today's pickup is really fun. i only had a single photo to go by in the classified ad, and i instantly knew i wanted to pick it up based on what i *suspected* was an interesting video card alone.
the teenager that sold it to me said that it was his grandma's computer, and i can confirm that is absolutely smells like grandma's house - potpourri and all.
just for fun - can you identify the cpu/board/video card in the first pic? (answers are in the image description)
compare the second and third pic - i removed the sticker. beneath is the original colour of the plastics D:
i was genuinely surprised that it turned out to be such a fascinating video card. i missed this entire generation, as I went with Riva TNT.* cards in those days.
the sound card is fascinating - I've never used Yamaha XG based chips before, and can't wait to hear what they sound like.
what was grandma doing with such a powerful gaming rig in 1999? i'd love to know too. the teenager left the hdd intact, and i'm looking forward to finding out what the computer was used for!
@50htz Ah, another Lua admirer!
I've been trying to encourage more of a culture of typing in or copy-pasting Lua programs into one's phone: https://akkartik.itch.io/carousel/devlog
Less than a month to go until #RC2014Assembly ! Hosted at The National Museum of Computing #TNMOC this is shaping up to be an awesome day for anybody interested in #RC2014 or similar #Z80 kits.
If you have something that you would like to exhibit, or have kits to sell, there are still some tables available.
https://rc2014.co.uk/3855/rc2014-assembly-v1-0/
Hope to see you there!
I evenutally got myself a #M5Stack #Cardputer and installed the ESP32forth variant for it right away ...
This little device is quite amazing! Now I can tinker with #ESP32forth everywhere!!
.oO(my wife's gonna hate it!)
http://gyptazy.com/fedi/gyptazy/
#mastodon #alternatives #fediverse #activitypub #customizing
Quite confident that the path of least resistance, modifying EDIT.BAS, will be fruitful.
It will require some finessing, but the modifications are simple enough.
Stay tuned for a fuller explanation.
I use this tag for miscellaneous motifs, propositions, and real-world objects or phenomena which are being catalogued on LithoGraphIca.
It's kind of like one big SCP catalogue for real things, only the end goal is to arrive at a correct Marxism.
@hairylarry and we are talking with (libre computer scientist of GNU) Amin Bandali today! Lots of boosts of the 'hey, any questions' and almost literally no questions!?
Thread:
https://gamerplus.org/@screwlisp/115052876169550883
Just an hour to go!
We're on #emacsconf on #irc as well.
@vidak I've written a few thoughts about the design and specification of what is necessary for a virtual machine to host the sort of projects that I like to do:
https://100r.co/site/weathering_software_winter.html
https://wiki.xxiivv.com/site/devlog
Maybe that can give you some ideas for a vm of your own ๐ป
@vidak PILOT? It's much less fussy about syntax. But the versions of PILOT were too incompatible, even compared to BASIC.
Block structured langs suck to type in because there's no line numbers, you have to keep track of where you are and visual diff the programs.
8-bit magazines also had those checksum programs, which were super useful, hard to make one for anything else.
#basic
@vidak Great line of inquiry there. I find the Uxn/Varvara ecosystem to be very inspiring.
@vidak I think a number of factors combine to make BASIC unique in that respect. First, has an issue with multiple dialects that lack mutual intelligibility. This is also something of an opportunity in that it's a good way to learn debugging. It also had the good fortune to be part of computing culture when printing on paper was at its biggest ever and the bad fortune of lacking reliable means of persistence apart from print. As the only language on home computers it enjoyed an advantage not shared by languages like Pascal or Fortran that were otherwise similarly situated
The cheapest computer is the one you already have--
Hmm, so what about a virtual machine that runs on smartphones, old desktops collecting dust, old laptops...?
Trying to think now: what would be necessary for such a virtual machine?
Still day dreaming every day about BASIC.
I have a hunch that type in programs are a good idea.
What other types of languages have had a history of type in code culture?
Is there a better language for type in code than BASIC?
In 1980 a German #electronics magazine introduced the terms "compreter" and "interpiler" for tokenized and bytecoded #HomeComputer #BASIC dialects.
I want to know more about computing in parts of the world different from the West.
Sometimes the people's permacomputer project is followed by accounts from nations in African or Asian regions--perhaps a good focus for the project would be digital literacy in Indonesia, which is very close to my home city.