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 will never take list/array slicing in my day job for granted again. Doable, but so messy. #commodore #crypto
- Making and breaking Ciphers on the Commodore 64 Part 11 – One time pads on a Commodore 64, probably a bad idea · imapenguin
- Don't get impatient. Silly mistake. #commodore
- Another 128 today. I’m not sure I understand this yet, but a wonky 8563 (80 column chip) was causing an issue on the CIA at U1. Took a while to figure this one out for a friend. When did I become my local 128 repair shop? I barely know what I’m doing #commodore
- Out of all the vendors I deal with @futurewas8bit is one of the best. Consistent and great products. Penultimate+ and a 6502 this time. #commodore
- 10 min lunchtime progress: Running all rotors with 26 possible starting positions on a 3 Rotor Enigma with 5 rotors to choose from (I want this to finish in my lifetime). So 1,054,560 combinations in 71 seconds(BASIC takes 2+ hours). Not bad. #commodore #c64 #crypto #enigma
- Least important applicance
- On the couch so no screen capture. I’m sure there are efficiencies to do but it works. Moving to the next step: 3 rotor Enigma, 5 rotors to choose from First need all possible combinations. Tomorrow we’ll add 26 starting points to each and crunch numbers #enigma #commodore #c64
- Forming a new club. I'm calling it "Folks who run calculations on all combinations of a 3 rotor Engima at 1.022727 MHz durning lunch breaks". Membership will be limited, so sign up early. #commodore
- Well that doesn’t look anything like a square wave. Bad multiplexer. Saved a Vintage computer from the scrap heap with good tools and a 79 cent chip that is still being manufactured
- Because what I really need is another project… #commodore
- Something is different...
- That worked even better than I expected. #commodore #fixallthethings
- This might be the worst non chicklet keyboard I’ve ever used.
- 10 minute lunchtime progress: Working on more advanced ciphers I need a modulo 32 rotater (wraps 32 bit numbers around by bit at a time). Took a few minutes to wrap my mind around it, but I got it. Step 1 of a bazillion for ChaCha(and AES) complete but I'm happy at the moment #commodore #c64 #crypto
- Implementing ChaCha… I need 4 eight bit ROLs, but the 6502 is really a 9 bit ROL. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me to just to a CMP #$80 until now to set the carry before the rotate. Problem solved.
- My first ever VIC-20 arrived. It seem salvageable, black screen, and you can't beat $25US... I don't own a dead test for a 20 so working on it old school. It was after I desoldered the horrible socket on UE11 that I realized I'm apparently out of 24 pin sockets. #commodore
- Late lunch 10 minute progress: Next up is Pontifex from Cryptonomicon. Occurred to me while planning that I better do some card routines first so I don't bite off too much at once. So create a deck and shuffle (requires two different jokers to work) is done. #commodore #c64
- Today on my operating table is my very reliable Evinrude 50. Just changing the plugs, it’s not even sick or anything.
- Had a young coder(11) ask me to do my BASIC prime number code program without Simons BASIC so she could do it on Dad’s VIC 20. Here you go Ms. Lisa. I hope you can improve it for us. Sorry about the lack of video capture. I’m on my front porch :) #commodore #vic20