Choo-choo-choo (all board the blog train…!) (Meta #12)

The title is from the lyrics of a song by a band I started listening to entirely too much. They only have like five remotely interesting tracks. I kind of want to go to their concert if they ever go on tour again. And the video this lyric is from is hilarious.

It’s only been about 11 months since my last Meta post, which I think is an improvement assuming posting more often is an improvement in some way.

The things that pop out to me over that time period are being “gas lighted” by my work and eventually losing my job. But I’m choosing not to focus on that as it seems unhealthy.

Instead I’m going to focus on the future and hopefully improving myself. And probably finding a new job. That kind of goes without saying.

This process of improvement starts with this blog: many more projects and a lot of extra documentation on projects past and present. And probably future if there’s room. Mostly I need motivation to keep myself busy and do things on a daily basis.

I think I got a good start on this: I started using an Android app called MIMO. It’s one of those incremental programming practice apps the Google Playstore seems to have a never ending list of.

It’s not every friendly to use, especially the free version. But I managed to start the very not-obvious-how Python course in MIMO. The idea is simple: go through what amounts to flash cards of a programming language a few minutes at a time each day. The app tracks your streaks, awards points and has a leaderboard for comparing yourself against others. It’s not going to teach anyone programming by itself but it’s good as a “at least I did five minutes” sort of a feeling of accomplishment.

I did that app for 54 days straight before losing my streak. That’s when I had finished the Python course and didn’t know if I wanted to continue. Eventually I started the JavaScript course even though I don’t really care so much to learn JS at the moment.

So based on that flimsy foundation I decided to try and extend this a bit to do other things on this streak-based idea. I mean no leader board, but at least a sense of accomplishment so there’s that.

And I do have a lot of ideas on posts and series of posts.

Well the first one and possibly most obvious is related to the most recent post I made: lets look at vintage junk. Besides the the post from yesterday, I also have a new post queued up to be published in a week. I’m not sure I know what vintage device to go on to next. I mean I’m pretty sure I have more junk, just not sure it’ll be worth doing a whole post on. I’ll probably do that anyway, though.

Actually, I have an IBM Model M keyboard complete with PS/2 connector that needs to be restored. There’s lot of videos demonstrating how to do this. So I could get multiple posts out of that – a vintage and a “lets restore a thing” post. Then also what I really want to use the Model M for in the first place: a non-destructive integrated PC-in-keyboard. I actually had a whole thing worked out to mimic a specific retro PC from the mid-80s, modifying the design to include things like a zip drive. That will be a whole separate thing.

Pointless adventures into Windows 98

Besides the vintage junk, I have have been working off and on with an old laptop (the Dell 700m) to get Windows 98 installed on it. I mean I don’t have any specific plans for after I succeed at installing Windows 98. The laptop likely won’t run games very well and I bought the integrated sound card will function in pure MS-DOS mode. Although FreeDOS might have some extra functionality in that area, I haven’t looked yet.

Related to that process is emulating a PC to run Windows 98 for fast prototyping. I’m actually using a relatively new piece of software called PCem for this prototyping. And I’m almost positive it is in fact virtualization. At least it has as the attributes of other virtualization solutions like VirtualBox or Hyper-V. From what I can tell the main difference is the emulation of specific motherboards with specific ROMs like a PC BIOS that went with specific motherboards. When I force shutdown of it it says “stop emulation”. So it’s emulation instead of virtualization(?).

I’ve developed something of a workflow testing things in PCem then re-creating steps on the laptop. And sometimes vice-versa. In this process I also ended up purchasing a number of adapters for use in this old laptop.

Technically the ~20 year old 2.5″ IDE drive was still working without issue and even had someone’s old XP OS on it – which I eventually wiped out with the restoration partition. But I wanted a better storage solution so I went to CF cards. I’ve now standardized on some 8GB CF cards alongside some 8GB virtual hard drives. And a little surprisingly the battery actually works. I mean I managed get around 90 minutes on it. Which hasn’t been tested with 98 yet.

Related to that is a desktop PC I apparently have that is old enough the manufacturer (Asus) still have Windows98 drivers for download on their web site. And also this desktop has a CF card adapter already in one of the front bays so in theory…I could easily pop CF cards in/out to switch between installs of FreeDOS, Windows 98 and whatever OS I happen to need. That might be better than what I’m doing with the laptop (update: this card reader doesn’t seem to work that way – oh well).

There’s been a lot of “community” work on Windows98 as an OS in the time since it went out of support. A few things I’ve hard even begun looking at, like something called KernelEx: it’s supposed to make running programs made more for later versions of Windows like XP run in 98. There’s also a “community service pack” that is supposed to make installing things like DirectX 9, patches and utilities to help with making more friendly when coming from a modern OS.

Actually, despite the lack of mention on the Windows 98 subreddit, I would also add in the “replacement shell” called LiteStep, along with a bunch of themes. This way it will really bring me back, nostalgia-wise. Side note: I actually downloaded every possible theme for LiteStep around 2003, even though I wasn’t really supposed to because the site was being paid for out of pocket by a community member (this is why we can’t have nice things). On the bright side I’ll have lots of themes to choose from. If you don’t know what I’m talking about you’ll just have to wait for a dedicated blog post.

Also Atari

When I’m not brainstorming on things I can do with 2600 carts I’m also thinking about the Atari computer I have. It’s an Atari 800 of some kind (the non-XL version, with two cartridge slots). I bought it from a friend about eight years ago without a power supply (it did have a cassette deck, documentation, a bunch of game and software cartridges and peripherals). It took a couple years to figure out which power supply I needed, obtain one with similar specs (who wants to just buy one?) and then come up with a barrel adapter that fits (this non-XL version uses an AC-AC power source). But I still haven’t tried to power it on. Because I don’t know if it will make popping sounds and not work or not power on at all or just work like it’s in mint condition.

Atari 800: Not mine, just demonstration of the one I’m referring to.

I’ve had a draft of a post for years now entitled Schrödinger’s Atari 800. Because it’s in the simultaneous state of working and non-working and…forget it.

I mention this because a local shop has an Atari 400 along with a 5 1/4″ disk drive for sale with probably a power supply I had my eye on. At least they did have it, I haven’t checked for more than a week. Hopefully they didn’t sell it already. Although I’m still on the fence about purchasing it. It would be as much about getting a working power brick as anything else. Assuming the 400 and my model of 800 work with the same brick. I mean maybe a C64 would be a better vintage PC to work with but I haven’t seen one of them.

Assuming the 400 works I could always figure out some cool mods for that if nothing else. I assume most of the software I have would work with the 400. Maybe I’ll finally be brave enough to test the 800.

Programming – the other thing

I’m still doing some level of programming at random increments, still in Python. In fact I bought another Python book, although I hardly see the point.

I think I’m going to try and a lot more programming in 2024, possibly with multiple languages. As mentioned I’ve already made some small amount of progress on this with the streaks of practice using that MIMO app. I more extensive plans.

There’s also the 3D printer and OctoPrint

I haven’t done any entries about my 3D printer or related processes yet but I know I have a specific entry in mind now: fixing my install of OctoPrint. OctoPrint being a special Linux application related to 3D printing that includes a live video stream and sending “print jobs” to the 3D printer through a web interface. Basically it’s remote controlling the 3D printing through a Web UI. The issue is when I click the convenient “upgrade now” button for a new version of OctoPrint the whole thing completely breaks. I wrote a google doc on the process of fixing this the last time this happened so the blog entry won’t be that bad, just following my own notes and re-writing them down and inserting updates to the information as needed. I mean it might make more sense to just install a fresh copy of OctoPrint on a new device at this point.

Oh, I should mention OctoPrint usually revolves around installation on Raspberry Pi but I used an old laptop with a screen that flips around (it’s an old XP tablet edition device). I angled the lid so the camera points at the print job. Anyway, it’s a thing I’m going to post on.

I have a bunch more ideas and things I can think of to add to this entry but I’ve decided I’m just going to stop the entry here. The rest of it will have to be a surprise.

References:

You can find the rest of the Meta posts under the Meta tag.