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I remember this freak. Very cool at the time.
"A little time, a little trouble, your better day"
Badfinger
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A full working ZX Spectrum 48k is in my desiderata. I miss it.
"In testa che avete, Signor di Ceprano?"
-- Rigoletto
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I find it fun to take trips down memory lane, but have neither the space nor the budget for anything other than modern equipment.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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I have several ZX Spectrums 48K and two Sinclair QLs. I also collect vintage Slovenian (Yugoslav) computers. I write software for them. I know about Vectrex, because I was evaluating the possibility to emulate it on an old Slovenian CP/M machine called Iskra Delta Partner. This machine has a vintage graphical chip that can draw vectors fairly fast so I was hoping to utilize it. However, besides 1K of Vectrex RAM you also need to emulate the 8KB of ROM and the 32 KB of cartridge ROM. And that together is 41Kb. Add the emulator and memory for remembering emulated vectors and ... I'm still thinking about it. But I realistically only have 112KB of RAM available, if I ditch CP/M and take control of the whole banked system.
Anyone here writing software for retro 8-bit machines?
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Did the Iskra Delta Partner have a vector display?
The difficult we do right away...
...the impossible takes slightly longer.
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Sort of.
It does not have a vector display, but it is driven by (the Thomson EF9367) chip that can only do Bresenham lines and 5x8 chars and there's no access to the raster.
So for graphics you are limited to line drawing (or the 5x8 font which is also drawn by lines and can't be clipped).
The Iskra Delta Partner GDP (graphical model) is quite special because it also has the SCN2674 chip for text only mode and it "glues" the video outputs by both chips into one image and text area is larger then graphics area. Quite exotic. 
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Um, the 6502 was a MOS Technology processor. Motorola did make a 6802 micro back in the day.
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Richard Andrew x64 wrote:
Does anyone else like to collect vintage computing devices?
I kept my Commodore 64, my Commodore Pet 2001 with the chiclet keyboard, my Franklin Ace 2000 (Apple IIe clone), and an assortment of green screen and color Wyse terminals for many years. I think it was after my 2nd child was born, and we needed the space, that I finally sold them off. I wouldn't mind having my Pet back. I think that one was my favorite.
Money makes the world go round ... but documentation moves the money.
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But they probably expected you to add more ram in the cartridge if you needed it.
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Wordle 379 4/6
🟨⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜
⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
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Wordle 379 5/6
⬛⬛⬛🟩⬛
⬛🟨⬛🟩⬛
⬛⬛⬛🟩🟨
🟩⬛🟨🟩🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
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Wordle 379 3/6
⬜🟩⬜⬜🟨
🟩🟩🟨⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Wordle 379 3/6
🟨⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
“Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.”
― Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
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Wordle 379 4/6
⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩🟩🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!" - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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Wordle 379 5/6
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟨⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
⬜🟩🟩🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Software rusts. Simon Stephenson, ca 1994. So does this signature. me, 2012
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Wordle 379 4/6
⬛⬛🟨⬛⬛
🟨🟨🟨⬛⬛
⬛🟨🟩🟨⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
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Wordle 379 3/6*
⬜🟩⬜🟨⬜
🟨🟩⬜🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
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Wordle 379 4/6
🟨🟨⬛⬛⬛
🟩🟨⬛⬛⬛
🟩🟩⬛🟩⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Get me coffee and no one gets hurt!
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So..
..what's a wordle?
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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A game that, if ported to Dutch, would cause a lot of debates about whether IJ was one letter or two.
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Don't want to take to much real estate here in the lounge so I'm editing my post to add this:
Gangs in the Garden - YouTube[^]
Don't know how you feel about Black Moth Super Rainbow. Probably depends in part on your age and it helps to be a bit out there in the first place if you're going to enjoy it. It's perfect hacking music, IMO. I like coding to it because they use vocals as background music rather than trying to distract me from my code with articulated lyrics.
___ SNIP ___
After coming off of a run of a bad few days in terms of development I did a thing.
I have a device that can connect via USB but only as a virtual COM port. It can't be a HID device or anything. All communication is serial, RS232 style (even though it's USB)
I have an application that works with it, and the bluetooth stack I was using prior exploded and regressions ate my BLE code. So I wanted to make it work over serial.
I did this in C# in the app, with C++ on the MCU end.
I have created a serial negotiation system that
A) Allows the application to automatically detect a device, and which COM port it's on with no user intervention. Only valid devices will be detected.
B) Allows the serial port to *also* be used at the same time for logging output messages. A filter can be applied that would only produce log messages.
So now the silly thing is plug and play *and* it still allows me to write debug spew to the serial port without interfering with the application's serial comms.
I do it by seeding my commands with characters outside of the ASCII 7-bit range to signal a command stream. This means you get periodic "garbage" in your logs, but like i said it can be filtered out.
Anyway, after the past few days of banging my head against the wall and making rookie mistakes I pulled a rabbit out of my hat. Woo!
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
modified 2-Jul-22 5:41am.
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Don't you just love it when you regain those super powers? 
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Congratulations! I've opened up another forgotten aspect of history. And figured out another, easier way to create 2-bit color (black & white) graphics using Krita and another vector graphics program I have. So I'm stuck documenting it, and drawing thousands of stars, to get it illustrated properly. Love to do some programming again, but here's to some browsing to relax the mind since I can't do that... Your stuff sounds interesting!
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Nice music, I can recommend Spinvis[^] to you, he sings in Dutch so you won't be bothered by the lyrics 
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If he makes me accidentally pick up some Dutch I'm blaming you.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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