@philpem@digipres.club
@philpem@digipres.club avatar

philpem

@philpem@digipres.club

Software preservation, electronics, software and ham radio - a maker of things!

Pronouns: https://pronoun.is/he/him

Website: https://www.philpem.me.uk

Current projects:
LF radio navigation - #Datatrak
DIY cable TV headend - #AnalogCable
#HackTV (TV signal generator for SDRs) - video scrambling modes
Acorn/ software preservation (#DigiPres)

Tags: #electronics #HamRadio #Machining #Metalworking #RetroComputing #HardwareHacking #ReverseEngineering #ICRE #Maker #DigiPres

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philpem, to random
@philpem@digipres.club avatar

Sometimes it's fun to unlock all the soft options, even if you have no use for them.

image/jpeg

Jencen, to random
@Jencen@furry.engineer avatar

Not having a good time at work right now.

Big boss visit next week..... Which I only got told about /second hand/ yesterday.

So of course my boss is freaking out. And is shoving all his anxiety and stress onto his subordinates.

Was very close to just walking out yesterday. As I do /not/ need the stress

philpem,
@philpem@digipres.club avatar

@Jencen Sending hugs mate. Hope things go well.

philpem, to random
@philpem@digipres.club avatar

Globaltalk (the internet-based Appletalk router) is making me want the same thing for Econet... hmm...

philpem,
@philpem@digipres.club avatar

thing is having done admin before I know how shitty some people are, and I'd want to have admin tools in place "just in case" before going live. And Econet doesn't really have that.
(but then neither does Appletalk, or does it?)

nepi, to random

Mmmm smell that kerosene

philpem,
@philpem@digipres.club avatar

@nepi soft squishable packing for the less compressible cases

philpem, to random
@philpem@digipres.club avatar

Seems like a night of successes. The E4406A works again, after reseating the boards. Whatever, I'll take it... Another instrument that's as fussy as my mother's cat. Doesn't purr though.

philpem,
@philpem@digipres.club avatar

@f15sim By hoping and praying, given this is an unlocked AM-modulated PAL signal with a 15kHz vertical refresh rate!

philpem, to random
@philpem@digipres.club avatar

My KVM has WiFi control now :D
The Belkin SoHo switch is really well-suited to this. LED status is two-bit binary coded. That and four GPIOs for the switch. All works with Companion too!

image/jpeg
image/jpeg

philpem,
@philpem@digipres.club avatar

Can't remember if I showed off the controller for the matrix and KVM, so here it is. It's a Pi 3B running Bitfocus Companion.
Top row is presets, next is KVM console select, then matrix outputs for the left and right monitor.
Spotify is on the bottom row.
HDMI capture is on the to-do list.

philpem, to retrocomputing
@philpem@digipres.club avatar

Does anyone have a raw image (DD, sector image) of an "Iomega Tools" Zip disk? I'm curious how they implemented the dual Mac/PC format.

Beware: don't put it in a PC or Mac with the Iomega Tools software installed. If it sees a Tools disk, it'll delete the other partition and 'reclaim' it as free space. Guess how I ruined mine!
Imaging on Linux with "dd" should be safe.
An unmodified disk will report as being read-only.

philpem,
@philpem@digipres.club avatar

@ChartreuseK It's probably something like that, bur Macs of the time didn't use PC-style partition tables, so it'd be some weird kind of hybrid HFS/FAT thing, I think?

philpem,
@philpem@digipres.club avatar

@rlonstein fingers crossed! and thanks in advance!

CWSmith, to retrocomputing
@CWSmith@social.mechanizedarmadillo.com avatar

To the folks, I got a question.

I am trying to remember a service from the late 90s that allowed you to download news from selected channels and read offline, which was sort of a big thing back in the days of dial up.

I remember seeing it on Cnet when that was a show on Scifi and a decent website.

philpem,
@philpem@digipres.club avatar

@CWSmith Pointcast? RSS? There was a bar included in Windows 98 which might have been able to do that too - part of Active Desktop, included with IE5.

datarama, to random
@datarama@hachyderm.io avatar

Where do people who self-host their websites, mastodon instances etc. actually host things these days?

(Hetzner are villains now, and so are DigitalOcean I gather?)

philpem,
@philpem@digipres.club avatar

@datarama I must have missed the memo about Digital Ocean being villains?

philpem, to random
@philpem@digipres.club avatar

Forgot to post this last night - this is my current project. I'm trying to fit an ESP8266 to this Belkin Soho KVM switch so my touchscreen controller can switch the keyboard and mouse around.
The ESP8266 is apparently 5V-tolerant so this should be easy.

azonenberg, to math
@azonenberg@ioc.exchange avatar

Ok, this one is for the discrete gurus out there.

Let N = CRC32(X)

Given N, is it possible to efficiently calculate CRC32(concat(X, Y)) where Y is a known sized, but very long, sequence of 0xFF bytes?

Obviously you can just seed the CRC with N and iterate, feeding 0xFF in each cycle, but is there any kind of shortcut you can take if you know the input is always a 1 bit?

philpem,
@philpem@digipres.club avatar

@azonenberg In theory at least, a CRC is a linear-feedback shift register. After a certain number of static bits it's going to start repeating itself. My first answer would be a table lookup indexed by [CRC32(X)] and [N] (where N = number of FF bytes).
The problem is that's going to be a big table. It'll probably also have repetitions.

ThePlant, to random
@ThePlant@mastodon.social avatar

If you wondering how I deal with anti-trans people in the @gamingonlinux Discord this should give you an idea:

I don't stand for it.

philpem,
@philpem@digipres.club avatar

@ThePlant @gamingonlinux How many brainworms does someone have to have to think about it like that? What the fuck.

SwooshyCueb, to random
@SwooshyCueb@chitter.xyz avatar
philpem,
@philpem@digipres.club avatar

@SwooshyCueb RIP :(

bibi098, to random Dutch
@bibi098@mastodon.nl avatar

Cats Against Racism.

philpem,
@philpem@digipres.club avatar

@bibi098 @Zekah Cats, the experts in covering up shit!

Edit: Also, these are available from https://garagepressdistro.bigcartel.com/product/cat-cover-up-sticker-vinyl if anyone else wants some

philpem, to random
@philpem@digipres.club avatar

A line of pepperoni. How dare you.

philpem,
@philpem@digipres.club avatar

@Foxhack The lack of tomato sauce AND cheese. Well I fixed the second one at least.

philpem, to random
@philpem@digipres.club avatar

Technicians: "I'm an engineer!"

Me, an engineer: "twitch"

philpem,
@philpem@digipres.club avatar

@f15sim You come back here, so I can wash your mouth out with soap! 🤣

Talcott, to random
@Talcott@chitter.xyz avatar

It's funny, the Gameboy Light never left Japan but holding it feels so nostalgic. Maybe because indiglo watches were super popular when I was 9 so the glow alone reminds me of being a kid. That couples with the old school Gameboy Pocket design makes it feel so timeless when I hold and play it in my 30's.

philpem,
@philpem@digipres.club avatar

@Talcott It makes a huge difference to how playable the machine is - the green background of the original GB was iconic, but ate up most of the reflected light. The CGB sadly wasn't much better.

Auri, to random
@Auri@meemu.org avatar

Thinking abt getting rid of the K40 laser cutter/engraver (for now - and getting something else down the line)

Would anyone in NW UK be interested?

Bearing in mind these things need a vent/exhaust, a reservoir of water (chilled water if it’s in summer - I find a bottle or two of frozen water fine, as makeshift ice packs)

Like £150? This would include the upgrades I’ve made to it, air compressor(/pump)… it needs a new water pump but just about any aquarium pump is fine

philpem,
@philpem@digipres.club avatar

@Auri I would absolutely leap on this if I could figure out a way to get it to Leeds intact. Laser cutter in the garage? Just need a table to put it on and a core drill to make the vent hole...

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