Noesis Creation:
? ? ? Archaic Computer Q & A ! ! !
The Archaic Computer Gallery
dieHard Back Issues!!!! commodore 8-bit support
Back to NC Home Page
This page was updated: December 1, 2022
Jump to month:
January 2022
February 2022
March 2022
April 2022
May 2022
June 2022
July 2022
August 2022
September 2022
October 2022
November 2022
December 2022
STARDATE:2021.12.05:
It is early December (last year to y'all) and I just closed out the 2021 AC file and updated the AC Template to be the 2022 AC file. Thus we begin anew...
STARDATE:2021.12.22:
VGer's screen goes blank. It appears to still work, as when when I hit the key to change the screen output to external monitor, it comes on for a moment if I press twice ot three times. It actes like a dirty switch. I know IBMs have a button that gets pressed to tell the computer, "the lid is closed, turn off the screen."
Not a great thing to have to deal with, but then I haven't been to a coffee shop in ages.
The latest build is an IBM ThinkPad R51, running AmigaOS 3.1. It's actually the KT Light version of Amiga Forever. It seems to run really nice. I have some access to the CD Drive. It doesn't see PCMCIA or USB stuff. :/ It can't use the WiFi, but it can use the 10-base-T. If I could get WiFi working it would be a totally Portable Amiga!
STARDATE:2022.01.06:
Doing a live edit here. Went to post the Jan 2022 posting and oppsie! It isn't done. Bummer, well next month we shall continue. Happy New Year!
TTFN!
noesis0
STARDATE:2022.01.12:
One of the commodore magazines of long ago published an Omega Race clone called Omicron. It was a better version than the original. It must have been Compute!'s Gazette as I seem to recall playing it on both C64 and VIC20. Although now that I think about it, I might have just played Omega Race on the 20.
An appropriate game for CoronaVirus Times.
I'm definitely ready for an end to this pandemic. I've had it and I'm an introvert.
Today I'm typing via the virtual kb as Isotope our kitty is on my lap and didn't like me typing. :)
I really don't care for winter. I never really have. You'd think I'd have more time at the keys and you'd be wrong. I have managed to integrate Area 51, the Amiga OS powered ThinkPad, into the studio.
What actually happened was Area 51 (a ThinkPad R51) got put on top of Zoule's (the C128D) monitor where Teach (the R50) used to go for setup and testing. My solution was to move the iMac back, square on the top of the stereo (where it's basically always been), move the monitor from behind to the side at 90 degrees, and plop Teach into the open space left from the shuffle.
I have yet to do anything on Teach since the move, it does need a PS, but it's basically ready to go. I had initially had Teach in this spot way back when.
Update: I've moved Teach into place. Unfortunately, there are some more obstacles, like Teach's PS cable being in the way of the Ethernet box. The Ethernet cable for Teach has yet to be plugged in (if I even have one now), as well as some other things need to move. Perhaps upward, so cables can easily fit under....
STARDATE:2022.02.09:
Artist's Log: 2022:02:11: The inflatable mattress slowly let air seep away... It was so uncomfortable; like normal days, I arose to avoid/alleviate pain. I actually had planned to stay in bed longer. But as per, pain got me up.
I had decided at the last minute to leave Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) home. Bad choice. Now I am typing on an iPhone. In retrospect, I should have grabbed Area 51. It's OS is AmigaOS and that would have been great.
I can't complain, I lived in pain that either was, well painful or ghost pain. The latter being pain at a subconscious level.
So what?
I have been searching unsuccessfully for a tune I heard at band competition when I was in Jr. High. The South Jr High jazz band played it as well. I loved that tune. I think it had a one word title. Simone or something. It's not Simone or Indigo, apparently. Although it's totally possible it could yet have that title, I just haven't found it.
I get a word lost in my head and I think it starts with a certain letter. When I finally get the word, it never starts with that letter. Never.
So what is this song? Who composed it? Why is it so illusive?
Maybe I'll stumble over it one day...
Not having access to Teach (the R50 with the 500gig drive) because Area 51 (the R51 running AmigaOS) occupying the space Teach once sat in, and Blackbeard's (the R50p) monitor being blocked, has lead to a new setup.
I arranged things on top of the stereo so that rather than Chernobyl (the iMac) blocking the monitor, I placed the two (Chernobyl and the monitor) in an "L" configuration with the monitor slightly angled and in front of the edge of Chernobyl's screen -- the black part that really isn't screen. I've added an A/B box that handles both the USB (for keyboard and mouse) and VGA. I am awaiting a cable to hook Blackbeard into the configuration.
The monitor is different than the one that Chernobyl used to share with the CDTV, but it still does the job. So far the situation has been helpful as far as iMac access goes. Keep in mind the OS on the iMac is Kubuntu 18, there is no MacOS on it.
Hopefully, by next week we can see how things work with the R05p. Blackbeard's native resolution is 1600 * 1200 and this monitor falls short on resolution, but at present, it's better then nothing. Perhaps the monitor used for the SecCams could be swapped with this one. More "what if"s that may never be answered, who knows.
Mean while back at the ranch...
Well, ok. Our beloved Clairabelle is now posted on Craiglist. With 3 line-of-sight-special needs kids, milking has become really hard. I have to manage chores, basically juggling kids attentions so they do what's right. If they think they are not being watched they do stupid bad shit. There are other things having a milk cow entails, too numerous to get into here, but it takes a toll. When things go smoothly milking takes an hour and a half from start to finish. Sometimes it's fast, sometimes it takes longer. No homeschool gets done, I get worn out, it is no longer an option to spend this time this way. add all the other things into the mix and we decided to sell our cow. I love her milk and her cream -- her glorious cream. And I will miss her dearly. D:
I am Alchemist Coffee in Boise, typing this. I was suppose to bring Area 51 and be working in AmigaOS, but I forgot and packed deBerry and Darth Vader. :/ I have yet to get this month's posting done and decided to get away and work on it.
I do have VICE on this machine. Let's see.... Nope. If I click on a .d64 file it does not open via VICE64. My system does not have a check box in the select and app dialog to assign "always open with..." I guess if I weren't so lazy I'd implement it. Perhaps I will.
Ok, I did it. Now what?
In System Setup I went to
in
I added *.d64 and *.d81, then under
I added Commodore 64, Commodore 128 and Commodore VIC-20. I then hit Apply and was done. Now when I click on a commodore disk image, at least a D64 or a D81 file, VICE64 opens and it autoloads the first file on "disk."
I'm bummed I didn't bring Area 51.
I seem to be out of opportunities here. I wanted to take this to the yurt, but we didn't go. Went to a cabin, but didn't dig it out. So there seams to be no other time to take this. It's a winter thing. Rather, a snowshoeing thing.
This Atari Portfolio still rocks the world of 2022. Simply, wow.
STARDATE:2022.03.25:
We are at Star Gaze Yurt. It is one of the highest of the Yurts local to this area. Not a long trail 1.25-1.5 mile, the steepest climb in, however. I brought my camera. And the Portfolio. The camera, with three lenses and the the portfolio all in the camera bag weigh a ton. I carried it the first half and Mia carried it the second half. It is too cumbersome to carry the bag snowshoeing, carrying packs, and pulling a sled.
I can barely see this screen so I am, in essence, typing blind. My espresso got cold while getting the fire going. I thought it was going, but then it went out. Those are facts, not complaints. This is 2cool.
The Atari Portfolio is a 16 Bit computer. It supposedly supports MS-DOS, but I'm not so sure. I have only run Portfolio specific things on it, namely Portfolio BASIC. I usually have a card with Portfolio BASIC on it and just save the PRGs to that card. However, Portfolio cards have batteries and this one had died, so I have not gotten Portfolio BASIC back on it since replacing the battery.
Well, I slept in and everyone is getting up.
Getting ready for bed now. Kitchen solar light is good enough to see the screen by, but might be too bright for sleeping family were I to use it in the morning.
I left Strider on so I wouldn't have to deal with a dead CMOS. The xfer cable is setup for communication and moving this file to the network and NC on the iNet.
Slowly re-figuring out my Portfolio. I love this thing!
STARDATE: 2022.03.26: Warm espresso. Too lazy to heat it up. Can't see my screen. LCD is not back lit. If it were, battery life most likely would be shorter.
I miss Atari. The ghost of Atari still lingers out there. My latest Atari was the Jaguar that lives in the Gameframe. The Gameframe is blocked by homeschool shelves. At first the homeschool shelves were easily pulled out and access to the Gameframe was there.
,0021A ,23_DC ,noisivociloC , wen ,yrttA dl .semag oediv yalp ot ylimaf eht rof ecalp a saw emarfemag ehT .laedro rojam a si gninepo os ,sttnibac dna sevlahs ynam dedda ev'ew sraey eht re
(solution, text reversed: er the years we've added many shalves and cabintts, so opening is a major ordeal. The gameframe was a place for the family to play video games. ld Attry, new , Colicovision, CD_32, A1200,) Strange line of text above. I wonder what it is and where it came from.
Anywho, I believe the Gameframe is doomed. As I'm not sure when the cabinets will move or change, since they house things that the last 4 kids use for homeshooling. When they are done, the cabinets can move. Will the kids still be here to play the games? Weird thing about kids, they grow up and move away.
:D .tuo evom dna pu worg yeht
(solution, reversed text: grow up and move out. D: ) More weird text.
I fear the worst for the Portfolio. It's one thing to have strange characters, like THe or tje, that's just my crappy typing. Those are typos, this is phantom text.
I can see the screen and it's not doing it now. Weird.
I want to start a programming project. My choice of languages are: BASIC, Java, and Javascript.
Javscript, is something I want to do more of, I have limited experience writing it. It's limited to more modern machines with a modern browser. Of course, I can just use deBerry.
I have a fair amount of Java experience, albeit the American Machine version (used for education) mostly.
BASIC has many advantages, my vast familiarity of it, and the fact that just about every machine here at Noesis Creation speaks it.
I can use deBerry for all three languages.
I'm not even sure of what I want to code. But I'm sure, once I'm at the keys it'll spring to life. The way AC does, as well as my Ghost Mystery Stories.
.detnaw os I fi ,agimA eht neve ,821C ro ,oiloftroP eht esu dluoc I .sretpmoc fo seciohc tsom eht em evog dluow CISAB .noitacude rof noisrev emit ni nezorf A .noisrev enihcaM naciremA eht ni yltsom ,tieblA .itni stol enod ydaerla ev'I f
(solution, reversed text: f I've already done lots inti. Albeit, mostly in the American Machine version. A frozen in time version for education. BASIC would gove me the most choices of compters. I could use the Portfolio, or C128, even the Amiga, if I so wanted. )
More RND text. Hm.
Back on deBerry, the RND text appears to happen when I type long paragraphs (word wrap must not be on). The RND text is not random, the text is what I typed, only backwards.
Reversed Text.
Now that's weird. It appears that long lines lead to a bazaar phenomena of reversed text being typed into the Portable's Editor.
The solution?
Cutting and pasting into an online Web Development page's app to handle text reversal (looks to be a really cool website):
https://www.browserling.com/tools/text-reverse
Or in Linux (Kubuntu 18), ready to go:
rev test.txt > test2.txt
rev reads whatever and displays it backwards. In this case it reads test.txt and then sends it to test2.txt via >. That's right, the greater than carrot. There are variations to this command to write append to a file, and other options depending on what you want.
I may write more on this topic, but for now I'm moving on.
STARDATE:2022.04.04:
Ok, getting ready to move writing on to the MacBook. I have the Portfolio with me. Last time here (Alchemist Coffee), I tested the long paragraph text to see if the backwards stuff popped up. I was in text wrap mode and there was no backwards text. I'm actually writing to the Lexar JumpDrive. It has 256 Meg of storage on it. It's a drive I probably got back when I got the ThinkPad 770. I think that was the first USB machine that arrived here. I might not boot up the MacBook, as I still have battery here.
2001, 128DD, A2k.
If the Amiga 2000s were on top of the C128DD (or the C128DD on top) I could place the PET 2001 in the 2000 spot. I'd also like to set up the SuperPET 9000. I also want to clear the stuff from the floor in front of the Atari Mega STe, to get access to the Yamaha and the STe. I want to clear the shit.
The biggest problem was described to a tee in a book I am reading. If you have too much, you can't enjoy what the want. Meaning you can't find it.
There are way too many "I'll get back to this later" piles in my life. I need to access the stuff I want to access. I purged the barn. And I've started purging the shop. I also need to purge the studio.
Perhaps a spread sheet to weigh the options is in order.
I'm booting DarthVader...
I wish things worked better on DarthVader. The right click on the pad sucks. The Airport is garbage.
I'm only at 31% on deBerry. But I'm moving over just for fun. Cus I can.
I'm over on the MacBook. Powering down deBerry. So what stays and what goes? I have a new music keyboard that I'm dying to use. It's a Music Port and uses the Port software that I have finally found! I have yet to get it up and going.
It would be nice to get access to the all the sound equipment and get back into it. I miss music. I need it.
STARDATE:2022.04.04:
May the 4th be with you!
I am currently at what used to be Awakenings, Alchemist Coffee. I have been contemplating the Studio. I have a lot of things I'd like to do, but I really need to set a vision, prioritize and make a plan. That's it. Oh, and execute the plan.
This computer is acting flaky. :/ Perhaps I'm touching the touch pad. I haven't really had any problems with it before. But this poor machine has had a hard life. Fr. Hugh owned it new. Then Mia inherited it. Antony used it and Natasha used it, then Octavia kinda inherited it. It finally landed here at Noesis Creation. With issues.
Still a waycool machine.
Well, time to shut down and mosey on homeward...
STARDATE:2022.04.08:
We are in Idaho City, actually just eastish out past it aways. I say "ish" as it's sorta east. Any who.
More microwave countdown fun:
44-16=28 28-2=26 26/2=13+1=14 44,43 14 and 42,41 13 and 40,39 12 and 38,37 11 and 36,35 10 and 34,33 9 and 32,31 8 and 30,29 7 and 28,27 6 and 26,25 5 and 24,23 4 and 22,21 3 and 20,19 2 and 18,17 1 and 16 0/stopI actually do not do this. I just wait till it's near 16 then watch it and stop it if it boils or hits 16. (When microwaving espresso. I currently do not have access to AC and therefore am not microwaving anything at present.)
Why am I microwaving espresso? While my espresso maker makes one of the best dopios around, it doesn't quite cook it. So I microwave to finish it.
And you may well know, the best commodore experiences happen with an espresso, in a dark room, early in the morning.
Dang. Just launched VICE 64 on this machine and it did that thing where you see it booting, there's a place open on the task bar, system is loading things up then it vanishes like I didn't do anything.
STARDATE:2022.04.10:
Back home on deBerry once more.
More silly useless code! Microwave Count Down II! for commodore 64, or what ever you want to key it in on. ;D
1 REM A$="MICROWAVETIMERII":SAVEA$,8:VERIFYA$,8
5 PRINT"S","{CLR}MICROWAVE COUNT DOWN!{CRSR DOWN}{CRSR DOWN}{CRSR DOWN}{CRSR DOWN}"
8 PRINT"{BLK}MICRO DISP:","COUNT:"
10 FOR I=44 TO 0 STEP -1
12 TH$=RIGHT$(TI$,2)
14 IF TH$=RIGHT$(TI$,2) THEN 14
20 IF INT(I/2)*2=I THEN MD$=STR$(I):C$=STR$(((I-18)/2)+1)
30 IF LEN(MD$)=2 THEN MD$=" "+MD$
34 IF LEN(C$)=2 THEN C$=" "+C$
40 IF INT(I/2)*2=I THEN PRINT MD$,,C$
50 IF I=16 THEN PRINT"{LT BLU}":END
60 NEXT I
READY.
There was a time, the gilded age of microcomputing, when the The Motorola 68000 ruled. We had the Commodore Amiga, the Atari ST and the Apple Macintosh.
This, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16-bit_computing#16/32-bit_Motorola_68000_and_Intel_386SX, gives a good explanation as to the ST part of the Atari ST name as well as the description of the architecture itself:
"The Motorola 68000 is sometimes called 16-bit because of the way it handled basic mathematics. The instruction set was based on 32-bit numbers and the internal registers were 32 bits wide, so by common definitions, the 68000 is a 32-bit design. Internally, basic 32-bit arithmetic is performed using two 16-bit operations, and this leads to some descriptions of the system as 16-bit, or "16/32"."
My first exposure to this processor was through the Atari ST. I had come across two systems, an Atari 520ST and an Atari 1040ST, at the Idaho Youth Ranch.
They had the lot poised for sale, as in everything; a color monitor, a black and white monitor, a monitor master, two or three floppy drives, a bunch of software, mice -- it was basically two complete systems. I'm not sure I really appreciated what it was. This was a major haul. In fact, it was after this acquisition that I sought out, found, and joined the Atari Boise User Group (ABUG).
I slowly started figuring out that it really was a bargain when I was telling the members about the purchase. The price was $35, an amount I thought might have been a bit steep. But if you know any history and what ST equipment cost in 1993, you may know, it was indeed an amazing bargain.
Everyone at the meeting groaned, citing the exorbitant amounts of money they had spent on bits and pieces of their systems over time. I acquired two really nice, full systems in less than a day.
I was content with the ST. They are and have always been kinda strange to me. Having been used to GEOS on the commodore 128, I found it's OS a bit limiting, if not somehow primitive. It seemed like it should have more options. Do more. But that strangeness, I found intriguing.
I had a commodore MPS1250 printer setup with a set of fiberoptic lines to do scanning. That was just two cool! I came across a hand scanner for it. I used the 520 the most. And many of the scans I'd done probably up until we moved to the Amber house in 1998-99 were done on it with the fiberoptic. It actually did an amazing job.
I did have a CDTV shortly after joining ABUG. I hadn't really put it together that it was actually an Amiga. I eventually figured it out, as it was obvious. A friend of mine who knew I was into old computers said a friend of his had an Amiga he wanted to send me. We got in touch with each other and he sent me everything, except the monitor (he was concerned, with reason, about shipping it).
That system was an Amiga 1200, that came with a slew of software, mouse, the Miracle Music keyboard and software. I was set.
A friend of mine's roommate had, back in the early days of Macintosh, an all- in- one. I can recall his take on it.
It was gonna revolutionize the publishing industry with the ability to do WYSIWYG word processing, placing the pixel any where you want... ...at that time, the fonts, while there were many, were big pixels, and he recognized that -- he said it's coming though. And he was right.
A couple of years after that guy's rave, I had worked at a print shop and desktop publishing was gonna be the new wave. And it happened.
I first came across the Macintosh when a friend from ABUG told me about the school actions. You go to the district office and request info and they give you a list of stuff they got. He said they have lots of commodore stuff.
So I went. Mia and I poured over the list. I found an SX-64, and a 1541 floppy drive. Mia found a printer. The problem was, in order to get the one thing or things you had to bid on a pallet. Turns out you take the whole pallet home with you. Which was sort cool, but I think we wound up with three pallets! They had gobs of computers on them. It was then that The Great Crosthwaite Mountain of Computers was born.
Fortunately, I was on eBay about that time. But there were so many things on those pallets that I just donated shittons of items to the Youth Ranch.
It was on those pallets that I cam cross the Mac. 2 SEs, 1 Classic, and 1 512 (the third Mac ever released?). I can recall detailing the Classic.
Now these computers had been wrapped in shrink wrap to hold them on the pallets and the pallets eventually were in the way, so they were removed from the warehouse and placed on the road between warehouses. The plastic eventually started falling off and the rain and splashes of sandy water from the dirt road go onto the things on the pallet. They had been outside like that for over a year.
The computers were in not so clean shape. However, they cleaned up, and as I recall, everything was still fully functional.
The classic intrigued me. All the Macintoshes I had acquired from these pallets were all- in- ones. None were really, they just had floppy, monitor and cpu in a single case, with a separate keyboard and mouse. All though we all now all- in- ones have monitor, drive, cpu, and keyboard build in (TRS-80 Model III, commodore PET 2001) ;)
Any hoot. I had mode a magical mixture of Formula 409, rubbing alcohol, distilled water and hydrogen peroxide. This mixture was fantastic for PC board and just about all else on a computer clean up. I'll have to look back, not sure if H2O2 was the fourth ingredient. This solution was instrumental in the refurbishing of the Classic.
I used a 18*14 inch photo tray to bathe and soak the the PCB in. I did careful detailing of every millimeter of the unit. Kb and mouse included. I don't recall the drying method, however. Upon completion, I asked the kids if I should fire it up. My kids, who had a friend over, said "YES!" as if I had asked them if they wanted cake. Their friend Lestlie, who was 6, I think, very timidly came up to me and asked me not to set the computer on fire.
I suppose mixing auto tech terminology and IT terminology isn't always a good idea.
That computer works like a champ. It looks like it's brand new, and it was one of the dirtiest machines on the pallet.
About this time, we went from having a Leading Edge Model D 486 (NC, at the time, also had a Leading Edge Model D that was an 8088) that we used to access the internet via AOL. Mia needed a computer to do work on and we said sianara to the L.E.M.D. and hello to a Mac 7100. This machine had the ability to run Mac OS7 and Windows. It had the Motorola as well as a daughter board with the Intel chips needed to run windows. Mia didn't want the hardware in the machine for windows so, I pulled it. It must have been around this time or shortly after we got iNet through Compu$erve.
I primarily used the C128D to access the iNet, but must have gotten onto Rocky Mountain Communications iNet via the Macintosh about this time, and I was eBaying full swing. I had back surgery, then we moved.
I was hopping to get the SE going to access the internet. I was doing eMail via ACPU, a local BBS, on the either the C128D or Amiga 2000. Not sure which, possibly both. RMC had two install disks one for Windows and One for Mac, so it seemed the SE would be the way to go.
My main access became the iMac (a new Macintosh that Apple had recently launched). I had to get up early since I couldn't do iNet at any other time, which was a bummer because I was still selling the Crosthwaite Mountain.
That's about the time, Trudy said we gotta get you set up. This is the info/story as I remember it. This person had bought a brand new Amiga Escom AG 1200. Put an 060 accelerator in it with, unfortunately, the wrong memory stick. It worked just fine, but had like 56 megs of memory. This person, had to move, Military maybe? and didn't have time to figure it out.
So she sold the system and IBrowse. It was the door opening to a new era.
This was the 16/32 that changed everything here at Noesis Creation.
Perhaps I should point out at this point, that I've probably opened up everyone of these machines and, while I don't recall what the Apples had in them, neither the Amiga, nor the ST, nor any other Amigas and STs I have access to, have Motorola brand CPUs. They are all the Hitachi flavor.
Once the Amiga 1200, hit the iNformation Super Highway, things took off!
The CDTV and commodore 128D were the two computers mostly responsible for the website up to this point. The PX-8 was also a major player. Most of the articles were probably written on those three machines.
Of course, over the years, other machines have popped in, IBM laptops running commodore or Amiga emulators, the Atari Portfolio, to name a few.
I recall the Software sections at Software Etc. It was full of commodore 64, Atari ST, Apple II, MS-DOS, Amiga, and Macintosh software. The selection was balanced between the machines. As time passed, there came to be fewer and fewer Apple II titles. There were still lots of those Treo Packs (from Heartware) that had Apple II, commodore 64 and MS-DOS versions in one package. Those remained for years after the Apple II area totally vanished.
As the PC and Mac areas grew, the Amiga and ST stuff slowly dwindled. The ST vanished from the shelves, and eventually the Amiga as well. Then came the day there were no commodore titles, the table with the Treos dwindled and eventually was gone.
All that was left was a store full of PC software with a small shelf of Mac stuff. This was a time that most people speculated that the Mac would soon die.
Well, Mac evolved. We had the G3 and G4 phases, a step into the realm of G5, then a side step to Intel, after all the Mac is a "black box" computer.
By this point, the age of the 16/32 was over.
(Just plopping this here while in Hilo, HI) STARDATE:2022.04.25:
I am now starting a new file in ed. I plan to try to use IBrowse's view source editor to write in...
Ok, I've opened IBrowse, opened the local file that is this text file and now am about to save to update.
Ok, I just saved it and exited the editor and refreshed the file and the new text is here!
This gives me a nice environment as far as wrapping text and cursoring past the end of the line. I love it!
I have no WiFi on this machine, which seriously limits it's in field usefulness. I can't xfer via the Ethernet connection and I don't have firewire on deBerry. :/ Major bummer. I have a buttload of stuff from Mythreal that I need to get on this machine.
SimpleFTP does not function on this machine at present.
Another big problem with this machine, no battery monitor. The light is green -- then bammers it shuts off! Sargent Major Bummer.
Well, the night is cooling off, it was a wonderful 70 some odd degrees. I have been clearing off CHARLETTE (spelled with an E), the SDCard on deBerry. I have been doing lots of FTP stuff to move files around. I normally have deBerry on both the studio's 10-base T connection and the WiFi network set up specifically for NC. Mythreal is on WiFi and Area 51 is on the Ethernet. deBerry can access both networks so I can move stuff from Mythreal to deBerry then to Area 51 via deBerry. Kinda cool, but also kind of a pain, as I have no way to FTP a folder full of files on Area 51, so moving 40 Megs of Amiga files is a real pain.
This is why we have computers -- so they will do the work! Well, ok the real reason I have computers is to have computers, having grown up in the shadows of the Golden Age of SciFi.
I hit the E button that traditionally opens Ed from IBrowse, and it appears that TurboText may have opened up, so the system may crash...
Wow! It didn't! That probably doesn't mean anything, but who knows...
So I am now in this mysterious editor. Perhaps it's something else. I'm not sure. The menu's are familiar, so it must by TT. I'm a bit apprehensive...
STARDATE:2022.05.02:
I'm in pEditor. This is an editor I used on the AIAB systems so long ago.
It Crashed often and was, unfortunately unreliable. It seems much more stable on this system. Albeit, not installed. At least not formally. I have copied lot's of Mythreal's SYS: to this system on the Work: partition in a folder called /AmigaOS/.
I don't plan to simply plop all the files into the appropriate folders, at least, at the moment, that is not the plan.
I'm on Area 51 at the local coffee shop. It's not the closest, but they have good drinks and WiFi. I don't have WiFi functioning on this system however, which seems like a total waste of great tech.
I have been messing around with the Menu Bar thingie. I've managed to remove the clown pic, but not yet replaced it successfully with pEditor.
I don't see what is keeping it from being added. :/
It has been a hard day.
Massive thunder storms and Isotope (our kitty, didn't you read the index page?) cuddling, cos "it scary!"
I might try putting the pEditor located in the C dir in AmigaOS in C:....
Score! I hacked it!
I now have, at the right hand corner, on the Dock (one of the most over programmed, more complicated than necessary PRG in the history of Amiga, second only to MiamiDX), the launcher button to launch pEditor.
I hooked it up to launch the AmigaOS/C one, so I have all the icons for the tool bar menu.
I found Dock somewhere in the System: partition. It needed all the other stuff I already configured, to configure Dock. :/
Ok, here is the bird's eye low down:
In ToolManager (the very same PRG I used to set everything up, thinking I was actually setting up the dock, is an Object Type: Dock. They named it AmigaForever (appropriate) and that is what I finally edited. Can't believe I missed it, but like I said, it's been a hard day.
Well, I have the laptop I've always wanted to configure myself, that runs UAE over Linux and Boots straight up as an Amiga.
I wonder why the modest 020, when I'm sure this puppy is up to a nice 060 emulation. I run that on a PIII (Strider) and that's on top of Windows 98SE! Talk about your overhead!
It is now Cinco de Mayo. 2022. I'm on Darth Vader. I've changed the desktop theme. The battery logo thingie was just a useless picture of a battery. You had to click on it, then wait while it loaded, to see battery state. Kinda stupid.
STARDATE:2022.05.18:
Been working on getting Area 51 with a custom boot image. Grub comes up with Area 51 IBM Amiga 020, rather than KX Light. Then the AF logo loads and the system starts booting. About halfway through the boot, the image changes to a custom version of the Amiga insert disk screen.
<> Lastly, it loads X11's screen with the Amiga Boing Ball demo shot. This screen flashes momentarily on the screen right before the workbench is displayed.
You can see it after opening PPAINT, visible as the background.
Too Cool!
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = @ o = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = 8 . 8 8 o @ o o o o o o = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = = = = = = = = 8 8 8 8 8 8 . 8 8 o o o o o o o o = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = = = = = = 8 . 8 . 8 8 8 . 8 o o o o o o o = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = = = = = 8 8 . 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 o o o o o o = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = = = = . 8 8 8 8 8 8 . 8 . 8 8 . o o o o o o = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = = = 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 . 8 8 8 8 o o o o o o o = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = = = . 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 o o o o o o = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = = 8 8 8 8 . 8 8 8 . 8 8 8 8 8 o o o o o o = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = = 8 8 8 8 8 8 . 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 o o o o o o = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 o o o o o o = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = 8 8 . 8 8 8 8 . 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 o o o o o o = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = 8 8 . 8 8 8 8 8 8 . 8 8 8 o o o o o = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = 8 . 8 8 8 8 . 8 . 8 8 8 8 o o o o o = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 . 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 @ @ @ @ @ 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = = . 8 8 8 . 8 8 8 8 8 o o o o o o = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = = 8 8 8 8 8 8 . 8 8 8 8 . 8 8 o o o o o o = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = = = 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 o o o o o = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 . 8 8 @ @ @ @ @ @ 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = = = = 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 . 8 8 8 8 8 8 o o o o o o = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = = = = = 8 . 8 8 8 . 8 8 8 8 . o o o o o = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = = = = = = 8 8 8 . 8 8 8 . 8 8 8 o o o o o o = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = = = = = = = = 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 o o o o o = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = 8 8 8 o o o o o o = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = = = 8 = = = 8 = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 = = = = = =
= = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 8 = = = =
= = = = = 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
That's the Boing in ASCII. ;) STARDATE:2022.05.20:
Been doing lots with the emulated Amiga system. One of the hacks I hope to pull off is getting WiFi up and running.
WiFi really helps with accessing resources, such as Aminet and NC. It would be great to do live edits with a portable Amiga.
One of the mind blowers in the emulation is having what looks, sounds, and feels like an Amiga with stunning hires: Picasso 96. Even on my oldest emulator system, Picasso 96 is present and supports some amazing stuff, transparent menus and the like.
Another thing I need to figure out is how to boot from an image floppy. On my other UAE and e-UAE systems, I can just go to the parent OS's prefes box and pop the disk in, so to speak, and reboot and it'll boot from that floppy. EmuControl seems to only have one button that actually functions and that's Hard Reset.
The next thing I'm gonna try is type the painful path of the floppy image into the EmuControl PRG and hit reset to see what happens.
STARDATE:2022.05.27:
I've gotten FS-UAE running on DarthVader, deBerry, and Chernobyl!
I've been tweaking Area 51. It's GRUB entry is:
Area 51 IBM Amiga 020After which, it appears to boot as normal. Then half way through the boot sequence the image on screen changes to:
Then, right before the Workbench appears, this image comes up momentarily:
I've done some ASSIGNs, such as getting the writing folder setup as a Volume.
I tried to grab a screen using
Personal Paint
, but it doesn't work. Picasso, perhaps?:/
I finally got CHARLETTE migrated to the new SD Card: CHARLOTTE. The new card, has a new name (NOTE the E that is now an O), and has everything the old card(s) had, but in a 64 GIG space.
Been trying to get AmigaOS on a USB card - a SanDisc FIT 64Gig USB drive. I can boot the OS, but when it starts to run actual programs, it reports the System volume as write protected. So what. The CD is Write Protected. It boots well. :/
In regards to an impending event: It looks like I will be on the iPhone- only for a couple of weeks this June. I'll have to post more after I'm not in that mode. I might consider the Portfolio.... More as the story develops.
STARDATE:2022.07.02:
Well, Hawaii was a bust (that impending event). We realized we really were not on vacation. We have three special needs kids that should not have come with us. We did manage to see some things and do some things, but we will never take them on a "vacation" again, as that would not really be a vacation.
I did manage to bring the X41, however I didn't accomplish much with it. I checked the weather in Hilo and Kona. And mostly tried in vein to unwrite protect the 64 Gig SanDisk Fit. Some how, somewhere it got a write protected "flag" -- not sure what to call it -- and it appears to now be useless. Crap.
The Fit, fits nicely in the USB port on the right of the Tablet and only pokes out a little bit, hardly noticeable.
Moriarty is a temp name given to a MacBook, as I needed a name to give the computer when installing a new OS. This is a 2008 version that has a lighted keyboard. It came with a 230Gig HD and a battery that charges to about 79% and lasts around an hour and a half. I did a battery test this morning by removing the charge and doing things, including playing several songs on MIXX. I really love the lighted keyboard and nice bright screen. I think it does need a different name since I have already named a computer Moriarty. At least I think I have. I'll have to get on the C128D and look at the spreadsheets.
STARDATE:2022.07.04: Independence Day. I have installed Kubuntu 18.04 on this MacBook (Moriarty). Seller said it is a 2008 machine. It has a backlit keyboard (whoot), which is waycool. I've setup some major eye candy for booting/logging in, although I need to work on the re-login screen. Once the computer sits for a while and takes you to a login screen it has a default, kinda boring login.
The re-login screen now rocks a pirate Apple logo screen with login stuff in front.
Been messing around with themes and such. It's looking ok, but I think it still needs tweaking.
C64.
I plan to setup VICE on this machine. The software portion is installed, I just need to get the ROMs into the correct location. I think I'll document it this time. Really weird that I haven't done so. Since it was an over the top task, it would have been nice to let everybody in on the secret.
Saturday.
I spent much of the evening exploring the folders on deBerry, in hope of finding the install point for the commodore ROMs. Turns out that it's an older version of VICE, so it was of no help. The newer version of VICE doesn't seem to add anything that affects what is done at Noesis Creation. I'm pondering a manual install of an older version. However the secrets are on both DarthVader and VGer. I recall I was at Bruneau Dunes when I did DarthVader. Who knows how I did that? I couldn't look anything up on the internet, since I had no access.
I'm at Three Island State Park on a Parent Weekend. Really it's an over night get away to help start the reset of sanity. While in Hilo, my wife and I painfully realized we were not really on vacation. We were still doing what we always do, watching the Littles. We were just doing it in a different place. They do not do different places well at all.
Just got an idea.... ok ....that didn't pan out. I Googled via Malifacent, the iPhone. :/
The breeze has picked up, so it now actually feels chilly. Ran the AC all night as it was so hot. It has finally cooled off.
The Drone.
I hope to fly the Drone today. It's really just a fancy Quad Copter, but Drone sounds cooler, by about 50%. There is a slight breeze. If no one was here I could fly it in the central area between the cabins and the river. In fact, if I knew for certain that NO ONE was here I could fly it now. But, alas, coffee and breakfast calls and other people are stirring. :/
STARTDATE: 20220719: We are currently up at Luther Heights Bible Camp, up very near Alturas Lake. Next Day: Been messing around with Z64K.jar or simply, Z64K.
Z64K is a multi-machine emulator. Z64K emulates The Atari 2600, commodores 64, 128 and VIC-20 as well as the ZX Spectrum. It has a thing called Test Bench and an Assembler, and a SID Player. All that in a single 2 Meg file.
With a little help from a keyboard layout images of the ZX and a PDF of the manual I just typed in my first ever type-in program for the ZX Spectrum. Kinda cool.
It is the demonstration of the plot command as seen here.
These screen shots, BTW, were done within the Z64K .jar itself; read inside the program from it's pull down menu. This emulator really is an unsung gem.
Ok, now for the bird's eye low down. The emulation is pretty slow, at least on the C64 side. All else might not be, but since I have no ZX to compare to, and I haven't messed much with the VIC-20 or 128 emulation.
Here are some screen shots:
Typed in more of the demonstration from the ZX manual.
It's interesting to note that the video limitations of the character cells carries over to the hires graphics screen, much like the commodore 64.
Overall, the emulator emulates well. It is slow, however, and music does not play well at all.
It does appear to have a SID player. Experiments to ensue.
STARDATE:2022.09.08:
I have been remiss at my writing. I lost track of the latest AC Master file. The Master file is simply the file I write into and copy and paste from to make the posting.
I've looked on Mythreal (Amiga 1200), Area 51 (IBM ThinkPad R51 running Linux with AmigaOS), deBerry (IBM ThinkPad X41 Table) -- every place it might be. This is the file I found and I don't even recall which computer it was on.
I had been going to coffee shops once a week to get some time off from kids and do a bit of exploring and writing. Setting up computers such as Area 51 to customize the Dock, etc. SO who knows what computer it landed on last /:
Every Linux install I have ever had the pleasure of using was an install I had done myself. Over the years there have been many. I Red Hat 6.1 was my intro to the world of Linux.
It was a very powerful Gnome environment. I had the power to set things up the way I wanted. It was very flexible. I had installed it on a server for that got bailed on as things didn't work out.
That was back in the last days of 1999 or early 2000s. It was a monster of a machine: a 600 megahertz Pentium II custom build (I didn't build it). That's bout all I recall about it.
I don't recall the next flavor of Linux. I ran Red Hat on several machines after the initial entry.
As time went on, Gnome grew into a MacOS Wannabe -- you get this configuration, cos users don't need to change anything. It was then that I moved to the (what I consider) more hacker friendly environment of KDE.
Of all the custom machines I've done, deBerry, despite limited RAM and CPU (1.5Gig, Pentium M, single core, barely made it into the realm of PAE), is the most powerful of any Linux install I've ever done.
I kinda went to Linux Bootcamp. Back in the day. I'd get on the Debian site and DL a package. Find it's dependencies, find those dependencies, etc. It took long hours, that turned into days, then weeks, of getting everything installed to run the initial software I was installing. I then had it working. I had two base systems set up and would copy the libraries from the one I had spent all that time installing on to the other.
Looking back at this, it looks like utter madness, cos, it was. I have since discovered the ease of Ubuntu. It was so cool that I could look up software from an app and install it that way! Wow, what a difference. It didn't take long after that to find Kubuntu.
I have customized many, many Linux systems, most of them the blood, sweat, and tears way.
I got curious about this mysterious thing called a Chromebook. Xavier has had one for the past several years since COVID hit. Now I have three more in public school, and they all have Chromebooks. So I did a little light hearted, looking around. There is a person I found on eBay, of all places, who takes old Google abandoned Chromebooks and gives them a second life. He installs Linux on them. He has various flavors, so I opted for Ubuntu.
Gnome has changed somewhat, again. And I have had the pleasure of using this rather odd, but now an integral part of cyber life. And, yes, I've customized the bagibies out of it, and hope to do a bit more when all is all is said and done.
STARDATE:2022.09.09:
I just booted Kali Linx off my USB stick onto this Chromebook! 2cool. So at boot time, you just briefly hit the [ESC] key and a boot menu comes up. Select the USB drive with Kali and BAMMERS!, Kali Linux starts to boot. It's a bit slow, to boot, but it works!
I was sitting in this basement of this old house. No, not a basement, a cellar -- that's the word I'm looking for, a creepy old cellar. It was cool, almost cold and very dank. It felt like there were eyes on me. Like someone was watching me.
How did I get there? A dare. Mostly to shut Morty up.
We were watching Sue pulverize Morty at tether ball. Just a small group friends, Jenifer, Mike and I. Sue ended the game pretty fast and Morty wanted another go at it. Sue had to go as the bell was going to ring soon and Mrs. Hederson's classroom is at the other end of the building.
Morty took it pretty bad and called us all chicken, not sure how it all came about, but one thing led to another and he dared me -- I don't really know why me, I guess it's cos I'm good friends with Sue.
So there I was, showing up Morty. I should have known better. He'd do something, that guy just can't stop at tricking someone into spending the night in a creepy old building. I assumed he was there, somewhere.
"Morty! I know your here. I heard you moving around."
Hmm. No sound. My voice just sounded muffled like talking into a pillow. I'd wished I really had heard him moving around. The sun had set and everything had gotten dark.
I recall thinking, 'Maybe I should go home.'
'Let's just, think of something. Ok, the moon is waxing to full, it's almost -- that's not helpful. It must be getting close to 12:00, it's gotten so dark (where is that full moon anyway?). Midnight, is -- no midnight is in the early morning cos midnight at the end of the day, is really just the start of the next day. So by the time it's 12pm tonight, it'll actually be midnight tomorrow, or midnight ...'
'...Halloween.'
I'd be in that creepy place at midnight on Halloween -- and there was a full moon!
I wondered how many different combinations there were to solving the Rubik's cube...
What's that?!? I thought I'd heard a thud. It had come from upstairs.
Morty.
I'll knew he'd be there. Well, at least I wasn't alone. 'Maybe this will be fun, really cool. It'll be a great Halloween thing.' I could just hear Morty at school bragging about 'the look on your face.' I really can't stand the guy. But hey, I'm just gonna have fun at this and see what happens.
A creak on the stair. 'Ok, he's sneaking down. I can't see him though. It's gotten pretty dark in here. Should I pull out my flashlight? I don't want him to think I'm scared.'
'He must have stepped on the bottom by now...'
'You know what, I'm just gonna hit him with the light, call him on his bluff, the stipulation is off and go home.'
'I do want to see what he's planned though. Is he just gonna reach out of the darkness and touch me, or perhaps he's in a costume. I hope what ever he does he does it soon. It is getting really cold in here and it's coming from the stairs.'
Clouds covering the moon must have cleared; a bit of light appeared on the floor between me and the stairs. It's now nice and bright over there, I think I'll go and stand there --
'What was that?!?' The bottom step on the stairs creaked! Just like when I had come down it. 'He's definitely there.'
Before I could move, there came another sound, sliding on the concrete floor. I held my breath, then it happened! Someone or something stepped out into the light -- "Boo!" It was Morty!
When I saw for sure it was indeed Morty, I can tell you, I was relived. I couldn't help laughing. Morty laughed too. It was a moment of relief, probably for both of us.
"I can't believe you did it," he whispered. "Ok, you win. Let's get outta here, this place gives me the creeps."
Despite my absolute astonishment of what I had just heard Morty say, I replied, "Best idea I've heard tonight." I think I started to say more, but there was a loud sound at that moment, it was a door slamming shut. I looked at Morty, his look at me asked if I knew what it was -- he didn't know.
Then there were foot falls on the floor above! What was it? Who was it? I spoke quietly to Morty, "What is that?"
"I hope you meant who is that," Morty replied.
The steps grew louder as they came nearer and nearer. There was a muffled thump on the floor above! It was soon followed by a dragging sound. Then the door to the cellar slammed shut!
Morty and I were at the bottom of the stairs by then. "Cathy, that's the only way out of here!"
We were still whispering, "I noticed that." My head was spinning at this point as the sound of a latch could be heard clearly from above. Was that the door being locked?!? "That can't be good."
Then the floor above us seemed to shake, some dust came down from the unfinished ceiling above.
We both walked up the steps as quickly and as quietly as we could. That's when I realized I had a flashlight in my hand. I turned it on. The door was wide open! We wasted no time getting out of the cellar, when suddenly at the doorway we stopped as someone jumped out into the moon light floor, "Gotcha!"
I nearly had a heart attack. There standing before me was Jenifer!
Morty didn't stay to socialize. He turned to me and said, "See ya," and was gone. I could hear the spring and slap of the screen door as he went out.
"Jenifer, what the heck?!?"
Well, I knew Morty wouldn't do anything, so I took it upon myself to put a little scare in your Halloween.
"It's not Halloween -- yet."
"Think again, listen." Not far from the old house is the train depot, and a moment later, as if on cue from Jenifer's words, the clock tower rang in Midnight. "It's Halloween now and it's Midnight. Midnight Halloween is in the morning, you know, at 11:59pm it's the night of October 30th, then a minute later it becomes 12, that's 12 am and October 31st. So Midnight Halloween happens right now, in the morning -- Happy Halloween!"
"You take the cake. I'm ready to go home."
"Yeah, me too -- this place give me the creeps."
The End.
9:20, time to lock up and go to bed. Simple enough. I did this every night like clockwork. In fact, you could probably set your watch at the exact moment the door to the garage got locked. It's the first lock, and it's after that the distractions pop up, but all the doors do get locked, and that fate filled night was no exception.
Ah, but I'm getting ahead of myself. It has always been my routine to lock up the house at 9:20, oddly, I suppose, I actually was locking the garage at 9:20. So I suppose I actually start a little earlier than 9:20, it just sort of became intuitive, automatic. I'd lock the door at precisely the same time every night. For 20 years.
That night, I heard a phone ring as I walked through the kitchen. I turned around and went to the dinning room, and softly, so as not to rouse the kids, "Hello?"
There was no answer, only an open line. No voice answered my query.
Assuming a miss dialed number, I went upon my appointed rounds of locking up. I went to bed.
I awaken by internal clock, and did so on what I thought was the following day. It was not. In point of fact, only five minutes had, passed, but I felt like I had a good night's sleep and soon found myself in the kitchen, walking to the scullery in my mourning routine of making an espresso.
Before making the turn into the scullery, there stood before me and unlocked, partially opened, door to the garage.
I recall wondering who was up and why had they left the door open. I poked my head out, but the garage was dark. I called out a loud whispered, "Hello?" To which came no reply.
I closed the door and it was then that I saw the time. 9:40. Well, it was dark, so I hadn't slept in, and supposed one of the kids had gotten up for something or another and had left the door cracked open -- with the alarm off, I might add.
I remedied the situation and went back to bed.
Once again, my internal clock said it was time to get up. I had forgotten the events of what I thought was last night, until I was once again facing a partially opened door to the garage. I peeked out, dark. What the hey?!
I turned on the light and looked around. No other doors were open. I closed the door, as I walked in and saw the clock. 9:45.
I suddenly felt extremely tired, and grateful to feel so, as hopefully I wouldn't wake up soon. But what of the opened garage?
I need to look around the house and find out who was opening it. I checked all the bedrooms and all the occupants appeared to be present and sleeping.
In my fatigue, I mused that perhaps the culprit had done something, forgot something and went back. This was a plausible explanation and it must have been this activity that had awaken me.
It was 11:59 when I awake yet another time. I was pleased to notice that it wasn't 9:50, following the earlier pattern. For some inexplicable reason, I went to the kitchen to check the garage door, and sure enough, it was open ajar.
I went to investigate, and as I reached for the knob, the door slammed, abruptly shut. And hard.
It startled me so much I reached for the wall to steady myself. Then reason returned, "At least I'll finally know who it is." I went to open the door, and the knob wouldn't turn. It simply wouldn't budge. I tightened my grasp on the knob, then let go. The knob ad become so cold it bit my hand with pain.
I tried again and this time was not able to get a grip on the the knob, as it has become so cold I could not touch it. An idea struck me.
I grabbed an oven mitt. This would protect me! I grabbed the knob and turned with all my might. It was hard, but I finally managed to get it to turn.
I thrust the door open and there before me was a cold, dark and empty garage. No one was there!
I turned on the light and in the moment before the area before me filled with light, only for a brief second, I could have sworn, that someone or something, was standing there only a few feet in front of me.
It was uncharacteristically cold. So cold, I felt it like a chill I'd never experience before, nor since.
It didn't last though. I stepped out into the garage, and soon it was the warm ambiance I would expect after a fairly warm day. I called out, only loud enough to be heard n the garage and not the house. But, of course, there was no answer. There couldn't be one, for no one was there. I scanned he garage one last time, seeing nothing unusually, I turned to go back in the house, and saw that the door was closed! Afraid I would find it locked, and it did feel like fear, I plunged forward upon the knob. To my great relief, it turned and I went inside.
I went inside, vowing always lock the door at precisely 9:20, to never again investigate the garage at night, in October, and especially around midnight.
The End
Happy Halloween!
Midnight Halloween!
by
Brian Crosthwaite
The Unlocked Door.
by
Brian Crosthwaite
I'm in Kali Linux on the yet, to be named acer Chromebook. Not a fan of the Kb, but as long as I keep an eye on it I can find my way around it.
We are up by Woopemup camping. I brought this CB as well as Moriarty since we have no electric. I have yet to pull out the MB. It is really cool that I can boot USB sticks on the CB.
Since new devices seem to get most of the attention, well, that what gets written about.
I'm not an expert typist, but I seem to fumble more on this Kb, that most. :/
Mousepad has behavior I wish GoleED had, name;y when you hit the end of the line the cursor comes back to the beginning of the next line when you move the cursor via the cursor keys. That's always a nice thing.
T recall installing BackTrack3 on Lacutice a while ago. I even got the way cool text over graphics boot sequence working on the HD install. That was a kick. Unfortunately it was not the kind of system that was needed on that machine, so it got replaced. Still it was quite cool.
I looked for the Cajun Granma several weeks ago, I must have been cooking something, but it didn't come up. I tried again a few days later. After several attempts over a couple of weeks, I decided to to check the status of the server. All was ok. Well, not all, BLC.com was gone. The files were simply not there!
Fortunately, archive.org had saved it back in 2018. I had recently encountered the project to preserve geoCities web sites and this actually led me to not only my old geoCities website, but BLC.com as well.
briancrosthwaite.com (what I affectionately refer to as BLC.com) is back on line, although the URL in your browser will look odd, as long as you went there typing the aforementioned URL, you're in the right place.
STARDATE:2022.09.24:
Ok, so. I'm supposed to be writing this Halloween Story Thing, when I decide the acer's Kb sucks (Lamarr, named after famed inventor, actress Hedy Lamarr who invented and patented the technology that gave us to WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS!, is an acer Chromebook sporting Ubuntu, openSUSE, and Kali OSes with two FITs giving it around 128 gigs -- minus the parts taken for given OS installs). Now that I'm on Moriarty (an Apple MacBook sporting Kubuntu, it's only OS, I'm missing deBerry. Her Kb rocks.
Bueno, a.k.a Anywho.
I am in Glenn's Ferry, ID with no WiFi. I could powerdown Lamarr and plug the FIT (a 64gig USB drive the size of a nat), and pop it in Moriarty. However, those USB plugs are now an integral part of the machine, Well, ok, they are devices plugged in and act that way, but it's a matter of principle.
So I had to set Maleficent up as a server and junction via Bluetooth between the two. I couldn't get the directory to list on Moriarty in Dolphin, so I gave up and used used FileZilla to move the files. It's nice to have FTP servers setup all over the place. :)
Ok, I guess I should pour me an espresso and get back to the task at hand....
STARDATE:2022.11.14:
Ok, more on the Chromebook not a great keyboard, however it is lightning fast with Ubuntu. Or it was.
It seemed every time I'd boot the acer, a window would open up as tell me there was only 500megs free, or 750megs free, or 300megs free. However, when ever I'd check the HD there was never less than 1.2gigs and it was usually around the 1.7 mark. Plenty of room. I searched the system for this illusive area that was running out of space. I had already removed the swapfile -- BTW the swapfile removal had absolutely no effect on the system whatsoever. I removed it (as I do, by moving it to a safe recoverable location) under the premise that I have been installing as well as using Linux since the late 1990s and while it's recommended to mirror RAM or twice your RAM, it get;s little usage in the grand scheme of things. SO I pulled the bugger, giving the system even more space. No help. Finally one day 0megs free. System dumped to a grub prompt on every boot after that. After many hacking sessions, in attempts to do a recover, I gave up and did my own install. Kubuntu 22.
I'm back to that lightning fast boot, perhaps a bit longer as I have a visible GRUB point in the boot process, but it's a happy me kinda system.
Except for one thing.
Snap.
I don't like Snap. It appears that it's like that all inclusive .app approach to things, but at the same time, it grabs loads, and takes up loads of HD space. It appears to make anything installed via it, it's own everything. Like does it replace all the required LIBs and so forth? I don't know. I may be looking at this wrong. But it really appears to need much more space than my little Chromebook has and the system is once again doomed to the same fate, as before.
Ok, now. I've updated the damn system. I have not yet rebooted to find out if it's gone to hell n a hand basket. We shall see. P.S. I rebooted, and added some speech softs, all seems ok -- so far...
STARDATE:2022.11.30:
Well, sheet. Ubuntu on the Chromebook went away and never came back. I caved and installed Kubuntu. Still screams along at light speed. You know a system is fast when Discover and LibraOffice open nice, and fast.
I'm sitting by the fire with a crap cold. I'm typing on the MacBook -- the fast one. Turns out it is a 64bit machine, as I have a couple of USB OSes that only run on 64 bit systems. That explains the speed of this machine, despite having a 32 bit OS installed.
The Year is winding down. I'm ready for summer. It's not even winter yet and I'm done with snow and cold.
I haven't been near a coffee shop or camping with computing in mind during early morning am writings. I have been doing some coding. Unfortunately, I had a lot of code on the Chromebook in the Datum partition, that got blown away. Oh you don't know.
I inadvertently installed the gnome PRG that writes to all USB drives plugged in. I didn't even get a response from the PRG. It acted like it nothing happened. The image it was burning (it was burning a bootable USB image of Parrot or some such OS) was on the Datum partition that it started to overwrite.
What a turd to drop on a system in recovery. Any hoot. I re-partitioned and moved my backup back to the Datum partition, however, it contained no PRGs :/
This reminds me of Copy Cat, a waycool C64 PRG I write in 3 hours that got blown away in an instance. I could not bring it back, nor could I re-write the code. I have never pursued that PRG again. Bummer, but it's gone, it's not in me. That was back in the 1980s. I have not been able to bring back the hours of code I had on the drive that vanished into the ether.
>