I write about the past, present, and future of technology across three sites. imapenguin.com explores retro computing and programming fundamentals, milkcrunch.com covers modern software development and engineering culture, and evadot.com examines commercial spaceflight and the new space movement.
Posts
RSS- This HP32SII has been in my bag every day for about 25 years. Simple, rugged and powerful. But this HP Prime is really growing on me… hmmm.
- Working on "cracking" simple ciphers on old computers next. Letter frequency, then word frequency. Step one works well enough #commodore
- Coincidence that this person shares my name. But I’ve found my 2022 overall theme.
- Permutations of 1 to 9 in Python, BASIC, and 6502 Assembly · imapenguin
- Permutations of 1 to 9 in Assembly/Machine Language, BASIC, and Python. It only took 30 hours in BASIC ;-) (Python was 2 seconds without optimizing) You know, for science https://imapenguin.com/permutations-of-1-to-9-in-6502-assembly/ #commodore #python
- Sonic for the C64 is out today. I happen to have a 64C in my collection that's PAL. So combined with the UltimateII+, its 1581 drive, and 16MB REU, this game runs very very well. #commodore
- Some people watch TV, I sort out graph theory concepts in a machine code monitor with my “laptop”. Like what you like and don’t apologize for it. #commodore
- I was just thinking that this morning instead of being productive or doing holiday stuff I’d count how many times I can unintentionally hit the CAPS and break keys. #atari
- A twin with actual head room. Now there’s a crazy idea.
- What, that program only took... 29 hours. Don't ask questions ;-) #commodore
- I really enjoyed Nick’s “Racing the Beam” so I figure this will be my next weekend reading.
- Making and breaking codes Part 14: VIC Cipher on the Commodore VIC-20 · imapenguin
- Can you do #adventofcode with 40 year old machines? The answer is “some of it”. Even counting takes a long time, let's get into some of the details. https://imapenguin.com/can-you-do-advent-of-code-on-8-bit-machines/ #commodore
- Can you do Advent of Code on 8-Bit Machines? · imapenguin
- Finally getting back to writing up some of the ciphers I’ve done but not yet published. Only took like a 5 month break (detour?) Tomorrow I’ll post the VIC Cipher on the VIC20 which does just barely fit on an unexpanded VIC. #commodore
- Hard not to be in awe of nature sometimes. These burrs are particularly good at clinging to sweatshirts.
- I have been doing Breadth and Depth First Searches on Apple II and Commodore for a couple months, so Day 12 of #AdventOfCode was doable (but slow) on a C64. END is a keyword in BASIC so I changed it to FIN #commodore
- Airplane isn’t going to build itself even if it’s 38 in here. #myzenith750
- We bought a whole Mangalica pig from a local farm, used a local butcher. Having the whole animal means you have to use scraps, everything. Made some “cottage bacon” with some pieces and happened to have decent ingredients for an English breakfast (dinner).
- For #AdventOfCode Day 8 Part 2, figured it out in Python first to wrap my brain around how to do it iteratively. After an "ah ha" moment in sorting the unique segments it clicked. Python: 0.04 seconds and PET: 25 minutes.I could refactor it to be faster but not bad. #commodore