getting a fault on my MiniPET 40/80 on the IEEE port. Anyone know if this needs a loopback to pass or is this really a fault? #commodore
- When picking up a new language (Julia this time), I like to solve new problems to get used to it or solve a problem I've solved in another language. Monty Hall will do nicely . Since Julia on an i7 is slightly faster than a 6502, I let the 64 do 1000 and Julia did 2^29 #commodore
- This 1977 game on the KIM-1 is surprisingly playable and really fun. A whopping 196 bytes. The number of things I’ve learned from Jim Butterfield is staggering. Something to think about as I write and try to contribute even a small thing here and there. #commodore