Playing with #atari8bit #6502asm using joystick PIA ports as output. Why did I need an Arduino again? :-)
#retrocomputing

For #atari8bit #6502asm programming I use the ATMAS II macro assembler. This environment is so efficient, the editor so modern and working is naturally free of distractions - why did we ever give up on that?

The most funny thing is ATMAS-II's peculiar character movement due to lack of a zero-width cursor, see video - in 4:3 ratio with 80s background music played from minidisc to suit your demanding taste. :-)

#retrocomputing

The full #6502asm example to use #atari8bit joystick ports as PIA output is now at

https://github.com/eizen6/6502asm/blob/master/piaout2.asm

#retrocomputing

To complete the story about #atari8bit PIA joystick port programming I also put some Atari Basic code to github:

https://github.com/eizen6/6502asm/blob/master/piaout1.bas

30 years later I now realized the source is organized and written as some early form of byte code. So I had to use a tool to convert it back to source:

https://github.com/mistalro/atariconv

I found interesting details about Atari Basic in:

https://wikivisually.com/wiki/Atari_BASIC

and the byte code explained here:

https://www.atarimax.com/jindroush.atari.org/afmtbas.html

What a successful #retrocomputing sunday...

@paul @antharia @luxpris Would #orca count?

https://github.com/hundredrabbits/Orca/blob/master/README.md

@thomasfuchs That's government doing printf-debugging encoding like everyone else - just at geological speed.

Between the daily rage I noticed I can relax quite well on soldering, I should do it more often.

These two guys will become my "PIA cable" for my #atari8bit experiments.

This is where I should have worked. Somehow I missed the right decade - the biggest personal off-by-one error of my life. :blobugh:

@rixx I remember the "tar suffers from featurism" discussion in the 90s. Seemingly that discussion's conclusion was inconclusive.

Or maybe it's just 80 new compression types...

@cstrotm It's a shame that the Forth e.V. wiki doesn't use a url like de.forth-ev.wiki\\:https

😆

@eazy

Alice in Wonderland, not easy to read for young children but inspiring when you read it to them.

German versions are easier to understand than the English ones, IMHO.

German version here:

https://www.projekt-gutenberg.org/carroll/alice/alice.html

@7047741 @johannesg
I just finished my "#Vegan March" and it worked better this time as I spent the whole February to be prepared with recipes, suggestions, and shopping lists.

I replaced milk with oat (barista) milk, became friend with some cheese replacement for the pasta family events, and simply gave up on eggs, which are in fact the only thing I still miss, but I guess it's just fair compared to the chickens' suffering.

Indian food and was the bridge whenever I ran out of ideas.

It's still heart-warming to view retro computing pictures.

Here is the greatest thing about #homeschooling:

The kids' procrastination energy unloads in the same way as it does for grown-ups.

When it gets difficult they suddenly feel the urge to clean ... their room.

With this I could #stayathome forever! 😃

@Wintermute I did all my bets on #Perl and hope to get an invite 28 years later to earn easy money from fiddling with early 2000s LAMP mess.

But with this new hype it seems I should port my CPAN stuff to #COBOL just to be on the safe side.

Wow, there is a whole wiki about terminals. I'm already storm-clicking on the random page link.

https://terminals-wiki.org/wiki/index.php/DEC_VT100

I have tears in my eyes when I remember I once owned a VT-110 and (probably) a VT-340 but gave them away at some point.

#retrocomputing

And I'm tempted to fill out the forms in this ad.

@charlag Standing on the shoulders of giants.

Every now and then, out of nowhere, it flashes me how the #alien #nostromo wakeup scene contains everything I want.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7deEcyeVuw8

@freon  #gettingthingsdone is worth reading for its overall ideas but most I know derived their own way from it.

For org-mode basically the same applies: try "the greatest thing that happened to #Emacs".

But how people suggested to do GTD in org-mode felt complicated due to too many keybinds - even the cheatsheets were complex. With your own freestyle org-mode you can learn them with your own pace.

So I can recommend both but wouldn't promise its combination as silver bullet.

Resuming my #retrocomputing journey to learn #6502asm on #atari8bit.

Finally finished my "PIA cable" with its dsub25 pins fitting my existing relay board.

I'm not yet used to all this register back and forth saving and related address modes but at least I managed to use the board. Video follows.

The relay board driven by my #atari8bit #6502asm learning experiments via the Joystick PIA ports on an 800xl.

*sigh*

Why did #github change their notification page!?

It used to be a simple, fast-clickable page, perfectly focusing on exactly this one thing: notifications. You could get done many, many repositories with ease and speed within a couple of seconds.

Now it looks like a typical overloaded crappy web mailer and I need 3 clicks per group to mark it, select all, press done. And reiterate with this over all projects.

And obviously it lost all its snappy speed, too! Because they can.

@solderpunk You already had me at DAT but a DAT walkman was new to me. Where did you say can I buy this? :blobcatcoffee:

With #Xenix being my very first Unix, installed on a 286 from disks bundled with the dentist software running on it - am I actually a Microsoft fanboy?

https://fossbytes.com/xenix-history-microsoft-unix-operating-system/

@mdhughes Only the green ones are people, as we all know.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8Sp-VFBbjpE

I got curious about eastern europe #retrocomputing and started
with #polish #polski #poland:

One of their pioneers is Jacek Karpiński

https://culture.pl/en/article/jacek-karpinski-the-computer-genius-the-communists-couldnt-stand

who developed revolutionary and gorgeous computers:

* AKAT-1 - a 1960s analog computer:

https://www.retrothing.com/2008/08/akat-1-retrocom.html

* K-202 - revolutionary 16bit micro computer, no mass production

* KAR-65 - kind of a typical office computer

Though he suffered from censorship and become a pig farmer.

1/

More #polish #polski #poland #retrocomputing machines:

* Odra - their mainframe class

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odra_(computer)

produced by a company named "ELWRO" whose building looks like a huge keyboard.

* MERA 400 - mid-size 16bit computer from the 1970s-1980s

https://mera400.pl/Galeria

https://www.facebook.com/mera400

2/

More MERA-400 #polish #polski #poland #retrocomputing images:

3/

An operating system for these #polish #polski #poland #retrocomputing
MERA-400 machines seems to be CROOK and SOM:

https://mera400.pl/CROOK

4/4

I now looked into eastern europe #yugoslavia #retrocomputing.

Many models were named CER (Cifarski Elektronski Računar, meaning Digital Electronic Computer), or TIM, manufactured by Mihajlo Pupin Institute.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CER_Computer

Notable models are

* CER-22 - 1960s banking

* CER-12 - 1970s business and statistical data processing

* CER-203 - 1970s medium-sized banking, production planning, trading

1/

More #yugoslavia #retrocomputing machines are TIM, NAR, and HRS.

* TIM-100 - 1980s workstations

* TIM-001 - 1980s desktop

* TIM-011 - late 1980s, educational computer

* TIM-600 - 1980s, 32bit, Unix, C++, Fortran, Cobol, Pascal, Informix, Oracle

* HRS-100 - 1970s hybrid system co-developed with #USSR, for scientific computing, mixing digital and analog computing

They also developed educational theoretical computing model similar to Knuth's MIX:

* NAR 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAR_1

2/

Other #yugoslavia #retrocomputing machines are more import affine:

* H6000 - Honeywell licensed mainframes for banking running General Electric GCOS operating system

* Triglav - also known as "Trident", 1980s desktop from manufacturer "Iskra Delta", an interesting polymorph device running as PDP-11 variant, Intel 286, or Motorola 68010 with different operating systems.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/kiberpipa/sets/72157623793817566/

* Iskra Delta 800, a PDP-11 clone

3/

Nice side effect in #yugoslavia #retrocomputing: when a manufacturer of heavy machine tools, robotics, and industrial equipment builds computers they keep their industrial spirit:

* Lola 8 - 1980s 8bit homecomputer built from CNC machine components

* LPA512 - 1980s industrial programmable logic controller

And in the vein of Atari ST or Amiga 500:

* Lira 512 - late 1980s, based on Intel 8088

4/

Home and educational computers in #yugoslavia #retrocomputing:

* Galeb and ORAO - 6502 based homecomputers

http://retrospec.sgn.net/users/tomcat/yu/magshow.php?auto=&page=2&all=SK_84_12

* PECOM 64: 1985, RCA-derived

And we find an interesting do-it-yourself culture in #yugoslavia #retrocomputing:

* Galaksija - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaksija_%28computer%29

* Hobby ZR-84 - http://retrospec.sgn.net/users/tomcat/yu/magshow.php?auto=&page=14&all=SK_84_12

5/5

Bonus finds in #yugoslavia #retrocomputing:

Computer magazine scans with a certain sense of humor:

http://retrospec.sgn.net/users/tomcat/yu/magshow.php?all=SK_84_12

And here is a full article about "Yugoslav Computer Magazines Had Cover Girls Just Like Car Magazines":

https://www.slavorum.org/yugoslav-computer-magazines-had-cover-girls-just-like-car-magazines/

6/5 - I'm through it now. Really. :-)

Wow, Flat Eric's #stereo system with a built-in #vinyl #turntable is gorgeous:

https://youtu.be/gxU5QJ9men8?t=42

Does this thing really exist?

And here we go:

JVC DC-33

http://vintagecassetterecorder.com/2018/09/vintage-jvc-dc-33-portable-stereo-disc-center-boom-box-record-cassette-turntable/

It just has everything:

#Vintage #Portable #Stereo #Disc Center #BoomBox Record #Cassette #Turntable

Why did I start looking up #vintage #retro #stereo systems if I already know I can't stop it again? YT knows they can have #TV too:

Panasonic TR-1200x TV/Boombox

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Big4Htyyps8

@dosnostalgic For one of my early 90s DOS games (an ASCII graphics helicopter shooter inspired by Super Cobra) I wrote a boss key being a scrollable file viewer showing the dBase source code which I was actually expected to work on.

It was an actually used feature, and the hard part was to preserve the current game state.

Strange that I remember the language of the shown text but not the language in which I programmed the game itself, probably Turbo Pascal...

@purple @nak @neauoire Having learned Basic first too, I don't agree with Dijkstra here about the second part. Seemingly awful things enable you to appreciate better ones. More than starting in a world of polished diamonds.

@mdhughes I have no idea what exactly youtube-dl does but both sides' updates feel like a series of obfuscation and de-obfuscation counter measures as if Reagan and Brezhnev would fight a cold war.

@kaniini This ad looks like the SHAttered https://shattered.io/ example PDFs.

@kaniini

@cypnk For me it is Tier 3 - COMBAT which I have left as an extra voice in my head, similarly triggered. Going online with quake3demo on dm17 for the first time was a revelation.

#quake 3 All Tiers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKwxAQZoox0