Rhindle the Dragon

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the bigger, white manuals are from the 1977 gate-fold launch titles, since I have a few manuals from the year after which are black. It would be nice to get this confirmed.

MEMOIRS OF A NOVELTY ACCOUNT VOL. II, ISSUE III Good afternoon and welcome to Imperial Mondays. Remember how last week I said my plans ended in disaster? Well, I bought a kerosene lamp on eBay and it also ended in disaster. I was looking for a certain kind; the type with a round wick and a shade, most commonly made under the name "Rayo". I bought one and when it arrived, the parts didn't fit together and it didn't seem to work like it was supposed to (the wick-raiser was missing, there were hacksaw marks, etc.) so I took it to an expert. Apparently I had spent $135 on a Frankenstein-abomination of a "lamp" that was parts from four different lamps put together. I could not see this from the pictures. I complained, of course, and received a prompt refund. Thank God the seller offers free returns. They may have tried to make a quick buck off of an unsuspecting sucker, but at least they have somewhat good business ethics. I used the money to buy a pocket watch which I hope I can use everyday (they said it keeps good time), so wish me luck that this situation doesn't end up like the last two. I've had enough disaster for a month. Did I mention how much I hate shopping online? ... No? ... I hate shopping online. And I'm sad that a lot of antique stores are going out of business because of online shopping. Yesterday I stopped at one and gave them business, for good measure, by buying a working, pre-1919 GE light bulb. I thought I'd present it to my mom as she worked for GE in the 80's. The featured photograph is of the bulb aglow, and also, attached is a picture of it turned off. Thought you people might be interested. I'll probably only turn it on one more time in my entire life. The fact that it works boosts its value by 500% - have you seen those eBay prices? Sheesh. And I paid less for it than the cost of the reproductions at Home Depot. So I guess that's it for this week. Be nice to reptiles for me - no running over snakes in the road, OK?

CD-ROM's, man. Even modern imaging software has trouble making a working copy of 1999's SC3K. Null-modem? You mean like AppleTalk? I wish computers could still connect like that...

It can be difficult to run older DOS software if you don't have a 5 1/4 inch drive. Luckily the Apex has 2... But no hard disk. I just pretend that switching disks is fun, but in reality it's annoying as heck.

MEMOIRS OF A NOVELTY ACCOUNT VOL. II, ISSUE II Hello all. *SIGH...* Welcome to Imperial Mondays. I did have some "robust content" to share today, but my plans ended in disaster. You know how life goes. But I do have another picture I'd like to add to my gallery. This is part of my collection of software for the IBM PC. It all works, and is all complete. I love looking at the little pamphlets in the boxes. "Offer good until June 1990". Yeah. I really wish they didn't stick the price tag on Mavis's forehead, though. Oh well. Take care and tempt not the fates. Featured Photograph: Impressive female wolf spider I found in the autumn of 2015.

None right now. My voltage regulator failed...

MEMOIRS OF A NOVELTY ACCOUNT VOL. II, ISSUE I As you may know, my blog Memoirs of a Novelty Account has not seen an entry for almost a month, and I apologize. Posting twice a week was difficult, even on winter break, but now that I'm back in college, schoolwork has caught up to me. However, I do wish to remain active on this site, so I am restarting Memoirs and will post an entry every Monday as long as I am able. This new series with its reorganized schedule shall be known as "Imperial Mondays". Again, all photographs on this blog were taken by me unless otherwise noted. The "Imperial Mondays" banner is a compilation of images from the Wikimedia Commons. Let's move on to the topic of the day. As I write this, I am sitting in CS 270: System Software. I really should be paying attention. Lately I have been designing a new programming language, which is sort of a cross between BASIC and FORTRAN. I won't share its name or logo here, as I have not trademarked them yet. Building a programming language is an integral part of the computer science curriculum. The next step is designing an interpreter for it, then a compiler. Ultimately we will be working with operating system kernels and lower-level, nitty-gritty crap. I plan on pursuing a career in this low-level area, because believe it or not, it has become my favorite part of computer science. Go figure. I hope this new series will do well. Not posting as often should give me a chance to bring more robust content to the table. Here's to "Memoirs of a Novelty Account, vol. II: Imperial Mondays".