brainwagon

I admit it: I’m an old timer. When I first was learning about Unix and C programming, I was sitting in front of a TVI 912 terminal (if I was lucky) or an ADM-3A (if I wasn’t lucky) that was connected to a VAX-750. I’m not overly nostalgic, but I do continue to work in much the same way, except with lots of terminals open on a much larger screen, usually with a decent fixed-width font. As a throw back to these older times, I often use green text on a dead black background.

A few months ago, I found a truly nifty font that enhances my sense of nostalgia. It’s a very cool True Type font, which is carefully designed to match the old VT220 font, complete with the “scanline” appearance that I remember. It’s actually a pretty nice legible font as well. Perhaps you’ll enjoy it.

Hacking with Style: TrueType VT220 Font.

I like trebuchets. Former Pixarian and RenderMan engineer Dan apparently located some plans for building small trebuchets from the Hila Science Camp:

The Hila Trebuchet.

And here’s a short YouTube video showing him test firing four of them. Cool!

Bonus video (unrelated to the above): Dan also posted a link to this video, showing video shot from an RC airplane while people on the ground tried to shoot at it with fireworks:

Just saving this link after someone reminded me that I could use a decent cheap stereo microscope for some of my electronics assembly work. These seem very reasonably priced.

Student Low Power | Lowest Price Microscopes.

I’m mostly resistant to nostalgia when it comes to computing. Let’s face it, the iPhone has way more impressive capabilities than the desktop machines I was using just a few years ago. But occasionally I do want to take a step back and revisit those heady days of yesteryear, when I would sit in a half cube in front of a TVI912 or an ADM3a and write programs for the VAX 11/750 we had at Oregon.

When I feel that way, I fire up an old PDP-10 simulator that I have, and try to remember what it was like to run TOPS-10 on the DEC 1091 that we had at the University of Oregon. And it just doesn’t seem right to be typing on a modern terminal: you short of want that crude look of those ancient terminals with the glowing green phosphor. Luckily, you can get a font which emulates that look. Check out:

Hacking with Style: TrueType VT220 Font

BibliOdyssey is a terrific blog which posts incredible images from old books that have entered the public domain. By way of example, check out this awesome collection of images of “extinct monster”, megafauna and dinosaurs. Very nice images, such as the giant sloth on the right. If you like old illustratons, check it out, then subscribe to this blog:

BibliOdyssey: Extinct Monsters.

Old timers may remember Byte magazine, and Steve Ciarcia’s column therein. Steve went on to publish Circuit Cellar magazine, an electronics magazine which is more or less dedicated to embedded computer systems. Byte books published a book of his called “Build Your Own Z80 Computer”, which now can be downloaded in its entirety with Steve’s Permission from scribd or Google Books.

Why would anyone want this book? After all, the Z80 is pretty primitive compared to even microcontroller chips like the Atmel ATMega series or PICs. For me, it’s a return to my computing roots; a chance to do something that I couldn’t do back then. Z80 parts are still available and inexpensive, and you can still learn a lot about computers by tacking one of these things together.

Build Your Own Z80 Computer.

More “don’t ask” links. I was tinkering with emulators again, and ran across this comprehensive page on the Z80 and the various DRI operating systems that ran on it. Nice emulators and lots of software and archived information.

Z80pack -- Z80 Emulator and Crossassembler for UNIX

Addendum: The Z80/CPM were CPU/Operating systems back in the days before PCs, just in case you are too young to know. Back then, using a computer looked something like this:

And yes, the IMSAI 8080 had an 8080 inside it, not a Z80.

Last weekend, I fought off my head cold and drug my body off to the Maker Faire to get inspired by the projects. I saw some good stuff this year, but didn’t really have a lot of time to talk to people and get in any deep discussions. One of the neater projects was courtesy of Jeff, Tony and Kylie at the mightyOhm blog. They built a very stylish looking Wifi Radio, using an Asus WL-520UG router as its core. I surfed over to their blog, and they have a really excellent 10 part series on how they did it. Awesome.

mightyOhm » Blog Archive » We rocked the Maker Faire!.

I’ve goofed around quite a bit with the Linksys WRT54GL and related routers, using alternative firmware, and I highly recommend them. The nifty thing about the WL-520UG that they used is that it has a USB port, which can be used to add all sorts of peripherals, like sound cards (for their projects) but also webcams and the like. Looking on newegg’s website, I see them available for $44.99, but also with a $10.00 mail in rebate. Verah nice.

Addendum: Jeff has a nice little writeup with lots of pictures on why and how you might want to hack one of these routers. Nifty.

I was trying to hunt down Gordon Bell’s description of the PDP-8 architecture (don’t ask) which I heard was available in his 1971 book, Computer Structures: Readings and Examples. A bit of googling found that this book is available from his website at Microsoft, along with many other interesting papers and books. Bookmarked for future reading material.

Gordon Bell: Computers, Projects, Patents, Books, and Papers

K450 PVC Rocket Engine Design & Construction

In just a few hours, anyone can build a powerful K450 engine that will send a rocket soaring over 5000 feet! Easy to follow step by step instructions and 137 color illustrations demonstrate the exceptionally simple construction process. Best of all, only common materials are used and no special tools are required.

I’d order your copy before the DHS gets wind of this publication.

Addendum: I wish I still had my copy of this book. I had one years ago, but seem to have misplaced it in the various moves since then. The zinc/sulfur formulation that it recommends has fallen from favor in recent years, but it was still an awesome book to have on the shelf.

While recovering from my brief outpatient procedure yesterday, I was surfing around, looking for the ChirpHell and ChirpPix programs that some people mentioned in the context of creating the Hellschreiber IDs that I saw yesterday. A bit of Googling revealed that they were written by DF6NM, so I did some more websearching, and as soon as I found this page:

NavSpaSur Lunar Imaging by DF6NM

I forgot entirely about ChirpPix. This page is all about using the reflections from the NavSpaSpur radar fence to generate actual pictures of the moon. Very, very neat. I should think about this, it seems like a very nifty project.

He also seems to have done some interesting work in the LF spectrum.

This picture was circulating around the mailing lists at work. It made me smile.

A friend of mine from the Chabot Space and Science Center, Don Saito, was recently laid off from his IT job in Berkeley, and decided to celebrate by embarking on a circumnavigation of these continental United States on a recumbent tricycle. He’s got a blog called Cycle America, and seems to be equipped with all the gadgets that will make following his trek fascinating. Good luck, Don! Stay safe!

Today I found out that Don Mitchell has a blog. While I’ve only briefly met Don a couple of times, I’ve been aware of his computer graphics work for quite some time, so it was good to see his writing on other interesting topics. I wish my blogroll had more crazy smart people writing about whatever they are interested and passionate about.

He’s on my daily blogroll now.

Don Mitchell’s Blog