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- A little lunchtime fun: I have my Commodore PET Tic-Tac-Toe "AI" playing against itself with about a 95% tie rate. A couple more tweaks and I think I can get it to 100%. #PETober #commodore
- Started wearing a 30 pound weight vest on my daily lunchtime hike. Feels really good. Also I think this is the longest my hair has been since 1992.
- A week diving deeper with the PET day 1(take 2): I stand corrected, the COMMODORE PET is a graphics powerhouse. Better graphics than any other computer invented since 1977. #commodore #PETober
- Have had a great week with the Atari 800XL and then another with the VIC20. This week my choices are:
- You know the boat electrical repairs are getting serious when the bench power supply gets moved in.
- Wrapping up a week with the VIC: Unexpanded VIC with a keyboard version of Breakout. Getting a fair amount of help from machine language here, but it's a very playable (and simple to code/understand) version. LOVED this week with the VIC and appreciate it even more! #VICtober
- A week diving deeper with the VIC-20 day 6: Pretty much the best graphics of any computer ever made. #VICtober
- I’m thinking seriously about doing #nanowrimo2021 with ONLY these tools
- Got an Apple II 80 col/64k expansion card failing a RAM diagnostic. I have at least 4 testers for this type of RAM and plenty of spares.
- A week diving deeper with the VIC-20 day 5: Smooth scrolling isn't too hard. Getting close to the end of my week with the VIC and I appreciate it even more than I did when I started. #VICtober
- 10 minute lunch break "learn something": More of the "AI" book - Breadth first searches are nice and zippy. Apple IIe for this one
- A week diving deeper with the VIC-20 day 4: The VIC-20 is a graphics powerhouse ;-) #VICtober
- On today's episode of stupid races between old computery things: A brute force tree solver on a Commodore 128 in 80 column mode vs a VIC-20. The 128 is easier to visualize what it's doing, but as expected, WAY slower. #commodore #VICtober
- A week diving deeper with the VIC-20 day 3: While not as visually interesting, implementing tree searches to solve shortest path problems is fun for my brain, just maybe not your eyeballs. #VICtober
- I figured out the problem with my MiniPET/SD card access. This connector is already not making good contact. Going to work on a way to extend the base of my setup so that it’s not just hanging off the end. Or maybe just put feet on it. #commodore
- This is a REALLY excellent book. I’ve been going through this a chapter at a time. Very little changes to get the code to work on Commodore machines too although I’ve mostly been using the Apple IIe. Great primer to modern AI techniques if you can believe that. I give it an 11/10
- A week diving deeper with the VIC-20 day 2: Some people say the VIC is underpowered and you can't do interesting things with just a couple k of RAM. Whatever slackers! #VICtober #commodore
- For those who say "3583 bytes isn't enough to do anything useful", a decent cipher fits with 58 whole bytes free. Take that!
- A week diving deeper with the VIC-20: Starting the week finishing up the VIC Cipher on an unexpanded VIC. It's not fast, but it's fast enough to be useful. One of the few of these I've done that's 100% in BASIC #commodore
- Since my MiniPET is down I’m shifting gears this week. This is one of my favorites anyway so I’m already looking forward to it.