ajxs

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121.
by ajxs 2y ago
On the subject of Ensoniq, here's a great article written about them and the huge impact they had on the music industry: https://reverb.com/news/history-of-ensoniq-samplers-mirage-e...
122.
by ajxs 2y ago
If people are interested in the DX7's technical details, I've done some work reverse-engineering it, and some of Yamaha's other FM synths: https://ajxs.me/blog/tag/DX7.html Ken Shirriff has also don
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by ajxs 2y ago
Here's some more technical information about the OPL2, including some images of the decapped chip: https://yehar.com/blog/?p=665 The 4-operator FM synths that Yamaha produced from the DX100 (OPP/YM2164) onwar
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by ajxs 2y ago
Awesome work!
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by ajxs 2y ago
Here in Australia real estate transactions aren't covered by the national AML/CTF act. You can currently buy Australian real estate with millions of dollars stuffed into a duffle bag, and the realtor you gave it to is under no obl
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by ajxs 2y ago
I was feeling a bit self-conscious about my 2015 Javascript, and gave it a bit of a polish! So it's slightly more than 114 now. I'm glad you appreciated this! The whole idea is built around a very simple mechanism.
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by ajxs 2y ago
Thank you very much! The browser landscape was very different when the original code was written, around 10 years ago. Maybe I'll revisit it and see if it can be optimised!
128.
by ajxs 2y ago
A long time ago I wrote a useless, but fun program that attempts to programmatically recreate a source image by randomly placing randomly sized, randomly coloured rectangles onto a canvas. If the result of this random application of colour
129.
by ajxs 2y ago
> ...or when the warranty runs out. Do people really replace their drives when the warranty runs out? Hard drive manufacturers won't provide data recovery on drives that fail under warranty[1]. It makes more economical sense to just
130.
by ajxs 2y ago
This is very cool! Some of the samples in the Soundcloud playlist sound really amazing! Is it possible to use the paid version offline? I keep my studio computer off the network so that I can totally avoid distraction.
131.
by ajxs 2y ago
Very cool project! Were you able to build a working 68K GNAT cross-compiler yourself, or did you purchase one from one of the major Ada vendors?
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by ajxs 2y ago
Speaking of 'communist era train platform's, one of the many interesting architectural flourishes that you can find in Poland is how the names of some of the train stations around Warsaw are embedded in the structure of the statio
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by ajxs 2y ago
My personal favourite 'Clouds in Video Games': I used to play Quake 3/Quake Live competitively, and spent a lot of time in a small 'arena' map called 'Thunderstruck'[1]. The clouds in this map are absolu
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by ajxs 2y ago
I love the idea, but the thing that keeps me from over-engineering my own resume is the number of times recruiters have asked for a copy in Word format, so they can strip out all the identifying features. Lots of large companies mandated th
135.
by ajxs 2y ago
> "As a result, it is difficult to attract younger programmers to join the project." Every time I read this quote I have a little bit of a laugh at this and think 'Sheesh, I could write 8-bit assembly all day long. Sign m
136.
by ajxs 2y ago
That's a really awesome project! I can find the A3000 firmware ROM online[0], but unfortunately I can't seem to find the service manual/schematics anywhere. Reverse-engineering firmware from the late-80s onward is a completel
137.
by ajxs 2y ago
I've been doing a lot of reverse-engineering of synthesiser ROMs lately. The Yamaha DX9 ROM has some fragments of the firmware's symbol table embedded in the empty space left in the binary[0], along with a big block of 6303 code t
138.
by ajxs 2y ago
This brought this other video to mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQOJ3yCK8pI See also: https://github.com/shaunlebron/blinky Using non-standard projections in Quake.
139.
by ajxs 2y ago
I was a 90s kid, and was totally head over heels for Origin Systems' games (Ultima, Wing Commander, etc). Par for course, I had a selection of DOS boot disks to set up the right operating environment for each game. Ultima VII featured
140.
by ajxs 2y ago
Very cool article! I had no idea that the idea to use a 5-pin DIN connector for MIDI came from the Japanese HiFi world. One very minor nitpick: 'Running Status' actually refers to a feature in the MIDI specification where multip
141.
by ajxs 2y ago
I was writing an article on reverse-engineering vintage synthesisers[0], and I ended up getting majorly sidetracked trying to find out exactly what year the Hitachi HD44780 LCD controller was first manufactured, or try and find any backgrou
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by ajxs 3y ago
Very cool series! I've been working on the same kind of project, so I'm looking forward to the rest of the entries! I'd love to know more about why you opt for a higher-half kernel. Most hobby RISC-V kernels I've seen do
143.
by ajxs 3y ago
I don't really understand what you mean. What is bootloader-like about this project? Any kernel, no matter what platform it targets, is going to look pretty similar to this project at this stage.
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by ajxs 3y ago
It's been a while since I caught the train to or from Sydney airport but, in true Sydney fashion, it's privatised and costs an absolute fortune. From memory it costs more than Melbourne's SkyBus.
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by ajxs 3y ago
You're right. I think I misread the original post, and assumed that since they were talking about running COBOL on more modern systems that they were using it to solve new business problems, hence my confusion.
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by ajxs 3y ago
I've worked at organisations which have mainframe applications that have been running for almost 50 years. One of the funnier reasons I've heard about why these '100k lines of COBOL' programs never get rewritten is that
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by ajxs 3y ago
I've spent some time working in finance, so I've actually worked with COBOL developers personally in multiple different roles. In all those cases they were maintaining legacy applications that ran on IBM mainframes. Why would a co
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by ajxs 3y ago
Trove is fantastic. It came in handy very recently for the same project I used the Library of Congress for[1]. The Museums of History New South Wales has a great online archive as well[2]. [1]: https://ajxs.me/blog/The_
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by ajxs 3y ago
In case this is useful to anyone, there's lots of digitised newspapers freely available in the Library of Congress: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/
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by ajxs 3y ago
FTP access is a big factor for me. I currently host some sites on Neocities, and I don't like that I have to use their Web UI/CLI to update them. I really like the overall mission of Neocities though. They seem to be a great host

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