Insufferable elitists

We are facing many problems today.  But one of the big, but quiet, issues is the rise of insufferable elitists.

You've all known them.  In my memory, they are women (for some strange reason) who are older.  They treat you like a 2 year old (no matter how old you are) and that you know absolutely nothing.  With the implication that they know everything.  Of course, after listening to them for 2 minutes, you realize that they are a few bricks short of a wall.

Today, they seem to cover all kinds of people, but they are easily identifiable.

When talking with them, you will find that they have a stand of "I am right, and if you disagree with me, then you must be wrong."  They have no sense that they might be wrong and need to at least listen to what you have to say.

No amount of facts will make them think that they might be wrong.  They constantly quote of some "expert"s information - but they have completely failed to vet that expert.  If they ask the source of your information, they will attack that source instead of discussing whether the information is true or not.

They become insufferable because if you post anything that goes against what they believe, they will keep posting their "questions" (really leading questions to get you to think the way they think) and not listening to your answers.

They continue to cling to their beliefs (which is really what they have) no matter how many facts you bring to their attention.

The real problem is that the Tyrants (ex: so-called Governors who have suspended the Constitution in their states and rule without consent) use these people to push the fear that the Tyrants use to keep people in line.

Yesterday, our favorite store announced that due to the restrictions of our Tyrant, they will require all customers to wear a mask.  Never mind that there is absolutely no data that shows that the lockdown we are still under is even effective.  So we decided that we will no longer go to that store - at least until the stupid rule is removed.

But I was surprised by the number of people who thought that making everyone wear a mask was a good idea and how vehement some were about the idea that someone was thinking for themselves and going against the Narrative.  The attitudes of these people were elitist (and that's really putting it mildly).

We need to counter these elitists and put them in their place (hiding in their home without Internet, preferably).

Reflections on the envious

I remember back to elementary school.  There were kids who were smarter than I was and certainly many that were more athletic than I was.  I think that all of us (at least somewhat) wanted to be more like those kids.

But over time, we realized that we couldn't be like those kids.  We just didn't have the mental or athletic talent that those kids naturally had.

For most of us, we realized that was OK.  We didn't envy those other kids.  We just accepted the fact that they would be better at sports than us or get better grades than us.  We weren't mad at them because they didn't cheat.  We all played by the same rules.  They just played better than us.

I think that some of us used them as... I don't want to say "role model"... but we did sort of look up to them and wanted to be as good as them.  They were something to aspire to.  They made us want to be better than we were.  And that's a good thing.

But something happened after I was in school.  Somehow those people were to be envied - in a negative way.  Kids were taught that these other kids who excelled were "stealing" our success somehow.  That these successful kids should hold themselves back to let others "shine".  To me that's sort of like letting someone win.  That's not helpful to either the "winner" or the "loser".

The "winner" gets a false sense of ability.  As one of my college professors put it "The first step in being smart is knowing what you are dumb at."  Unless you know your deficiencies, you can't overcome them.  If you believe that you are smart, you stop studying/learning/improving and you atrophy.

I see so many walking examples of the Dunning-Kruger effect today that it's scary.  People so ignorant that they don't know that they are ignorant.  Worse, many of these people think that they are smarter than all the people around them and they get really mad when you point out that they aren't.  They are actually holding themselves back from being better.

That's one of the reasons I like programming: It's a very humbling experience.  It constantly lets you know that you are not nearly as smart/knowledgeable as you think you are.  You don't see too many elites in the programming profession.

Now we get to the problems with the ignorant elites: when they get power, the nearly always F* things all up.

Take the recent flooding in Midland.  The dams that failed were privately owned.  The elites wanted the dams let the water rise so that the muscles in the lake would thrive.  The owners refused because they said that the dams were old and couldn't handle it.  The elites (in this case the Tyrant Whitmer and her accomplice Dangerous Dana Nessel) sued with the result that the dams came under the ownership/control of the state - who promptly raised the water levels of the lakes.

The result: the dams failed and flooding ensued.  Will the elites take responsibility for their error?  Of course not.  Failures are always someone else's fault.

So, remember, listen to the people who others call "expert".  Those people are outstanding in their field and have real knowledge.
Ignore the ones who call themselves "expert".  Those people are out, standing in their field.  And like most scarecrows, have no brains.

It's easy to mark the "experts" who are scarecrows.  They are always putting down the real experts because they envy the real expert's real knowledge.

More cleaning

*Sigh*

Well, we had a couple of furry illegal aliens here in the condo.  One really liked my walnuts, so he was trapped quickly.  But the other was either too smart to get into the food, too stupid to find the bait in the trap, or simply couldn't smell anything.  We had to use the sticky trap for him (yuck!).

But all the furry illegal aliens have been deported into the trash can and things are much quieter.

But we had to deal with the "fallout" left by the furry illegal aliens, so we cleaned all the cabinets (and the fridge while we were at it).  The good thing is that there wasn't much fallout other than on the counter tops.

But all that was in prep for our new floors (Kitchen, hallway, bathroom) on Wed.  And, hopefully, a new fridge in the future.

Computers - and why some failed in the market place.

Light thinking day today, so random thoughts are going through my head.

One of those thoughts is why many early computers failed in the marketplace and I think I have a reason.

When PCs first came out, they were for hobbyists and techies.  But when the Triad (TRS-80, Apple II, Commodore PET) came out in the late '70s, computers become consumer items.

Now, for a consumer, a computer is a tool.  The value of a tool is measured in how much work it can do for you vs. how much money it cost.  That's a big reason why the Apple II was the low seller of the Triad.  It was pricey and didn't do much more than the others (other than have pretty colors).

As time went on, vendors differentiated by making their hardware better.  But the better hardware came at a cost: incompatibility.  If you moved from Vendor 1 to Vendor 2, your software didn't work and you had to repurchase it.

CP/M fixed that to a certain extent.  A Z80 CP/M package would work on any other Z80 CP/M system (to a certain extent).  I think that's what gave people the thought to see what the full cost of "upgrading" their computer would be.

But when IBM came out with their PC - made from off the shelf components so anyone could create a clone - that changed.  Now, if you purchased a PC clone and moved to another PC clone, your software would work (again, mostly).

It's the "mostly" that was the problem for many vendors.

Tandy, for example, came out with the Tandy 2000.  It was, hardware-wise, much better than the competition.  But it wasn't that compatible.

The Amiga was another example of great hardware, but true cost of moving from your old system to a better, but incompatible, one was just too high.

When I look back at the old computer systems, I see the shift in thinking among consumers.  Yes, better hardware is good, but if I have to repurchase all my software (and in many cases, there was no software to purchase for the new computer), the value just isn't there.

A fast computer with pretty graphics that can do none of the things that I need it to is just a paper weight taking up desk space.  Ya, I know that in a year, if enough people purchase this new computer system, the software will be there.  But I need it to do something today not tomorrow.  So the market doesn't buy and the new computer fails in the market place.

Think about this.  My TRS-80 Model 4P wasn't discontinued until 1981.  Z80.  Only 128K memory (max), 2 floppy drives (max), IBM clones having taken over the market already.  But many people had made big investments in TRSDOS (and the like) software for themselves and the cost of moving to a powerful IBM clone was too high.

Rebounding from the depths of madness

Just kidding.  I'm coping well while under house arrest by the Evil Tyrant Whit-less.

The new desk has arrived and now have more space.  I have the C-64 set up more or less permanently.  But the Composite to VGA adapter that I have leaves a "rainbow" at the top of the screen.  Nothing that stops me from doing anything, but it's just bothersome.  I've tried others adapters and they do the same thing.  So it could be my C-64.  But other people said that they had the same issue and tracked it back to the adapter.  So it's spend more $$$ on a better adapter or leave it.  I think I'll leave it for now.

Since I had room, I was finally able to test out my Hakko FR-301 desoldering tool that Dawn got me for my birthday.  Really nice.  This will come in handy when I get some time to replace the battery in my Tandy 1400LT and in future projects.

New laptop today!  Woo Hoo!  Just waiting for the friendly neighborhood UPS guy to stop by.  Signature required (which is a good thing).

Exercise is going good.  The weather has been good and we've been able to get out for walks.  I've also been doing light weights in the dance/exercise room.  I'm in a good routine now.  The only thing we have to "fix" is that we are eating out on the weekends too much.

The projects that require lots of time and desk space are still building up.  I have my power switch for my TRS-80 4P.  But I have to do a big disassembly to get that installed.  I already alluded to my 1400LT battery replacement.  I also want to start moving on the new alarm clock.

We have a Sonos speaker in the bedroom.  But we really only use it as an alarm clock.  I want to create an internet alarm clock that runs off our internal server and doesn't have the security issues a Siri/Alexa-enabled speaker might have.

Still locked down

Our fearless leader Queen Whit-less has decreed that we shall self-quarantine until May 15.  But she did "allow" us to do the things she stupidly said that we couldn't do 2 weeks ago (and caused a large protest that made national news and several petitions to recall her to hit over 200,000 signatures).**

So I am officially banished to the Man Cave until May 18.  Not happy.

The good news is that the Man Cave is getting several upgrades.  One of which is a new desk - actually an extra desk.  This will allow me to set up some of my larger projects (like the RC2014 and the C-64*) more or less permanently.  It should also allow me to have more other systems set up to play with.

The bad news is that my main work area will be taken up by real work until at least May 16.  So I can't play with my desoldering tool that I got for my birthday.  Also, my clock batteries arrived for my Tandy 1400LT and I need that area to install them.

* The C-64 requires a power supply for the C-64, plus another power supply to hook it to a modern monitor, and if I run the 1541 floppy drive, yet another outlet.  So it does require quite a bit of desk space to hook it up.

** Ignore this if you don't care about Michigan politics.
The emergency order that gives Whit-less the power to make these edicts ends on May 1 and to extend it, she needs to get permission from the legislature.
So I'm uncertain if her latest edict will have any authority past May 1.  It's possible that the legislature will just override it and let people make their own decisions.

I do know that the legislature wants to limit Herr Whit-ler's emergency power, but it's mostly symbolic since it won't pass.  But it does mean that the legislature won't give her permission to extend her authority beyond what's currently in the Michigan Constitition.

Time for the lockdown to end

So, the last room was cleaned out this weekend.  We have officially gone through the entire condo and cleared out things.  We have a large pile of stuff that will go to eBay/Goodwill as soon as the lockdown ends.

Some interesting things that were heard:

Me: "Why on Earth do I have a Fart Gun?"
Wife: "But we should keep it!"

"Where did all these rare earth magnets come from?  I have not pulled that many old hard drives apart."

"Do routers reproduce when put in a dark place for a long time?"

"So that's where we hid all the chocolate?"


Next weekend, we have nothing to do now.  It's time for the lockdown to end.

New Server - active

So, the old server is now turned off and the new server is now active.

The new server hardware is:

• Raspberry Pi Rack
• Raspberry Pi 4B 2M
• 4 2.5" hard drives (2 500GB and 2 1TB)
• Power USB hub - to supply power to the 4 drives

I put the Pi 3 back into the NAS kit setup that I purchased a while ago and have set that one up in a different spot instead of putting it into the rack.

I have an extra Pi 4.  I'll be cloning the SD card for the server this weekend and making that extra Pi 4 a "cold" standby should the active Pi 4 fail.

Office Exile Extended

So, I'm banished to the Man Cave for the next month.  Not happy.

I'm hoping that some companies start bucking this unconstitutional "stay at home" order by governor Whit-less.

I keep hearing that, at this point, the "stay at home" order will create another crisis because we aren't acquiring herd immunity - which is the only way we will defeat COVID-19.

Let the people who are not high risk go back to work.  Let us get sick and get over it (many of us think that we already had it back in Dec. when we got sick but just thought it was the "creeping crud" that comes out every year).

Let the high risk people "stay at home".  Let the people who get sick stay at home until they are better.  Get the country moving again.

I like my Man Cave, but it's wearing hard on me to be there 8+ hours per day.

But there is a light at the end of this tunnel: we got toilet paper last Friday when we went grocery shopping.

Tandy 1400LT

So, ya, I promised no new projects this year.  But when a Tandy 1400LT came up at a reasonable price, I had to jump on it.

It turned out that the only thing "wrong" with it was a missing AC adapter.  But another eBay sale later, and I have an AC adapter.

The floppy drives are working well.  The screen is good.
I took it apart for cleaning an inspection.  Even the clock battery wasn't leaking (but as soon as I get my Man Cave back, I'll be replacing that).

So, some Windex, rags, Q-Tips and elbow grease later, and it looks almost new.

The album is here.

I used many of the diskettes I created for my 1100FD and created some extra ones.  Pretty much all the software works really nice.

One interesting thing about this PC is that it has 768K of RAM.  It comes with a driver that will take that extra 128K and turn it into a RAM disk.  The boot floppies that came with the PC copy things like COMMAND.COM there on boot - which makes this feature really nice.

Office Exile day 9

Nothing really to report today.

I'm just getting tired of the toilet paper issue.

Luckily, we already had our normal supply.  So we are good for about another week.

But every time I go to the store, the shelves are empty - I mean completely empty - of toilet paper.

Did the hoarders drain the supply chain so badly that we are still recovering?
Or do they show up every morning and buy up all the TP on the shelves?

I got to the store minutes after it opened today.  (Meijer is normally open 24/7 but is now closed from 10p-8a for restocking and cleaning.)  So they should have had some.  I thought I saw a package on someone's cart as I was going in.  But the shelves were empty.  Same for Family Fare.

Of course, our worthless governor doing her unconstitutional "shelter in place" order didn't help.  I'm sure that it caused another bout of hoarding.

If you are hoarding, please stop.  The only people who have a legitimate reason to hoard are the over 60 crowd since they really need to stay away from people (they have the highest mortality rate from this virus).  Everyone else: just buy what you need.  If people did that, there'd be plenty of TP for all of us.

New server - Update

The USB hub arrived yesterday and only took me a few minutes to get set up.  It works like a charm.

The second hard drive was added to NAS2 and there were no problems.

Now, I have to rethink things a bit.  I think the second Pi4 that I have will become a cold standby.  I'll clone the SD card when everything is set up.   Then I'll install it in the rack, but unpowered.

But the other 2 hard drives are on order.  When they come in, I will have all the parts and I'll find out if this set up works for what I need it for.

In exile

Working for home is greatly overrated.  I mean, I like my man cave and it's the perfect place to set up a home office since the desk, computer monitors and office chair are there.  But spending 8+ hours there every day... it wears.

So, today is day 8 of our exile from the office and, I'm getting...  I want to use the word 'depressed', but that's not correct.  I'm lacking energy.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Benefits with working from home:

1. Short commute.  I can walk to work.  8)
2. No distractions - at least none inside our condo.
3. Very relaxed dress code.
4. No lunch room filled with free junk food.  So it's kinda hard to snack (we don't keep much junk food in our condo).

Drawbacks:

1. Lack of human interaction wears on you.
2. I find I move less than I do when I'm in the office.
3. I'm less productive.  There's just some things that are harder and more time consuming do to via the VPN.  And hope that the device that you are using back in the office doesn't decide to lock up.

So, there's not much I can do about most of those.  But I can move more.

I dug out my old hand weights and every hour or so, I stand up on the exercise mat and do a set of upper body exercises.  It only takes a minute or so and gets my energy levels back up.

Death to the hoarders!

So I went grocery shopping early yesterday, thinking that the main reason we can't get our stuff is because we are going so late (and close to the time that they are normally restocking).

Not only was the TP all gone, along with the usual: paper towels, soup, most packaged meat.  But the flour was gone too!

WTF!??

One person claimed that it was because people wanted to bake their own baked goods.  Really!  I wasn't aware that the bakeries have shut down.  They don't do self-serve on the donuts anymore, but I've seen no shortage of baked goods.

Personally, I think that someone is winding these morons up and then they go out and create a shortage to make this whole COVID-19 thing seem a bigger crisis than it is.

New Server

So Haruka is getting old.  While she's working just fine right now, sooner or later she will fail.  So it's time to start working on the replacement.

The plan is to create a Raspberry Pi setup with laptop hard drives.

I use Haruka for:

1. Remote playing.
2. Backup our main systems
3. Serve media (music, pictures and video).

Here's the planned BOM:

• 8 Slot Cluster Cloudlet : Stackable Cluster For Raspberry Pi 4B and other Single Board Computers
• Raspberry Pi 3 B+
• 2 Raspberry Pi 4 B+ 2GB
• 3 500 GB 2.5" hard drives
• 2 1 TB 2.5" hard drives
• 5 USB3 to SATA adaptors

Phase 1:
Cannibalize the NAS kit hardware for the "play" system.  I also want to see if I can NFS mount the drive as an experiment.  The only outlay is for the case.

This was very successful.
I loaded log2ram to make the SD card last longer.
I renamed the 'pi' user to mine (and made sure that the user numbers matched).

Phase 2:
I got 1 Pi 4 and the other 2 500 GB hard drives and cables.
The plan was to set up the backup system with disk mirroring.

Not quite successful.  The Pi4 will work just fine with 1 hard drive, but it will fail with 2.  The drives pull too much power.


So the plan changed a little bit.  Add to the BOM:

• 1 Powered USB3 hub

This lets me hook up all hard drives to the one Pi4.  I originally was going to serve the videos from one Pi4 and the backups and music from the other.  I knew that 4 drives was out of the question.

But the with the powered USB hub, the hub can power all the drives.  Now I can hook up all 4 drives to the one Pi4.

So waiting for the USB3 hub to arrive.  Then the project can move forward.

Death to the Toilet Paper Thieves!

So, last night we went on our weekly grocery shopping trip.

We get to Meijer and, I swear, it looked like the Zombie Apocalypse happened and everyone went bonkers.

No toilet paper, paper towels, bleach, hand sanitizer, etc.  Canned food was very low.  Bread almost gone.  Produce was also very low.

Why?  COVID-19 isn't that bad.  70% of us will get it and the vast majority will live through it with only flu-like symptoms (after which we will be immune).

The CDC said that only those in the high risk category (like the ones with low immune systems) should shut themselves up for the next 2 weeks or so.  That's fine since most of those people are already shut up in nursing homes.

But for the rest of us, the only thing we need to do is lower our contact with people to slow the spread.

But we did ask ourselves "Why toilet paper?"  IMHO, the left-wing media wound the morons who actually listen to them up for this purpose.  Nothing says "crisis" when you go into a large retailer and find empty shelves.  BTW: those shelves will probably be full come Tuesday when the supply chain fills things back up.

SunFounder NAS kit

So I picked up a SunFounder NAS kit and the hard drive for it finally arrived today.  So I set it up.

For $80, you get a nice enclosure, eInk display with buttons, fans, USB-to-SATA adaptor and an SD card with Raspian and Open Media Vault on it.

You need to supply a Raspberry PI (I used a 3B+ I had laying around) and a 2.5" SATA hard drive (that I got on Amazon for $30).

Overall, this is a pretty simple set up.  I had some issues setting up NFS, but that was an Open Media Vault issue.

So for $80 + $30 + $35 = $145 I got a nice little 500 GB NAS.

You should install log2ram on it to lengthen the lifespan of the SD card.  I would like to see them upgrade the distro to include that out of the box.

But other than that, it's really nice.

Now, does it meet my needs?  The jury is still out on that.  We'll see.

The plan was to replace Haruka with a bank of Raspberry PIs.  Using a case like this.  I would have a Pi that:
1. Does the backups of our PCs
2. Serves our Movies
3. Services our Music
4. Allows me to access stuff from outside our network.

None of Haruka's drives are over 50% used and they are 1TB drives.  So 500 GB drives for the Pis would work nice.


The wheels are turning.  We will see.

COVID-19 = Tower of Babel?

I recently read a Blog post today that "COVID-19 heralds the end of Globalism" and I can't help but think there is a grain of truth to this.

Looking at this from the point of view of just diseases, a homogeneous society is the most susceptible to diseases since the disease finds it easy to jump from host to host.  (Read what has happened with bananas for a real-world example.)  In a heterogeneous society, diseases spread much slower, or even die out, as the disease runs its course and can't find another host to infect.

Globalism is the idea that we are one big, homogeneous family.  It's open borders and people moving from one place to another freely.

From a disease point of view, this is a really bad thing.  If people from a location where the disease is rampant - especially if the disease has a long incubation time - move en masse to another location, the disease spreads easily.

If the borders are closed, the disease can be stopped, or at least the spread slowed to keep it manageable.

Logically, this means that globalism is bad for pandemics (or diseases that have that potential).

Relating back to the Tower of Babel...  The story is basically saying the same thing: globalism is bad.

Remember, globalism isn't about "diversity".  It's about sameness.  It's not about living peacefully with your neighbor.  It's about making you and your neighbor the same.

True diversity, a heterogeneous society, is good.  In the short term, it's good to keep COVID-19 down and, hopefully, out.

TRS-80 Model 4P

I have a TRS-80!  Yes, after 40 years, I finally have a TRS-80 and it works!

Pictures here.

No Safe Spaces

We went to see No Safe Spaces today.

I had helped to fund the movie via Indiegogo so I've been anxious to see how it turned out.

It turned out very good.  I easily held my attention for the 1.5 hours (even though I was already aware of the content).

It's certainly worth seeing.

Mackinac Island in the Fall

So we just finished our vacation.  This year, we decided on Mackinac Island, but going in the off-season (i.e. after Labor Day).

We stayed at a wonderful Bed and Breakfast: Haan's 1830 Inn.  It's only a 10 minute walk to the town and very close to the Butterfly House and Mackinac Art Museum.

So, the good:

• Since it's after Labor Day, the number of Fudgies is low.  The crowds are light and the lines to get into things is small.
• Prices are low.  Big discount at the Inn for this time of year.  Plus most of the shops had sales. 
• Staying on the island means you can see things without even the low crowds during the day.

But then, there is bad:

• The weather at this time of year is cold and rainy.  The day we arrived, it poured.  But we remembered to bring our rain gear and were were not uncomfortable as we walked from inside venue to inside venue.
• The next day was rainy in the morning.  But, you know, it was rather nice.  We met maybe 5 people on the trails.  We rested in several covered areas around the island and by afternoon, it was clear and dry (with the expected upswing in tourists).
• The day we left was, of course, bright, sunny and dry.  *sigh*

On the whole, we'd do it again.  The Inn was nice enough that we would pay the premium of going in season next time.

On the way back, we had time, so we stopped at Fort Michilimackinac. They have done a wonderful job of reconstructing the fort and turning the place into an excellent museum.  There was more of crowd at the fort, though.  But mainly because the Wrinkle Wagons dropped a bunch of seniors (who were all very nice).

PI4 as desktop

So let's start at the beginning.

In the Man Cave, I had a Chromebox.  The purpose was to have something that I could do web searches and display information that I needed for my projects.  But I was finding that I really needed something more.

I was able to pick up a Raspberry Pi 4 4GB and got a case with a fan.  According to everyone, it would work as a full desktop PC.  But it wouldn't be a speed demon.

That was fine.  I didn't need a powerful PC for the Man Cave.  Just something that would do some light weight things.

The bad news: YouTube was not "light weight" enough for the Pi4.  8(

So the Pi4 is now a project box.  It will get a new OS install at some point.

Today, I visited the Junk Store (what other people call Valley City Tech Store) and picked up an HP EliteDesk 800 G1 (small form factor PC).
Core i1-4360u, 3.70Hgz, 500 GB HD, 8GB RAM.  It includes a DVD writer, sound, NIC and 10 USB ports (some USB3!).  Only $120 (including the Display Port to HDMI cable).

My only disappointment is that it's supposed to have wireless, but it doesn't.  I had to use the UDB WiFi dongle that I had in a really old PC that's about to go to Goodwill.

Interestingly, that's the same amount that I paid for the Pi4 and extras.

Script kiddies with too much time on their hands

So, I wanted to be able to access Haruka from outside of my home.  When I first set that up, Haruka was getting "hit" by hundreds of login attempts per minute from all over the world.

At first, I was intrigued and kept stats, but over time, I was blocking bigger and bigger portions of the Internet from Haruka.  So I decided to simply move the ssh port to a non-standard number.

That worked and worked for quite some time.  But that ended about 4:50am today.

Someone, with way too much time on their hands decided to do a big port scan looking for non-standard ssh ports and finally stumbled on mine.  So back to their really lame attempt at logging in as root (hint: root's not allowed to ssh in to my server - so that isn't going to go too far.  And for the person doing a dictionary attack, and the other person doing a rainbow attack, there's exactly 2 user IDs that can log in and you can't guess what they are - let alone guess the passwords).

But I'm tired of getting emails saying "there's an attacker!" and having logs filled with their lame attempts.  So I've moved the ssh port again.  Good luck finding that port.  There are only 65535 ports.  If it took them 2 years to find the last one, I figure it should take them about 10 to find the new one.

R.I.P. Mad Magazine

I just saw in the news today that Mad magazine is effectively no more.  It will no longer be sold on the "news" stands and starting in Dec. will no longer have new content - instead rehashing the old content that is has in its vault from the last almost 70 years.

I was sad to see it go, but it was time.  Magazines just aren't that useful when people get their content from the Internet.  But I think it was more than that.

While Bill Gaines was head of Mad, all of Mad's owners had 1 rule "make money".  As long as Mad made money (and they usually made quite a bit), the owner left it alone to do what it knows how to do.

But Bill passed away.  The magazine got new editors and a new owner.

It was about this time that I noticed a change in Mad - which was expected with new editors - but the change was not a good one.

Bill's magazine was an equal-opportunity-satire magazine.  Your politics made no difference.  If they could make fun of you, they did.  The new editors, however, were certainly more left-wing and, so, they focused on making fun of those on the Right, but making fun of those on the Left was frowned upon.

Being purchased by DC was not a good thing either.  DC already has a terminal infestation of SJWs and will likely be out of business soon.  I'm sure that purchase pushed Mad even more Left.

And the final nail was the fact that we all know:  The left has no sense of humor.  The magazine was simply no longer funny and, therefore, no longer entertaining.

I still have my Spy vs. Spy collection.  Antonio was always my favourite.
I know that Sergio will keep going - I highly doubt that he's reliant on Mad too much.

But for everyone else at Mad: Thanks for running a great magazine into the ground.  I'm sure Bill Gaines would be proud of you.  Not.

Who likes socialism?

There are 3 groups of people who like socialism:

1. The power hungry (dictator wannabes).
2. The elite.
3. The stupid/lazy.

Let's take each group more in depth.

The Power Hungry
Despite the name, socialism is not about people.  Well, I should say it's not about individuals.  Under socialism, people are nothing more than components in a machine - easily replaceable and of low value.

Under Socialism, the gov't owns everything.  Therefore who ever controls the gov't controls everything.  And, like we saw in every socialist experiment, socialism devolves into a de-facto dictatorship.

People like Crooked Hilary and Crazy Bernie fall into this group.  They are pushing socialism, not because they think it's great, but because they think that once it's in, they will siphon off power/money for themselves.

The Elite
You see these people mainly in the Ivory Tower of universities.  These people are experts in their own fields, but are woefully ignorant in every other area.  But they think that they have The Plan that will create Utopia.

History has shown time and time again that these people are extremely ignorant.  They are ignorant about their own Plan.  They are ignorant in that they think that if socialism comes that the Power Hungry will allow them to implement their Plan.

They speak of themselves as "smart" because they have a degree in X, but X has nothing to do with economics.

The Stupid/Lazy
This is the biggest group.

The Stupid are people who think that Socialism is more "moral" than capitalism (how they can think that stealing the work of someone is "moral" shows how bad our education system has become).  They are simply ignorant - and made so by the media/education.

The Lazy are people who like the idea of getting "free stuff" without working.  These people are parasites who society should be eliminating.


So when someone wants to tell you what a wonderful idea socialism is, ask yourself "What group does that person fall in to?"  I guarantee that they will fall into one of these groups.

Student loan debt

One of the big problems you hear about today is the "crushing" student loan debt that many people have today.  And, of course, everyone has their "solution" to the problem.

The student loan debt problem was created by

1. A myth that a college education is required to get a good paying job.  This myth was perpetuated by the Left (mostly in Hollywood by stereotyping non-college-grads as stupid working low paying, menial jobs).
2. A student loan program that allowed students to take out tens of thousands of dollars in loans to get a worthless degree.
3. Colleges raising their tuition in response to this easy-to-get student loan money.
4. Colleges turning from educational institutions to Left Wing indoctrination centers and producing people who are uneducated in their chosen field.

Simply put, the student loan system was created by the Left to funnel money into their institutions.

This is not a banking problem.  The banks are simply the intermediary for the money (since they had the infrastructure set up to give loans and take payments).  The Federal Gov't backed those loans, so the banks never used their money.  But they have to play by the rules that the Federal Gov't set for them.

Crazy Bernie Sanders wants free college education.  (Note that the only valid response to Crazy Bernie's ideas is to laugh - since they are the stupidest things ever said.)

Companies are tired of getting college grads who can't do their work and are no longer requiring college degrees.  New students don't want to be shackled with student loans and are seeking other education.  People are discovering that you don't need a college degree for many good jobs.

All this is adding up to colleges that are starting to fail financially.  And now you have the real reason why Crazy Bernie wants free college education.


So what to do about the ones who have "crushing" loans.  Nothing.  They messed up.  They paid way too much for a degree worth way too little.

When I went to college, I got a student loan.  But I also did a cost/benefit analysis of my degree.  My degree was worth more than the loan at the time.

If students did not do that and are taking it on faith that they will get a good paying job, then they were idiots and get what they earned: a poor lifestyle.

I should not have to pay for someone else's mistake.

Teacher Misery: Helicopter Parents, Special Snowflakes & Other BS

So I picked up a book titled "Teacher Misery: Helicopter Parents, Special Snowflakes & Other BS" by Jane Morris.

The book is basically a series of anecdotes about dealing with the current crop of bad students.

Before I get into my opinion of this book, let me first say this:  My dad taught middle-school for 43 years.  For most of my life, I had a view into what was happening on my school system that few other students had.  I know that being a teacher (especially one that wants to be a good one) is a frustrating, tiring and thankless job.

If you take the book as just a series of stories about stupid students and their parents (sort of like watching the car crash videos on YouTube), it's a pretty enjoyable read. But I would expect most people don't like schadenfreude.

But what was distasteful to me was the whining - from the teachers.

Every, and I mean every, problem in the stories has its root cause in the public education system.  The poor teachers, who can't be fired.  The poor administrators who won't discipline problem students.

Of course, you will say "but isn't some of this caused by poor parents?"  And you are correct.  But I will argue that those poor parents became poor parents due to the broken public education system.

One of the stories was about a couple of students who "identified" with animals.  The teacher telling the story wanted to not laugh at them, but that's exactly what should have been done (short of bullying).  Instead they humored them, reinforcing this moronic idea.

So Teacher Misery is a well written book and I would recommend it.

If you are like me and have strong beliefs about how our public education is failing, this book may be painful to read.

Mary Poppins Returns

We had a quiet Christmas, so we decided to go see a movie.  Based on the reviews that I had read, Mary Poppins Returns sounded good.

Now, I knew that this wasn't a remake of Mary Poppins.  So I expected it to stand alone as a fun movie.  My expectations were low - so that I don't do a Dick Tracy and be underwhelmed should the movie not live up to its hype.

I'm sorry to say that even though my expectations were low, the movie did not meet them.

First, I can't fault the acting of any of the actors.  They all did stellar performances.  At no point did any of them do bad - even the kids.

The problem is with the story and director.  The musical scenes were poor and way too long (and there were too many that did not improve the story).  The actors were at some times required to not maintain their character (i.e. they made decisions that their characters should NEVER have made).

It felt contrived and pretentious.  It's like they took a bunch of Mary Poppins ideas, dumped them into a pot, stirred them up and dumped them out.

At 1 hour in, I was wondering how long I would have to wait until the end of the movie.  By the end, I wanted to go.

IMHO: Go see Spider-Man instead.

VCFMW13

I enjoy geek conventions.  But since Penguicon self-destructed due to an infestation of Left-wing nut jobs, we had not been going to any conventions.  Then I discovered VCFMW (Vintage Computer Festival Midwest).  It's a reasonable drive from home and sounded like the Left-wing nuts would stay away.

The traffic was...  well... horrible.  But that's pretty normal for Chicago but we made it through.

The hotel overbooked (the reason that was given was a good one, though, and I agree with it) but they got us a room on Friday night at a nearby hotel.  That would have been nice, but my GPS sent me the wrong way, so it took us a bit to locate the backup hotel.

VCFMW started on Saturday morning, so we just checked out and went back to the original hotel.

But you don't care about our hotel and traffic issues.  You want to hear about the show.

Josh Bensadon - RCA 1802 Microprocessor
Very good talk about an early CPU that I never heard about: The RCA 1802.
Also we learned about Joseph Weisbecker, the Cosmac computer and his flip game. All items that I had never heard of before.

Glenn Holmer - geoCom (a BASIC Compiler for GEOS)
This was a nice talk about a backwater product. I had used GEOS way back in the day but I think it was for AOL on an IBM PC.

Mike Willegal - The History and Technology of the SCELBI Computer Business

Another good talk about a computer that I had never heard of before.  It's interesting that some of those computers are still in use today and how important this company was in the PC business.
http://www.willegal.net/scelbi/the8008andScelbi.html

The Auction

So every year, people donate stuff and they auction it off.  Proceeds go toward finding VCFMW (since the event is free to attend).  Lots of cool stuff.  Lots of old Sun stuff.  An ADM3A. And more.  It was supposed to be 2.5 hours and lasted over 4!

The last couple of events were videos, but we were tired and skipped them.

Side note: For some reason, we did not sleep well all weekend.

Jack Rubin - Annual Family Of Eight Panel

Another interesting talk about the PDP computers.  I'm not that interested in these, but still, it was interesting to hear how people are keeping them running.

Alexander Pierson - Cactus 6502 Homebrew
A very good talk on how he created an Altair-like system based on a variant of the 6502. Lots of detailed information. He learned a great deal how these old computers worked.
https://hackaday.com/2018/06/13/vcf-east-cactus-retro-because-it-wants-to-be/
CommodoreZ.com

The final talk was painful, so we bailed and headed home - dealing with the traffic and all.

I was able to pick up:

A TRS-80 TP-10 serial thermal printer

A Z80 assembler book (which should be useful when I get my RC2014 working)

A couple of other TRS-80 books

A new laptop case for my niece

Unfortunately, the deals that I had hoped for weren't there.  8(  I did see a TRS-80 Model III Cassette Only for $125 (working!), but I need to not bring in so much hardware.  I just don't have the room and I want to spend time actually playing with my machines.

Overall, a good weekend.  This is not an event that I'd go to every year - just because it won't change much from year to year.  But we will go back in a few years (or sooner if they have a speaker that I really want to hear).

PC-2 digital recorder

So I have a PC-2 (and PC-4) and, unlike my Tandy 102, the only input/output available is the cassette port.  (Yes, I know about the RS-232 interface for the PC-2, but the PC-4 has no such thing.)

So I located this on Tindie.com.  The SoundDuino claims to be able to record/playback sound.  Coupled with an Arduino, I should be able to make a nice digital recorder.  The keyword is "should".

After thinking it through, I also decided to pick up a 16x2 LCD display with buttons from Adafruit.

I also picked up a PowerBoost 500 Shield and battery to power everything.

Everything looked good.  I didn't see any problems.  Until I tried to actually make things work.

The main problem is that the SoundDuino doesn't work.

To be fair to the developer, he responded very quickly to my questions and even offered to replace my SoundDuino as though it was defective (he says that he tests all of them before he ships them out).  So I got my new SoundDuino and just set out to make his examples work.

After a few hours of work, I gave up.  Playback works fine.  The only problems that I had were with some sound files that were recorded with a really low bit rate.  I didn't expect the SoundDuino to play those.

The SoundDuino was very flaky.  I got it to record a short sound using the built in microphone - but only twice.  I never was able to get it to work with a known good microphone.  Communications was spotty at best.  Most of the time, the board wouldn't communicate back with the Arduino.  I could send commands, but responses never showed up.

Even playback wasn't reliable.  25% of the time I booted the device, the board wouldn't respond at all.

I fully believe that the maker tests all his boards.  But I don't think he really tests them thoroughly.

There was a minor problem with the LCD display buttons.  They didn't really de-bounce them very well.  I had to add some extra de-bounce code to prevent double clicks when the button was pressed only once.

Overall, a failed project.  But lots of learning in it.

As far as my PC-2 and PC-4 are concerned, using my PC's sound card is much more useful.

Altair-Duino and TI Silent 700

The TI Silent 700 is a teletype using thermal fax paper.  It's light weight (compared to many teletypes) and fairly quiet.  I picked up a 703 on eBay.  When I got it, I discovered that it had the "high speed" package installed (that's means it's 1200 BPS instead of the default 300 BPS).

When I tried to hook it up to my Altair-Duino, I found that the DSR to be asserted or it doesn't think that it's online.  I had a choice between cannibalizing one of my serial cables, or making my own.  I decided to make my own.

I found a place online that sells DB-25 connectors and bought some male and female connectors.

The Silent 700 has a female connector.  So I took one of the male connectors and started on that end.

I looped back DSR/DTR and CTS/RTS (not known if that's needed, but I did it just in case). 
RTS/CTS are pins 4 and 5.
DSR/DTR are pins 6 and 20.

A co-worker told me about "security wire".  This is nice stuff for my projects.  4 wires wrapped in one cable.  The stuff that I got was solid, making it easy to solder into the DB-25 connectors.

I connected wires from pins 2, 3 and 7 (Transmit/Receive/Ground) of the Silent 700 to pins 2, 3 and 7 on the other end of the serial cable that I was creating.  One thing that I learned is that the pin numbers on the female end are opposite the numbering on the male end.

I also needed a DB-25 to DB-9 adaptor to connect the home-made cable to the Altair-Duino.  I probably should have gotten DB-9 connectors instead, but I wasn't thinking and I had the DB-25/DB-9 adapter laying around.

The problem that I ran into was that I soldered pin 1 on the Silent 700 side to pin 1 on the other end.  The DB-25/DB-9 adapter linked that to pin 2 for some reason.  De-soldering the pin from the Altair-Duino end solved that problem.

I won't go into setting up the Silent 700.  It doesn't support 8-bit communication.  I set it for 7-bit, even parity.  Then I went through putting those settings into the Altair-Duino through their instrtuctions (https://www.altairduino.com/2017/06/03/serial-device/).

And I now have a new retro-computing toy to play with.

Christmas lights

I've updated my Christmas Lights.  Mainly rewired the cable for the lights so that the box doesn't have to be so close to the start of the lights and reworked the logic to make it less seizure-inducing.

GitHub project

Lost in Space - Reboot

We watched the first 3 episodes of the Lost in Space reboot this weekend.  And....  If lost me before episode 3 finished.

My expectation was that they would take the original idea, turn it around a bit to some up with a different story, but still keep the "Swiss Family Robinson in Space" theme.  I was disappointed.

The balance between sci-fi and drama was not there.  It was a drama set in space.  If you had replaced the space ships with wooden ships and planets with islands, you could have the same story.

First off, what was good:
1. The visuals.  Great special effects.  Great scenic shots.
2. I can't fault the acting.  I thought that they played their parts very well.

If you don't want any spoilers, you probably want to stop reading now.

What pissed me off:

1. The family unit was too dysfunctional.  They needed to have some to create some drama and action, but it just too much.
2. Too much angst from Will, who thought he wasn't up to the mission.
3. Too much "I'm immortal" teen attitude from Penny.
4. Too much brooding from Judy.
5. John Robinson is not a strong male role model.  He's supposed to be a soldier, but is too uncertain.  Maureen seems to be the "leader" of the expedition.  I had expected more of a partnership between them.
6. The Dr. Smith character was as evil as the original series intended - which was a good thing.  But without a strong family to counter her, it just didn't work.
7. The robot is an alien artifact.  As such, it's always suspect and not part of the family unit.
8. Too much "and the gods (i.e. alien robot) came down and fixed everything".  Boring.
9. Too many "suspend reality" moments.

The story that they came up with had sooooo much going for it.  Multiple Jupiter ships landing was a cool idea - and they messed it up.

From an article I read, the space travel technology that they were using was stolen from aliens - who wanted it back.  Hence the robot being there.  In a later episode, all the surviving Jupiter ships regroup and head back, but, of course, Dr. Smith messes everything up and warps only the Jupiter 2 to someplace else.

The planet with its storms, glaciers, forests, etc. would have been a great place to spend the first season just trying to survive, explore, etc.  And maybe save the Dr. Smith Warps The J2 thing at the end to move them to another planet to survive on for Season 2.

Penguicon 2018 - R.I.P.

Looking at the categories this year, if we assume equal distribution of panels there are 14 categories. I’m only interested in 6. That’s actually pretty good. But that assumes equal distribution.

Track	Really interested in	Sort Of Interested in	Notes
DIY	0	3	Most panels are craft, not really DYI.
Food	0	2	Many Vegan panels
Life	0	1	Lots of alt-left lifestyle panels
Penguicon	0	2	Really, only the opening and closing ceremonies, but that's nothing different for me.
Science	0	0	Not really science for many panels. Sorry, but anything with "J.R.R. Tolkien" in the title is not "science". Bob Trembly pretty much carries this track.
Tech	1	1	Programming panels were beginner level, which shows the level of the attendees.  Not much "tech" in the Tech track.

Wow. 48 hours of programming with only 1 panel that's really interesting and 9 that are sort of interesting. I remember when the norm was that I had to choose between 3 different panels that I really wanted to see, but were scheduled at the same time - and find time to eat lunch since there was no open slot for that.

Once again, there is little Linux, real science or tech.  Mostly alt-left stuff.  Penguicon is dead as a "geek" convention.  It's really just an alt-left festival now.

I guess it is true: The left really does ruin everything it touches.

Penguicon 2018 - a pre-mortum

Once again, we won't be attending Penguicon this year (I feel no loss at all).  But I do like to see what's going on with the convension I attended for many years.

When did Penguicon become a writing convention and not a Linux/Anime/Games convention?

Looking at the guest list this year, I broke them down into categories.

Writers:
MARK OSHIRO
DR. KRISTINE LARSEN
MARY ANNE MOHANRAJ
MARY ROBINETTE KOWAL
AMAL EL-MOHTAR
Karen Burnham
Kevin MacLeod

Technical:
JOHNNY XMAS
Jeff MacLeod
Curtis Potterveld
Chad Sinke
Bob Trembley

Other:
CHRISTINE SUNU
MAGIC MEEPLE GAMES
Nemo T Rathwald
Charles Severance
Claire Winn

Which puts Penguicon as a very writing-heavy convention.

Reading the Penguicon 101, they still describe Penguicon as

"Think of a weekend-long Linux Users Group meeting with hundreds of other very curious geeks, nationally acclaimed guests, hotel room parties, debates about world-building and the practicality of ion drives, video games and gaming tournaments, nerdy makers selling t-shirts and hardware, anime, costume contests, and free caffeine and snacks always available in the ConSuite."

• But Linux has been lacking in the last 6 years.  None of the GoH or Featured Guests have anything to do with Linux.  And no Eric S. Raymond as a Featured Guest.
• "Nationally acclaimed guests"?  What?  Who?  I've never heard of any of these people before (except for MARY ROBINETTE KOWAL who is a known SJW, and Bob Trembley who I've known from past Penguicons).
• "Debates"?  Not with the politically correct crowd running things.
• And they are pretty low on Anime again this year, except for the cosplay people.

I would describe Penguicon today as a SJW-oriented event praising bad writers (who are SJWs) where you have people falling over one another trying to be more "victimized" than others.  And, oh, ya, there are few technical talks and geeks running around too, but try not to notice them.

Doing some (admittedly cursory) research on each GoH, I see that most of the guests are SJW (or lean in that direction).

Some have laid claims to knowledge/experience that they obviously never had.

***Tangent***
Some years back, I remember interviewing a "highly technical" person for a technical position.  His resume was filled with "headed", "lead" and "managed" terms but had no "programed", "wrote" or "created" terms.  That didn't fill me with confidence in his skills, but he might have tailored his resume to get past the managers.  So we interviewed him (mostly because our management made us).  To make a long story short, he never did any of the work on any of the projects he was on.  He just went to meetings and talked a lot.  Needless to say, we didn't hire him.
***Tangent***

Reading the bios of many of the Guests at Penguicon this year reminds me of this person we interviewed.  Lots of nice sounding things, but if you really read the bios, you see that they really didn't (and still don't) do anything.

In a month or so, they will have the list of panels for Penguicon 2018.  I'll look through them and post on them later.

PC-2 Password Generator

So after the pyrrhic success with my PC-2 Enigma, I decided to repurpose a previous version for something else:  Password generator.

This version started out as an Enigma, but instead of needing an array to store the characters that I could us, I just used the ASCII character set 32-127.  Instead of looking up a value in an array, I could just do an "ASC" or "CHR$".  Much faster.

It had a big drawback, though.  Some of the characters in the table could not be input from the PC-2 keyboard.  So much for decrypting something.

But a password generator only needs to "encrypt".

1000 "V" clear: dim a$(1)*80: wait 0
1010 input "Start value:";r
1020 input a$(0)
1030 for i = 1 to len(a$(0))
1040 a= asc(mid$(a$(0),i,1))
1050 a=a-32+r
1060 if a > 95 LET a=a-96
1070 a=a+96/2
1080 if a > 95 LET a=a-96
1090 a=a+32
1095 :rem PC-2 chars not in standard ascii
1100 if a = 39 let a = 34
1110 if a = 91 let a = 123
1120 if a = 92 let a = 47
1130 if a = 93 let a = 125
1140 if a = 96 let a = 44
1150 if a = 127 let a = 32
1160 a$(1)=a$(1)+chr$ a
1170 r=r+1: if r >95 LET r=0
1180 cursor 0:print a$(1)
1190 next i
1200 wait: print a$(1)
1210 end

The only thing special was the 6 characters that the PC-2 uses that doesn't match up with the standard ASCII character set.  The PC-2 doesn't any single quotes (forward and back quotes).  It doesn't have "[" or "]" - instead it uses Yen and Square Root.  The "\" was some up-down square bracket that the PC-2 uses to denote an empty place in the string (sort of like a null).  And DEL was just like space.  So I convert those characters to something else.

This works much better and much faster.

So you enter something like "Tasty Cookies" and get "0>QSYa%RSPOL{" (start value of 12).

Given the same inputs, you will always get the same output.

I can say that the PC-2 is still useful today.

PC-2 encryption

So I decided to play some with programming my PC-2.  After much trials and tribulations (not to mention a nice long walk down memory lane re-learning how to program in BASIC), I was able to get the original project working.

The original idea was to make a version of the german Enigma working.  But that wasn't working out.  So I settled for something that had an encryption and decryption component.

The cypher is a simple polyalphabetic cypher with a rot-13 thrown in just for fun.

Text is limited to 80 chars (limitation of the PC-2) but since it takes so long to encrypt, I doubt anyone will hit that.

The aa() array is used so that we only encrypt to values that are enterable on the keyboard - otherwise we can’t enter the values to decrypt.

The main problem is that it's very slow.  I mean really slow.  *sigh*  It works, but the lack of speed makes it impractical.

DEF A - Encrypt text
DEF D - Decrypt text

10 "A" gosub 610:Wait 0
20 input a$(0)
30 for i = 1 to len(a$(0))
40 a= asc(mid$(a$(0),i,1)): gosub "L": a=e: gosub "F"
45 a$(1)=a$(1)+chr$ e
50 gosub "Z"
55 cursor 0:print a$(1)
60 next i
70 wait:print a$(1)
80 end

110 "D" gosub 610
120 input a$(0)
130 for i = 1 to len(a$(0))
140 a= asc(mid$(a$(0),i,1)): gosub "S": a=e: gosub "F"
145 a$(1)=a$(1)+chr$ e
150 gosub "Z"
160 next i
170 print a$(1)
180 end

200 :rem encrypt with current rotor value
210 "L" gosub 810:e=b+r
220 if e > 83 LET e=e-84
230 return

300 :rem decrypt with current rotor value
310 "S" gosub 810: e=b-r
320 if e < 0 LET e=e+84
330 return

400 :rem reflector
410 "F" e=a+84/2
420 if e > 83 LET e=e-84
430 e=aa(e):return

500 :rem rotate rotor
510 "Z" r=r+1: if r >83 LET r=0
520 return

600 : rem setup
610 clear: dim aa(83), a$(1)*80:restore
620 input “Start value:”;r
630 for i = 0 to 83: read aa(i): next i:return
640 DATA 32,33,35,36,37,38,40,41,42
650 DATA 43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52
660 DATA 53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62
670 DATA 63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71,72
680 DATA 73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82
690 DATA 83,84,85,86,87,88,89,90,94,97
700 DATA 98,99,100,101,102,103,104,105,106
710 DATA 107,108,109,110,111,112,113,114,115
720 DATA 116,117,118,119,120,121,122
730 return

800 :rem lookup
810 for ii =0 to 83: b = ii
820 if aa(ii)=a then return
830 next ii
840 return 0

The end of "vacation"

So yesterday was my last "vacation" day.  I start work at a new job on Monday.  Which is a good thing because I finished up most of my projects.

The MemoSaver project was (finally) a success.  I had the expected issues with the serial interface, but I got it working at 1200 BPS.  At that speed, even with large memos, it works pretty well.

I finished up my Christmas Lights project.

150 NeoPixels hooked up to an Arduino Uno.  I powered it off a 5V 10A power supply.  Everything's protected with (laugh) a utility bucket with a tight fitting lid and some silicone sealant.

Still more projects in the queue, though.  I have a Fun Light Switch Box.  I made one of these before, but made some mistakes (partly due to a poor design and partly my ignorance).  They updated the design and I've learned, so this one should work out much better.

I have a couple of Matchbox restoration projects that are almost done.  Just waiting for parts now.

I want to write some meaty software for my PC-2.  So I'm looking at porting the Enigma (yes, the German WWII encryption machine) to my PC-2.  Since it's a complete rewrite from a modern programming language to a very constrained BASIC, I have to take it all the way down to basics and redesign things.  A nice, meaty, project.

The rest of my projects remain in hold status.  When I get time...  (Probably after I retire in 18 years.)

More DVD reviews

So, while finishing up the Christmas Cookie work (which is now done!), I decided to finish up the movies in my DVD queue.

Captain America: Civil War

It was OK.  Not as good as the first Captain America or Winter Soldier, but still good.  I think the reason the movie was just OK was that it was a "set up" movie for something later on.

Spiderman: Homecoming

This movie just failed to grab me at all.  It wasn't a bad movie, though.  I just couldn't get in to it.  But then I realized that they made it like the first Spiderman comic: for teens.  The reason Spiderman took off was that the hero was in the same demographic as the comic book readers.

So this DVD went off to the "give away" pile.

So now the DVD queue is empty.

(Well, that's not quite true.  Dawn has the Little (out)House on the Prarie box set there, but I'll only watch that with her.)

Pocket Computer 4 printer (more)

So, here's more details about what I did (along with pictures).

The green/black wires used to be hooked up to the battery.  The yellow/purple (hard to see since I cut most of them away - near where the black/green wires attach to the circuit board) used to be hooked up to the AC adapter plug.

The green wire is negative and it's hooked up to the center pin.  The AC adapter that I used...

is something I picked up at the "junk store" and is just a 6V power supply.  I normally use these with my TRS-80 Model 100/102s.

The original battery pack was a set of 4 AAA NiCd rechargeables, so 6V was right.

Side note: I tried a couple of other "6"V power supplies, but they were showing me 9-10V on my volt meter.  Strange.

Anyway...  it's working.

Sorry for the sideways video.  I had hoped that it would have auto rotated.

All I did was a simple program that loops 1-20 and displays the number and the number multiplied by 10.  I used Mode 7 to send the output to the printer.

Notes:
1. This will not work with the cassette interface hooked up.  Only with the printer directly connected.  I don't know why.  But since I use the cassette interface so rarely, I probably won't look into it.
2. You must have the power supplied to the printer before turning the PC-4 on.  Otherwise, you'll get an Err 9.

But overall, I'm pretty happy.  I liked working with these.  It was a nice learning experience.

Pocket Computer 4 printer

They live!

So I have 3 Pocket Computer 4 printers.  I smoked one of them a while ago.  So that one is on the "display" unit.

The PC-4 printers were originally powered by NiCd batteries.  After 30 years, they are shot.  This was always one of the issues with the PC-4 printer.  You couldn't charge it and use it.  You could only do 1 at a time.  So once the batteries wore out, the printer was kinda useless.

My solution was sort of against the rules.  I diked the batteries out.  I de-soldered and cut out the wires that led from the AC adapter to the charging circuit.  Then I attached the wires that came from the batteries to the AC adapter port.

This means the the printer is now powered by the external AC adapter.

As expected, the 6V 20mA adapter that originally came with the printer was pretty much useless.  But using a 6V 400mA adapter (that I use with my Model 102) powered the printer just fine.

I performed the same process on the other PC-4 printer and it worked fine too.

Pine A64

But all is not well.

I pulled out my Pine A64 to see if I could replace Dawn's aging Dell Optiplex with it.

Upon hooking it up, it failed to boot.  So I reflashed the SD card.  Still no go.
I've tried on 2 different keyboard/monitor/mouse configurations and nothing.  Just the red power indicator.  No indication that it's doing anything.

I'm pretty sure it's dead. 8(
Another item for the elementary school "show and tell" box.

Addition:  I checked the 'Why won't my Pine A64 boot' sites.  One of the reasons was a corrupt SD card.  So I used a nicer card, verifying the card after flashing it.  No go.

Pocket Computer 2 printers

So when I got my lot from the Tandy Corporate Auction a while back, in it was a Pocket Computer 2.

When I "examined" the lot (from the pictures on the web site), it had a bunch of stuff.  Including some Model 100/102 stuff and Pocket Computer 4 stuff.  I had a PC-4 through college (I purchased it with my high school graduation money) and I wanted to get the stuff that I couldn't afford back then.  And then there's my Model 100/102 addiction that I seem to have gotten.  8)

So the working PC-2 was an unexpected bonus.  And I've fallen in love with the device.  So I purchased some cassette/printer interfaces from eBay.  I did get some cassette interfaces in the Tandy Lot, but they were for the PC-1.

The two PC-2 cassette/printer interfaces that I got were not complete functional.  The cassette part worked just fine (did you know that you can load/save programs via the sound board in your PC?) but the printer part didn't.

So I decided to see if I could get the printers working.  But no luck.  I did find a problem with one of the printers.  The guide rail for the print head was loose.  I fixed that.  But they still give me an "Error 6" when first powered up.

Now, I did have to do a battery-ectomy on both.  The NiCd batteries were 30 years old and starting to leak.  According to the information on line, the batteries were only there to give the printer a boost since the solenoids for the print head needed > 1A of power when firing and the AC Adaptor only produced 500mA.  So I made sure that I had a big enough power supply (2A in this case).

The printer seemed to come alive with the print head moving a bit, but still no go.  Ah, well.  30 years is a long time.  I'm surprised that these lasted as long as they did.

But I also took apart one of my PC-4 printers.  And I'm reasonably sure that I can get that working.  Another project!

Bacon Marmalade

This stuff is awesome!

You can get this from the Rockford Cheese Shop downtown Rockford.

Doctor Strange

Now that I have extra time on my hands, I'm catching up on my DVDs.  So I finally popped Doctor Strange into the DVD player.

I have to say that I'm rather disappointed.

It's not that good compared to the other Marvel movies that I've seen.  Too much eye-candy (but not to the extent of Speed Racer) and too little story.  Plenty of action, so it's not boring.

I guess that I just expected so much more.

Unemployment

Another new experience: I just signed up for unemployment.

Talk about bureaucracy (or should I say burro-cracy).  I still have to jump through a couple hoops, but things actually went rather smoothly.

I probably won't get anything (yet) because of severance and the like.  But still...  New experiences are always a good thing (even when they aren't fun).

Latest

Wow.  No update since May.  But I have an excuse since I've been busy and big changes have happened.

I've gotten a TPDD2 for my T102 and I had fun playing with that.  I've also gotten LaddieAlpha working on my Raspberry Pi 0 W.  My latest project there is to make a drive activity light work.  I also need to make a button that reboots LaddieAlpha.

LaddieAlpha is C#/Mono.  I tried to update it to use .Net Core 2.0, but there is still no hardware support in .Net Core, and LaddieAlpha needs to change the serial port settings.

I'm playing with the idea to logging into the Pi 0 W using the serial port.  But the TELCOM program on the T102 is very limited.  While it does work to play some games (like Adventure), it's very hard to edit a file using vi.

I've also gotten my PC-2 and PC-4 software loaded through the cassette cradle and the sound card on my PC.

I am no longer on my condo board!  Yay!  Certain people on the board want to personally be "The Board" and make decisions without the input from the rest of the board.  Those people are also unprofessional, abusive and (should I say it?  Yes!) stupid.  Rather than deal with this, I'll just let them self-destruct (or hopefully get the abusive one out when she does something improper).

But the big change is that I have, for the moment, joined the ranks of the Unemployed.  Yes, after 20 years, my "position has been eliminated", which we figure is pretty true.  They aren't doing any new development.  Heck, all the programmers pretty much went to the outsourcing company.  So if we don't have any programmers and aren't doing any new development, why do they need an architect?  Makes sense.

The only problem with their thinking is that the outsourcing company is pretty much staffed by newbies.  They aren't dumb by any means.  But they don't have any experience.  Some don't even know how to install the developer tools.  I figure that sometime later this month, I'll get a call to "consult" with them (i.e. "please come in and work hard to pull our rear ends out of the fire").

I intend to have a new job before then.

I now have 6 recruiters looking out for me.  I have 2 companies that have expressed an interest and I've applied at about 10 in the last week.  So not too bad.

I'm not in any big rush since the severance package kicks in soon (which is one big reason why my ex-company and the name of the outsourcing company will not be posted here).  So I basically get my paycheck until Feb. 2018.

Penguicon - the last post

After reading through ESR's letter about Penguicon, I did some more digging and located Jay Maynard's post about the event.

This validates my feeling that the left-wing regressives have taken over Pengiucon.

On Jay's post, many of the comments are just attacks, doing a "you don't agree with me, so you must be a bad person". 

But one of the comments is stood out for me:

A very large portion of the programming presented by the convention was suggested by, and run by, attendees. As the demographics of the convention skew younger, less white, and less male than typical tech conferences, the panels presented reflect the submissions of those panelists. You see less panels aligned with your beliefs not because they are excluded but because less people with those beliefs attend the convention that hit nearly 1,600 people this year — a convention that’s grown by 100 to 200 every year for the past 5.

I agree 100%.  Penguicon has changed.  It started off as an inclusive convention that welcomed everyone.  We welcomed the left-wing regressives.  And they showed their gratitude by excluding everyone that doesn't think like them.

Penguicon is no longer for me.  I had hoped that things would change, especially after Jay and Eric spoke out about the problems.  But I see that will never happen now.  I had hoped that after a couple years things would get better and I would return.  But that won't happen now either.

But that makes me sad.  I assume that Eric, Jay, and others are sad about this as well.  That's why we spoke out about these problems.  We don't want to see Penguicon die.  But there's nothing we can do now to stop that.

This is the last post.  I will no longer even follow Penguicon anymore.

The Penguicon that never was

Penguicon was this weekend.  We didn't even notice that we had missed it until today.

What I did this year was go through the panel list and pull out everything that I wanted to see.  After thinking about each one, I pared that list down to about 5 panels.  Pretty bad.  Out of 48 hours of panels, I could only find 5.

I researched the topics on the 5 panels in less than one day.

So I believe that we made the right decision to skip it.  Unless I see big changes for next year, we probably won't be going ever again.


Today (5/2/2017), a message to the Penguicon-General mailing list from Eric S. Raymond (if he posts it on his web site, I'll edit to add the link here) basically echoed the issues that I already documented with Penguicon.  But I guess this year, it was even worse, vindicating our decision to not attend.

I didn't realize, but one of the GOHs was a SJW (Social Justice Warrior).  I'm really glad I didn't waste my time and money going this year.  Penguicon has been taken over by the left-wing regressives as I thought.

RDOS - Beta version ready

The beta version of rdos is ready.

Features:

• "Boot" everything from a clean Tandy.  This will load the "RLOAD" program which will let you load all the other programs.
• Load, Save data files (sorry, the BASIC doesn't let me load tokenized BASIC files).  You can still load programs as text files, then "LOAD XXX.DO in the BASIC interpreter.
• List files on the drive.
• Change directories on the drive.
• Rename and delete files on the drive.
• You can "reference" a file on the drive.  Then you can LOAD "COM:98N1D the file at the touch of a button.
• Also, file seek is supported plus the reading of a number of bytes (writing was already supported).  This will allow you to write a program that uses the drive as "virtual memory".

The project has all the clients written and fairly well tested.  Also examples for the file seek feature.

I haven't "beat the heck out of it" yet as far as use.   It seems to work just fine for the limited use and testing that I did.  So I'm pleased right now.

RDOS - Arduino TPDD Reborn

The programs that I wrote to talk to my Arduino set up worked, even though the original clients didn't.  So, I decided to write my own clients to talk to it.

The new project is called RDOS (for Ron's Disk Operating System - hey, I created it, so I get to name it).  You can get it here.

Since I now control both the client and the device, I decided to simplify things.  So it no longer does the full TPDD protocol.

Commands:

• Directory Reference - Option 0, 1 and 2 are used.  Option 3 was changed from "request previous directory block", to "change directory". Option 4 is removed.
• Open file - Implemented
• Close file - Implemented
• Read file - Implemented
• Write file - Implemented
• Delete file - Implemented
• Format Disk - Unsupported
• Drive Status - Unsupported
• DME Req - Unsupported
• Drive Condition - Unsupported
• Rename file - Implemented
• TS-DOS Mystery Command - Unsupported
• TS-DOS Mystery Command - Unsupported

File names were padded, internally, to be 6 bytes, dot, 2 bytes. This restriction was removed.  You can use the full 24 bytes for the remote file name.  You still need to name it to be only 6 bytes on the Tandy size, though.

Checksum will not be supported (since the communications is much better, it's no longer needed).

Client programs:

• RLIST.BA - List the files in the current directory
• RLOAD.BA - Load the file into the Tandy - the program loaded by the boot button
• RSAVE.BA - Save the file into the SD card
• RUTIL.BA - Delete/rename files, change working directory

Notes:

• Tandy BASIC does not permit you to open a .BA file for writing, so you can't load a tokenized BASIC program. You can only load it as a .DO file and then do a LOAD "xxx.DO" in the BASIC interpreter. Note that you can SAVE a .BA file, though. So this project only works for data files, not binary program files.
• Don't bother trying to save a file with any extension other than .DO. You will get an "?MN Error". Just leave the extension off for the Tandy file name and let it default to .DO.
• It will "boot" the loader program by doing a LOAD "COM:98N1D and pressing a button. Once the loader program is there, you can load the save, list and utility programs.
• I implemented directory handling, so you can use a nice, big SD card and subdirectories.

I've booted up from a hard reset on my T102, loaded up all the programs, and played for a bit. I still need to really kick it around, so it's in alpha test right now.