Bootstrapping Nonguix
How to perform a fresh install of nonguix
Atomized
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Maybe Later
Maybe Later "Install update" Maybe later. "Sign in to access this content" No. "It’s better in the app!" Whose fault is that? "We completely redesigned this thing you need to do your job for no good reason" Got it. "Disable any adblocker." Absolutely not. "This content is for subscribers only." Close tab. "Accept cookies." No. "Try the new experience!" Maybe later. "Allow random website to send…
Atari Space Duel Self-Test ROM Signatures
An explanation of how Space Duel determines if a ROM is good
Old McCarthy Had a Form
Old McCarthy Had a Form What is EIEIO? EIEIO is an Emacs Lisp implementation of (most of) the Common Lisp Object System (CLOS), which is a library for writing object-oriented Lisp. Both CLOS and EIEIO are implemented as normal Lisp code, with no special support from the runtime. Why OOP Lisp? Different problems require different solutions, which is why the most successful programming languages are…
Common Lisp in Practice
Common Lisp in Practice Introduction One of the things which has kept Common Lisp out of my day-to-day toolbox is a lack of clear instructions how to get up and running with it — not in the REPL, but building small utility programs that can be called from the shell. I tend to reach for Python or Emacs Lisp, since I have a good grasp and they’re readily available, but I’ve always felt that Common…
Repairing Asteroids
Repairing Asteroids Repairing Asteroids    ATTACH Asteroids is one of my favorite games, and I’ve owned numerous cabinets over the years. If my memory serves, I’ve had three uprights and three cabarets. My current keeper cabinet is cabaret s/n 750, which I took to the Portland Retro Gaming Expo from [2019-10-18 Fri] through [2019-10-20 Sun] . Several former Atari employees were…
I like ThinkPads
I like ThinkPads When I switched back to Linux, I bought a Dell XPS 13. It’s a very slick little machine, but hasn’t held up quite as well as I’d hoped. This is partly my fault, because it’s taken a couple spills, but several issues are due to the design of the system. It runs hot, the fans are noisy, the rubber feet came unglued, and after two years the battery only holds 55% of a charge. It…
So Long, Apple
So Long, Apple A brief history of my last Apple product purchases. 13" MacBook Air Bought brand new in 2011, maxed out. Somewhat underpowered, but fine for most things I did. Great design. A good computer I was happy with. After three or four years, I’m thinking of a newer one, but there have been zero compelling upgrades. A couple processor bumps, but they’re all the same Ultrabook CPUs with the…
Handling OS-9 RBF (Fluke 9100) floppies on Linux
Handling OS-9 RBF (Fluke 9100) floppies on Linux I recently had need to figure out how to read and write floppy disks for the Fluke 9100 on a Linux box. There are various other methods for accomplishing this, but I was specifically looking for something that would work without special hardware or booting a non-Linux operating system. Since programs like TeleDisk / ImageDisk / SAMdisk can read…
Repairing a Sharp PC-1261 Pocket Computer
Repairing a Sharp PC-1261 Pocket Computer Background I’ve been getting interested in vintage portable computers lately, and have bought a few to play with. The latest is a Sharp Pocket Computer PC-1261, which is a tiny calculator-sized machine from 1984. It has 10kb RAM, a two-line 24-character LCD display, a custom CPU that runs at 768khz, and you can program it in BASIC with the built-in QWERTY…