mos_8502 :verified: 🇨🇦

Retrocomputing Maker and Designer in Ontario, Canada. I make stuff without promising a delivery date. I don't do crowdfunding, but I do gratefully accept Patreon and Ko-Fi support for what I do. 

Buy me a coffee!: https://www.ko-fi.com/mos_8502
Become a Patron!: https://patreon.com/Studio8502
Buy my products!: https://www.tindie.com/stores/studio8502/

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Last Notes

2025-04-14 22:55:25

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I'm working on that, of course.

2025-04-14 22:54:01

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First I get hold of a test unit to make sure the design works, and if not, fix whatever is wrong. Then it's worth talking about a production run of 50 or so units.

2025-04-13 19:31:05

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The cult is an effect, not a cause. The cause is a fundamentally broken morality. To a conservative, good is evil, and evil good. Helping others is sinful, sexually assaulting children is good. Feeding the hungry is a crime, and concentration camps are just common sense. They are ontologically evil.

2025-04-13 18:28:43

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Probably a contender for strongest track one side one of 1992.

2025-04-13 18:08:59

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Understanding of the kind of person who hates libraries clicks into place when you accept that all the things that make libraries cool and useful and good are the reasons that kind of person hates them.

2025-03-29 21:32:31

Shit. What the hell tool was I using to flash the VERA bitstream onto the Upduino?

2025-01-11 14:31:41

I hate containers in general, but what really honks me off about Flatpak in particular is that it means I install a program on *my* goddamn computer and get told that I don't have permission to do X.

2024-11-15 23:23:21

Took my wife to the new Punjabi place on Queen St. Outstanding little buffet. Lovely pakoras, lamb biryani, dal makhani, lots of stuff.
Now I’m broke. Worth it. I don’t get to take her out as often as I should. All my money that doesn’t go to bills usually goes into projects.

2024-11-10 05:54:22

[Vir ducks into a transport tube to escape another of Londo's supplicants, not noticing G'Kar already in there. After enduring the Narn's piercing stare for several uncomfortable seconds, Vir tries to apologize that he wasn't able to stop any of this. G'Kar is unresponsive until the tube opens and he walks out, then turns and draws a knife. He slices his hand then holds it up for Vir to see as blood drops fall down, one by one.]
G'Kar: Dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead. How do you apologize to them?
Vir: I can't.
G'Kar: Then I cannot forgive.
(Babylon 5, S02E21, "Comes The Inquisitor")
So many queer and trans kids dead and more every day, who deserved a life.
How do you apologize to them?
That's why I cannot forgive.

2024-11-09 02:26:17

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There are plenty of people who haven’t proved themselves to be irredeemable. I reserve my compassion for them.

2024-11-03 03:58:34

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Snoochie boochies?

2024-11-03 03:44:53

Is it even a GUI without a clock in the menubar?
This one isn't functional. Yet.
https://studio8502.files.fedi.monster/media_attachments/files/113/416/960/431/655/769/original/8328177cf3881fb9.png

2024-11-03 03:32:28

Progress is progress -- it's beginning to resemble a more traditional GUI.
https://studio8502.files.fedi.monster/media_attachments/files/113/416/911/986/953/629/original/9529a8f4409e0df9.png

2024-11-01 05:17:48

I remembered just now, I have a half-assembled MT32-Pi with a Pi 3 in it. I can borrow that for bare metal testing at first. It won't perform as well as a 400, but that may be a good thing -- if performance is or can be made acceptable on a 3, then it will *definitely* be good on a 4, 400, or 5.

2024-10-31 04:51:47

Anyone play Shenzhen I/O?
What do you think of the assembly language they used in that?

2024-10-28 22:53:04

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Name and shame.

2024-10-27 22:13:22

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User memory is not easily accessed from the VM -- there are API functions for it, but you can't just mark a variable as stored there, or malloc from it. It's there because it cost me nothing to enable it, and if we end up with a proper CPU emulator, that will use it directly.

2024-10-27 22:10:52

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And here is the memory map for the 512KB of system RAM: <code>+--------------------------------+ | 512KB RAM LAYOUT | +-------+-----------------+------+ | ADDR | DESCRIPTION | SIZE | +-------+-----------------+------+ |0x00000|VIDEO RAM |32768 | |0x08000|TILES |8192 | |0x0A000|SPRITES |8192 | |0x0C000|MAP |56320 | |0x19C00|GAMEPADS |4 | |0x19C04|MOUSE |8 | |0x19C0C|KEYBOARD |4 | |0x19C10|SFX STATE |16 | |0x19C20|SOUND REGISTERS |72 | |0x19C68|WAVEFORMS |256 | |0x19D68|SFX |4224 | |0x1ADE8|MUSIC PATTERNS |11520 | |0x1DAE8|MUSIC TRACKS |408 | |0x1DC80|MUSIC STATE |4 | |0x1DC84|STEREO VOLUME |4 | |0x1DC88|PERSISTENT MEMORY|1024 | |0x1E088|SPRITE FLAGS |512 | |0x1E288|FONT |1016 | |0x1E680|FONT PARAMS |8 | |0x1E688|ALT FONT |1016 | |0x1EA80|ALT FONT PARAMS |8 | |0x1EA88|BUTTONS MAPPING |32 | |0x1EAA8|PCM SAMPLES |128 | |0x1EB28|RESERVED |5336 | |0x20000|USER MEMORY |393216| +-------+-----------------+------+ </code>

2024-10-27 21:04:12

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Throw in some Irish coffee and a good book.

2024-10-27 21:03:22

No, Batman should not kill the Joker. Extrajudicial killings aren't what superheroism is about, and it's not Batman's job to be an executioner.
That said, the district of Gotham should have put the Joker's laughing ass to death decades ago, and in anything like the real world they *would* have done, assuming he didn't die in a hail of police bullets during one of his puerile practical jokes.

2024-10-26 18:46:39

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I think I would like to adapt that 6x8 font to make use of the "alternative font" mode. As you can see, the stock small font is barely usable at this resolution.
https://studio8502.files.fedi.monster/media_attachments/files/113/375/206/754/846/903/original/c6a9f301a212025b.png

2024-10-25 17:50:42

Here’s a truth about polling: if a poll says “likely voters” that means that they chose who responded very carefully to get the result they wanted.

2024-10-14 21:36:31

Pretend I was actually going to open up KiCad and do the work. Which do you think is a better idea:<li>A single PCB design which includes the discrete components needed to make diode-transistor logic versions of any of the logic gates, AND, OR, NOT, XOR, NAND, NOR, and XNOR</li>
or<li>A series of PCBs each of which expresses a different one of the logic gates, which requires no internal reconfiguration</li>

2024-10-14 21:27:12

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Were I by some fluke of statistics on part with a biblical miracle elected to high leadership of that org, I would do a ground up redesign. It would become a dues-paying global trade union of software developers, in addition to a lobbying special interest group and a copyright clearing house.

2024-10-13 15:18:09

Ideally, my bench computer would be in a mini rack with the rest of my rack gear. Unfortunately I don’t have the cash for a rackmount front I/O ATX case nor do I own a rack.
https://studio8502.files.fedi.monster/media_attachments/files/113/300/779/071/126/689/original/6346164603296a69.jpeg

2024-10-08 01:55:59

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My answer to that is “why would you run two different versions of the same language, that’s dumb”.

2024-10-08 01:34:27

How fucked up is Python that you need a special system to maintain several different versions of it?

2024-10-06 22:51:52

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Thing is, almost every TUI client *already* handles it by either passing it through or sanitizing it. If it's a time bomb, it's already ticking.

2024-10-06 22:51:12

Another addition I would make to Gemtext: A line type which specifies that the line is delimited text -- that is, it's tabular data, delimited by a given character. Say we use the | (vertical pipe) character, followed by the delimiter character for that line.<code>|,A1,A2,A3,A4,A5 |:B1:B2:B3:B4:B5 |%C1%C2%C3%C4%C5 </code>

2024-10-06 22:37:21

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I'm not the only one thinking this: https://gmi.skyjake.fi/gemlog/2021-11_ansi-sgr.gmi

2024-10-06 22:23:32

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That's why I worded it to be strictly an optional thing. It *should* be easy and safe to ignore it.

2024-10-05 02:22:13

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Total coincidence. But neat.

2024-10-05 01:39:22

I don’t just want to make abortion legal. I want to make it a crime to suggest that it shouldn’t be legal, or to propose any law or regulation to the effect.

2024-10-04 21:39:56

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None of those are protocol problems. Those are client problems.

2024-10-04 00:14:49

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Forgive me saying so, but I really feel like any given RC2014 with a VERA added on would give you more bang for your buck than a whole assed Commander X16, just from having CP/M ready to go.

2024-10-04 00:13:35

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The ROMWBW HBIOS has a pretty simple driver model. I should be able to hook into it well enough to get terminal emulation on that once I design the card.

2024-10-04 00:12:06

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I could have done significantly less work just populating the missing slots on the old backplane but then they wouldn’t all match.

2024-10-02 19:54:23

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Still, 120Hz is about the most flexible, even with no high-refresh content, since it avoids pull-down.

2024-10-02 19:47:19

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It makes sense that there’s nothing particularly special about our little corner of the universe though.

2024-10-02 19:46:04

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Nor 24fps, as a lot of movies are.

2024-10-02 19:38:17

Speaking this into existence so now it lives in your brains: imagine a live action, big budget Monster Musume directed by Kevin Smith.
https://studio8502.files.fedi.monster/media_attachments/files/113/239/516/419/762/243/original/d0702e366fdb541f.jpeg

2024-10-01 18:19:17

The shitposting and GitHub issue trolling will continue until Winamp is MIT-licensed.

2024-09-28 21:43:41

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Well, the panel PCBs are close to 300x100mm.

2024-09-28 21:29:25

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In this case it’s about 85% the price.

2024-09-22 00:47:18

If you need to tell people I'm a queerphobic misogynist to feel justified, that's your business. Anyone wants to believe this person, hey, have fun. Door's to your left.
What do I think? Do you actually care what I think?
Well, just in case you do, I think I had forgotten this person *existed* until a couple hours ago, and it's deeply weird of them to still be climbing the walls pissing in everyone's ear about what a big mean poopyhead I am. But hey, it's a free Fediverse. You want to spend your life with an axe to grind against me, that says more about you than it does me.
https://studio8502.files.fedi.monster/media_attachments/files/113/178/425/226/403/274/original/fdcf130634d09b6b.png

2024-09-20 06:26:22

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Custom rear panel for my Z180 based system.

2024-09-20 05:43:24

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I guess a gemstone is more romantic when a couple of slaves died to dig it up?

2024-09-20 02:38:38

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Yes -- because each serial port is connected through a MAX3232 four-line transceiver specifically designed for the job.

2024-09-20 02:31:39

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Here's what it looks like populated:
https://studio8502.files.fedi.monster/media_attachments/files/113/167/531/913/819/711/original/dd92a8c06574a3e8.png

2024-09-20 02:30:38

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I use KiCad. This board takes the VersaTerm, a Pi Pico-based serial terminal board which mostly implements colour VT100, and a wifi based modem emulator, by stripping away things I don't need and placing them together on a board that reduces costs vs. building separate devices.
Connect a PS/2 keyboard, VGA monitor, and two RS-232 serial cables, and you got yourself both a wifi-based modem and a full colour VT100 compatible serial terminal -- which is very handy, for #RC2014 type systems.

2024-09-20 00:18:01

And... routed. Not my very best work, but it'll definitely do the job.
https://studio8502.files.fedi.monster/media_attachments/files/113/167/004/629/073/498/original/8eb0c6bbf4087400.png

2024-09-19 22:53:21

Bag of pretzels, jar of queso dip, Dr. Pepper zero, I'm good.

2024-09-19 22:52:18

This OP is not awash in ambiguous visual imagery.
https://studio8502.files.fedi.monster/media_attachments/files/113/166/669/151/457/203/original/1d3239b31a0b5357.png

2024-09-16 19:43:24

So when you request a non-ascii file with gopher, the server just barfs out the raw binary then closes the connection?

2024-09-15 20:15:26

"If you have the technology to terraform Mars, then you have the technology to preserve Earth."
I'm not convinced that's true, though -- terraforming doesn't necessarily imply perfectly duplicating Earth's ecology. For purposes of calling a planet "habitable", it's probably sufficient that it has gravity enough for human comfort and health, average temperature in the liquid water range, sufficient solar exposure for agriculture, and a lack of anything immediately deadly to Terran life forms as such.
Martian gravity is probably good enough for Terran life. The radiation is nasty, and there's no magnetosphere to protect an atmosphere, but if you can *create* a new atmosphere, you can probably top it up periodically as bits of it blow off in the solar wind.
Martian soil probably needs a lot of work and amendment to be arable, but you don't actually *need* soil to grow plants. We grow food without soil all the time right here on Earth.
I'm not saying a Mars colony is a good idea, I'm saying that it's not as impossible as some claim. Personally I think space stations are a better bet, or lunar/asteroid colonies, for all practical purposes. An asteroid colony will probably need to be rather like an ant farm that spins, if people will live there permanently. Lunar gravity may or may not be enough for human life long term, I don't know.

2024-09-14 17:59:00

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I have two 5¼" high-density (1.2MB) floppy drives to use with this system; what I need to do for that is to build an enclosure to hold and power them, and connect to the main system via the DC-37 cable I have ordered. That will happen in time; first I want to get the main system up and running.
I also want to make a nice external wifi modem with blinky LEDs, and it would be wonderful if I could lay hands on a daisy wheel or type ball printer that is usable with CP/M, but that is a rather tall order.
I would also like to lay hands on a mechanical keyboard to use with it; ideally, a Model F, but those are *really* spendy, way beyond what I can afford.
https://studio8502.files.fedi.monster/media_attachments/files/113/137/203/666/309/895/original/8a4f659900e2a1ea.png

2024-09-14 17:50:50

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The longer you go without opening it, the worse it gets. Mind games.

2024-09-14 17:37:29

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If any of this interests you, I still have spare PCBs from the big fab run I did for this project.

2024-09-14 17:35:20

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This is the platform for which I will be building and testing the VERA module for #RC2014. The HBIOS provides a generic API which can be used to implement a driver that allows any graphics card to be used as a terminal by CP/M or other OSes, via HBIOS calls.
Until that is ready, I will be using The High Nibble's VT132, which is an ESP32-based ANSI colour VT-100 compatible terminal control board.

2024-09-14 17:33:14

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Each of the cards is configurable as to the I/O address it uses; a custom ROMWBW build will be used to expose the various expansions to CP/M through the HBIOS.

2024-09-14 17:32:31

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Finally, we make use of the RC2014 slots, with the Flock, a card by Sergey Kiselev, which provdes a floppy controller and battery-backed (well, supercapacitor-backed) realtime clock.
https://studio8502.files.fedi.monster/media_attachments/files/113/137/097/057/918/617/original/11bed955fdc82da1.jpeg

2024-09-14 17:30:39

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The system runs on 5V DC. So we need to power it. The SC502 takes in 12VDC, and regulates it down to 5V for the system. It also provides a reset supervisor and some status LEDs.
https://studio8502.files.fedi.monster/media_attachments/files/113/137/089/538/795/662/original/889359d27d704685.jpeg

2024-09-14 17:29:35

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The SC506 provides two electrically isolated 8-bit digital inputs and outputs. This is what will manage the front panel.
https://studio8502.files.fedi.monster/media_attachments/files/113/137/084/085/707/026/original/1792a8ccd1212af9.jpeg

2024-09-14 17:27:26

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The SC509 provides a PIO (parallel I/O) chip, also common on Z80 systems.
https://studio8502.files.fedi.monster/media_attachments/files/113/137/078/023/781/068/original/e17abe2605fed8ab.jpeg

2024-09-14 17:26:34

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The SC511 provides a SIO (serial) and CTC (counter/timer) pair, both very common in Z80 systems of all stripes.
https://studio8502.files.fedi.monster/media_attachments/files/113/137/073/378/303/195/original/0a16f93ec0de0f97.jpeg

2024-09-14 17:25:21

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Any good system like this needs a backplane. In my case, I'm using the SC522 moduklar backplane to provide the first six Z50Bus slots, connected to an SC517 modular backplane, which provides a seventh Z50Bus slot and three RC2014 compatible slots.
https://studio8502.files.fedi.monster/media_attachments/files/113/137/061/015/223/513/original/94e3b0913fe5c2f2.jpeg

2024-09-14 17:22:04

So, about my Z180 build. You've seen the front panel I'm making for it, very fancy -- but what will it have on the inside? Let's talk about it.
First, the general notion. It's not an #RC2014 system (which is no criticism of that platform, which I love and respect!). It's based on Small Computer Central's SC500 series of PCBs, which use the Z50Bus standard.
Most importantly, we start with the SC503. This pint sized powerhouse packs a Z180 CPU, an ~18MHz oscillator (the Z180 can internally double that if configured to!), 512KB of SRAM, and 512KB of flash ROM. It is configured to expose the two serial ports of the Z180, and it also has a built-in SPI bus port for an SD card, usable as internal fixed disk storage with CP/M.
The ROM firmware is provided by ROMWBW, which provides various iterations of CP/M, plus a machine language monitor, a BASIC, and the UCSD P-Machine, which is its own whole OS.
#retrocomputing
https://studio8502.files.fedi.monster/media_attachments/files/113/137/045/389/393/401/original/d6fec74adef57b3f.jpeg

2024-09-11 03:57:23

What is the most Unix-y image format?
I think it’s netpbm & co - plain text based, but full colour images.

2024-09-10 21:46:57

Would anyone happen to have one of these gathering dust? 37-pin DC-size D-subminiature cable, straight through pinning (1 to 1, 2 to 2, ...). Maybe 1-3 metres long? I can and will fabricate one if need be, but I'm short on cable with sufficient conductors.
https://studio8502.files.fedi.monster/media_attachments/files/113/115/446/801/465/537/original/9af9a0ee6ad0e36d.png

2024-09-10 03:51:16

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Huh? You mean the USB A to B cable? I have about ten devices in my office right now that use this cable.
https://studio8502.files.fedi.monster/media_attachments/files/113/111/221/162/660/040/original/d3afb85e6f7f5a13.png

2024-09-08 20:13:23

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Correct, but let us not forget the corruption that ran from root to tip of that tree - everyone was lying about their output or taking bribes to let someone else get away with lying. No planning apparatus can function without true information, so even if they had been more Democratic, they’d still have been fucked.

2024-09-08 03:05:35

Place two doors down is on fire. No current danger to my place.
https://studio8502.files.fedi.monster/media_attachments/files/113/099/717/614/460/418/original/cf0a2af9b3069165.jpeg

2024-09-07 19:44:32

Wish me luck. The very nice man who sold me the Power Mac G4 FW800 MDD, l the fastest stock machine to run Mac OS 9.2.2, got back in touch with me. He offered me some strawberry iMacs, but what I want, and mentioned to him, is to know his price for the SE/30 and Radius external monitor. On learning it, I plan to beg *all* of you for the money, because that machine needs to be somewhere other than a rural garage.

2024-09-07 19:35:44

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The shadow of Project Mogul is cast far and wide, a shade so pervasive that people forget it even exists. A hilarious legacy for a project that ended in failure.

2024-09-06 11:55:12

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XFCE gets close to good, but it’s hamstrung by every new GTK application using libadwaita.

2024-09-06 11:54:35

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GNOME and KDE suck equally for very different reasons.

2024-09-06 11:52:06

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It’s more than that. Though at this point CDE gets more things right than does GNOME.

2024-09-06 11:47:49

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Containers? Massively parallelizing virtualization? These aren’t bad things per se, but they’re also not what desktops need. What desktops need is for every application to look and feel consistent, for nothing to happen that hasn’t been commanded by the user, for the defaults to fit 90% of use cases.

2024-09-06 11:44:57

I think I have identified a problem of mine. Specifically, the problem I have with where Linux desktops have been going.
They’re taking things that are quite apparently useful and productive in servers, and trying to make them into desktop features.

2024-09-06 11:43:29

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I like that answer better than the one I was given: “to predict the future”.

2024-09-04 14:32:33

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I have spare PCBs still if you want to buy them.

2024-09-04 13:59:37

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SC500 series, but similar. https://smallcomputercentral.com/modular-z50bus-system-sc500-series/
It's going into one of these enclosures:
https://studio8502.files.fedi.monster/media_attachments/files/113/079/639/993/992/513/original/09772d425e2ec694.png

2024-09-03 18:55:34

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However, I want to try running a single-client Wayland compositor which runs an X11 window manager as its sole client; thus using XWayland, and reducing Wayland to its more proper place in the graphics stack.

2024-09-03 18:52:15

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Oh, I went back to Xorg this morning. Didn’t have any crashes, just some stuttering and some cursor weirdness where spaces would be there but the cursor would be behind them.

2024-09-03 04:05:03

Every goddamned time I try to look at rust I can’t take it seriously because the code is so ugly. mut this and weird array that and “fn” because we’re too lazy to type the u and the c now?

2024-09-03 00:45:50

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Seems okay so far. The NVS510 just immediately gave it in.

2024-09-03 00:10:15

New video card (new to me, anyway, GTX 1060) so it's only fair to give Wayland another shot. It starts up, doesn't seem to have crashed yet. We'll see how long it takes to shit the bed.

2024-09-02 23:54:56

Workshopping opening lines for my videos. What do you think of:
"I'm a 40something year old bald white dude with a big beard, and I have opinions about technology. And today's opinions are all about... [TOPIC]"

2024-09-02 12:21:14

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I took 40mg of melatonin last night around 2100, conked out by 2230, slept right though to 0730.

2024-09-02 11:43:53

COFFEEEEEEEEE

2024-09-02 00:21:47

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You can keep the slugs off your plants by taking a foil pie plate, planting it in the soil such that the rim is flush with the earth surface, and filling the pie plate halfway with beer. It will draw slugs away from your plants and drown them.

2024-09-02 00:14:14

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Perhaps a syntax like this to declare it<code>[[operator(+, infix)]] DegreesC degrees_c_degrees_f_add(DegreesC lhs, DegreesF rhs); </code>

2024-09-02 00:11:47

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Something like that. For a particular example:<code>DegreesC tempC = 32.124; DegreesF incrementF = 5.54; </code>
where both are [[strong]] double typedefs as your proposal, I would be able to define a + operator for the case of adding incrementF to tempC, which would handle the conversion properly.

2024-09-01 23:51:00

Female Agent: "If we have to, we *are* willing to resort to torture methods to get answers out of you nasty hellbeasts!"
Moxxie: "When you say 'torture' do you mean physical, or psychological? Physical seems counterproductive, we would likely tell you *anything* if it meant an end to the pain, *and* you would have no way of knowing what was true!"
Blitzø: "*Or* we might like it too much, and then you've got a whole new thing to deal with!"
Male Agent: "What do you mean by that?"
Blitzø: "Oh, you're stupid, huh? I can work with stupid. Daddy likey dummy."
— Helluva Boss, S01E06

2024-09-01 23:38:55

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Reading proposals. So far, I'm strongly pro [[strong]] and _Newtype. I suppose there's no chance of being able to define operators where they don't already exist (as opposed to overloading them for extant types!).

2024-09-01 22:55:25

"For the first time in my life, maybe I can be ready for this; I can be the marshal leading the parade. I can come into my own, and I think I've always known, my destiny could never be postponed..." — Hazbin Hotel, "Ready for This"

2024-09-01 22:45:07

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For CP./M 2, you can get Z-system compatibility with NZCOM.

2024-09-01 21:53:42

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Good enough for me.

2024-09-01 21:45:40

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I do it.

2024-09-01 20:33:28

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The blocklists let you preemptively block problem users before you ever see them.