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eeeee eeee eeeee eeeee eeeee / ` \
8 8 8 8 8 8 8 88 | .-----------. | |-----.
8eee8e 8eee 8e 8eee8e 8 8 | | | | |-=---|
88 8 88 88 88 8 8 8 | | 8 BITS IS | | |-----|
88 8 88ee 88 88 8 8eee8 | | ENOUGH! | | |-----|
_______ _____ __ __ _____ ___________ | | | | |-----|
/ ___/ // / _ | / / / / / __/ |/ / ___/ __/ | `-----------' | |-----'/\
/ /__/ _ / __ |/ /__/ /__/ _// / (_ / _/ \________________/___' / \
\___/_//_/_/ |_/____/____/___/_/|_/\___/___/ / / / /
eeee eeeeee eeeeee eeee / // // / / /
8 8 8 8 8 8 8 / / / /
8 8 8 8 8 8 / _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ / /
eee8 8 8 8 8 8eeee / _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ / /
8 8 8 8 8 8 8 / _/_/_/_______/_/_/_/ / __/
8eee 8eeee8 8eeee8 8eee8 /______________________/ /
\______________________\/
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|[LD8]! SPONSORED BY LUDDITE ENTERPRISES /`/`|\| THIS PAGE IS HOSTED BY
| o. | `` SMASHING THE DIGITAL AGE '' \,\,| | CHEBUCTO COMMUNITY NET
!__!__! INTO MANAGEABLE PIECES ==============================
What's the deal?
For the month of July 2006, I'm going to do all of my personal computing with 8-bit computers... and I'll be updating this "blog" on a daily basis to keep the World apprised of my progress (or regress, if you prefer).
Why am I doing this?
So here's what I have to work with:
And here's what I'm hoping to accomplish:
If all goes well it should be a productive and satisfying month... on the other hand it might just send me gibbering madly into the darkest recesses of the human spirit. Guess you'll just have to keep coming back to find out how it all ends ;-)
Simon Williams
June 20, 2006
June 22, 2006
Getting things set-up in the old computer lab... I've realized that one of the biggest challenges is going to be getting access to the the phone line... ;-(
One of the ideas I've had is to write an HGR to GIFF convertor for the Apple II. It seemed like an easy project to start with, but the more research I do, the tougher it's looking. If I do manage to get it going before the end of the month, I'm hoping I'll be able to post a few Apple II generated digital photos here.
As of this time there seems to be a lack of consensus regarding the rules and scoring for this year's RetroChallenge... to be perfectly honest, I'm not all that interested in the competitive side of it... I'm basically just seeing it as an excuse to slow things down for a month and have a little 8-bit fun ;-)
June 23, 2006
Looks like I'm not the only one with no life! Here's a brave soul in the UK who's going to be mucking about with some vintage Mac/Newton hardware... Go 68K!!!
June 24, 2006
I guess I've started early... of the 16 songs I had planned to record, I've already finished four. At this rate I'll be finished the album before the RetroChallenge has even begun. So far the sound could best be described as spastic digital jazz, and if you're not sure what that particular sub-sub-genre sounds like, I'm afraid you'll have to wait 'til August to find out. In the event that I do wrap this project up early, you'll be glad to know I also have some ideas about lo-fi industrial death metal that would be well suited to the Apple II... Run for your lives!!!
June 25, 2006
Spent most of the day helping my wife move her sewing studio... big industrial machines and huge heavy bolts of fabric, so not a lot of fun really... I did luck out and acquire a nice metal shelving unit for the lab. It's about three feet wide by six high and has the wire grille style shelves which are just perfect for running yards and yards of cable through.
Since I was up early this morning I thought I'd try my hand at some of that lo-fi industrial death metal I was going on about yesterday. Still very much at the conceptual stage, but it's sounding very heavy, somewhat along the lines of Nordic Black Metal, but with a more mechanical feel. I'm going to use S.A.M. (Software Automated Mouth) for the vocals, since it sounds pretty darned weird when you get outside of the normal pitch and speed ranges. Not sure if there'll be much of an audience for it though... is there much of a goth-retrocomputing scene?
June 26, 2006
I thought I'd talk a bit about getting old computers on-line tonight, since that's very definitely the most important aspect of the endurance challenge.
ME CHEBUCTO
__________ ________
|.--------.| P | unix |
|| o o || R M M S | \ / |
|| \____/ || O O O H | /\/\/\ | World
!'--------'! .......T......D....PHONE LINE....D.....E...| ____ |...Wide
/ ++++++++++ \ E E E L | [____] | Web
/ ++++====++++ \ R M M L | [____] |
\______________/ M |________|
apple II server
Daysland, Alberta Halifax, Nova Scotia
Okay, it was just an excuse to do some cute ascii art ;-)
There are two kinds of retrocomputing enthusiasts: those who can afford $100 for and ethernet card and those who can afford $3 for a modem at Value Village. I'm firmly entrenched in the second category, so this will be a tutorial for cheapskates...
There are three essential ingredients to getting online with an Apple II in the traditional manner: Communications software, a modem and a shell account with an ISP. I'll describe my specific set-up, but the general idea is universally valid...
Communications Software
Basically this is what makes the modem work, and communicates with the remote host via terminal emulation. Back in the olden times, Terminals were remotely located keyboard/monitor thingies that were wired up to a mainframe computer that was as big as a city block needed an army of technicians to keep the cockroaches out of the circuits. Terminal emulation software lets your 8-bit computer act in much the same manner as the old terminals, though modern unix servers are much smaller than the old mainframes -- some no larger than a compact car.
My choice for communications software is ProTERM, which is still available from Intrec (Google it) for a mere $19.95. Not only does it do an excellent job with the comms, but also includes a very nice text editor (which I'm using as we speak), a slew of handy disk and file utilities and the indispensable ShrinkIt compression/expansion program. If you have an Apple II, you NEED ProTERM! (This has been an unpaid endorsement)
Modems
Modems are easy, it's finding the right cable that can be a bitch... over the years I've collected a whole box of assorted modems, but I generally prefer the USRobotics ones because they are very loud and the LEDs are nice and bright. One thing I've found useful: when in doubt use AT&F as your modem INIT string... it's worked with 95% of the modems I've tried. Of course modems connect to the phone lines and you'll probably have to dial long distance, so it helps to have some kind of cheap LD package (sorry, VOIP won't cut it!). I have a deal with Primus that gives me unlimited LD in North America for $25/month, so I can stay online as long as I want (unless my better half needs to use the phone).
Shell Account
This is the trickiest bit... very few mainstream ISPs will allow you to have access to a shell account. There used to be a lot of Community Nets and FreeNets that provided this service (mostly to old Luddites bashing away at old Apples and Commodores with their tinfoil hats firmly in place), but sadly those days are long gone... Chebucto Community Net in beautiful Halifax, is one of the few remaining ISPs to actively support users of antique computers, and at $20 per year for a full membership, it's cheap at half the price!
CCN's big computer (about the size of a softball diamond) runs a handful of programs that let my Apple II think it's surfing the interweb... of course it's the giant CCN machine that does all the heavy lifting, but I can access the web (sans graphics, which makes pr0n a bit of a non-starter), send and receive email and (most importantly for maximum geek points) read and post to Usenet news groups. In case you've never experienced Usenet, it's a forum where thousands of sociopathic hermits meet to trade insults and nit-pick about semantics in lieu of doing anything constructive with their lives... well, okay there are one or two decent groups ;-)
Okay, that wasn't as instructive or enlightening as I'd hoped, but I'm still pretty happy with the ascii art diagram. If you think you could have done better, please feel free to leave a comment.
June 27, 2006
Not a whole lot going on tonight... just recording some guitar and bass
samples for TimeLord -- thought I better get that out of the way before
I have to put the eMac off-limits.
Here's a tid-bit for
anyone who's
morbidly fascinated by the audio capabilities of the Apple II computer:
Michael Mahon's DAC522 can play 8-bit mono WAV files recorded at 11025
Hz. So long as the file is uncompressed, the only difference from RAW audio
is the 44 byte file header, which is easily removed with a quick-n-dirty
AppleSoft program.
Speaking of TimeLord, one of the projects that I might resume during July is a new version which mixes samples on-the-fly. I had the assembly part all figured out last Xmas, but never quite got round to putting a UI on it... I think this version will be for drums only, as the limitations of a fixed note resolution make sequencing music a bit difficult. I've been thinking about a sequencer based on RT.Synth, which would allow for variable note lengths (and a much greater pitch range), but I think the trade-off may be that sequences would have to be compiled at a fixed tempo. I'll have to give it a second coat of looking-at (which I've been meaning to do for about a year now!)...
In other news, I think I'm officially giving up on the HGR to GIFF convertor. Looks like far too much for my poor tired mind, and the results probably wouldn't justify the effort. I'm still hoping to take some photos with my ComputerEyes card, but I'll probably have to boot GS/OS to get them into a web-friendly format... sigh.
BTW, for anyone who really is interested in Apple II sound and music, I have a web site with all the information I've managed to collect. For a good time visit 8-bit Sound & Fury
June 29, 2006
Failed to post anything yesterday as I was too weary and disjointed from work (you know, that vicious serpent that coils around you at an early age and slowly suffocates you in its vise-like grip...).
Okay, enough whining, today's a new day and the official start of RetroChallenge 2006 draws ever closer. Still waiting for the rules to be officially nailed-down, but it looks like there may well a concensus in time for the kick-off. As I mentioned earlier, I'm not necessarily interested in the competitive aspect of the challenge, but it would still be nice to have the rules and such more solidly fleshed for the future.
So that's whining taken care of, and bitching out of the way... guess I better come up with some compelling content. And without further ado:
Fellow renegade retrochallenger Dale just acquired an Apple IIc and was asking for software recommendations over at the 68KMLA. In light of that I'd thought I might dribble on at some length about my own favourites. I won't make it a top-ten or anything, I'll just jot things down as I trip over them mentally:
ProTERM
I already spent a bit of time going on about this one, but quite honestly it's been absolutely indispensible. Aside from being handy for dialling up to CCN, it's also made itself quite useful for transferring files locally (via null modem), text editing, disk and file commands (including correcting file types after download), plus it comes bundled with ShrinkIt, which is essentially the ZipIt of the Apple II world. It's one of the few Apple II software titles still commercially available (from Intrec) and is well worth the $19.95 price tag.
ProSel
If you're lucky enough to have any sort of mass storage device for your Apple II, then ProSel is another must-have. ProSel is a text-based program selector which supports mutiple desktops, and can be used with keyboard or mouse input. It all sports a full array of utilities, some of which probably should be considered mandatory. I use the 8-bit version on my IIgs which has a MicroDrive card and 250MB HDD installed... I'm also planning to jam 4 or 5 DuoDisk (2 x 140 KB disk drives) controllers into a IIe one of these lonely nights and use ProSel to harness that massive array. I'll keep everyone informed as to how long it takes for the magic smoke to leak from the PSU ;-)
TimeLord
Can I plug my own stuff here? TimeLord is a program I wrote a couple of years back for sequencing beats and bass-lines on the Apple II. It uses DAC522 for sample playback and has a huge 15-note range.
Sound Editor
Michael Mahon wrote DAC522 back in the early nineties, when Apple IIs were only just starting to go extinct. Sound Editor lets you play audio files as well as perform some basic editing... it's a pretty impressive bit of software that really needs to be heard to be appreciated.
RT Synth
Another of Michael's efforts, RT Synth (RT for real time) allows you to make pretty decent sounding music with your Apple II. RT Synth uses wave tables to generate a variety of voices (including a pretty Phat bass guitar). RT Synth uses the Apple keyboard in a legato manner, which makes it quite intuitive to use.
II Gif
II Gif is a handy little program that converts GIF images to Apple HGR and DHR formats, which is about the only way you can take advantage of the internet's collection of free pr0n on an Apple II... I'll let you know how that pans out!
Copy II Plus
Excellent for making legal backup copies of software you have purchased.
Program Writer
If you get any deeper into AppleSoft programming than
10 PRINT "HELLO WORLD"then you really need to check out this full-featured editor... it's saved me half a lifetime just with automatic line renumbering!
That list probably accounts for 90% of my Apple II usage, so it's probably safe to stop here...
June 30, 2006
Now we're getting down to brass tacks (whatever that means)... RetroChallenge 2006 starts in 10 minutes!
I think I've got my stuff in order... set up the mail server to transfer everything to my Chebucto account -- I hope my limited mailbox doesn't immediately overflow with SPAM... shut down the eMac, after finishing a last minute record cover. Wasn't quite as dramatic as HAL getting his plug pulled in 2001, but I still felt a twinge of remorse as the jet engine whine of the hard drive trailed off into an uncanny silence.
Anyway, the record cover I was working on is for the second edition of The First Punic War's Canada Day seven inch. If you missed out on the ultra-deluxe first edition, then whip by the band's web site and pick up a copy of the almost-as-deluxe second edition. It rocks! (and yes, I am a contributor to the band, so I'm shamelessly plugging myself again).
That's enough for tonight... tomorrow we begin in earnest (if he doesn't mind), plus it's Canada Day, so there's parades and fireworks to look forward to. So...
HAPPY CANADA DAY, EVERYONE!
and good luck to all the retrochallengers out there!
July 1, 2006 Canada Day
It's a Canada Day tradition (with me at least) that instead of enjoying the fireworks and festivities like everyone else I'll get stuck moving something heavy from one place to another. This Canada Day was no exception: Fridge, stove, dryer and two washers (one of which was by far the heaviest appliance I have ever encountered).
On the bright side, however, this year I have a sprained wrist, so my brother-in-law had to do all the real strenous stuff while I basically just pretended to be useful.
I'm sure my international readers couldn't give a toss about a bunch of plaid-shirted red-necks hauling appliances across the tundra on sleds made from the pelts of freshly clubbed seal cubs, so I'll move on to more germane topics...
Recorded a couple more Apple II songs today... one is an epic foray into hexadecimal jazz, penned by my erstwhile collaborator Mr J. Warden. Just for kicks I decided to route the Apple II sound through a Fender DeVille guitar amp to give it a little more ambience (theoretically, at least). Turned out pretty good, but I find that adding variables such as equalization and reverb really slows things down... in keeping with the extremely constrained nature of 8-bit computing, I think I'll stick to using the raw output from here forth.
I'm also still batting about ideas for the heavier stuff... I'm finding that a lot of things that I think should sound really metallic turn out to have a lot in common with hard breakbeat stuff... not that I'm really averse to a little funk, but I was really hoping for something a bit more bleak and cold... early days yet, though.
Had a disturbing thought earlier today, which I might follow-up on if sanity doesn't intervene: I have a big old RCA SelectaVision VCR c.1982, it's a top-loader and weighs close to half a ton... anyway, I was thinking about how you can plug your Apple II video into the RCA video input and use the VCR to convert the signal to RF, which you can then plug into any old TV set that lacks component video connections. So far so good. But then it occurred to me that the VCR also has audio in and out that could be used for saving and loading programs from tape. In this case video tape. I've no idea how many programs you can store on a 6 hour VHS tape, but I bet it's a hell of a lot. So there you have an RF coverter and mass-storage device in one handy package, plus you can record your awesomest Ms PacMan games and watch crummy old movies to boot!
On that note... au revoir!
July 2, 2006
A slow day today... telnetted over to the official RetroChallenge BBS, which is running Hermes BBS Software on an old world Mac. I think once the RC is over, I might look into installing it on one of my old Macs. I don't think a lot of people are into the olden style BBSes anymore, but it might be fun regardless.
Had a delightful dinner at my mother-in-law's... featuring both pork and beef plus new potatoes _and_ mashed. Yum!
Got word from the illustrious J.Warden of The First Punic War that the unsold vinyl from the first edition of the Canada Day single has been mercilessly melted into a big purple blob, so if you didn't reserve your copy on time you're S.O.L., as they say. Of course you can still pick up a copy of the 2nd edition, which faces no such termination deadline... BUY IT NOW!
Well, it's Sunday night, but tomorrow's a holiday here, so I think I'll stay up late and play with computers, or sumthin'...
July 3, 2006
Killed quite a bit of time doodling up some ASCII art today... takes a lot longer with a standard text editor than it does with JAVE or Email Effects on the Mac. Trying to improve on the Retro BBS welcome screen, luckily I have a fair bit of existing artwork to draw from, otherwise I could easily have spent the better part of the day on it.
Also spent a couple of hours putting together an Apple II starter kit for fellow RetroChallenger Dale... digging through piles of unmarked disks and wading through whole hard drives packed to the rafters with poorly labeled and mostly corrupted disk images. I realised I'm not much good at personal organization... so it goes.
These things aside, the meat of my retroputing day involved a semi-serious look at writing a sequence editor for RT Synth. I'm thinking something like the graphical score editor in Cubase would fit the bill... I find it fairly intuitive to view notes as horizontal bars where the length of the bar is the duration of the note and the vertical position is its pitch.
One of the problems, as I mentioned earlier, is that RT Synth has no provision for adjusting the tempo of playback... although I can't exactly call that a shortcoming, as the whole point of RT Synth is that it functions in Real Time. It should be possible, I'm hoping, to adapt RT Synth to use a lookup table for note duration, rather than having the duration hard-coded in the sequence. That way, the tempo could be controlled from an AppleSoft UI that would only need to rewrite 64 bytes rather than recompile the whole stream.
A possible bonus with this project is that it should be fairly easy to add support for other Apple II synth software/hardware, such as the DX-1 sampler and Mockingboard. Of course I don't have a Mockingboard of my own, so I might be asking for guinea pigs at some point.
July 4, 2006
Happy Independence Day
to those who are truly independent
A terribly uneventful day... work seemed to last about twice as long as it normally does, especially in 32 degree weather (that's celsius... for the benefit of my American friends, it's bloody hot!)
We acquired a pair of frogs over the weekend (saved from the lawnmower by my sister-in-law), so today we had to go to the pet store and buy them some bugs... three bucks and change for a few baby crickets!!! Normally it would be quite easy to catch a jar full of grasshoppers, but this year they seem to be unusually scarce. Either the farmers are crop-spraying with cyanide again, or the weirdly enormous bumble bees have been eating them. Strange portents.
Didn't do anything significant in terms of retroputing, other than
pay a quick visit to Lorance's Retro BBS to see how my ascii art looks.
Not surprisingly it looks just like it did in the text editor ;-)
Dale has posted a pic on his blog (see link somewhere else in this page)
so all the world can share in the joy of art!
Okay, that's enough for today... tomorrow is a new, and hopefully more intersting, day!
July 5, 2006
Still too hot to do anything remotely challenging (retro or otherwise)... 34 degrees today! Ack!
Killed a few hours after work watching Astro Boy (the 1980's episodes), so I thought I might bore everyone with a top ten list of favourite programmes (I thought I'd make it to mid-month at least before resorting to this!).
In no particular order:
Okay, that should quash any doubts regarding my total and utter lameness. Sadder still that I don't even have broadcast TV at home, so I have to hang out with my mother-in-law or buy outrageously priced DVDs to get my alpha wave fix.
Tommorrow: the dreaded top ten albums list (unless something interesting happens in the meantime).
July 6, 2006
I'm sorry to say it was another really pathetic day... still horrifically hot and humid, but today we got the additional displeasure of scalding hot rain lancing down from a sky of lead vapour... but you're not here to listen to an old man rant about the weather are you? You want the top ten album list!
Not necessarily the best... just a few albums that have had an undue influence on me over the last 25 years:
Okay, I'm the first to admit top ten lists are dumb, and if I did this again tomorrow it would probably end up completely different, but that's whatyou get for today... sorry!
Tommorrow I'll try to get onto something at least peripherally related to old computers... I promise.
July 7, 2006
Got an email from RetroChallenger Dale regarding the conspicuous lack of Motorhead in my album top ten... he's right, of course, but I'll resist the temptation to make it a top twenty to accommodate all the runners-up ;-)
A nice score at the recycling depot... took the work van in full of cardboard and, as usual, scoured the computer & TV bin for worthwhile junk. Sitting right on top was a Commodore 1541 disk drive and a 1541 II, both in their original boxes and in beautiful condition... since I don't own a C=64, I'll probably eBay them along with a few other non-Apple odds and sods I've got kicking about.
Started working on my Apple II music editor in earnest today... unlike (I'm guessing) most programmers, I like to figure out the user interface first and then work on functionality. I'm also unaccountably smitten with ASCII text UIs, so creating a usable grid system was a bit of fun.
While I was chugging along at that, I had a few more ideas for Apple II noise makers, so it's entirely feasible I'll get completely sidetracked before finishing any of them...
Okay... time to focus...
July 8, 2006
Finally, something tangible... I spent pretty much the whole day working on the joystick guitar concept, and the results are breath-taking. Well, not really, but it's fun for a few minutes and is guaranteed to drive those around you nuts
The basic idea is that when you push the button on the joystick a square wave tone sounds (I imaginatively dubbed the program Square Waver in view of this...). The frequency of the tone is based on the position of the joystick along the Y-axis. Exciting stuff, but wait! There's more... hitting a number key lowers the pitch by adding an extra delay cycle between speaker toggles, so you really have a lot to work with ;-)
Now the most important aspect of this program has nothing to do with the software itself, but the playing technique... it's all about stance. Imagine yourself air-guitaring a particularly wicked solo (something from G'n'R should do the job). Your hands should be more-or-less centered around your belt buckle as though you're really going ape on a half-scale ukelele... yes, you look like a complete wanker, but no one's looking, right? Okay... now pick up your Apple II joystick and arrange it such that the pushbutton is accessible to your right (picking) hand and the stick itself is projecting forward and under the tentative control of your left (fretting) hand. It might help matters if you pout a bit too... now simply tap the pushbutton with some semblance of rhythm and move the joystick to-and-fro at the same time and you're halfway to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame...
Anyway, there you have it... something new for the Apple II! You can download Square Waver in a ShrinkIt archive here:
...or you can type it in yourself, if you feel really masochistic:
Square Waver runs equally well under DOS 3.3 or ProDOS and may be used in any way you see fit. I won't be held responsible if anything bad happens, but feel free to send angry emails anyway.
July 9, 2006
Spent most of the day in the studio recording three more tracks for the all-Apple-II CD... a couple of spazzy rockers and one 13 minute epic (which I think might be the best one yet). I'm finding that the less human intervention there is, the better they turn out. At this point I'm basically just loading Jason's score into the machine, picking tempo and voices arbitrarily and recording the raw output... of course it won't be everyone's cup of tea, but that's the nature of art.
Had a few issues with the links to the Square Waver program (it seems I can't host the files on this server for some reason -- I'm waiting to hear from the Chebucto volunteer staff about it)... there's also a more tragic problem insofar as I'm fairly certain the Square Waver doesn't generate square waves after all -- I think it's more accurate to describe it as a pulse wave. I could be wrong about that too... if anyone can clarify this, please feel free to correct me.
On the plus side, my daughter Astrid is quite excited by the Square Waver, and has pretty much worn out the joystick (and my nerves). I might set up another Apple so we can play a duet... hopefully response from the general public will be equally enthusiastic and I'll be able to retire on the royalties ;-)
Update...
Thanks to Tony of the CCN staff for rapidly responding to my support
request... on a Sunday, even! Let's see your $50 a month ISP pull
that off!
It turns out the problem with the files was due to permissions being set
incorrectly (ie: I'm a complete novice when it comes to UNIX). CCN
Rocks!
C C N +++++ +++++
July 10, 2006
Nothing much happening today... Monday... blah! Had a run-in with some dangerous wildlife: went to visit my wife at her shop and a wild gopher ran straight through the front door and started carreening about the place in a rabid frenzy of wanton destruction. I had to risk life and limb to trap it in a cardboard box for immediate transfer to an area safely away from civilization...
for the benefit of my foreign readers who may not know what a gopher is, imagine something akin to a wolverine or tasmanian devil, except with longer fangs and glowing red eyes. Now that I have this under my belt I'm seriously considering a career in alligator wrestling or bear-baiting...
,,,
o^.^o
\"/
/ ;;
~( ))
`L L
rodentus horribilis canadianus
July 11, 2006
Suffering from a sprained wrist today (at least that's my expert diagnosis... it could also be gout, dropsy, beri-beri or any number of more exotic ailments). Anyway, my typing speed is down from my usual stately 12wpm to a crawling 6... so don't expect too much tonight ;-)
I was just over at Dale's RetroChallenge Blog (c)TM and saw that he's apparently been knocked down by some malady or other... it seems a little too coincidental that two of the leading contenders for the RetroCallenge Crown should be struck down simultaneously. Let's just say I have my suspicions, but at this time I'm not at liberty to elaborate...
Anyway, let's hope Dale claws his way back from the grave before too long, and let's hope things improve with me too, otherwise I fear a top ten movie list coming on...
, 0==[[[[[]=---- `
July 12, 2006
Not a great deal happening today... worked in the city (Edmonton), so most of the day was taken up wiyth driving back and forth. A quick detour through Value Village, lots of good junk, but I only had 10 minutes to kill and $10 to spend, so my house is only slightly more cluttered than it was this morning
From the sounds of it Dale has recovered from his bout of bubonic plague and also received the Apple II disks I sent him last week. Can't believe he's got the nerve to complain about the maple syrup and elk smell... imagine that coming from someone who probably grew up eating deep-fried herring in Mars bar batter with a dollop of salted lard on the side!!! ;-P
_*_ (+++) d@J@b _\=/_ /\+\ \ ( 4\+\k ) \| \+\/ /++( ) /+++++\ /+++++++\ """|||""" _|||_ (__|__)
I'm just kidding... actually I grew up in the north of England, so I've probably eaten enough salted lard to kill a whole herd of scotsmen... I better get on to that top ten movie list, or I'm likely to start in on the Welsh too...
It looks like Stanley Kubrik gets first place, with Ridley Scott coming in a close second. Neither director being Scottish or Welsh as far as I know...
Okay, so we've got the top ten list, the low-rent ascii art and the cultural slurs out of the way, maybe I should move on to more germane subject matter, to whit:
RetroChallenge -- What's the point?
I don't know if there is a point in the great scheme of things, and I'm not sure if I really had any idea going into it as to how it might affect me in a real sense, but I have noticed a few subtle changes that are worth mentioning...
First off, I'm not using the graphics-laden version of the internet that we all know and love... I've found that I'm more focussed when searching for information and more prone to actually _reading_ the content rather than just skimmimg over it and following links hither and yon.
Another (probably obvious) difference is that I spend much less time using the computer as a TV substitute and more time actively doing stuff with it. This has got me to thinking a bit about how little computers have really changed our society... I mean at a fundamental level -- there's no computerized human activity that I can think of that isn't simply a better, faster, easier way of doing something we did before computers... and it seems that the tech industry has successfully sold us on the idea that we need to find even better, faster, easier ways of doing the same old shit.
Don't worry, I'm not going to suggest that anyone try editing video on an Apple II, but if you look at fields where computers have taken over it's sometimes hard to see the gain... music certainly doesn't sound better than it did in the dark days of analog recording; photography still looks pretty much the same (at least at a professional level)... with very few exceptions CG effects in movies are just as unnatural looking as people in rubber suits and models hanging from wire... my bank still offers the same level of personalized service (ie: zero), and if anything the number of errors has increased...
Okay, tommorrow's sermon: Destroy All Machines!
o \ * * Ca spanner in the works: bad ascii art
July 13, 2006
Raging thunderstorms this evening, so I'm going to curtail my online activity for fear of frying my modem... too bad, I was working up to quite a rant (with a top ten book list thrown in for good measure).
o o o o 0 0 0 + + + +
July 14, 2006
A day of portents....
This morning started with a two hour wild goose chase in the country-side, during which I got to see the after-effects of someone falling asleep at the wheel of a huge motorhome (complete with tow-behind SUV)... probably about 200 grand down the crapper, but fortunately no human toll. I had to wonder at the mentality that drives people to run themselves ragged while on holiday... surely a well-timed rest stop could have saved the vacation for the whole family!
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f| [] [__] [__] [] |__!__\
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(o)(o) (o)
5 TONS OF ROLLING DESTRUCTION!
Anyway, work progressed in its usual mind-numbing way, until I thought I could take no more. Lucky for me it was home time, so I really didn't have to to take any more... came home to an empty house, so I spent a good four hours hacking away at some Apple II programming (yay!)...
Got an email from Jason of Benalto and The First Punic War infamy, viciously attacking my top ten movie list. While I would ordinarily turn the other cheek, or something else equally messianic, in this case I'm forced to take things a little more seriously... you see, his criticism of my top ten centered around two [in his opinion] notable ommissions: Tron and Star Wars... now, I'll be the first to admit that Tron is a charmingly naive bit of cinematography that could be forgiven its weak characters and innane plot, but there's no way on earth that I'll ever see Star Wars as anything other than the most insipid piece of tripe ever to be foisted on an anwary world. Crap! Maybe tomorrow I'll do a top ten Things Everyone Likes But I Think Are Bullshit list...
Okay, now that I've got that off my chest, it's time to hang out with the wife and kid... they've rented Corpse Bride, which I'm not terribly excited about, but at least it's guaranteed to be better than Star frigging Wars
July 15, 2006
More ferocious thunderstorms and meteorological chaos... nothing quite life-threatening, but it keeps the computing to a minimum. I'll have to look into running an Apple II off a car battery for such times.
Spent most of the day driving around Edmonton fuelling my insane lust for Chinese Bar-B-Q pork and Sushi. I don't actually know of a good sushi place there, so we always get the prepackaged stuff from the T&T grocery at West Edmonton Mall (you know, the biggest, and most pointless shopping center on the planet). Hardly gourmet fare, but when you live on the sterile, wind-blasted prairie, any bit of raw fish will suffice.
Thrift shop rummaging was fun... got a Keyspan USB-Serial adaptor for $7, although I'm not entirely sure what to do with it. Hooking up an ImageWriter to a new world Mac seems like the most obvious thing... would be nice if it could be made to work with Bernie 2 The Rescue (Apple IIgs emulator).
July 16, 2006
Sundays are supposed to be for relaxation and spiritual reallignment right? I have to wonder why I spent the afternoon at the top of a rickety ladder attempting to paint the eaves in a gale-force wind. Something is surely amiss in my world.
I did manage to spend a few hours steeped in the arcana of 6502 assembly language. Since my programming skills are woefully limited (and my knowledge of mathematics not worth discussing), I didn't get much further than learning how to make letters appear on the screen... not exactly going where no man has gone before, but I got a bit of a kick out of it.
It's now slightly past mid-point in the RetroChallenge, and I'm still not sure how many people are participating or even if there's anyone officially designated to judge the proceedings.
How am I faring? you ask... and I thank you for your concern. There's a fair bit I miss about modern computing, but nothing that I couldn't live without. I think if I had any graphics work to do, I'd be in a whole heap of trouble, but since I got all that out of the way before starting, it's been relatively trouble-free. I don't shop on-line a lot, so I'm fine on that score... in fact, I'm finding that most of my computer time is spent on trivial self-entertainment tasks, and in that regard the Apple II is a lot more fun. Sure, I could be doing some amazing stuff on my Mac if it were turned on, but it's essentially a magic box as far as I'm concerned; I click the mouse and stuff happens, but beyond that it's a mystery. The Apple II, on the other hand, being much less complex, allows me to poke around under the hood and gain some vague notion as to what's actually going on inside... it's this intimacy with the machine that makes it so much fun to bugger around with. While I could easily emulate an entire orchestra on my Mac, I get a much bigger kick out of writing programs that go bleep on the Apple II (and I'm secure in the knowledge that there aren't a few million other people doing exactly the same thing).
While I'm not likely to get rid of my Mac, I do think I'll continue using the Apple II for text-based communications (email, usenet, some internet) after the RetroChallenge is over, for the simple reason that it's lack of multi-tasking equate to a lack of distraction, which is a plus in my books.
July 17, 2006
A slow day today... hot, humid and a big-ass thunderstorm brewing, so everyone's cranky and anxious (including me). Looking about me, I can't help but notice that I never finished the studio clean-up I started three weeks ago... for every item that made it to a shelf or other suitable location, there are two more strewn about the floor waiting to be trampled under foot. I need more shelves! I need more time! I need a maid!
July 18, 2006
More miserable thunderstorm and tornado weather... oscillating barometric playing havoc with both nerves and sinuses. Started reading Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: a Space Odyssey last night, so I've accomplished very little in the last 24 hours... I've seen the movie about seven thousand times and assumed it was based on the novel, but it turns out the Novel is based on the screenplay. I think that was a trend at one point -- at least I seem to recall reading a lot of books based on movies as a youngster (mid-70s-ish). Then I moved on, briefly, to books with compound words starting with dragon- in the title (always with a map inside the front cover). Okay, top ten authors (for lack of anything more interesting):
_____________ (____________( ! | | Rusty | | Bedsprings | | | | I.P. | ! Knightly | \____________|
July 19, 2006
Another heatwave ahead... I'm inclined to agree with Dale that this RetroChallenge thing should be happening during the winter months... maybe January when everyone's miserable and broke after Christmas.
Nothing happening retro-wise today, other than the after-work ritual of checking mail, reading news and so forth... it's remarkable how small (and manageable) the internet becomes when you're viewing it through an 80x24 text screen.
]10 PRIMT "HELLO" ]RUN ? SYNTAX ERROR ]
July 20, 2006
Finally, a chance to get retro in the real world! I had to draft a partnership agreement for my wife and brother-in-law (no, I'm not even close to being qualified, but I'm generally good at cooking up pseudo legal sounding documents)... banged it out in AppleWorks and whipped up a few copies on the trusty ImageWriter II. A very spiffy document indeed! I'm sure any lawyer worth their salt could get it thrown out on esthetic grounds alone ;-)
Well, between printer jams and manual spell-checking, there hasn't been time for much else... got a couple new songs from J. Warden, but I probably won't get round to any recording until the weekend... Off to check out Dale's blog thingy and the RC BBS, then Ovaltine and bedtime...
July 21, 2006... July 22, 2006
Oppressive heat again... well above 30 degrees, even in the basement (so my usual tactic of sequestering myself in the studio is little help). I managed to record a couple more Apple II instrumentals before I was forced by self-preservation to shut down all the overheating electronics... it's a bit cooler now (at least slightly below life-threatening levels), but everything's still moving at a crawl... even Chebucto's normally spry server seems to be running at 300 baud.
I had some pretty big ambitions for this weekend, but at this point I'm revising my goals to basic survival... so it goes...
July 23, 2006
Recorded a couple more tunes today... starting to wonder how small the audience will be for this stuff -- it's very challenging. Not that I was expecting a top 40 hit out of it, but you know...
My nine-year-old pseudo nephew was over today and wandered into the computer room at one point. I've never seen anyone's eyes get so wide. 'Wow! You have your own science lab!!!!', says he... that may well be the first time I've actually impressed anyone with all my junk. Next time he's over I might just get him programming in AppleSoft... get the next generation off to a flying start.
Only a week left of the RetroChallenge, and I'm still really not sure what it's all been for... I certainly haven't accomplished all the things I had hoped, but at a bare minimum I have wrote one new Apple II program and will have a full-length CD of barely-listenable music to show for it. I probably could have managed that much without being challenged, but I think it's helped to avoid distraction a little more than usual...
________ |||__0_||| |.------.| |! !| !!______!!not too convincing, eh?
July 24, 2006
Just got my phone bill today... turns out that if I didn't have such a wicked long distance plan the past month of dialling up to Chebucto would have cost almost $1400. I'm trying to convince the wife that I should get a new MacBook with all the money I'm saving ;-)
Nothing happening over at the BBS, but I was alarmed to see a comment on Dale's blog that he might not be able to finish his musical masterpiece before the end of the month (either it's a really ambitious project, or he's having trouble picking out the first few notes of Three Blind Mice). Personally I think it would highly suck if I ended up being the only entry again this year, so I'm going to take this opportunity to ask the RetroChallenge Officials (whomesoever they may be) to consider extending the contest for a few days in the interests of sportsmanship, gallantry, and basic human decency...
July 26, 2006
Phones went out last night and power was intermittent, so no journal entry... but that allowed me to record three more tracks for the album (a good bit of it using the UPS for power), so we'll consdider it all's well that ends well. Not a whole lot going on tonight... phones are back on, but power is still tenuous for reasons that remain a mystery. Probably just a combination of heat, lightning and utility companies conspiring against the human race.
J.Warden's been cranking out the compositions as the RetroChallenge dwindles to it's whimpering climax. I've got to say he's really coming up with some interesting stuff (dedicated worker; copes well under pressure). I was originally aiming for 16 tracks on the CD, but it's looking like there might be enough material for a bonus EP. We will surely be millionaires... MILLIONAIRES!!!
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Not the best sushi in town.
July 27, 2006
CATASTROPHE! SABOTAGE! CHAOS!
Finishing recording the last few songs that Jason sent me tonight... seems he might have unwittingly come up with some Apple II malware, as very last track of the very last song caused some berzerk computer behaviour that stopped just short of spontaneous combustion... I've seen a few glitches with TimeLord but never one that wiped out vast tracts of irreplaceable data. As it happens it completely erased the diskette that contained all the sequence files, plus it seems to have made a huge mess of the internal drive in my ][+ (coincidentally where I had backed up all the sequences)... end result: I guess I won't be doing any remixes.
Okay, I should clarify that this isn't Jason's fault at all... it sometimes happens that errors get introduced into files during transfer and TimeLord has no way of dealing with an out of range sequence element, which can lead to DAC522 accessing memory addresses that should be left well alone (like, apparently, the firmware routine for writing random garbage all over every online volume).
At least this happened at the end, and not in the middle of things, so we still have 20 tracks (which translates to about 45 minutes of ferocious lo-fi digital jazz). I'll mix it over the weekend and hopefully have the project wrapped up on time... of course I'll have to wait till after the RetroChallenge to do mp3s, but I'm sure the suspense won't kill anyone.
3
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July 28, 2006
A challenging day, but not in any retro sense... just wrapping up the work-week on a very sour note. Now the last weekend of the RetroChallenge lies ahead...
July 29, 2006
Spent a good chunk of the day in the studio wrestling with the Apple II Death Metal concept... turns out it's a much more difficult proposition than I anticipated. Things that I think should sound really heavy turn out to be quite goofy and vice versa. I really think the lo-fi digital sound is well-suited to heavier music, but maybe the problem is in trying to be too genre-specific. I'll post some of the sketchy results after August 1st and you can judge for yourself how far off the mark I am...
In other music news, I managed to contrive a situation at work whereby I was able to listen to Dale's Sixth Protocol without having to actually use a non-retrochallenge-qualifying computer (some people will click on anything!). Well... it's certainly different from anything else I've ever heard, and I wouldn't be surprised if it qualifies as a genre unto itself. His method of open air multitracking is sheer minimal genius -- makes me feel like a cheater for using my digital 8-track.
July 30, 2006
Finished mixing and mastering the CD this afternoon... and it's got a title now: Geometry For Lovers. Snazzy, huh?
Now here's the confession: I got impatient with the thought of waiting a few more days to upload the files, so I fired up the (non-qualifying) eMac and made flacs and mp3s of the songs and started uploading them to archive.org... a little pathetic to fail the test, so late in the game, but I've neglected to submit my times for the last couple weeks, so I don't think I'm even a contender in the endurance challenge anymore...
MP3s can be found here:
Ironically I had some real problems with the fancy (cc) uploading software that resulted in me stupidly creating three different archives of the same material... I'm uploading flacs (for the audiophiles) to http://www.archive.org/details/Geometry_For_Lovers/, which will probably be the permanent archive.
How did it turn out? you're wondering... I'd have to say very well . For a while I was having some serious misgivings about the whole project, but now that it's all put together and I've been able to listen to it a few times, I'm quite pleased... I only hope Jason likes what I've done with his compositions -- it's a bit like practicing plastic surgery on someone else's children. Well, maybe not, but you get the idea...
Just in case anyone actually wants a hard copy of the CD, I'll eventually release it through failURE Rec0rds, but that might take a while... for now, you can just enjoy the free, non-DRM download (in your choice of format) courtesy of our good pals at archive.org
I see that our friend Dale has already pontificated on the winding-up of the RetroChallenge, and quite eloquently at that... I'll be back tomorrow for one last kick at the can, and see if I can't be even more verbose than Dale was in my summation ;-)
July 31, 2006
Final Thoughts
The castle lights are growing dim
There's no one left but me... and him
When next we meet in Frankenstone
Don't come alone!
First person to tell me who said those immmortal words wins... something. (Jason, I'll be shocked if you don't get it)
Anyway, here we are at the end of things and I guess it's only appropriate to sum up what has been accomplished in the preceeding month.
Okay, but what about the failures?
In the end it was a good experience... I'm proud of what I did, and excited about where it may lead in the future. I'm seriously thinking about doing it again in January (with or without official sanction). On the other hand, I'm not going to pretend that I could do it all the time -- I'm just lucky that I finished all my graphics and web work before the challenge started, otherwise I would have been up the creek...
Okay, well... that's about it. Thanks again to Dale, Jason and Michael, as well as Lorance for hosting the official RC BBS, and of course all the other RetroChallengers, wherever they may be...
-s
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