Starwatcher2001

15 ms·

121.
by Starwatcher2001 11y ago
Very much so. I remember spending many months cracking game protection, not because I wanted the game, but because I wanted to pit my wits against the guy who wrote the protection. I learned more about disk controllers and hidden opcodes on
122.
by Starwatcher2001 11y ago
In one of the photos there's a shot of a TRS-80 model 1, level II, with expansion interface and three drives. Microsoft did the BASIC ROM for that machine in Z80, as they did with a number of Micros. Full floating point version in 12k.
123.
by Starwatcher2001 11y ago
"Pushing glass" to make a 16" mirror would probably take considerable effort as well as time. I gather it's quite physical. I've had some 5 inch blanks for a couple of decades with the intention to have a bash, just
124.
by Starwatcher2001 11y ago
I used to write stuff down, but in my case on sheets of paper that got filed with the project. But I kept thinking "Dammit, I know I've met this problem before, what was the solution?". Doing the same note-taking thing, but u
125.
by Starwatcher2001 11y ago
I've been at this game professionally for over 30 years and still struggle to switch context, and now the memory isn't as sharp as it once was. I can have several projects on the go at one time, and need to provide technical suppo
126.
by Starwatcher2001 11y ago
My son still uses a Psion Organizer daily (1984). As it was never Y2K compliant, he just offsets it by a couple of years to get the day/month day name to match. Until about six months ago my Tungsten T3 was still in regular use. Behin
127.
by Starwatcher2001 12y ago
Since when has it been a crime in the UK to refuse to answer questions from the police?
128.
by Starwatcher2001 12y ago
The remnents of the supernova that occurred in 1054 is known as the "Crab Nebula", AKA M1 on Messier's catalog. I remember observing this from my back garden some 10 years ago with a small telescope, but that's quite dif
129.
by Starwatcher2001 12y ago
https://panopticlick.eff.org "Your browser fingerprint appears to be unique among the 5,053,325 tested so far."
130.
by Starwatcher2001 12y ago
Good points about prioritising. It might be better to have one feature missing than going in to bat with several features only partially working or buggy.
131.
by Starwatcher2001 12y ago
We disagree. I've 35+ years professional programming experience and have done plenty of insane 90+ hour weeks. I've done coffee by the bucketful, cold showers in the early hours, loud music to keep awake, slapping myself to get th
132.
by Starwatcher2001 12y ago
If you're as fogged out as you seem to be, then the hours you're spending at work are pretty much completely unproductive. I'd suggest you use them more wisely by going home and getting a really good nights sleep. Consider it
133.
by Starwatcher2001 12y ago
Can't comment on Linux, but we used to run Xenix on a 286.
134.
by Starwatcher2001 12y ago
The 32/64 column trick was a bit obscure. I learned it from the sales guy in the Tandy store. I think from memory that printing CHR$(23) would also invoke it in software. I cut my programming teeth on the old TRS-80 too. Learned Basic,
135.
by Starwatcher2001 12y ago
Additionally, a branch (relative jump) is useful for making code that can be relocated in memory. You can't do that with an absolute jump.
136.
by Starwatcher2001 12y ago
The TRS-80 can flip between 64 or 32 characters per line, accessed by SHIFT -> The 32 character mode was the only way I could see enough to program on my old 5 inch Russian portable TV. Fantastic days. Back on topic, the TRS-80 also had
137.
by Starwatcher2001 12y ago
That's a cool piece of work. I spent a lot of time interfacing the Z80 (TRS80) to the outside world using both memory mapping and port IO. I Seem to recall (hell, it's been over 25 years), that the documentation stated that the OU
138.
by Starwatcher2001 12y ago
Really nice work! The Model 4p must have had a better disk controller and software than my Model 1. The Model 1 used a Western Digital 1771 controller that required a pause between writing a disk command and reading the status. A few NOPs w