The @evoke@abraum.social 2026 oldschool organizing & capture corner is complete and waiting for entries.
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Charlie Balogh
@chainq@mastodon.social
mastodon 4.8.0-nightly.2026-10-06Old man yells at Tech. Some say, I'm a hacker. I say I'm just obsolete. Random content, might contain traces of vintage computers. No politics.
760 Followers
126 Following
50 Posts
Joined August 21, 2018
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I said it before, and I'll say it again: These cheap mid-90s, late 486 systems are like cockroaches - disgusting, but will survive just about anything, including a nuclear apocalypse.
This one was first used as some desktop machine in a library. When that life ended, it ran 12 years 24/7 as my first Linux server, until the HDD died. Then the next 15 years it rot in corners of various basements. Almost got thrown away several times.
And it lives. 1995 World Domination. 😅
I went on evilBay again... 🫣
@ipaschke@cyberplace.social In yesterday night's episode of my insomnia, I ported your DaynaPort changes to ZuluSCSI. At least it compiles. 😅 I hope I got the platform changes right, because there the BlueSCSI and ZuluSCSI firmware somewhat diverged. The rest was relatively straightforward.
It's Friday, so lets see how it crashes and burns...
So, currently there's a nationwide stop of all train traffic issued by Deutsche Bahn, due to a major outage in some critical digital radio communication services.
Which made me remember this cartoon, which was made by cartoonist Grafitember, when there was a major service outage at Budapest Airport.
I'm not saying this is what's happening now. Things don't repeat anyway. But they have a tendency to rhyme.
Original is in Hungarian, translation by me.
Hardware question - does anyone know what is this connector?
I thought at first it's some sort of JST ZH or PH connector, but it isn't? As far as I can tell. The pin pitch is somewhere around 2.0mm. It's 8mm wide.
I want to do a reversible fan replacement on a Commodore CDTV, and don't want to cut the original wiring.
Edit: it's a Molex MicroBlade, thanks for the boosts and input everyone!
Watching a C64 party stream, while fooling around in BASIC? Say no more, my Amiga is ready for this... 🙃
The BCC#20 beam/stream setup was a difficult one to pull off, largely for self-inflicted reasons... But we're almost there.
#c64 #demoscene #party
A forgotten ancient incantation for a secret project is in progress.
Once upon a time, before the internet and subscription services ruined everything, we used to carve bits of data onto the surfaces of translucent plastic disks with lasers. Freaking lasers!
And we did this on computers than were way slower than the chip in a modern car's key fob.
Amiga 2000 overdose at the @berlincreators@kanoa.de Retro/Amiga meeting, with an Amy ITX sneaking in.
ZuluSCSI Blaster Rev. 2025e vs. Rev 2026c
Apart from the layout differences, the main changes seem to be:
* the DAC is now integrated, no longer an external module
* the Raspberry Pi Radio Module 2 has a footprint on the PCB, no longer on an external module
* has provisioning for USB pins
* LEDs for voltage checks
(The white wires on the 2025e are my custom LED leads for easier integration. The bodge wire on the 2026c is from the factory.)
"This is getting out of hand! Now there are two of them!"
Today at the @berlincreators@kanoa.de Retro/Amiga meeting, we spontaneously managed to pull off the first ever Mirari PowerPC User's Meetup! ... At least in Berlin. But maybe globally? 😅
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I was told, this is what they use to fire at spaceships, that try to avoid paying the parking fee.
Either that, or it's the world's largest freely moveable tube telescope at the Archenhold Observatory in Berlin.
It was hard to get the fine details. I'm not a native German speaker. 🙃
#berlin #ufo #telescope
Sometimes things are very Doom, but still not Gloom.
FastDoom running on a recent Viaduct 1.6 beta in Plantronics ColorPlus mode, after some tweaking of the rendering code. Still hoping to release this Viaduct update in this decade... Maybe... 😅
#amiga #retrocomputing #msdos #doom
The compo rules: "The compo machine is an Amiga 1200 with a 68060."
Entry message to organizers: "Please use an A1200 with 68030."
Well, okay, I'll try. Anyone with a soldering iron at @revisionparty@icosahedron.website ? 🙄
Berliner Bäder: We have big halls with huge pools of cool water, where people can swim.
Also Berliner Bäder: You know what? Lets keep most of them closed for the hottest days of they year. How funny that would be?
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@harrysintonen
*puts on tinfoil hat*
Why does this give me the vibes of "well, yelp, we already did the training on your data, and now we just try to manufacture a legal ground to do so, so we can use your consent as a legal defense in ongoing and future lawsuits".
When you work on a niche project mostly for your own fun, it's rare to get feedback. It's even rarer, when someone also decides to put in the work and contribute.
So I was surprised but it also made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, when I saw a French catalog* for the 1.5 version of my CBM PC bridge app Viaduct, uploaded to Aminet by Filipe BRANDÃO.
https://aminet.net/package/misc/emu/Viaduct_FR
(* Amiga terminology for an external localization file)
More fun with C264 series - I also got these three "modern" Plus/4 game cartridges a friend bought at some retro meeting to try out. They all work fine, unsurprisingly.
These don't work in a C16, they need more RAM. So out comes my 64K-expanded C116! 😁
The Elite port by Pigmysoft is a true classic, the Stunt Car Racer port is a modern masterpiece. Mad Pod Race I did not know from before -it seems to be a Plus/4 original? Anyway, It was fun to try it out.
"American 🇺🇸 tech giant blames EU 🇪🇺"... Good, good... I like this. It's nice to see spelt it out this clearly, that for once, the EU is doing something good and useful for its citizens - not you, ChatControl - and when the dust settles, we'll all be better off.
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Lately it seems to be "the law", that all C264 series must come with a free black Datasette. 😅 This one is no exception. But it also came with three original games on cassette tapes! I don't know when I last loaded software from a tape, but it wasn't in this decade. Or the previous. And likely wasn't in this century.
It needed a bit of "encouragement" and a few tries, but it worked in the end. It's the worst crackout game I've seen - a reminder why these were a flop.
#c16 #retrocomputing #8bit
Differences game!
There are a few differences between these two CDTV controllers. Collect them all!
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Yes, contributing to FOSS and this project in particular was probably in a large part escapism.
I enjoyed fixing the bugs, solving the challenging feature-riddles, and learning a lot, away from everyday problems. Crafting with care and pride. A little corner of life, where trying to give my best changed things for the better. For a few, but it did.
If all of this is getting replaced by AI, that entirely devalues anything I could contribute to very near zero.
It was fun while it lasted.
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@woodycool@mastodon.social @MsMadLemon@mastodon.social Not many (in relative terms) people use a full-fledged, expanded 1.x system, with hard disk & stuff. Those systems are mostly just stick the floppy in, and go. (Note: I do have an A590 disk controller for my A500, so I know this isn't always the case. But in general.)
But (almost) anything with network, more advanced HDD/SCSI setup, etc. needs at least 2.x+, most likely 3.x. So depends on what your target audience/use case is.
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@nohaironheed@mastodon.scot They were around in Europe much longer indeed, and even longer in the ex-East Bloc. Even for Commodore 64s, which I had. Used it with only a Datasette until late '94, when I got a 386sx PC "for the school".
I still have a soft spot for the C264 series though, because we had them in Hungary as school computers, so it was the first computer I ever had access to as a kid, and wrote my first BASIC programs on them.
So even if I never owned one until much later, I love these things.
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@buherator @troed "When in doubt, follow the money" - I'm trying to argue with people with thousands of monthly budget to spend on AI coding tools. There's no argument against that it seems, at this point.
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@jamesb Thanks, this info might have put me on the right trail.
However, I think it's not a PicoBlade - it has definitely a wider pitch than 1.25mm, but maybe it's a MicroBlade? That seems to have a 2.0mm pitch.
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@wyatt Meanwhile in other replies it got figured out that it's a Molex MicroBlade connector, but it's not made any more. There seems to be a Chinese clone/second source available though.
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@rozeboosje *cough* 😉 https://mastodon.social/@chainq/116229043781690522
But anyway, this SCSI CD writer I was using was made in June 1999. That means it's closing up on 27 years old. In comparison, in 1999 the first Commodore PETs with their cassette tapes were only 22 years old...
(But yeah, I know what you mean. I admit, I exaggerated a bit in the original post for dramatic effect. It is social media after all...)
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@isaackuo @jake4480 Well, indeed, that plays a big role, but also the fact that basically none of the components in these were bleeding edge any more, yet they still needed precise enough manufacturing to count. These together create kind of a Goldilocks-zone for reliability.
Oh, and also the fact that this one has a CR2032 battery holder from the factory. No barrel battery to leak everywhere, which is what killed so many of the earlier generation motherboards... 😅
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@woodycool@mastodon.social @MsMadLemon@mastodon.social Writing another diskmag engine sounds like a major untertaking just to solve this...
From a distance, both cases smell like some memory trashing issue. Either you run out of RAM, or there's a piece of content that is processed in a way that trips over on KS 1.3? (Example: some newer IFF conversion tools might create things that these older software dislike and mishandle.)
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@oni Yeah, I'm a software engineer by trade. And I could deal with all this shitshow at work, because well, money talks.
But this was part of my hobby, part of the "craft" I care about, that is now going away. And the number of people who I thought were like-minded also reduced significantly. Of course I can still do whatever I want at home, and tinker with software. But if you're making tools even as a hobby, you want those tools to be used by someone.
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@troed If I get to be vibe code cleanup specialist, I want to be financially incentivized too like the people pushing for AI, not doing that in my free time.
Just as I don't want to read a book, no one bothered to write, I don't want to fix software, that no one bothered to code.
It's that simple. Time is a non-renewable resource. I want to spend it where it is rewarding and makes a difference. Digging into generated junk that will be regenerated tomorrow is neither.
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@cinebox Yes, thank you for the information or rather, confirmation, based on an earlier guess, I just came to this conclusion as well.
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@nohaironheed@mastodon.scot In this case, the problem was the Datasette, I think. Which is why it did not load on first try. It's mechanical, probably needed a bit of exercise to wake up after the long sleep. Now it works much better.
Usually I use a Pi1541 or an SD2IEC with my C16/Plus4. Or just load from my 1541Ultimate II+, in standalone mode.
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@wyatt@soc.megatokyo.moe The Commodore part number comes from the service manual, so yes, I checked there, but that number only shows up in the CDTV service manual... 😅
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@woodycool@mastodon.social @MsMadLemon@mastodon.social Yeah, my A590 has a SCSI2SD v5 too. It's just the way it goes these days...
I have _some_ experience targeting systems with different OS versions, so now I'm intrigued what your bug might be... 😅
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@gklka@mastodon.social Napihülyekérdés, nem lehet h. csak be van rajta kapcsolva a Green switch?
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@speaktrap Viaduct is an application I created for Commodore "PC Bridgeboards" (hardware emulator cards). It's a replacement for Commodore's "PC Window" application to show the emulated PC display. It is mainly aimed at expanded Amiga systems with graphics cards, where the Commodore application in particular tends to perform worse.
Meanwhile it also supports several extensions over "PC Window" - Plantronics ColorPlus support (pictured above) among them.
https://viaduct.amigaspirit.hu
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@emil @berlincreators The owner just got it, and verified it's functionality. I guess the rest of the build will come, eventually.
@ipaschke@cyberplace.social Looked at what this patch changes, I think this is more likely to work, as it avoids going into the Rabbit Hole (pun intended) of changing the cyw43 stuff from polled to background, so it's far less invasive. Thanks a lot for the effort. I'm going to test soon ™️.
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@oni I'm torn, because I also saw average people live their lifelong unfulfilled dreams, creating things they couldn't before, thanks to some gen AI tools. In an innocent way, not trying to monetize or anything, just seeing things come to life for the joy of it. And I can pretty much relate to that.
Maybe it's just another tool indeed, that democratizes creation, like YouTube democratized "TV" creation. Or Podcasts democratized "radio".
But it still hits too close to home for me.
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@Baa The funny and sad part is, the arguments from both IPv6 proponents and opponents are usually wrong. The main problem with IPv6, that the world it was designed for never existed, and at this point likely never will.
Apenwarr told this story on his blog almost 10 years ago (then posted updates to it later, see links on the bottom of the post, but the original is still a good starting point):
https://apenwarr.ca/log/20170810