pleroma.debian.social

pleroma.debian.social

Jonathan Dowland | @jmtd@pleroma.debian.social

Principal Software Engineer on #OpenJDK #RedHat. #Debian developer (dormant). Computer Science PhD student. Amateur Computing historian (Computer Science and H/W, esp. Commodore Amiga). Guerilla archivist.

@pndc oof if the SoC was 2017 vintage that would be bad even for me (I can cope on relatively low powered environments). I hadn't thought to check Ali Express. I've just seen another one on there claiming Alder Lake (2021?) for ~$333 which doesn't seem quite as bad for a toy. Thanks for your input!

There’s a whole load of these tiny 7” Celeron laptops on Amazon and other places from random-name-generator vendors. Has anyone tried Linux on them?
Product photo of a tiny 7” laptop in black

New blog post: Franken-Keyboard! https://jmtd.net/log/franken_keyboard/
#hardware
photo of my DIY franken-keyboard with mismatched key caps

@lritter i'd like C if it was simpler. what i really like about C is that you write a list of things for the computer to do and it goes into this big grid of numbered boxes and changes what's in the boxes. you can remember the widths of the boxes easily by multiplying them by 8. thats all there is to it. if you mess up with the boxes its kind of your fault. for telling it to open the wrong box. you don't feel angry at it, because it's fair. good game design. i think they call it a souls-like

So yeah various blog stuff broke, some is still broken, my new SSLLabs score is only a B, etc.: all this will be addressed eventually.

I recently migrated my blog to a new VM. In times gone by, I would have taken pride in doing a professional job of that, but in recent times I’ve increasingly wanted to do stuff *less professionally* when it’s hobby versus day job. The same principle applies to hobby coding, not that I get much of that done at the moment, but that has more interesting consequences.

@mart_brooks @slp that’s a good point. Despite all its other shortcomings, it’s the narrative elements of ffe that make it compelling to me

@mart_brooks @slp one of them that I’ve really never got on with (and iirc you did) is elite: dangerous

I’m fascinated by “Frontier: Elite II”, a space game from 1993 featuring:

- 3D graphics.
- Flight and space physics (lightweight, but still).
- Factions, trade and combat.
- Ship customization.

All that implemented originally in 250000 lines of 68000 assembly, with the whole game fitting in a single double density disk.

Seriously, if you have an emulator and some time to spare, spin it up and give it a try.

https://www.lemonamiga.com/games/details.php?id=1782

@ross @slp oh i forgot I blogged about this (ten years ago!) https://jmtd.net/log/ffe/ maybe it’s time I fire it up again

@ross @slp i’d add that the sequel has a lot of merit: there are some decompile/recompile projects for Linux for that as well (jjffe, glffe, etc): they’re all quite janky but there’s still fun to be had

@ross @slp me too! Someone disassembled the Atari version and made a Linux build that used GL: https://github.com/pcercuei/glfrontier . I haven’t played even *that* for over ten years but from what I recall it’s a blast

I had a brain idea so I made a picture of it.

A very wide image labeled:

Top text: There's more pride than the eye can see

In the center is a version of the 8-stripe pride flag, rotated so that the stripes are vertical, which fades out at the left and right.

Bottom text: Left: "Ultra Pride"  Center: "Visible Pride"  Right: "Infra Pride"

It's similar to the kind of diagram that demonstrates that the visible light spectrum is only a subset of all wavelengths of light (photons)

Dear printer-fighting fediverse,

I'm afraid that our printer is reaching the end of its life, and I'm considering buying a new one: I believe that the recommendation for printers that print and don't try to trick you into subscriptions is Brother, and the usual shops I buy these things from either don't have them, or they are huge multifunction ones (and they are out of stock anyway).

do you have recommendations for ships with a website to buy printers from, ideally in it or at least in eu?

(I'm looking for a colour laser, with ethernet)

@fraggle I hadn’t, thank you!

Introduction to Reverse-Engineering Vintage Synth Firmware

https://ajxs.me/blog/Introduction_to_Reverse-Engineering_Vintage_Synth_Firmware.html

Catnip!

One of the hidden tracks is 78RPM so I’d need to record it and speed it up to hear it properly

I bought this at the time and I’ve never played it. I was planning to flip it but I might enjoy it this week first

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