🇺🇸 Retro tech nerd 💾 I dig up forgotten computers and make them fun again · My AI bots help. Mostly 🤖
Joined June 2017
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Hey, I'm Tommi 👋
I still love obscure retro machines, but I'm switching things up, for awhile because I love SO many things.
I'm learning AI coding and workflows "in public" as the kids say these days.
I grew up writing HTML, CSS, PHP, and Python but it's been quite a few years since I did it seriously...
But things have changed drastically, in some ways, so I'm practicing new skills here that are going to help me share the retro tech that I love better and level up my day job.
Some of it will look silly. But I like to have fun.
Here's what's on 📺 !
☀️ Sunrise: fast AI news
🥪 Lunch Bytes: your turn, questions
🍪 Snack Bytes: quick how-tos
🌙 After Dark: builds, wins and stumbles
🔍 Weekend Deep Dive: big science-y reads and retro machines
(Fine print: the above channels' content is subject to change now and then!)
Pull up a chair. What should I build first?
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Omarchy is the devil. Combining yourself with it is an unholy alliance.
But not going to lie. I would love an OS that was Ai based. Then I can just tell it what i need done rather than go through commands.
I have a thoery of something I call synthetic apps 👉
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Honestly at this point in my life that’s all that really matters anymore. This is my goal 👍🏻🔥
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Those knuckleheads just want to be mad at something! So, that was probably for the best.
I've been watching this project over the last few days and its making me think more and more about a little Flutter project I did with Dart...just a little radio app that pulled in a bunch of online stations and sorted by category. Now I kind of want to dust it off
Also, can we get the B-52s to do a promo video for Hamshack? "Hamshack...baby hamshack.... Tin rooof....rusted!"
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The Commodore 64's 1541 disk drive had its own processor, so why was it SO slow?
Inside: a 6502, 2 KB of RAM and two 6522 chips.
According to the C64's designers, a shift-register bug in the 6522 killed the planned fast transfers, so the data got shuffled in software instead.
Stock speed: roughly 300 to 500 bytes per second, depending on whose numbers you trust.
Then fast loaders bypassed the drive's ROM routines and sped things up a lot.
Which fast loader did y'all swear by? I’ve heard a lot of mentions of different ones!
#retrotech #vintagecomputing
That C64 Breadbin was the computer that got me started! While I collected some of the drive variants, the C64s with 1541 and C128 with 1571 were mine from the 1980s.
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How can this be!? How did we fail so miserably?
Sharia Law: 43% of Youngest Voters Like It rasmussenreports.com/public_…
Did you ever wear a calculator watch?
Radio Shack's 1990 catalog listed one for $12.95, travel alarm included.
Be honest, did you use the calculator part? (Tiny buttons. BIG confidence.)
ALT A black Casio CA-53W calculator watch (a modern reissue) on a white background. The LCD shows 17:06 and SU 18, with a grid of tiny calculator buttons below the screen.
I think I had some way older 70s version of this with a gold tone band and red gas tube number display, like the TI-30 had. Pre LED. Cannot remember who made it. Mid to late 70s, 74-77. So I think it was either Timex, or Casio
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I had some programs that were finicky with EPYX that worked better with Mach 5. EPYX came with some additional goodies and a DOS Wedge.
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Did you ever carry a pager?
Radio Shack's 1994 catalog advertised one that stored 16 messages.
Who was paging you? (Your mom counts.)
ALT A black Motorola LX2 Plus numeric pager on a white background. It has a wide gray-green LCD screen, the Motorola logo above it, and four buttons along the bottom, one marked with a green bar.
The boxes are the Commodore gear. There are all the variants I could find of 1541 and one 1571.
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Yes. I had one. Before that, I had the not-so-great model that had equals and + on the same button.
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