Toots for prokyonid@mastodon.sdf.org account

Written by prokyonid on 2025-01-18 at 15:04

I have a genuine question for #Amiga folks, no intention of shade or hostility here -

I am very new to the Amiga. I did not have one as a kid or ever use one in a professional capacity. My interest comes from curiosity and borrowed nostalgia.

My understanding is that many of the high-power mods for Amiga break compatibility with the original software from the 80s and 90s. So, besides demos, what exactly do you folks use them for?

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Written by prokyonid on 2025-01-11 at 16:31

At work, I was recently transferred to a different, underperforming location in hopes I could turn it around. Place was acquired about a year ago and immediately spiraled into the ground - my predecessor didn't even bother setting up the office, and it was being used as a combination storage closet / microwave room / mouse nest when I moved in. I'm in the industrial zoned part of town now, under a cloud of stinking filth and surrounded by factories.

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Written by prokyonid on 2025-01-06 at 04:57

Hey #amiga folks:

I have an Amiga 500 I'm interested in networking but I have other intentions for the parallel and serial ports. I know back in the day there were network adapters that used the Zorro expansion port on the side, and since I'm not planning on adding a HDD or an accelerator card I think that would be my ideal solution. Those units seem to be non-existant now though, so are there any modern, preferably open-source hardware Zorro network adapters?

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Written by prokyonid on 2024-12-29 at 08:57

8/8

So is that crossing the line into 'just emulate it' or is that simply a QoL improvement that everyone would have taken if it were an option in 198X?

I suppose I'll bust out a stack of 40-50 DD floppies and see how I feel about it in a few months.

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Written by prokyonid on 2024-12-29 at 08:51

7/n

I found this annoying when I first learned of it - I don't have a viable path to using a spinning rust HDD with my near-future ST, I'll be missing out on a part of the experience!

But that wasn't the experience - the experience was swapping all those disks, and unlike my Tandy 1000, at the time no one had the option to bypass the disk swaps by spending ludicrous money on a HDD - the hobbyists only modified the software to make it HDD compatible in recent years.

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Written by prokyonid on 2024-12-29 at 08:42

6/n

ST hard drives were generally just SCSI drives attached to a power supply and an adapter board to convert it to ACSI. Late in the ST's life, some folks would use IDE drives instead, either adapted direct to ACSI or through a chain of adapters ACSI to SCSI to IDE. Supposedly, there were hobbyist-built adapters for SCSI and IDE drives right up until someone figured out how to use SD cards as storage instead. Now, those old HDD adapters are apparently hard to find and expensive when you do.

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Written by prokyonid on 2024-12-29 at 08:31

5/n

Which brings me to what kicked off this whole train of thought: The early Atari STs had single-sided 3.5" floppy disk drives, so most commercial software was released in that format, meaning some software needed like a dozen disks you had to constantly swap between. Folks have now modified some of this old software to support loading from hard drive instead. Atari ST hard drives existed in the 80s/90s but would have been ruinously expensive for most home users.

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Written by prokyonid on 2024-12-29 at 08:23

4/n

I justify it to myself because if I were in the position in 198X to buy a hardcard for my Tandy vs boot from floppy, I would buy the hardcard, and the only reason I don't go that route now is that hardcards just don't really exist like that anymore.

Unlike the situation with my 1541 though, my Tandy functions perfectly as originally intended.

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Written by prokyonid on 2024-12-29 at 08:17

3/n

similarly, my x86 machines all have CF card readers but this is to facilitate backups - most boot off of actual IDE hard drives. The Tandy 1000TX is the exception, because I don't have a hardcard or anywhere to put an IDE drive, it boots from an XT-to-IDE internal CF card. I could (and did, for a while) boot from floppy, and that's kind of what has me thinking about the line between QoL and 'just emulate it' - booting from floppy is miserable.

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Written by prokyonid on 2024-12-29 at 08:04

2/n

I have an SD2IEC and a Pi1541 for my C64, because my actual 1541 doesn't work and I haven't found a reasonably priced replacement unit yet. I'll also load .tap files from an SD card to test functionality, but the ones I keep get recorded to an actual cassette and loaded from my actual tape drive. Yeah it's slow but that's part of the C64 experience. If I just wanted to run C64 software while using a terrible keyboard there are much simpler ways to go about it.

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Written by prokyonid on 2024-12-29 at 07:25

1/n

thinking about #retrocomputing as a concept - there is a line when it comes to hardware mods where you are leaving the realm of QoL / keeping things alive and entering into 'you should probably just emulate/get a MiSTer' territory

for example, with my machines, I always try to use legacy storage media - IDE HDDs, floppy disks, etc. I do have CF/SD adapters but this stuff is mostly used for backups or because a period-correct solution is unobtainable.

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Written by prokyonid on 2024-12-22 at 23:30

Yesterday, while at the home center to get plumbing supplies, my SO picked out a new lever-style door knob for the bathroom, complaining that the old round knobs that came with the house were getting to be difficult for her to open. I wasn't doing anything this afternoon, so I figured I'd go ahead and change it out really quick.

Turns out the old knobs were not made to the modern standard and the holes in door were way too small, so I got to learn how to bore new door handle holes.

[#]diy

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Written by prokyonid on 2024-12-22 at 05:59

DQ3 Remake Talk:

I have made it to Alefgard! There have been a few moments throughout the game where I have had to question the choice of the VO's pronunciation - Aliahan as 'Ollie-ahan' instead of 'Ally-ahan', for example - but how on Earth did they arrive at pronouncing Tantegel as 'Tanta-Jell'?

[#]videogames #dragonquest

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Written by prokyonid on 2024-12-01 at 01:46

I'm not exactly a high-brow literary type but I have to admit, if you remove the context some of these English haiku are pretty good

'Indeed at your age

The worry must be intense

Curse that vile monster'

Like in context it's about young women being eaten by the dragon Orochi, but remove the context and I could see that as a relevant haiku about just about anything going on in the world today

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Written by prokyonid on 2024-12-01 at 01:33

DQ3 update...

I have made it to Jipang...

They speak in haiku...

[#]videogames

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Written by prokyonid on 2024-11-27 at 00:57

I have got this huge pile of Steam codes for a bunch of different games, most of which I have never heard of or am not interested in. I think I'm going to start posting them here every so often. Don't take these posts as an endorsement, I literally have no idea what most of the games are. Here's a few:

HB5JV-53D06-VZ4F9 "Warhammer 40K Darktide"

IGLI8-8MX0E-TJ5AJ "Lamplighter's League"

FBGL2-EHEPY-Y74X9 "Cassette Beasts"

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Written by prokyonid on 2024-10-27 at 22:23

Projects in cleaning up the garage are finally starting to bear some fruit. These new shelves are dedicated to holding my various thrift store pickups in need of restoration. Still filling them up, but this is the first time I've been able to have all this stuff gathered together in a long time, so here's a picture.

[#]diy #retrotech #cassette #hifi

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Written by prokyonid on 2024-07-07 at 16:05

I'm not sure if my #phone is dying or if it's my SIM card, but I guess I need to figure out a plan for a replacement device, just in case. I'd be cutting out too many 'legacy' features for my liking with the current Pixels, so I'll have to use an OS other than #GrapheneOS. I'm willing to consider #Linux instead of #android, though back when I tried on my old #Pinephone no mobile distro was really ready for primetime. How are #LineageOS or #postmarketOS? Are there other alternatives?

[#]foss

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Written by prokyonid on 2024-06-02 at 16:55

I have an older flat panel TV with a good working display but the mainboard is conking out - several inputs no longer work and it no longer can process audio. I have heard that it is sometimes possible to convert these types of displays into standalone monitors, but have no idea what to look for. Can anyone provide any direction?

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Written by prokyonid on 2024-02-26 at 02:43

oops I broke both OSs again

Guess that means another reinstall is in my near future

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