penguin42

Chocolate eating computer geek, Manchester, UK
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Public Key

npub1amj66egcupwhwuqs2slzd28jg6w0xg0nqvc5zfw5fg6wprnx7gcq9se6he

NIP-05 Address

penguin42@mastodon-org-uk.mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqswaeddv5vwqhthwqg9g03x4reyd88ny8esxv2pyh2y5d8q3en0yvqpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerfw36x7tnsw43qzrthwden5te009skyafwd4jsz4ylm4

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relay.ditto.pub

yabu.me

nostr.now

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npub1amj66egcupwhwuqs2slzd28jg6w0xg0nqvc5zfw5fg6wprnx7gcq9se6he

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Last Notes

2026-10-27 17:38:50 UTC

Stock up the gov says.
(I had a £3-off-if-you-spend-£20 voucher, I think I got to £20.12 )
https://cdn.mastodon.org.uk/media_attachments/files/117/514/080/542/579/467/original/a4849ab37f816da2.jpg

2026-10-27 12:33:39 UTC

Morning visitor:
#wildlife
https://cdn.mastodon.org.uk/media_attachments/files/117/512/886/854/769/769/original/b29ede060e6da078.jpeg

2026-10-27 02:47:36 UTC

Damn this HAMA USB stick was slow; this is a full ddrescue read of 16GB, with no errors/retries:
average rate: 561 kB/s
run time: 7h 45m 22s
Hell knows how they made it so slow.

2026-10-26 17:06:13 UTC

Does anyone have suggestions on how to dedupe/figure out/copy all my dads old thumb drives (circa 16GB each, generally ext4ish).
The first one I've tried seems to be a home directory backup (with ~1.5GB of lost+found, 3.8GB of Pictures, and the normal mess of firefox and thunderbolt caches).
https://cdn.mastodon.org.uk/media_attachments/files/117/508/281/934/682/161/original/a0c0750830574db5.jpeg

2026-10-25 14:19:25 UTC

Dallas died :-(
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Skerritt

2026-10-23 13:19:09 UTC

I found the NESO winter outlook report for generation, and also stumbled across a couple of their others;
The winter outlook one is top left of https://www.neso.energy/publications/winter-watch (We're probably fine this year, but there will be a few tight bits in December and January);
The biomethane report (which has purple cows 🐄 ) is an interesting read;
https://www.neso.energy/what-we-do/energy-insights/role-low-carbon-gases-energy-system

2026-10-22 14:04:28 UTC

Oh ffs, Python's certificate storage is more fucked up; If you think your updated ca-certificates were enough, nope, still fucked:
https://discuss.python.org/t/information-for-python-users-regarding-emudhra-emsign-ca-certificate-security-incident/109576

2026-10-22 13:17:06 UTC

Looking at Sun3 psu parts again, it seems to me that they were designed in negative - this little daughtercard makes it pretty obvious - they've not laid down tracks - they've down the gaps and ended up with sets of lands. The whole board is only a few cm across, so I don't think anything here is taking significant power.
#retrocomputing
https://cdn.mastodon.org.uk/media_attachments/files/117/484/739/730/373/631/original/903dc71f5aaf39ad.jpeg

2026-10-22 12:51:01 UTC

Could your website be static? Could you do things like header/footer includes when you do the updates instead of on every page read?
OK, maybe you have a search or something - but could everything else be static?

2026-10-21 12:55:49 UTC

My choice of 4 would be:
https://tvark.org/channel-four-original-ident-2
which is the original UK Channel 4 animated logo.
https://cdn.mastodon.org.uk/media_attachments/files/117/478/999/222/042/104/original/b08c6582a7b8148d.png

2026-10-21 01:14:58 UTC

Better! I added a runt filter for the sync pulses on my my pico based rgb-uvc adapter; much better - it's just running on another PIO sm, and so other than an extra wire, it's still component-free.
My BBC Master's sync is really nasty; it looks that way on the main board, I'm not sure if it's the 6845 or the croma chip or what.
(Yellow is Beebs input, blue is unrunted)
https://cdn.mastodon.org.uk/media_attachments/files/117/476/237/635/664/801/original/debc24cfa7ccbf91.png

2026-10-20 17:25:23 UTC

Google cloud has one UK data centre. How can any large/critical org imagine running something on it?

2026-10-19 16:20:19 UTC

Some lovely bracket (?) fungus growing on a wooden railing; it's only a few cm tall.
#fungi #wildlife
https://cdn.mastodon.org.uk/media_attachments/files/117/468/473/329/244/249/original/032828ed8c82f156.jpg

2026-10-18 14:06:07 UTC

Right, fitted rubber 'threshold seal' at the bottom of the garage door; bit of a job, but good to get it out of the way on a dry day.

2026-10-17 21:42:14 UTC

lovely Pi Pico sdk function name 'pio_sm_set_set_pins'; the Pico PIO system has in pins, out pins, sideset pins and *set* pins; each type has a pio_sm_set_.._pins function to configure it, so this sets the set pins!

2026-10-16 14:28:08 UTC

Right, covid booster had; I did have to remind the small local pharmacy to charge me for it. They only asked me name, date of birth and which arm

2026-10-15 16:36:59 UTC

Ooh! Yes please ! I'd rather have Waymo, but hey, I'd love robotaxis in #manchester
https://www.taxi-point.co.uk/post/uber-launches-manchester-robo-cab-testing-with-pony-ai-and-verne-as-uk-expansion-accelerates

2026-10-15 15:43:22 UTC

'resin bound gravel' sounds an environmental disaster; you take all gravel and sand and stuff and mix it in a polyurethane binder and spread it all over someones path. Where it will then chip off and bound to go everywhere, not even thinking about what happens when someone then digs it up to replace it by something else and you have something which sounds unrecyclable.

2026-10-14 20:56:06 UTC

Tracing a PSU; most components are sensibly named - except 104 - there's a D104, a ZD104 and a L104. I've not found any other numerical dupes; shrug!

2026-10-13 21:54:25 UTC

a 'sophisticared recording device'...'wrapped in toilet paper' - hmm!
(With a lovely Seeeed studio ad)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwg5jq4vlddzo

2026-10-13 17:41:09 UTC

For some reason Sainsbury's lists Toffee Apples under fresh fruit.

2026-10-13 15:30:20 UTC

Sorting file-selection dialogues by 'access time' is great - it seems to remember them on Linux; so now when I go to upload a picture in mastodon it's the one I recently edited/uploaded in my photo directory at the top.

2026-10-11 15:15:49 UTC

This is a real recall (asbestos traces in the sand); Not that many of us look quite like the gonk on the left, but...

2026-10-11 13:29:17 UTC

I'm rethreading the string on a curtain rail (single string type); I'm now 1/4 of the way around, and heck it's a fight. It takes me a few days to recover from each encounter.

2026-10-10 12:58:53 UTC

These seeds are all over; a quick image search says they're birch.
https://cdn.mastodon.org.uk/media_attachments/files/117/416/725/543/961/232/original/86e3d60db6c5f33a.jpeg

2026-10-09 13:27:31 UTC

Eww this is why I get jitter when using my pico rgb capture on my master; the sync line is awful! I suspect this is video getting onto the sync, which makes me wonder if it's leakage from the circuitry that makes the composite video
https://cdn.mastodon.org.uk/media_attachments/files/117/411/162/199/041/152/original/86f9eb4322c722d4.png

2026-10-08 13:37:34 UTC

Question for UK #solar people; what are the annual costs of maintenance like? Do you pay an annual fee to cover everything or just take it as it goes? Do they have to pull up scaffolding again to fix stuff often?

2026-10-08 13:24:04 UTC

Garage door top draft excluder fitted (brush type); after having 20mm of daylight showing for ever; and since my office is above that it should make it warmer in winter evenings/nights/early hours. What it will do to the air quality in my office I have no idea; I mean there's less 'fresh air' but being on a busy road you could hardly call it fresh in the day.

2026-10-07 12:16:36 UTC

My shopping list sorter #AI is pretty good, but it's not always consistent/repeatable which I find interesting; a fun one I noticed,
'2 Royal Gala Single Apple' sometimes gets characterised as 'Apple' and sometimes as 'Apples'. Sometimes it labels 'Goats yogurt' as 'Goats yogurt' and sometimes as 'yogurt'

2026-10-05 16:13:00 UTC

Looks like the local farmer got a ram upgrade:
🐏 #sheep
https://cdn.mastodon.org.uk/media_attachments/files/117/389/175/291/858/349/original/af2b07e2b97d405b.jpg

2026-10-04 20:24:15 UTC

Damn, this would have made my life a lot easier in my first full job at the tail end of the last century; Cheadle (or this one, there are a few), is equidistant between 3 #train stations spread across two lines neither of which are reliable.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c6783p3gkpy1o

2026-10-04 17:28:52 UTC

What a strangely bearish fediverse today; I've got 3 separate Bear posts/threads (one being polar).

2026-10-04 16:56:12 UTC

Hmmm - I was measuring the small daughterboard on my sun3 psu, slipped with the probe and it all sprang into life! Fan started up and all my dummy load resistors got warm (ahem actually one of them too warm :-) So erm, I guess that means most of it must be ok, so that's promising. I think.

2026-10-02 23:36:26 UTC

I've uploaded two videos of my Master captured with rgbuvc; one is in 6502 mode and the other goes through and boots DOS Plus and GEM;
DOS Plus/Gem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21DGyHrfCEI
BASIC, View, ViewSheet, Exmon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nfg25X8tdDM
These were captured with my https://gitlab.com/penguin42/rgbuvc
(There's a bit of vertical bounce from the master which I didn't see on my Model B, hmmm)
I'm pretty happy with that!
#retrocomputing

2026-10-02 21:44:49 UTC

Oh yeh - straight lines form my Pico based RGB capture; damn that's acceptable!
Might actually be getting close to the end of this.
https://cdn.mastodon.org.uk/media_attachments/files/117/373/496/927/392/849/original/8574e61eb7d9930c.jpg

2026-10-01 22:44:40 UTC

Anyone looking to build their own little fab or after test equipment around Cambridge might want to look at this crazy auction; coaters, UV exposure tools, vacuum ovens, iron etcher, bench PSUs, microscopes...you name it; I assume it's a startup/lab that stopped:
https://www.bidspotter.co.uk/en-gb/auction-catalogues/hilco/catalogue-id-hilco-1-10178?page=3

2026-10-01 16:09:34 UTC

@nprofile…4jll You just unblocked something?

2026-09-30 01:12:58 UTC

Oh that's much better! Almost straight edges and my timing is right - this is sync input->PWM input->DMA->fetching my PIO based fasttimer; there's still maybe 2 or 3 pixels of fuzz - but it's now random per line which I think is the fact kicking off the data dma is still CPU based. Hmm I wonder if I can get rid of that.
But this is captured on an RP2040 Pico with no extra hardware at all from the RGB port of a Beeb.
#retrocomputing
https://cdn.mastodon.org.uk/media_attachments/files/117/357/307/295/872/778/original/505e7ac2d4ebc05e.jpg

2026-09-29 12:55:39 UTC

Don't touch my daughter(board) again!
I flipped this Sun3 PSU daughterboard onto the back of the mainboard so I can probe it while on, it was just too buried otherwise.
https://cdn.mastodon.org.uk/media_attachments/files/117/354/426/931/490/480/original/ac17693e1b7aceba.jpeg

2026-09-27 17:29:57 UTC

I'm still having problems getting really stable timing on line capture; but at least now I've got myself horizontal adjustment and a bit of overscan so I can get a full screen on.
(This is Mode 2)
The horizontal adjustment here is done over my separate serial link; I've not had any success getting USB video class controls to appear on anything.
https://cdn.mastodon.org.uk/media_attachments/files/117/344/180/071/918/538/original/181ced61107a5c30.jpg

2026-09-27 14:31:22 UTC

This explanation from the open micro-manipulator designers is really near because it's showing very high precision working by using 3d printed plastic stuff as guides and holders while misusing one or two other normal cheap tools:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM2KXvRGmpg
(And I blame @nprofile…7jfr for causing me to watch that :-) )

2026-09-26 21:45:57 UTC

Thank you! Whoever added -Wxor-used-as-pow 'result of '2^29' is 31; did you mean '1 << 29' (536870912)?

2026-09-26 17:14:46 UTC

Haha; I sympathise with this entry in the gdb release notes, although I don't know this one, I often get order confused:
'"delete skip", "enable skip" and "disable skip", new aliases for "skip delete", "skip enable" and "skip disable".'

2026-09-25 00:20:20 UTC

Sequencing a tumour while the patient is still on the table is damn neat:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr3wj04d88ywo

2026-09-25 00:08:23 UTC

Now bad; the fact these lines are mostly linear shows my basic high res timing hack on my Pico is working solidly - there's a discontinuity where it goes into the 2nd frame (I capture two frames since I don't have RAM to capture one whole - without reformatting, which I could do). I think my current problem is some unexplained jitter in my VSync. And I need to add a horizontal position adjust.
https://cdn.mastodon.org.uk/media_attachments/files/117/328/754/803/798/699/original/f7db840f6baa6400.jpg

2026-09-24 13:21:44 UTC

'Not tested on animals' - on a bottle of bleach! How are they sure it causes 'severe skin burns' and is 'toxic to aquatic life' unless they tested it?

2026-09-24 01:18:09 UTC

Wahey! Both top and bottom of my screen captured in one sweep (on my Pi Pico acting as a digitiser off a Model B RGB socket). Now, the start of timing is obviously a bit screwy; this is across two frames, capturing one half, squirting it over USB and then the next frame, since the RP2040 doesn't have enough RAM to hold the lot in final format.
Hmm pleased with that - I spent ages procrastinating about how to do the two halves and it worked out easy in the end!
https://cdn.mastodon.org.uk/media_attachments/files/117/323/367/302/930/048/original/44f72f6dcfc1ede0.jpg

2026-09-23 16:43:39 UTC

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@nprofile…ru3r Hmm, isn't this what 'code pages' are for:
https://kadler.io/ebcdic/
You would have to store which code page is being used to display the name, how exactly you'd enter it on a random 3270 terminal I don't know.

2026-09-23 01:24:44 UTC

Just fixed a bug I'd been chasing for a couple of days; it was in some multithreading code, so I'd made the mistake of assuming it was a MT screwup and spending ages looking at that; nope - good old fashion thinko in a calculation. Doh

2026-09-22 16:02:58 UTC

TIL that 'EAMX5' is a PCB material, and '94V-0' is a UL94 fire/flame class; so if you find them on a PCB they're useless for searching for information about that particular problem:
#retrocomputing
https://cdn.mastodon.org.uk/media_attachments/files/117/315/528/941/613/186/original/9b6508f51eb56624.jpeg

2026-09-22 12:13:38 UTC

Oh that'll be fun, G20 coming to #manchester next year, in November - they can have some cold drizzle and go around our over priced xmas markets. Hopefully we'll teach the world of the wonders of the Eccles cakes and Manchester Tart.

2026-09-20 13:22:30 UTC

No life from my Sun3 PSU yet, but some friends convinced me I really needed to put a load on it; so here is my load; right to left about 7A at 5v, (hidden by tape) the 12V around 0.5A, and -5v at about 1A. But nah, I need to go back to tracing the PCB out a bit more.
https://cdn.mastodon.org.uk/media_attachments/files/117/303/567/057/639/566/original/b7dae8b337ada686.jpeg

2026-09-11 13:42:34 UTC

Ooh, that's getting there.... This is a BBC B captured with the RGB wired directly to a PICO GPIO and advertising USB video; now hmm, wtf is it backwards. (It's yellow because I ahem need to put the blue pin in the right place). I've not properly done sync yet and it's not bad!
https://cdn.mastodon.org.uk/media_attachments/files/117/252/689/699/466/445/original/ecc615a29db33a19.png

2026-09-09 14:24:00 UTC

Damn; on my Pi Pico, finally noticed a note saying SIO can only be accessed from the core; that means you can't DMA from the GPIOs, so time to set up PIO just to shovel the data off the pins.

2026-09-09 14:14:01 UTC

Odd definitions of 'shipped/dispatched'; I hav ea CPC order that says it 'shipped' - Royal Mail still say 'We're expecting it'. An order from an Amazon reseller says 'Dispatched', Amazon's tracking says 'Package left the courier facility' but Evri's says 'We're expecting it' ; shrug, pretty meaningless statueses.

2026-09-07 23:05:22 UTC

I want to know what ACARS messages looked like before the crew started using Text speak and LOL.

2026-09-06 23:49:29 UTC

Got TinyUSB on my Pico giving me a test video image over UVC; The RP2040 is a bit low on RAM; it can't fit 640x256 at RGB565, and I can't find a denser deterministic image format that Linux can take as video in, Hmm, I mean an RP2350 has more RAM, but that feels like cheating on an impossible problem.

2026-09-06 13:34:41 UTC

Got one of my Sun3's open - no life yet - but they don't look too bad; look at that BBC Engineering sticker; and they're neighbouring serial numbers on the machines - these are siblings! Few fun board bodges.
https://cdn.mastodon.org.uk/media_attachments/files/117/224/330/842/376/087/original/a2246e7fcbd6df77.jpeg
https://cdn.mastodon.org.uk/media_attachments/files/117/224/330/844/733/298/original/5a0e48d653010a63.jpeg
https://cdn.mastodon.org.uk/media_attachments/files/117/224/330/847/243/604/original/825c1a536dad3bb2.jpeg
https://cdn.mastodon.org.uk/media_attachments/files/117/224/330/866/575/081/original/cb7878d4a2dab843.jpeg

2026-09-05 13:01:45 UTC

I've just extracted my #suntember projects from the bottom of the pile. A pair of Sun 3/60's. They weigh 12kg each - I guess the case was designed to withstand the weight of the monitors.
#retrocomputing
https://cdn.mastodon.org.uk/media_attachments/files/117/218/549/637/893/441/original/4ccfae5648352a74.jpg

2026-09-05 12:02:16 UTC

One of the local chestnut trees is letting us know it's around; later in the season I've often walked past this area just covered with a mass of them.
#wildlife #photography
https://cdn.mastodon.org.uk/media_attachments/files/117/218/321/079/183/418/original/f1d22ef062bdc3f2.jpg

2026-08-31 00:18:53 UTC

How could it go wrong:
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/08/inside-metas-push-to-put-robots-to-work-in-data-centers/

2026-08-29 22:55:19 UTC

The recommended way for a user to test a hearing aid is to cup it in your hands and cause feedback....which a user needing the hearing aid can't hear anyway.

2026-08-25 17:53:21 UTC

Found him! The master mouse was hiding at the back of a shelf and still works in GEM (which is pretty grim running off floppies here). This mouse plugs into the Master's User port.
#retrocomputing
https://cdn.mastodon.org.uk/media_attachments/files/117/157/413/986/743/589/original/0274900396e03aa0.jpeg
https://cdn.mastodon.org.uk/media_attachments/files/117/157/413/207/529/873/original/55077218342ec881.png

2026-08-25 13:57:07 UTC

BBC Master 512 booting into DOS Plus; GEM, Turbo Pascal (+the 6502 side Welcome control panel). The video on the Master 512 is a bit odd - it's not got enough VRAM to be able to do normal PC modes, and it's not got the character gen to do hardware text (except teletext which is no use to the PC side). It was DOS Plus not MSDOS so some stuff was touchy. Hmm only thing I'm missing is the mouse, it might be in the loft somewhere.
I also need to try a PI RGB thing, my LCD doesn't like some stuff.
https://cdn.mastodon.org.uk/media_attachments/files/117/156/463/626/218/248/original/e6049b511bf18145.jpeg
https://cdn.mastodon.org.uk/media_attachments/files/117/156/465/709/065/562/original/da6fcbfad417f205.png
https://cdn.mastodon.org.uk/media_attachments/files/117/156/465/724/750/603/original/52be7f67aa75570c.png
https://cdn.mastodon.org.uk/media_attachments/files/117/156/465/714/570/541/original/d6fbfcc1b07aa2f7.png

2026-08-24 00:10:08 UTC

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@nprofile…0p0z x86's 800 extensions come over 40 years!

2026-08-23 15:35:24 UTC

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@nprofile…3tsk Well if it's not got paint or solder blobs then it must be smart, and anything without a tie is casual. Easy!

2026-08-23 13:55:35 UTC

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@nprofile…yze8 On mine it was originally non-rechargables anyway (the PCB charging circuit is unpopulated); so I replaced it with just 3xAA's - which is what it previously had, but I had to replace the holder as well due to corrosion.
I think they did a recall very early on and replaced the rechargables after some fires.

2026-08-23 13:33:39 UTC

Right, battery on my Master replaced (by a 2x2 AA holder with one slot soldered out and heatshrunk and taped to the old plate.
Took me a while to figure out how to do all the CMOS resetting, there's a page at the back of the manual with the defaults; and a more forceful reset. I'd forgotten about the ability to 'unplug' ROMs and it took me a while to figure out that's where BASIC had gone.
So in Beeb mode it looks happy (other than the X and 6 keys that are a bit touchy).
https://cdn.mastodon.org.uk/media_attachments/files/117/145/059/274/880/346/original/8458200530b82520.jpeg
https://cdn.mastodon.org.uk/media_attachments/files/117/145/059/262/680/242/original/4f2008ca2d68d3d4.jpeg
https://cdn.mastodon.org.uk/media_attachments/files/117/145/059/275/242/950/original/a53d21639417810f.jpeg

2026-08-23 01:16:56 UTC

Very nice; home made blue/white LEDs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHyoz8fFpUM

2026-08-22 20:23:35 UTC

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@nprofile…uu6f For a programming starter maybe try:
https://scratch.mit.edu/download
(Also in the MacOS app store apparently)

2026-08-22 17:58:35 UTC

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@nprofile…xkpt It would be wrong not to!

2026-08-22 17:02:56 UTC

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@nprofile…0p0z I'm worried that 'uber' is an acceptable superlative in a legal document.

2026-08-22 14:27:31 UTC

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@nprofile…ayam Mine is blue as well.

2026-08-22 13:17:00 UTC

With the RIFAs replaced, next is the Master 512's battery pack; hmmmm - luckily the battery pack kept it away from the PCB
https://cdn.mastodon.org.uk/media_attachments/files/117/139/342/303/965/911/original/29902669747e0412.jpeg

2026-08-21 19:02:32 UTC

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@nprofile…je5l It does say 'prototype' on - so perhaps it was original test boards, and the 2019 - maybe it wasn't year?

2026-08-21 18:00:31 UTC

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@nprofile…79eq Does booting into old kernel help?
I guess that's coming from Mesa but who knows if it's mesas fault; can you persuade Kodi to use anything else other than EGL? (Did it used to?) 'eglinfo' does list Memory info for amount free etc.

2026-08-21 17:13:02 UTC

Oh hello there, you're going to be forcefully replaced:
#retrocomputing
https://cdn.mastodon.org.uk/media_attachments/files/117/134/610/679/486/492/original/a4f133e8329e1f42.jpeg

2026-08-21 13:30:00 UTC

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@nprofile…u3gv Yeh if you look at the prompts that one of the big companies used on one of the maths proof; they were lots of 'don't give up' type of things in it.

2026-08-20 23:56:22 UTC

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@nprofile…0p0z Ah great, more landfill.

2026-08-20 21:54:48 UTC

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@nprofile…79eq Hmm yes, it has more of the basics/what is it before diving into the detail.

2026-08-20 21:49:21 UTC

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@nprofile…98yx Yes! I find it even weirder that the computer dealer I got my first PC from (Scan) now lists them just like they list USB cables and processors.

2026-08-20 20:40:42 UTC

Someone really needs to try tieing this audio->drummer motion system (From Disney research) to one of the new humanoid robots and close the loop:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdHuGxSxNgA
#ai

2026-08-20 18:04:15 UTC

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@nprofile…uvvw Carefully! Old tapes can sometimes lose the oxide and need special treatment - so even if you find the compatible equipment then you may need preservation work first (which I'm no way an expert on). I'd start with a specialist computer museum.

2026-08-20 13:52:19 UTC

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@nprofile…t60d Ah that's not what it does here - the Master already had a lot of sideways RAM, but it also had the ROM sockets and cartridge slots - but you couldn't have them all, so at least one of those sockets I think selects between hmm the cartridge or the EPROM socket?? And I think the other one is write enable on the sideways RAM but I need to check, it's been a while :-)

2026-08-20 13:47:40 UTC

My Acorn BBC Master 512; that's a BBC Master with an added 80186 copro (which is the board in the middle).
Hmm first time I've had the top off in ages, I guess I should check it's batteries and PSU; there doesn't seem to be any crud around the batteries.
It's got a little board from CJE which I think lets you switch in the extra EPROM sockets vs extra RAM.
#retrocomputing
https://cdn.mastodon.org.uk/media_attachments/files/117/128/130/352/976/587/original/a21ea2873334150c.jpeg
https://cdn.mastodon.org.uk/media_attachments/files/117/128/130/352/389/256/original/eb222be954898989.jpeg

2026-08-19 23:17:32 UTC

Oh, that's where the space went:
/root/.debug - 5GB

2026-08-18 17:04:41 UTC

Lots of Beavers , oh and description of their damns (Practical engineering which is always great):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1wwtGgnzg4

2026-08-18 01:33:45 UTC

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@nprofile…928j Yeh I asked on #vim and someone there suggested scrollbind - it's good! It would be even better if it could do line diff (ie without clever alignment) - but it does handle those big files easily!

2026-08-18 01:19:42 UTC

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@nprofile…928j @nprofile…e965 Yeh I'd known about Watson Grinding - hey I watch UCSCB - but I hadn't realised the detection thing was 3M, which yeh makes sense.

2026-08-17 22:49:34 UTC

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@nprofile…e965 I am a bit confused - what *was* the connection between 3M and Watson Grinding?

2026-08-17 22:33:59 UTC

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@nprofile…a006 Yeh I know meld; I left it while I went to get some food - after 40mins it was still spinning on it :-) I'd recently been using kdiff3 more than meld, and started a bit with vimdiff.

2026-08-17 21:42:48 UTC

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@nprofile…lnsv Yeh and they're allowing us existing people whose contracts are just renewing to do it as well; I stayed at the cheaper 200/£20 since I'm tight, and I rarely need the extra bandwidth.

2026-08-17 20:30:23 UTC

Hmm I think I push diff tools too hard; I think what I really need is a setup that just loads two files in neighbouring windows and scrolls them together and allows me to scroll either one manually: the files are only ~140MB and 1.5M lines
PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
181242 dg 20 0 16.0g 9.8g 7608 R 99.8 15.6 4:50.76 vimdiff

2026-08-17 17:44:34 UTC

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@nprofile…sfce Yeh I grabbed one of each from the shelf above me :-)
(Indeed black and blue as normal)

2026-08-17 17:40:19 UTC

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@nprofile…sfce Oh well, that's fine then (oddly I never remember HD disks having many different colours, they were almost always boring black)

2026-08-17 17:34:49 UTC

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@nprofile…sfce <nitpick>I think it has an error in the placement of hole and arrow; on both DD and HD disks the write protect and arrow is on the non-chamfered side; and on an HD disk (which this says it is), it has the 2nd hole on the chamfered side.

2026-08-17 15:29:23 UTC

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@nprofile…kxem <sentiment analysis>....strong negative

2026-08-17 13:58:10 UTC

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@nprofile…xafq Great - I've prodded him with that link.

2026-08-17 13:46:23 UTC

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@nprofile…5yze Oops! Edited - 200*M*bps - they go up to 8Gbps for £50/month

2026-08-17 13:44:16 UTC

YouFibre is the UK ISP I use - they've got an August offer on for £20/month for 200Gbps (symmetric) on 2 year fixed. I can't say their tech support is particularly technical, but hey it's been carrying my bits just fine for 18months, and I've got IPv6. They do £5 extra for a fixed IPv4 (which I've not used).
(There is talk about their owners being bought by the owners of Virgin)
They'e OK with own router
(I've got a referal code of 4K4NTY which would get both sides some money off)