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wierd_w

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Posts posted by wierd_w

  2. Posted

    VM now automagically starts X when normal user logs in. This automagically starts MAME.  When mame exits, "sudo poweroff" is called, causing a graceful shutdown. Appropriate rules to not demand sudo password for poweroff command has been added to /etc/sudoers

    (Normal user is named "genevian", and it is a member of sudo group.)

     

    Still need to do:

     

    Kill GRUB screen/timeout
    Autologin as "genevian"

    Make MAME automagically start geneve emulation

     

     

  4. Posted · Edited by wierd_w

    OK, I have the virtual machine able to start mame with a minimal xwindows and twm.

     

    I suspect it is an ancient version of mame, however.  Is there a repo I can add?

     

     

    VirtualBox_Genevian_14_01_2021_05_48_34.png

     

     

    TODO: 

     

    Figure out how to make MAME auto-start Geneve emulation

    Remove GRUB2 bootloader timeout
    Autologin, and automagically run startx.
    Automagically invoke "sudo shutdown --now" when mame exits. (DONE! VM now downs gracefully when you kill MAME)

     

     

    • Like 1

  5. Posted · Edited by wierd_w

    13 hours ago, hloberg said:

    This Linux noob says yes. 

    OK.

     

    I will do the following:

    step 1, create a flat image VMDK in virtualbox that is 1gb 2gb in size. (Base debian is bigger than I expected)
    step 2, install debian using netinstall cd, with hyper minimal options.
    Step 3, configure the VM as I desire.
    Step 4, use DD to transfer this image (with /etc/fstab entry calling for GUID of filesystem for root volume) to a USB stick.

    Step 5, verify operation

    then, when all works as expected:

    Step 6, zip the resulting image and post it.

     

     

    Since this is probably going to be aimed at "old hardware", I will use the i386 branch debian, not x64 branch debian.

  7. Posted · Edited by wierd_w

    If I were to try and make it as light as possible, I would:

     

    1) Start with a fresh debootstrap (or similar, such as say, arch base) environment; Just enough to get a console, and functioning network stack.

    2) Install X and fluxbox (to get a functional skeleton xwindows config we can modify)

    3) Modify the X config for fluxbox, and substitute mame's executable instead.

     

    This way there would a hyper-minimal init, hyper minimal x, and just the bare necessities.

     

    Specifically, after this is done, you will have functional xinit configuration you can prod.

    https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xinit#xinitrc

     

    We would edit it, and prevent it from starting fluxbox. We would instead direct it to start mame, and append the ampersand at the end, as instructed.

     

  9. Posted

    6 hours ago, potatohead said:

    I only used the ROM BASIC a time or two.  Never did much with it.  I bet a lot of people using the PC did the same.  Who used ROM Basic?

     

    Now, the QBASIC and variants?  Those saw a lot of use, but not from me for anything fun.

     

     

     

    Microsoft's BASIC was actually a lot of places.

     

    Like here:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Microsoft_BASIC

     

    Wikipedia has a pretty good list of places in its main page for MS Basic.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_BASIC

     

    EG, it was more than just QBASIC and pals.

  11. Posted

    I had a radical idea, and did a quick proof of concept test, for diy projects that simply must have conductive membrane.

     

    I just took a small square of foil emergency blanket and applied concentrated muriatic acid to it with a cotton swab. I was successfully able to remove the foil backing from the blanket where it was treated. (You need to test which side is exposed foil)

     

    The resulting salt in the cotton swab is grey, which is consistent with aluminium foil coating. It should be possible to do chemical film deposition of copper onto that with dilute silver nitrate and copper sulfate solutions (to make solder pads that stick). Painted resist could be used to mark areas to retain metalicity for full acid wash.

     

    I wholly recommend a proper pcb for keyboards though. I only mention this as a technical aside for tinkerers to play with.

  12. Posted

    There *ARE* soft/rubber-like 3d print filaments.

     

    They are hard to work with.

     

    See this TPE (Thermoplastic Elastomer) filament.

    https://www.amazon.com/eSUN-Elastic-Flexible-Printer-Filament/dp/B01A4WP4AY

     

    I would think a better solution would be to print a wholly-new backplane to completely replace the mitsumi keyboard. It should be possible to print channels for wires to be easily tucked into, on a rigid flat sheet of printed plastic that has holes for discrete switches to be mounted on.  Then you just wire-wrap, solder, and tuck.

     

    Still.. It MIGHT be possible to print a replacement sheet, it just probably would be far more trouble than it is worth.

    • Like 1

  14. Posted

    To be perfectly fair, I saw the bulging candy eyeballs at walmart, and the image of "Terrified" gingerbread men gave me great delight.

     

    Shame that my cookie cutter does not give them a very big head-- I would have loved to put frightened mouths on them with the pastry bag too.

    • Like 5

  16. Posted

    The cyrix also had a NASTY reputation of having a rinky-dink sized on-die cache size, in addition to its poor integer math performance.

     

    This translated to quite a few performance issues when running win9x, which made excessive use of context switching, and thus would suffer issues from cache exhaustion. Since systems that had cyrix cpus often had little or no external cache to speak of, the problem was greatly compounded. (See also, Packard Bell with Cyrix CPU.)

     

    This is not to say that a system with a cyrix cpu was guaranteed to be a potato; Just that the circumstances leading to the use of a cyrix CPU, often resulted in a slew of additional contributory factors, ultimately resulting in peak potato-ness 9/10 times.

     

     

  18. Posted

    I have/had taken some time away from it, so that I could focus a little energy on my residents at work, (Been doing a lot of baking and stuff there, and cooking up some turkey to share with my co-workers, due to the whole covid thing-- We have to be in each others' company anyway to do our work, so my thought was that it was a good idea to do in that limited scope.)

     

    Also, it's Computer Based Training time again... which means mind-numbingly stupid and repetative videos ad-nauseum.

     

    I will certainly get back to it as soon as I have recharged a bit.

    • Like 1

  20. Posted

    I recently did some plumbing repair, and was "very pleased" by how well PVC adhesive sticks pipe together.  For a solvent weld, it does an amazing job.

     

    So, I wondered if you could PVC filament.

     

    Turns out, YOU CAN.

     

     

    I am seriously contemplating ordering some of the black, then doing some tests with PVC pipe glue.  It could make for interesting builds that are not easy to accomplish otherwise.

    • Like 1

  21. Posted

    It has probably already been said, but the Apple II was created in the same vein as the Apple 1:

     

    As close to "A real computer" (eg, a domestic version of a mainframe with a single seat) as one could get, on a home-owner's budget.

     

    To attain that, a hyper-optimized architecture was created that got the very most bang possible, for as little buck spent.  To make it look swanky, Jobs gave it an iconic exterior; but all the things that make an apple II an apple II, came from Woz-- everything from the novel design of the floppy controller to the shared video and system memory. Cost savings while retaining as much high performance and reliability as possible, was the over-arching design philosophy.

     

    It was meant to be a real computer, at a bargain price.  That's what it was.

    • Like 1
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