I am no longer 50, I am now “in my fifties”
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Dr Johnny Blanchard
@jonn_blanchard@retrochat.online
mastodon 4.7.3Author, technology archaeologist, YouTuber, screenwriter, playwright
Retro/Vintage Gaming and Computing Videos
https://makertube.net/c/reenthused/videos
@reenthused@www.youtube.com
Short films and Documentaries
@roguegunners@www.youtube.com
Buy Gaming in the Obscure: https://mixam.co.uk/print-on-demand/6813e21211c9951bff4316db
Buy The Orcs are attacking and we're all out of ham: https://www.amazon.co.uk/orcs-attacking-were-Moorweather-Chronicles/dp/B0H2Y3D29C/
1836 Followers
1512 Following
50 Posts
Joined April 27, 2022
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Re:Enthused:
Re:Enthused Blog:
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So as it appears to be the de rigueur at the moment, I’m designing a handheld. It’s going to run on the Tang Nano 20K (or, I suppose other FPGAs with some work - but I only own the Nano) using a simulated RISC V processor. I’m designing the BIOS and accompanying SDK.
It’ll all be, naturally, open-source and currently it’s called Pokity. I’ll design a PCB for it and a case when I’m further down the line.
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A boxed NC200, Amstrads sneaky little CP/M capable portable. Slightly concerned what I’ll find inside - because these bad boys were battery powered
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It’s not exactly going to compete with anything, I’m largely doing this for fun and to learn new things.
And for procrastination from other stuff of course.
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Well, it looks ok on the outside at least. The manual, PSU and pleather case are all in there too.
Received another Neo Geo Pocket Color, one of the best handhelds made. This one was cheap because it was missing the battery panels but I figured I could make those myself - turned out I didn’t need to, a couple of brilliant 3D designers had done it for me - and it works!
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Yes it’s the original Big Trak and its accompanying trailer. Fortunately neither batteries nor corrosion and the plastics aren’t even broken. Fortunately, the 9v battery compartment hadn’t been put on correctly or I’d have entirely forgotten about it
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Well, it turns on with the PSU, I’ll have to replace the backup battery though
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Woo, we have a fully working NC200, here it is running the obligatory built-in Tetris clone on batteries
I have actually updated my personal website to mention my books - which is probably important to actually sell any
https://www.johnnyblanchard.com
A new Sharp X1 has arrived, it does show a picture but accompanied with the sound of a tortured fan and a whiff of burning components, so I’ll need to take a look in the PSU.
It’s a lovely silver one though, and yes that’s a 3” drive
My new Speccy game, DunDeck, is available for $1 over on https://tonsomo.itch.io but you can now also download every version of Jurl and Mille for any price (including zero). I've also uploaded my MacOS screensaver that lets you use a folder of speccy SCR files, also free #IndieDev #RetroDev
This looks good, at least it fits in the SCV, the fingers are a little wide but shouldn’t be an issue. Positive and Negative are in the right place. When I get a chance I’ll try building one
Well that was a surprisingly easy pass for Max, because it couldn’t be anything else because they’re definitely different teams #F1
I've now converted the react version of SCRN to Java and made a MacOS app, at some point i'll find a device to make a Windows and Linux version, or i'll just got the runnable class route, but anyway - it's up for pay what you want (including nothing) on https://tonsomo.itch.io/scrn. and, obviously, the web version is still available
Danke schön Klaus, also for confirming the pitch on the Super Cassette Vision cartridge
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Well, honestly I’ve seen much worse. Of course, I don’t know what it’s done to the inside.
A day off from work so i've started doing some work on my new game Terratoka - a simple strategy game / think a combination of Risk and Archon. Here's the first try at the overmap, randomly generated but I might try adding some textures to it
A productive bank holiday, progress on porting DoTT to Unity and now my head is rebelling from using a VR headset i'm back working on Terratoka. Battle AI is somewhat implemented. I've also done some of the magic work - each factions magic user has a different ability #IndieDev #ScreenShotMonday
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Yeah, I’m not entirely sure how you run stuff on VR in Unity. I’ve turned a bunch of stuff on. I might have to read the manual
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First up I need to clean the battery compartment - it actually came up well - a bit of iso on paper towel and some scratching on the corroded contacts and not only is it much cleaner but there is at least conductivity across each battery contact. But now I’ve got to tackle that lid
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Well, I can already feel that it’s heavier on the back - suggesting the presence of batteries
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@Berto@woof.tech it’s nice to keep this machines alive
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I should probably explain that the game running is my game, Jurl. Created using my SCV SDK SCeVe, also open-source
Camputers isn’t just a parody of the single most ridiculous retro hardware shoveler around, it’s also a t-shirt shop - and I’ve just added a couple of Blake’s 7 related garments to the Book, Film and Television category https://camputers.com/shop/
I’m getting closer to understanding how to get animation working in Godot. Or rather, the animations I want because Mixamo will just fail to upload random FBXs. I’ve managed to get animations removed from FBXs and added to my models - but it seems a coin toss if you can edit the animation or not.
I’m guessing I’m missing something
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@RobeeShepherd@mastodon.art cheers
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@Robavince@vmst.io cheers
Whilst I was joking with Chinny yesterday I actually don’t get anything from YouTube for my videos, nor much of the software I’ve made and none of the OpenSource / OpenHardware projects I’ve released. If you do want to help fund my work there’s my merch store at https://www.camputers.com or buy Gaming In the Obscure from my pinned post
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@jeremyoduber yes those handy Aliexpress Gameboy carts meant I could give away some copies of my game at a show :)
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The lid came up nice too - I don’t have any ready replacements for the foam pads, but I’ll work something out. Also, replaced the backup battery with a new CR2032 from my stash
Well, finally deactivated my Fiverr account. I found some great people on there before AI slop and scammers took over. I could navigate that and still find real musicians but with Fiverr refusing to do anything about a very obvious scammer it's obvious that's part of their business plan now.
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@electron_greg if I remember correctly it’s just a compartment on the bottom
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@syllopsium yeah, I did it to my other one - although that one is so battery bombed that the battery contacts fell apart
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@llamasoft_ox how would we ever know? It’s a secret.
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Time to tackle this, cleaning and battery changing - I don’t think I have enough C cells to try out the battery compartment though, but I can at least make sure it works correctly on AC with the backup battery changed
I’ve just noticed that the vanity publisher I use for Gaming in the Obscure has stuck an extra £10 on to the price, looks like I’ll have to find a new publisher
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Nothing we can do about it, I know what we'd have done in the old days, but these are new times and authorities are useless.
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Well look at that, I did have enough C Cells - thanks to the review of the Grandstand 2001 I think
Explaining to my dog what a meeting is because she doesn’t seem to understand why she had to wait ten minutes to go and sniff the bit of the garden where a cat dared to stand