I have no idea how such a shitty product can exist. Same price buys you a Chromebook; there are plenty of software libre distraction-free writing apps out there (try opening a terminal and typing "vim"?).
Or you could chicken out and buy a Kindle Fire Max 11 with keyboard case for the same price.
Both of these let you type for more than a day on a charge: the only benefit of the freewrite alpha is an 80 hour battery, which is pointless with USB-C charging everywhere.
@cstross some #TechIlliterate even recommended this shit to me instead if a #Laptop when I was in school.
I told them unless it comes with the same #TTS voice as #StevenHawking has I don't want them to ever be allowed to make any technical decision or suggestion in their life!
Those things are like #TexasInstruments#calculators: an absolute #ripoff given even the shittiest #Netbook with the abundant #Intel#Z3735F#SoC running #OS1337 is more versatile.
And I literally just started that distro.
🧮🔢 In the museum, we also have a nice collection of calculating machines and calculators. Can you imagine having to carry around a Facit C1-13, weighing 6.75 kg, for simple mathematical calculations? 😃
This 7403 (quad two input OC nand) has been sitting around since the 35th week of 1974 and I've finally found a use for it.
This IC has been hanging around for so long because I almost never needed open collector outputs, but for today's project those outputs are at last exactly what I do need. It pleases me no end that I've just found a use for one of the parts that I bought when I first started doing electronics as a hobby.
I'm using this to ensure that two relays which should never be switched on at once actually never can be switched on at once, no matter what happens with a software crash, bug, or whatever. It'll be used in the ventilation controller that I'm currently building.
TTL chips made in 1974 are especially cursed because it's so easy to mistake them for something else.
None of your fancy modern LS here, at least so long as you don't look at the rest of the circuit which uses relatively modern stuff to do the actual "thinking". #electronics#ttl#TexasInstruments#ttldatabook#7403
📦⌨️ Among the newly received donations, we spotted a nice set for the Texas Instruments TI-99/4A from 1981 😍. It's the first 16-bit home computer, using TI's proprietary TMS9900 CPU paired with 16 KB of RAM.
@OutofPrintArchive bust-a-move was such a timeless game. Introduced in 1994 [fixed typo], it was still relevant in 1998 when it launched on Nintendo 64 (and playstation etc). Still a great game to this day, no matter the platform.
It even was ported to the Texas Instrument Avigo. I did the levels design and did the music for it.
Tarde de domingo a full con mi colección de Texas TI-99/4A 😍😎🕹
Hacía tiempo que no le dedicaba horas de juego y programación a las TI-99. Después de un buen rato jugando al TI Invaders y al Parsec, me senté a programar un poco con el TI Extended Basic. No está demás decir que el teclado de la TI-99 es un verdadero lujo. 😊
My Retro-Computer Journey - let's start with my Ohio Scientific Challenger 4P. I got this given to me by an older fellow who was getting rid of all his stuff. It had the MOS 6502 processor in it and I kept it for several years but really didn't do much with it. I wound up donating it to a computer museum in the end. Interesting machine for sure!
My Retro-Computing Journey - this is the last one... the TI-99/4A. This was a weird little computer and honestly a lot more powerful that it's contemporaries as it had a 16-bit processor when everyone else had just 8-bit. But I found it hard to program and the game selection was more limited. Ultimately, my VIC-20 and my Apple Mac SE are the only retro computers that I still have.
On September 12, 1958, Jack Kilby successfully tested the world's first integrated circuit at #TexasInstruments. This showed that resistors and capacitors could coexist on a single piece of semiconductor material.
Kilby's #IC was a leap forward in electronics. It was constructed from a small piece of germanium containing five components interconnected by tiny wires. Along with Robert Noyce, he is credited with the invention of the integrated circuit
#Tcl (also known as Tool Command Language; pronounced as either "tickle" or as an initialism) is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language.
It was made in 1988 by John Ousterhout and it was inspired mainly by #C, #Lisp, #Shell, #Awk and has served as one of the inspirations of #PowerShell and #Python due to its simplicity and elegance.
Years ago my Uncle had a small handheld computer, I remember it had small strips you fed it that were for saving and loading programs. The disks where probably 1/4" by 2-3" long. The device itself was probably a little smaller than a Switch and was very calculator like.
I want to say it was a Texas Instruments but not positive and maybe an advanced calculator?
(I'll be adding to this thread as he releases new videos working on this computer)
I love Usagi Electric's YT channel.
His passion for retro-computing is contagious and his excitement makes his videos great, even when something doesn't work he's still excited to learn & i love that about him.
I began with a TI-99/4A in 1983 as a kid. TI BASIC was fascinating to me and began my love of computers. It's cool to see him working on a more rare TI-99/4