@kroc@mstdn.social
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kroc

@kroc@mstdn.social

Code is art

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thelastpsion, to random
@thelastpsion@bitbang.social avatar

Currently trying to decide whether I should work on getting the #FreePascal 16-bit DOS cross-compiler to work with the medium memory model, or if I should just keep ploughing on with coding without really knowing if the code I'm writing works on DOS.

The cross-compiler should just work. I'm using the binaries, fpc.cfg matches the wiki, and I've checked my command line switches (-WmMedium). It sticks stubbornly with the small memory model.

kroc,
@kroc@mstdn.social avatar

@thelastpsion If the number of people using your code reaches 1, you cannot divide the user base any further :P

kroc, to random
@kroc@mstdn.social avatar

This #Palworld game is like #Pokemon but answers the practical questions left unanswered in Pokémon’s world in the most 2006 way possible. If the question begins “wait, can I…” the answer is probably yes but also far, far darker than you were expecting

kroc, to random
@kroc@mstdn.social avatar

played on a drum kit.
No, not the music, the drum kit is the controller.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93KJcGlBxmE

thelastpsion, to random
@thelastpsion@bitbang.social avatar

I've been trying to break the original CTRAN.EXE in the #Psion SIBO C SDK to see how it works. Here's what I've found.

  • Whitespace at the start of every line is stripped.
  • Everything is ignored until it finds a line that starts with IMAGE or LIBRARY.
  • IMAGE and LIBRARY have one argument. Everything after that argument is ignored.
  • The next non-empty line has to begin with EXTERNAL, INCLUDE or CLASS, or begin with ! for a comment. Everything else fails with "Syntax error."
kroc,
@kroc@mstdn.social avatar

@thelastpsion Have you considered pre-processing it a bit with regex?

markmoxon, to retrocomputing

Ooh, I'm in The Register, talking about Elite:

https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/18/elite_game_retro/

Can't believe I'm in the same interview as Ian Bell. Achievement unlocked!

kroc,
@kroc@mstdn.social avatar

@markmoxon I'm amazed they managed to hunt down Ian Bell and actually get him to speak!? People have been trying for decades

thelastpsion, to random
@thelastpsion@bitbang.social avatar

I'm trying to work out where the line is between a lexer (tokeniser) and a parser.

How far should a lexer go before it's doing stuff that a parser should do? Should the lexer have some intelligence about what it's expecting to see next, or what needs to be ignored (e.g. comments)? Or should the lexer just make tokens and leave the rest to be left to the parser?

I'm not building a as such, but the principles are basically the same for a preprocessor.

kroc,
@kroc@mstdn.social avatar

@thelastpsion Lexer separates and identifies words and the parser pieces together structure / semantics. The lexer takes in text and outputs types and the parser takes in types (it never walks strings) and outputs the AST

kroc,
@kroc@mstdn.social avatar

@thelastpsion I.e. it is the lexer’s job to know that “1+1” is three words, not one, and the parsers job to know that this is an expression (it doesn’t care about the actual values)

kroc,
@kroc@mstdn.social avatar

@thelastpsion Comments have no semantic value, the lexer should be skipping them entirely, no?

kroc,
@kroc@mstdn.social avatar

@thelastpsion Do some tests with Psion's tool as to the minimum amount of whitespace separation that constitutes a comment. When your lexer sees that much whitespace, it can skip to the end of the line. A certain amount of whitespace really isn't any different to "//" or any other comment marker -- you can't start a comment in the middle of a string

kroc,
@kroc@mstdn.social avatar

@thelastpsion Is it just a fixed column number?

kroc, to random
@kroc@mstdn.social avatar

The seriously amazing TGV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEgAgJc8Heg

kroc, to random
@kroc@mstdn.social avatar

Had a dream in which I was in a parallel world where step ladders had not been invented and no matter how hard I tried to explain, nobody could understand the concept

markmoxon, to retrocomputing

Angus Duggan's Elite-A is a masterpiece of hacking, taking the original BBC Micro version of Elite and extending it with more ship designs, the ability to buy and sell different ships, delivery missions, an encyclopedia and lots more. It is legendary, and quite right too.

But Elite-A was only released for the BBC Micro, and it simply hangs if you try it on a BBC Master.

Until now, that is!

Elite-A contains a bunch of not-quite-finished code that tries to make it work on the Master, so I've extended and debugged this until, finally, it's working. Elite-A's version for the 6502 Second Processor also now works on the BBC Master's internal co-pro, for maximum luxury.

And it’s also available in a version with flicker-free ships, which looks really slick.

For more details and download links, see this Stardot thread:

https://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=28376

Enjoy!

kroc,
@kroc@mstdn.social avatar

@markmoxon These kind of extensions are what I want for the C64 version but with much better balance and QoL; Elite 128 is no good if balance issues can't be fixed by anybody other than Uz (the author). Now I don't remember if it's an Elite A, B or 128 thing, but there's one of them where buying an extended hull slows your sidewinder down, making you a sitting-duck for pirates so trading is a no go. Really it should perhaps reduce max jump distance rather than reduce speed.

kroc,
@kroc@mstdn.social avatar

@markmoxon If you ever decide to make your own Elite mod (Elite C?) I am a font of ideas and a UX designer. It just occurred to me that rather than changing ship and fittings between trade/bounty/mining, you could rent a ship at a system (with insurance) to do a mining job without crippling your own ship or throwing away good parts

kroc, to random
@kroc@mstdn.social avatar

Oddly specific… https://youtube.com/watch?v=C0cCKmCj8ew&si=re2utJ_o8gawL7oV

kroc, to random
@kroc@mstdn.social avatar

Since I've got a new laptop I've decided to set up my previous machine with Linux and I'm trying out some distros, or, "The agony of UX blindness in the Linux world"

kroc,
@kroc@mstdn.social avatar

#Zorin OS: https://zorin.com/os/ Decently professional and easy to use with an interface chooser for different Windows / Mac-style layouts. Application title bars are way oversized and you can't change it. Worse of all, the titlebar buttons' click region doesn't extend to the corner. What the hell is it with modern software and the complete abandonment of Fitts's Law!??

kroc,
@kroc@mstdn.social avatar

#System76 #PopOS Widescreens were a mistake. I can't even with how much screen space is wasted. You can hide the dock or move it to the right, but that bar at the top isn't even a global menu like Mac meaning you get a stack of bars if the window has its own toolbar -- here I've forced the toolbar on Firefox to demonstrate; VSCode does this but I can't install that on a live CD.

kroc,
@kroc@mstdn.social avatar

@thomholwerda 14" Laptop.

kroc,
@kroc@mstdn.social avatar

@bbbbbr You can hide / move the dock but I’m just not a fan of the system bar + title bar + toolbar combo. This seems to be a GNOME thing so I’m going to try some KDE distros instead

kroc,
@kroc@mstdn.social avatar

@thomholwerda I understand for a desktop but that is very strange for a small laptop! My previous machine had only 1366x768 which is the effective minimum for viewing webpages now and even though I’ve finally upgraded to HD the UI is too small at 100% so I have to run at 125% scale which effectively puts me back where I was :|

kroc,
@kroc@mstdn.social avatar

@sean_earle @bbbbbr Yes, Linux Mint is probably a safe bet; I really dislike what Ubuntu became

markmoxon, to random

I appreciate this is a niche within a niche within a niche, but if you:

  1. Have a soft spot for Acornsoft Elite

  2. Have a BBC Master, or BBC micro with 6502 Second Processor

  3. Have an Econet network to which your Beeb is connected

...then you might be interested in my newest (tentative) release, and you might be able to help me test it.

I've put together updated versions of BBC Master and 6502 Second Processor Elite that should work when loaded from a fileserver over Econet.

Once installed, users can log in to the network and do either *ELITE or *ELITESP to play a fully working version of Master or 6502SP Elite respectively (the latter should work on both the BBC Master Turbo and BBC Micro with co-pro).

Commander files are saved in each individual user's home folder, so everyone has their own collection of save files.

I would love to have some feedback on whether this works for others! If you’re interested, all the details and links you need are here:

https://www.stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=28355

kroc,
@kroc@mstdn.social avatar

@markmoxon The National Museum of Computing is the only place I know of with a full classroom of Beebs, apparently all connected via econet! https://www.tnmoc.org/classroom

kroc, (edited ) to mastodon
@kroc@mstdn.social avatar

So what do we call it? #Mastodon

kroc, to retrocomputing
@kroc@mstdn.social avatar

Do any other #retrocomputing peeps get dreams where you come across a bunch of old computers of yours that your brain is telling you you used to own but had completely forgot existed? I live in constant fear of the uncertainty if one day I go back to my parents house I’ll find like 12 computers I forgot I ever owned and now have to deal with.

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