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OT - what do you like to do in your non-TI time?


digdugnate

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It's pretty well established that we all enjoy TI stuff as a hobby.

 

What other things do you all like to do in your 'free time'? I suspect Sparkdrummer likes to drum. ;)

 

I like to run- attached is my last half-marathon, the Dallas BMW Half-Marathon from December 2016.

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Drumming definitely for me. I also got into motorcycling and back when I was still working full time and making a good wage I kind of went nuts- I own 12 motorcycles/scooters and one moped. I also enjoy driving my 1973 Plymouth Duster - highly modified but street legal. Also dig playing around with my vintage stereo equipment. Can you say obsessive? Of course you can! My wife gave up changing me years ago.

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woa, I haven't been that active for 30 years! I'm far less a participant than a spectator these days...

 

I try to catch a few NHL games each year (at $230 a seat, I also rely on the kindness of folks with corporate seats to accomplish this), a few Blue Jays games, a couple football games (soccer, not he pigskin game - never grew a taste for it) with the Toronto FC, and since 2001 I've been an NLL season ticket holder - where Toronto just won the first round of the play-offs against the New England Black Wolves last Saturday, and will face off against the Georgia Swarm for the Divisional Final starting this coming Saturday. When the NLL (Box Lacrosse) is done in June, I'll switch over to the MLL (Field Lacrosse), but unfortunately there is no longer a Toronto team in that league, so I have to head down to Rochester or watch the games on LSN (the Lacrosse Sports Network)

Other than that it's watching movies/TV (not network poop - more like Game of Thrones, Walking Dead, etc) and playing a few modern games like Portal (having been trained on 8 bit computers, I never got into MMP games, preferring games where it is still me against the programmer rather than 100 real-time opponents.

 

Man my life is boring. Just realized that!.

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I'm spread way too thin. Outside of the TI, I love my Amiga and have projects coming for that. I love playing games and making games on the PC and for Android. Also enjoy music. I'm no musician but I like open jamming I can fake. Also very much into art and animation.

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Other than work and school (I'm about halfway through my MBA)...we raise miniature dachshunds (there are 10 in the house), playing around with my car restoration project ("The Chryslerati" an '89 TC), and I loved Doctor Who before it was cool. I also sing and write music (rock mostly) and act in community theater.

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I attend monthly meetings of The Atlanta Historical Computing Society, where I invariably bring either my TI-99/4a setup, my Atari 130XE setup, my Atari VCS setup, or (my most recent acquisition) my Atari Lynx collection (Lynx II console with all the accessories and about 20 game carts). And I learn A LOT about pretty much every other type/brand of computer.

 

My wife and I are also members of The Mushroom Club of Georgia, where we join the club on periodic walks in the woods around here; she looks for mushrooms (looking down) while I birdwatch (looking up; I don't really like mushrooms).

 

And I podcast. Current moderator of TUBE TUNES (all about TV theme music). I also appear as either Sal LaSalle or Bob Schermak on the Please Stand By podcast with Zerbinator and Ferg (yes, THAT Ferg). And I am 1/6th of The League of Extraordinary Podcasters with Matt Lappie, Doug McCoy, Christopher Tupa, Kevin Zerbe (Zerbinator) and Ferg.

 

The rest is all Eat Sleep Play* Repeat.

 

*TI-99/4a, Atari 130XE, Atari VCS, or Atari Lynx II

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I do emergency preparedness and other retrocomputers. I have taken over a project for the Apple II called Raspple II and am slowly rebuilding it from scratch. I have plans for expanding that project to encompass other retrocomputers I use. :)

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I got started doing the Apple II stuff specifically because, being legally blind growing up, the Apple II wasn't "obsolete" for most of my childhood. I was still using one in the 90s because it had speech (TMS 5200/5220 actually) in the form of an Echo card, and since nearly all software to do useful work on it was text-based, it was easily modified to use the primitive texttalker screen reader.

 

Used it right up til 1995 when I got a 486 PC as a graduation present.

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I'm a pretty random nerd. ;)

 

Besides TI stuff, my biggest time sink is work, which has for the last few years required a lot of overtime (to the point where I've not gotten much else done). I've always said "I think I'm almost caught up..." but it's never true. ;)

 

I also mess around with other systems. I've done some work with the Atari Jaguar (though it's been a while since anything new):

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And been nudging towards the Sega Genesis (just a menu and a cart PCB so far):

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Also wrapped up and released my attempt at a commercial Nintendo DS game (didn't quite make it, but got close):

https://www.e-junkie.com/ejm/resource/513495.php#Cool+Herders+DS+--BETA--

 

And I have an active WIP for the ColecoVision (originally ported from the TI), though I did a couple other titles there:

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/149476-super-space-acer/page-4

 

Also working on coming up to speed on Unity (link is just a text sample from the tutorial I'm following, but it's no fun to mention without an example):

http://harmlesslion.com/temp/unity/text101/

 

Finally, spend a fair bit of time on the non-computer side in the My Little Pony fandom (yeah, just in case anyone still didn't know ;) ). To that end I worked on Second Life where I've actually put on a number of presentations as various characters, the most recent being a magic show (and that took a lot of code, so much for non-computer):

https://github.com/tursilion/SLTrixie

 

Even nerdy enough there to have a FimFiction page where I show I can't write:

https://www.fimfiction.net/index.php?view=category&user=30749

 

I'm sure there's lots more going on, but it's time for work... ;)

 

 

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Outside of the TI, I'm still pretty computer focused...

 

I have outlandish desires to make something of the Tomy Tutor.

 

I've recently picked up an MSX 2+ to see where 8-bit went while we in the states were all so cool with our 68000s... or turbo XTs I have an Amiga 1200 that gets a little attention.

 

I obsessively watch Sky Sports F1 broadcasts of Qualifying and Race day for Formula 1, since the hybrid era began in 2014. That is the only sport I follow. And only now that the kids are off in college. Nearly 20 years ago, I followed CART in the 98 and 99 season. Both of these are interests as a spin-off of computer games I enjoy.

 

-M@

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I'm pretty much the computer nerd most of the time--I have pretty much every TMS99XXXsystem I've been able to get my hands on (99/2, 99/4, 99/4A, 99/8, Tomy Tutor, Pyuuta, Pyuuta Jr., Pyuuta MkII, Powertran Cortex, TM990, Marinchip S-9900, and a couple of other bizarro things that I haven't been able to positively identify yet (one of which has a TMS99000 chip on it--and apparentlly, it isn't a 99105 or a 99110 either). For fun, I also have a Mattel Aquarius. . .

 

Other than computers, I read a lot, play with my kids (they are still young enough to make that a lot of fun), and play role-playing games (AD&D, Arduin, Tekumel, and Traveller for the most part).

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Astronomy in the summer (Orion 8" dobsonian), model rocketry, medieval sword fighting, robotics, tennis, board wargaming, film photography, reading, along with the occasional cigar :grin: I tend to hop from one thing to the other, with the TI being my anchor although I sometimes can go months without touching it as I focus on a particular project.

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Pretty much the tech nerd here. When I am not on the TI I am usually working on other machines. I work M-F so it's evenings and weekends. Currently helping the local Amiga club downsize their inventory by setting up and selling Amiga's on Ebay. Still planning to write an RPG game on the C64 or Maybe TI or even BBC when I find the time. We have board game nights every other weekend and friends come over. Otherwise I am enjoying movies, walking the dog or messing around in the garden growing stuff we can eat :)

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I have no free time :) When I am not playing with or working on vintage computers (TI99 and others) I am working for a company that makes modern PC components. When I am not there I am either back to working on the vintage stuff or devoting my time to my Post (Legion 108) doing things like recently repairing (and soon) building picnic benches for them. And drinking of course :)

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A small amount of Computer Networking for city governments and non-profits, and (slowly) building Flight Simulator computers. Right now I'm building a Ryzen based PC that will run Prepar3D Flight Simulator software with 6 monitors. This will be the 5th Simulator so far. I have a couple of project cars in the back yard, a 1981 Alfa Romeo Spider, and a 1968 Ford Fairlane. The Spider is real rough but runs, and the Fairlane is in pieces. Build IKEA furniture for the wife every other weekend. I am trying my hand at gardening in the back yard. So far, just a lot of mud. Programming water timers needs to be rethought! Maybe a TI-994A running an X10 network...

 

Most of my free time is spent with Family. I can't think of a better way to spend a life. God Bless you All!

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it has been so cool reading everyone's stories. :)

 

today's a typical Saturday around the DigDug household- I got a workout in first thing this morning, made breakfast, and have been playing Skyrim between bouts of housework/etc.

 

Alllthouggh.... I just got a MoonMine cart in the mail so I'll be messing with that later.

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and have been playing Skyrim between bouts of housework/etc.

 

I'm still playing that but gradually migrating to Fallout 4 by now.

 

I'm long done with the main quest in Skyrim, already completed the Dragonborn DLC and am currently doing the Dawnguard DLC. It's scary to see that my first savegames have a timestamp of 2013..

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I'm still playing that but gradually migrating to Fallout 4 by now.

 

I'm long done with the main quest in Skyrim, already completed the Dragonborn DLC and am currently doing the Dawnguard DLC. It's scary to see that my first savegames have a timestamp of 2013..

I just started *another* Skyrim game with the intention of finally beating the game- I've owned it in some fashion since 2011 ;) I'm about 45 hours in with my current character.

 

I just finished the Dragonborn DLC, am a good way into the main quest, and haven't started Dawnguard yet. I did manage to complete Fallout 4 a year or so ago (I think).

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When I'm not doing TI stuff, i'm either working for my job (lost of new technology to deploy). Keeps me pretty busy, but when I do get a break a few times a week I like to play one of my guitars and do some recording.

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