Saturday, September 30, 2023
Monday, September 25, 2023
Diamond Mike – Timex/Sinclair Computers
This is a videogame I wrote in 1985. I thought that it was lost forever. I had given away my Timex Sinclair stuff to my cousin when I moved to Utah in 1993. I wish that I had kept it. She said that eventually the computer died.
I contacted the website manager and asked him to look out for the game. He not only found a copy but sent me the tape from 38 years ago!
He made a downloadable online version. I tried to run it using an emulator. With the emulator, I was having trouble getting the controls to work.
The Atari ST version I wrote in 1986 looks better but is essentially the same game. I have a copy of this, but no hardware to run it on.
I made money on this stuff in the mid-1980s but eventually had to get a real job.
Wednesday, September 20, 2023
My 7940hs computer order
I ordered this computer four weeks ago today. They claimed that they were offering a guaranteed on time delivery of a week ago.
Monday, September 18, 2023
Saturday, September 16, 2023
Interview with an Emacs Enthusiast in 2023 [Colorized]
I don't recommend watching more than a minute.
This video brings back memories. There was an editor war among computer programmers in the late 1980s and 1990s. Two of the factions were "VI" and "Emacs". I heard plenty of arguments for both. I was forced to learn "VI" on the job in 1988, which is so complex that I wouldn't recommend anyone try to learn it. However, once I got past the learning curve, I really liked it and I still use it.
The problem is that these editors are complex systems with many powerful features that are difficult to learn. You can write code that changes how the editors work. They were born out of a previous era where graphical user interfaces didn't exist, but programmers still wanted powerful editing features. However, if all you wanted to do was edit text, these editors were overkill by a very wide margin.
Thanks to modern graphical user interfaces, there are editors that are simple to use, like Visual Studio Code, which still have all the features a computer programmer could want.
Friday, September 15, 2023
My computer order is delayed (due to COVID?)
This is what I get for ordering from China. I ordered from Ali Express to save some money.
However, the manufacturer is in China anyway. I could have ordered from the manufacturer and still faced the same delays.
Monday, September 11, 2023
Thursday, September 7, 2023
Apple Built The Vision Pro to FAIL, and it's GENIUS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNEni_DP4fY
Realistically, the amount of hardware needed to make this work is not going to fit in an unobtrusive pair of glasses. Not in this decade. Maybe in the next one.
Thursday, August 24, 2023
Tuesday, August 22, 2023
Computer ordered
I am buying another computer because this new model has a new 4-nanometer chip that is five times faster than my 2017 iMac. For some tasks like compiling code, my iMac seems slow. The new computer uses an AMD APU that has the graphics built into the CPU. This makes it just good enough for playing games without having to buy a graphics card costing hundreds of dollars.
I already bought a 27-inch 1440P monitor to use with this computer, which I got off of Facebook Marketplace for $50. I had to drive all the way to Noblesville to get the monitor.
I have been wanting a powerful AMD APU ever since new video game systems came out in 2019 featuring powerful custom AMD APUs. It took them this long to come out with a powerful AMD APU for home computers.
Monday, August 7, 2023
Tuesday, August 1, 2023
What is DIMM and SO-DIMM Slot? | Samsung India
In notebooks , Small outline Dual Input Memory Module (SO-DIMM) slots are used since there is lack of space in smaller and compact devices. SO-DIMM slots takes half the space in comparison to DIMM slots, but they draw higher power than its bigger variant
https://www.samsung.com/in/support/computing/what-is-dimm-and-so-dimm-slot/
The mini-pc I want to but uses so-dimm memory.
Saturday, July 29, 2023
The tale of four displays
The 4K monitor appears to have more washed out colors. Faces are more pale. The Star Wars crawl is yellow orange on the 1440p monitor, but pure yellow on the 4K monitor.
The color on the 1440P is closer to my 5K iMac display, which is reportedly a high quality display, and has a slightly better viewing angle than the 4K monitor.
I had all three displays playing the same movie at the same time.
So I just compared the cheap 40 inch TV that I originally purchased for my Mom and stepdad, but I am now using as my TV. It appears to have the same washed out color range as the 4K monitor.
I would have never known the difference had I not compared these side by side.
This makes my idea of using a cheap TV as a computer monitor look bad. The color quality might not matter as much for watching television, but depending upon what you do with it, I think that it matters more for a computer monitor.
Best wishes,
John Coffey
Are chatbots the wave of the future?
Many people, myself included, tend to latch onto new technology.
So far, I'm not particularly impressed with the current level of chatbots. They have no real understanding, but do a great job of imitating human conversation. They only understand the relationship between words in ordinary speech. The chatbots are essentially a version of Wikipedia that can hold a conversation with you.
That is all about to change. It can't be far off because there is an AI arms race going on between major companies. Eventually computer programs will talk to you with some understanding of what they are talking about. I see a future, possibly within a decade, where your computer or smartphone is your artificial friend who regularly talks to you, keeps you company, and helps you deal with any problem you may have. Better than real friends.
It is inevitable.
Right now people are pushing Augmented Reality, and although I don't see much point, it will likely be the norm in a decade. For me, it would be nice to spend time with some of my Utah friends as if they were in the room with me.
--
Best wishes,
John Coffey
http://www.entertainmentjourney.com
Friday, July 28, 2023
Missed Amazon Prime Day TV deal
During Prime Days, Amazon had this special deal that was invitation only. You had to sign up to be invited. The deal was for a 43 inch Amazon Fire smart 4K TV at $99. Of course, quantities were limited.
I'm kicking myself for not getting the deal.
According to the specs and reviews, the latency and color accuracy of the TV was a little less than ideal for use as a monitor, but I felt that it was good enough. I don't think that something like a 20 millisecond latency is going to be much of a problem.
I like the idea of having a 43 inch 4K monitor that is also a TV.
It would have saved me much trouble that I recently went to in order to buy a couple of used (high-quality) monitors. The 4K 28-inch Samsung monitor I bought only has 1-millisecond latency.
During Prime Days I was not feeling the best, although I've been feeling better lately.
Best wishes,
John Coffey
I'm kicking myself for not getting the deal.
According to the specs and reviews, the latency and color accuracy of the TV was a little less than ideal for use as a monitor, but I felt that it was good enough. I don't think that something like a 20 millisecond latency is going to be much of a problem.
I like the idea of having a 43 inch 4K monitor that is also a TV.
It would have saved me much trouble that I recently went to in order to buy a couple of used (high-quality) monitors. The 4K 28-inch Samsung monitor I bought only has 1-millisecond latency.
During Prime Days I was not feeling the best, although I've been feeling better lately.
Best wishes,
John Coffey
Thursday, July 20, 2023
Friday, July 14, 2023
Lunar Lander (video game genre)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Lander_(video_game_genre)
This is still playable on one of my Arcade1ups despite a malfunctioning screen. (I am looking into getting a replacement screen.)
Before the 1979 arcade game came out, I had seen a text-only BASIC version of the game and may have even written one myself.
Around 1979 to 1980, when I was a high school senior, a buddy of mine named Richard and I loved playing Space Wars (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Wars) against each other. In 1980, he signed up to go into the Navy for six years, so we made a pact that after he got out of the Navy he and I would get together and play Space Wars again.
It is my understanding that most of either Lunar Lander or Space Wars arcade games were converted to Asteroid machines which were much more profitable.
Richard and I lost touch with each other. There was almost no hope of us getting together to play a game that didn't exist anymore. However, he now lives down the street from me. I'm thinking of inviting him to see my home "arcade".
Sunday, July 9, 2023
Friday, July 7, 2023
Frankenstein computer
My friend Larry and I were talking about how both of us from 1995 to 1999 had Frankenstein computers that we kept upgrading piece by piece. Mine started out as a 486 33Mhz with absolutely no peripherals like a sound card or CD-ROM. At the time, it was all too costly. I updated the processor at least twice and kept buying peripherals as they became more affordable.
When CD-ROM drives first appeared they cost hundreds of dollars, and ones that could write CDs cost more.
Today a CD-ROM drive costs next to nothing.
I estimated that by the time I was done, I had spent $3,000 on my computer. By the year 2000, I had spent a fortune on it and it was already outdated. This felt like a big waste of money and I vowed to never do this again.
My new plan was just to buy a new computer every five years. By this point, computers came equipped with everything you need. I bought computers in 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2019. I only bought the last computer because the old one had been slowly dying for about a year.
Around 1989 or 1990, before I could afford a PC, I bought a dumb terminal and 150 baud modem so that I could dial into my work mainframe. (Faster modems were available, with 1200 baud being the best, but I bought used and outdated equipment because that was all that I could afford.)
I could type faster than the modem could transmit characters, but this gave me access to Usenet, which was an early form of text-only Internet. This was before 99.99% of the public had heard of the Internet. I used to read and post to the Star Trek and chess forums.
This was actually pretty entertaining.
Best wishes,
John Coffey
When CD-ROM drives first appeared they cost hundreds of dollars, and ones that could write CDs cost more.
Today a CD-ROM drive costs next to nothing.
I estimated that by the time I was done, I had spent $3,000 on my computer. By the year 2000, I had spent a fortune on it and it was already outdated. This felt like a big waste of money and I vowed to never do this again.
My new plan was just to buy a new computer every five years. By this point, computers came equipped with everything you need. I bought computers in 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2019. I only bought the last computer because the old one had been slowly dying for about a year.
Around 1989 or 1990, before I could afford a PC, I bought a dumb terminal and 150 baud modem so that I could dial into my work mainframe. (Faster modems were available, with 1200 baud being the best, but I bought used and outdated equipment because that was all that I could afford.)
I could type faster than the modem could transmit characters, but this gave me access to Usenet, which was an early form of text-only Internet. This was before 99.99% of the public had heard of the Internet. I used to read and post to the Star Trek and chess forums.
This was actually pretty entertaining.
Best wishes,
John Coffey
Thursday, July 6, 2023
iMac LCD Inverter Replacement 2009
I am attempting to fix my 2009 iMac. It is outdated, but it was a pretty good computer with a core-i7 processor that I think still has some value. It has a display problem due to a bad inverter board.
One reason I am fixing this computer is that it has a nice 1440P display that can also be used as a display for other computers. I tentatively planning on buying a very powerful mini-PC.
I ordered an inverter board for just $20. The following video explains the installation.
Since I have to open the case, I am also upgrading the storage. Getting an SSD should make a big improvement in the performance and make it feel more like a modern computer.
I have decided to use the roughly same parts that are used in this video because I know that they are likely to work. I ordered a 960 GB Kingston SSD for just $40.
I debated on whether to get a newer, faster, and more costly SSD. The 2009 iMac uses Sata II instead of Sata III, and I read someplace that if you buy a Sata III drive, then you need to get one that is backward compatible. The only SATA III drive that I could find that claimed backward compatibility was a 2 TB Samsung drive which was a good deal at $99. However, I didn't want to spend the extra money in case this old computer runs into problems that I can't fix. I would be throwing good money after bad.
As of this year, the cost of SSD drives is so low that regular hard drives are mostly obsolete. For mass storage, you can get really large hard drives cheaper, but for everyday usage you are much better off going with an SSD.
Friday, June 30, 2023
Thursday, June 29, 2023
Friday, June 23, 2023
Friday, June 9, 2023
Thursday, June 1, 2023
The Mac Mini Killer just got BETTER! - Minisforum @ Computex 2023
I've been waiting for this since the XBOX series X came out. Granted, it is not a 12-teraflop SOC, but I have long wanted a powerful APU with good graphical performance.
I knew I wanted one when AMD announced this chip as the M-chip killer. For gaming, it has a 5 teraflop performance. You would have to buy an M2-pro model at $1300 to do just a little bit better.
I think that these chips were supposed to be out in February, but they kept getting delayed.
I knew I wanted one when AMD announced this chip as the M-chip killer. For gaming, it has a 5 teraflop performance. You would have to buy an M2-pro model at $1300 to do just a little bit better.
I think that these chips were supposed to be out in February, but they kept getting delayed.
I'm not obligated to buy right now. I have recently seen a couple of less powerful models on sale, for $289 and $320, both of which are still plenty powerful. That's a big difference in price for computers that still have great performance.
Tuesday, May 30, 2023
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