The "Con Vibe" - A little more explanation

Re-reading my last entry, I think I need to explain a little more about the "Con Vibe" issue.  Let me try to equate this to an experience I had in college.

So, freshman in college.  I discover that there is a Sci-Fi/Fantasy club.  Great.  I've always liked that and it would be nice to talk to others about that.  So I go to one of their meetings.

Now, I have to say that I was "welcomed" in that people talked to me and no one gave me a vibe of "go away."  But as the meeting started, there was a great deal of "in jokes" and such.  Initially, I took that in stride because I was new to the group.  But the "in jokes" were to obtuse and related to past club events that I simply couldn't relate.

If I experienced this today, I would equate it to the Star Trek: TNG Darmok episode.

The end result left me feeling like I would always be an outsider in this group.  As a result, I decided that they weren't worth my time.  Over the next few years, I would meet up with members as part of my education.  They would try to get me to attend their meetings and I would explain why I don't go - yet they never really "got" it.

As time went on, members graduated and weren't replaced by new people (hence current members trying to get me to go) and the club dwindled.  By the time I graduated, the club was no more.

This is how I felt at Tandy Assembly sometimes.  I can't assess whether there are more or less people going each year, having only gone once.  But I really hope this doesn't happen to them and that they become more aware of how "outsiders" feel when attending.  It's nice to see old friends getting together, but they need to be more aware, and a little more accommodating, to new people too and not assume that "everyone" knows.

Tandy Assembly

So this year, we did Tandy Assembly.  This has been on my list for a few years, but the scamdemic sort of derailed that for a bit.  It finally got high enough this year.

It's quite a drive (5 hours of driving, 6 when you factor in rest stops and a meal), so we took some extra days off so that we could arrive early and be fresh for the tech talks, and to recover afterwards.

Overall: It was worth doing once, but I don't think I'll do it again.  It cost a good amount of time, energy and money to go.  I don't regret it, but I don't think it's worth it to me to do it again.  Maybe if they get someone really special to speak.  Like one year, they had Don French, who was one of the father's of the TRS-80.

So let's focus on the good first.  Great speakers on interesting topics.  Lots of cool equipment.  Some Model II/12/16/6000s as well as the expected Model I/III/4 systems, and CoCo's, plus some extra stuff (like a DT-1).

But we also have to talk about the bad, and I don't like doing this, but it needs to be said.

Venue: First off, the hotel and the staff were wonderful.  They got a perfect score.  The problem with the venue is location.  There's 1 coffee shop near by that was... OK.  Not Herman's Boy that's for sure.  The area was not nice, especially at night.  So that limited us to where we could go and we like to walk.  Most other restaurants were a need to drive and that's hard with all the construction even with GPS.

Next, the normal "Con Vibe" wasn't there.  Normally at a convention, there's a bunch of geeks who don't know most of the people there.  What ties us together is a common like of whatever-the-con-is-about.  Tandy Assembly is more like a meeting of old friends and "outsiders" are not accommodated.  That's not to say that were weren't made to feel welcome by some.  But we weren't "in the know" and we were kept in the dark a bit.

For example, on Friday night, after the tech talks, we headed to the hotel restaurant for dinner.  We didn't know that Tandy Assembly had a buffet.  It wasn't written anywhere. We weren't told about it.  We didn't see anything about it until later when we brought in our auction stuff.  Normally, such a thing is for the show "guests of honor" and the people who work to put it on, but it seemed it was open to all attendees Friday night.  It would have been nice to know about it before we went off to dinner.

Unlike many cons, we didn't take over the hotel.  I was rather surprised at the lack of attendance Friday, but we figured that it was a work day and we'd get a lot more people on Saturday, but we didn't.  Now, this is a good/bad thing.  Personally, I like the lack of crowds (ex: we won't be at VCFMW until they get a bigger venue), but there were so few people that we didn't get to meet many people - because there weren't that many to meet with.

To close on a upbeat note:  It was nice to meet Ian, Jeff Birt, and a few others that I've only seen on YouTube.  So, like I said, it was worthwhile to go.  I don't regret the time/energy/money we spent.

Tech Week Grand Rapids

So one of my co-workers alerted me to this event, so I went to check it out on their web site.

Wow!  What a load of useless "panels" and Woke trash.  Let's unpack this.

Monday 9/18 - Kickoff with Malcolm Gladwell

• This guy is just an author.  He has no technical knowledge, yet has a 3 hour speech.  On what?

Tuesday 9/19

• Tech Showcase for students - Pretty much just local companies displaying information about their companies.
• SURGE AI Talk: Unleashing the Power of ChatGPT and AI in Your Business! - ChatGPT is 99% marketing right now.  Its usefulness is very questionable.
• Supercharge Your Applications with Artificial Intelligence - Continuing the AI hype.
• Creative Solutions that Change Lives: The Engineering & Computing Mindset - Just fluff.
• Diversity & Inclusion in Tech - Woke trash
• Student Pitch Competition - Practice pitching your idea!  Wow.  An ounce of image is certainly worth a pound of performance.

And no mention of pirates (9/19 is International Talk Like a Pirate Day)

Wed. 9/20

• Code, Culture, and Coffee - "Conversations about the Tech Industry", with people who know nothing about the tech industry.
• Tech Trends Reshaping Business - "Sessions on generative AI, cyber, & AI in the workplace" continuing the AI hype.
• Bridge 96: Building a Statewide Startup Ecosystem - No details, but smells like more Woke trash.
• GVSU Tech Talks - "Tech expert presentations".  No list of who these tech "experts" are, though.
• Freshwater Digital Technology Showcase - Just demonstrations of tech.
• Twisthink x Failure Lab - "Presentations and happy hour".  Translation: People who know nothing speaking jibberish.
• AI in Communications: Understanding Impact & Unlocking Potential - And still more pushing of the AI hype.
• VC Happy Hour - i.e. a bunch of stupid lushes pretending to speak on topics of which they know nothing about.
• Demo Day - Maybe interesting, but probably not.

Thurs. 9/21

• Black & Brown Founders Brunch - Woke trash
• Attracting & Retaining Talent in the Work-From-Home Era - Wow!  Something potentially useful, but seeing the amount of Woke trash already here, I doubt it.
• Latinx in Tech - More Woke trash.  Let me check my BINGO card.  I think I might have won.
• Building the Workforce You Need - Another something that's potentially useful, but I doubt it.
• Drinks on the Deck - Even more lushes pretending to speak on topics of which they know nothing about.
• Innovation at Scale: A Playbook for Building High-Growth Ventures - Did we learn nothing from the .COM bust?
• GR in XR on the Blue Bridge - "Extended reality experience".  Potentially interesting, but 1 out of how many? isn't very good.

Fri. 9/22

• Twisthink Breakfast + Panel - I have no idea what Twisthink is, so why would I think this is interesting?
• It Started at State! - Propaganda that tech ideas started at MSU.
• Confluence Music Summit - And more non-tech fluff.

Sat. 9/23

• Confluence Festival - "Free festival with art, music, science, and tech".  Seriously?  That's like saying "I have a smart watch, so I'm tech."

I'll be going to Tandy Assembly later this month and there will be more tech talking in 1 hour there than a whole week of "Tech Week Grand Rapids".

Kaypro "1" update

I decided to return the to the floppy drives.  The half height drives worked much more reliably than the full height drives.

I used the OpenFlops to boot and copy disk images to real 5.25" disks.  Once that was done, I put the real floppy drive back.  Now I have a bunch of working disks for the Kaypro "1".

Then I fixed the video "squeezing" problem.  Just some DeOxyIt and slight adjustment to a video pot.

I also use the 5.25" drive in the NuXT to copy files.  Someone way back in the day, wrote a set of utilities called 22dsk that will read/write CP/M 2.2 disks.  It also works for my kaypro 4/83, but I have to use the same floppy emulator in the NuXT.

TRS-80 Model I update

So I never gave an update on the Model I that I found locally.

I picked up the kit and parts for the power supply and fit it into a nice enclosure.

I powered it on and...  It worked!  It had some issues, but that wasn't a surprise.

On a whim, I also plugged in the Model I Level I that I had bought only for display and it worked too!  The plastic is really brittle with this one, so it's back on the shelf.

The first issue with the Model I Level II was the video.  But some DeOxyIt on the pots and a little adjustment fixed that.

Next was the keyboard.  There were 3 problems:

1. Dirty key switches.  So off go the key tops.  Dusted them out.  DeOxyIt all of them.
2. They still weren't 100%, though.  So I replaced the cable that connected the keyboard to the motherboard - a common problem.
3. Better, but still not 100%.  I reflowed all the solder for the key switches and we are now at 100%.

I picked up a Quinterface and FreHD for it.  It has no serial interface, though.  So no BBSing with it.

I need to put the Expansion Interface on the list of things to work on.

Cleaning house - C128, Tandy 1100FD, etc.

So I'm trying to clean things out a bit.  My rule of "if a new computer comes in, an old one has to go" is being enforced.  I have a few systems that have no desk space, so they are going.

The Commodore 128 went on eBay, alone with the Commodore 1571 floppy drive.  But no one wanted the printer (no surprise).

I am going to donate my spare Tandy 1100FD and PC-2 to Tandy Assembly for their Auction.

I am toying with the idea of doing the same for the Kaypro "1" at VFCMW next year.

I have a box of freebies set for Tandy Assembly and a different box set up for VCFMW.

So it's slowly happening.

Reunion aftermath

So my reunion went off better than expected.

Things that surprised me:

1. The number of people who actually matured and improved.  But I guess the other who didn't wouldn't have shown up.
2. The number of people I didn't remember.
3. The number of people who wanted to talk to us (my wife and me).
4. The number of people who wanted to avoid us (who I had always been on good terms with).

My wife was comfortable enough that she was talked into us doing our wedding dance.  The video was interesting mostly hearing the crowd reactions.  I think they thought they would be getting Amateur Hour, but soon realized that they were getting Dancing With The Stars.

A many women were crying after the dance and one told my wife "I wish my husband would dance with me like that."

I met up with a guy who had my dad as a teacher and he wanted to tell me how being in his class sent him on a career into aviation.  This was a little bittersweet for me.  First, I didn't remember the guy.  I don't think I had any classes with him.  But his memories of the rocket launches my dad did in his science classes was a bit painful for me because I had asked my dad about that, but he would not do that with me.  So all these kids who weren't his children got to do model rockets, but he wouldn't do the same thing with his children.

I think some of the people there were looking for a bit of closure, and others were like me - just curious about how people turned out.

So the next reunion will be in 10 years.  But I told my wife that we probably won't go.  But there are many variables in that equation and we won't be able to solve that for another 10 years.

Why I Am Going to My 40th High School Reunion

This is in response to an article I came across today called Why I'm Not Going to My 50th High School Reunion.

I completely understand the author of the article.  I've only gone to my 10th (at pressure from my parents), 30th (because I was going to be in town) and now, I'm going to my 40th.

But, like the article's author, I really don't care about these people anymore.  I don't say that with any negative feelings, though.  Simply put, I haven't see some of these people in at least 10 years and most of them in 30 or more years.  There's no one I've "kept in touch" with or I really want to see again.

The reunion "committee" (I applaud them for taking this work on) sent out a list of classmates that they couldn't find.  Going through the list, I can see several that I understand why they would not want to be found (sorry, not naming names here).  They also have a list (sadly, too long) of classmates who have passed.  Some I knew passed and some I didn't.

Going through the list, there was no one that I thought I really need to catch up with this person.

So why am I going?

Well, first, we can easily work it in to our schedule.  We already have to to 1/3 of the way there that Saturday anyway.  We can stop in and say "hi" to mom, which she'll like.  Spend no more than a couple of hours at the reunion and then go home.

But the main reason is that some of these people I have literally known all my life.  The first school picture that I have, from nursery school - that's pre-kindergarten - shows some of these people.  And I'm curious (yes, that would be the word) as to how these people turned out after 40 years.

Addendum:

At my 10 year reunion, there were a large number of people.  But none that I was really friends with in High School.  I knew most of them, but they weren't what I considered "friends".   The dynamic here was still very much like High School, even though (most of us) had grown up.

At the 30 year reunion, things were... interesting.  By this time I had lost most of the weight that I had put on and was actually thinner than I was in High School.  I was also more outgoing and had a girlfriend (who is now my wife).  Some people were very friendly to us - especially the few that I knew from Nursery School.  Some were cold to us - but they were enemies in High School.  I guess some people just can't let go.  But there were others who were friendly to me in High School but were now more than a little cool to me for some unknown reason.

I have no expectations for my 40th.  It is what it is.  But it will also be interesting no matter what.

The Woke enterprise that was once called Amazon.com

Today, I received a message from Amazon.com:

Hello,

You have repeatedly posted content that violates our Community Guidelines (available at http://www.amazon.com/review-guidelines) or Conditions of Use ( https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=508088).

An initial warning has been sent to you. Because of your repeated violation of our Community Guidelines we've removed your ability to participate in Community features.

If you would like to contact us about this decision, please email community-help@amazon.com.

Thanks for your understanding in this matter.

This was interesting because:

1. I rarely leave a review on Amazon.
2. When I do a review, I stay very factual and well within their community guidelines.

So what happened?

Within the last year, I had received 2 books from Amazon that were on my wish list and I was very disappointed in both of them.  They've long since been relegated to the Goodwill Pile, so I don't even remember what they were.

But I do remember this:  They were both woke nonsense, which is why I left a (bad) review for them.

So it seems that Amazon allows author shills to mark reviews that point out woke books to be marked as "hate speech" (since I could see nothing in their community guidelines that would even come close to prohibiting what I wrote).

But allowing authors to do that IS a direct violation of their community guidelines.

Bottom line: Amazon is no longer on my list of companies to do business with.

Sperry HT - idea

One of the big problems that I have with my FreeDOS system is lack of Sound Blaster support.  I have a Sound Blaster card for the machine, but DOS won't recognize it.  And DOS certainly won't work with the built in sound.

I have a Raspberry Pi 4B hanging around from a failed project.

So my idea is this:

Clear out the Sperry HT box.

Use the Raspberry PI 4B and RetroPi to run DOSBox.

Panel Mount USB A to Pi for the keyboard.

Panel Mount USB C to the Pi for power.

Panel Mount HDMI to where the video card used to be for video.

I can even pull the 3.5" floppy drive from the FreeDOS machine and mount it in the case.

I might be able to get the power button merged in to this, but we'll see.

Sperry HT - DOA

The very first computer I actually owned (other than my TRS-80 Pocket Computer 4) was a Sperry HT that I bought through the college.  It was cheaper than the competing IBM PC-XT and ran faster.

Over the years, I out grew it, food chained it and it was gone.

I was able to pick up one on eBay recently.  Supposedly "tested to power on".  "Tested to power on" means, "we plugged it in, flipped the switch, the fan came on and the lights lit up."  Well, that wasn't true.

The power supply was packed with dirt and would not power on.  Luckily, a cleaning made it power on.  As expected the system wouldn't even POST.

I reassembled my Sperry Portable systems that are known working and tested the boards in the Sperry HT.

The video board was toast.  The MFM hard drive controller was toast.  I was unable to test the mystery board that I found in it because I have no idea what it's supposed to do, but odds are that it's toast too.

I finally got the tech manual for it and went through the diagnostics steps.  tl;dr no POST beeps which means that the timer or DMA is toast.

It seems that the system took a power hit and it took out most of the stuff on it.

The only thing that survived looks to be the 360K floppy drive.

So, I'm going to reassemble what I have and put it away for a while.

I was hoping that the board from the Sperry Portable would fit in it, but the layout is completely different.

I also thought about sacrificing my "IBM PC-XT from the Negative Universe" and putting everything into the Sperry case.  But I don't think that would work either.  The cards are in the correct place, but nothing else would fit.

So I'm thinking of just trashing it.  But I need to think about that.

I can't say this was a big surprise.  The Sperry HT was not known as a reliable system (also known as a Leading Edge Model M).  It was a cheap, but not something that was made to last.

Book Review - You Are Not Expected To Understand This

Yes, that's the title of the book.

"You Are Not Expected To Understand This.  How 26 Lines of Code Changed the World".  Edited by Torie Bosch

Read the other Amazon reviews.  I'm not the only one who thinks this book is a pile of Woke Revisionist History.

I understood this to be a series of stories about the early days of computers written by various people, so I wasn't surprised at the disjointedness of the book.  But I was sickened by the stories as seen through the Reality Distortion Field of the Woke.

The first few chapters left somewhat of a bad taste in my mouth as the authors downplayed all roles by men and focused on the roles by women, no matter how small.  That a woman left the field was put down to "being pushed out by the men" as opposed to their decisions to do something else - oh, like raise a family.

But chapter 5 - Basic and the Illusion of Coding Empowerment - really made me put this book into the Goodwill pile.   The Woke trash just in the first paragraph was nauseating.  I skimmed the rest of the book and the last chapter is "Encoding Gender" and that's all I need to say there.

On top of that, the stories were poorly researched.  If I had done any of these for my Computer Science classes when I was in college, I would have failed the class.

NuXT - update

The new PS/2 keyboard arrived.  I hooked it up and it seems to solve the "glitchy" problem that I saw on the other keyboard.  So that's good.

I also picked up a good floppy cable.  I verified it worked with the current 3.5" drive.

I retested the 360K and 1.2M floppy drives and they all still failed.  The 360K drive just wouldn't spin when accessed.  The 1.2M drive would spin, but "track 0 bad" kept coming up when formatting a known good disk - and that's after I gave the drive a good cleaning.  Like I said before, no surprise.

But I did discover why I was getting some strange things in testing before.  I had left the resistor packs on and I had them hooked up before the twist in the cable (i.e. in the middle).  Ya, that won't work because those resistor packs terminate the bus.

Anyway, a new (smaller) case is coming.  I may bid on the new 360K IBM drive that's on eBay just to have a real vintage-like system (we'll see).

Overall, I'm still happy with the NuXT, but if I knew then what I know now, I might not have purchased it.

Another update:

I was doing some research and I ran across this video titled "Why most 5.25" Floppy Drives seem broken, but aren't!"  So using that data, I retested my 1.2M and 360K floppy drives and they both work!  Yay!

Now the hard part is figuring out which one I should use.

Update:

The 360K one.  It has a black face, which matches the case.

NuXT - first impressions

So the case arrived and so did the NuXT.

The plan:

• Use my old 5.25" disk drives to give it a vintage flavor.  I also need a way to create boot disks since there's no USB on it.
• Use the VGA card that I have.
• Use the Sound Blaster card that I have.

dl;dr  The Plan didn't work out well.

First, the 5.25" drives and/or floppy cables are bad.  I have a new cable arriving soon - so it's a known good, and not confused with an MFM control cable (which has the twist in the wrong place).  So I'll check out the drives once again.

I did get a 3.5" disk drive working, though.

The Sound Blaster is coming out for the simple reason that the programs that I wanted to use with it simply won't work on the NuXT.  Either too slow or need a 386 system to run.  But that's not a surprise.

Other software is off for the same reason: too slow or needs a better CPU.  But that's expected.  The vast majority of the games that I really want to play work fine, though.

On a positive note: The Sierra games work fine.  On my FreeDOS system, the text is garbled due to VGA incompatibilities.

The only other problem is the keyboard.  I have only 1 PS/2 keyboard.  It's a keyboard off a old portable.  It's XT/AT switchable (currently set for AT) that I've used on the FreeDOS system just fine.  But on the NuXT, if I type too fast, it glitches.  I've tried the troubleshooting steps in the NuXT manual and nothing yet.  I ordered a new PS/2 keyboard to see if that fixes the problem.

Overall, I'm happy with it, though.  But I purchased way too big a case for it.

NuXT

I finally decided to get a NuXT.  This is basically an IBM-XT motherboard, built out of modern parts.

The FreeDOS setup is nice, but it's missing some things:

1. Sound Blaster.  FreeDOS can't emulate a Sound Blaster, so you have to put a real one in.  I picked up one for the PC hardware that I have, but it doesn't work with DOS.  The hardware is too new and the Sound Blaster will only work with Windows (think WinModem sound card).

2. Speed.  Bad to say, but the FreeDOS set up is too fast.  That's nice for some things, but overall use is sort of painful sometimes.

Price wasn't too bad.  I have an ISA Sound Blaster and an ISA VGA card.  So all I needed was the NuXT (minus the VGA board) and a case.

My hope is that it will allow me to get the feeling that I want without the annoyances in the FreeDOS system.