SBC6120 build: day 1(-ish)

SBC6120 (RBC Edition) with all the sockets

Just started on a SBC6120 RBC Edition kit. It’s a DEC PDP-8-compatible single board computer that uses a CMOS chipset from the early 1980s. Yes, it will be very slow, even with the optional speedy 8 MHz oscillator installed. With a 12-bit processor and 32 kilo-words of RAM, this is definitely going to be a Slow Computing device.

Lots and lots of sockets. So many sockets. It’s quite soothing soldering them all in, one hole at a time. It looks like it’ll go more quickly than the Zeta did.

> Does anyone know what each of the pins on the 6502 CPU chip in the Apple II Plus does?
They all plug into the socket on the motherboard to keep the chip from drifting away. – c.s.a2 FAQ of yore

eben’s bbc basic programmes

I wrote this as a comment to Learn to write games for the BBC Micro with Eben – Raspberry Pi, but it didn’t seem to save:

BeebEm? Lawks, that’s a bit old (2006). All the cool (*cough*) kids are running b-em – https://github.com/stardot/b-em – these days. It’s lovingly maintain by Stardot forum members. It’s a little crashy on some Linux platforms, but seems stable on the Raspberry Pi and Raspbian. You may need to install the liballegro5-dev and zlib1g-dev packages to get it to compile.

If you want a native version of BBC BASIC, Richard Russell’s version is pretty neat: http://www.bbcbasic.co.uk/bbcsdl/ . You’ll most likely need to change line 280 to use some variant of the WAIT command to make it playable.

Another native interpreter is Brandy. There’s an ancient one in the repos, but I’m completely taken with the Matrix Brandy fork: https://github.com/stardot/MatrixBrandy . It may need a few packages installed to get it to build (libsdl1.2-dev might be a good first try), but it’s really fast. For cross-platform happiness, change line 280 to WAIT 10. If you stick to using a FOR loop, you might have to have it as high as 2,000,000 on a fast computer!

Lastly, if you want to run the game in a browser, JSBeeb to the rescue: https://bbc.godbolt.org/?autorun&loadBasic=https://gist.githubusercontent.com/scruss/f5a8eb83f28b85d6399142cac460c806/raw/74c4e39de7661bb2e3dd7f435840dd8db7172589/helicopter.bbc
It’s a bit slow in Chromium on a Raspberry Pi, but it does work!

Comprehensive Uncle TechTip Simulator

Around 1988–1991 there was a weekly computer magazine in the UK called New Computer Express. This period coincided roughly with the time I was a freelance writer in the same field.

For childish reasons now lost to time, a group of us freelancers had a major hate-on for  NCE’s advice columnist. Writing under the name Uncle TechTip, this columnist seemed to answer most questions with something like “Hmm, I don’t know anything about _____. Maybe a reader can help?” Almost without fail, he’d have readers write in answers for next week’s issue.

Not realizing that Uncle TT’s economy of response was a sly precursor to crowdsourcing websites, the neophyte journo brigade were incensed by his lack of knowledge. One of us wrote an Uncle TechTip Simulator in BASIC, which I recreate from memory for your enjoyment:

10 CLS
15 PRINT " *** Uncle TechTip Simulator ***"
20 PRINT
25 INPUT "What is your question for Uncle TechTip";a$
30 PRINT
35 PRINT "Uncle TechTip's Answer: "
40 PRINT
45 PRINT "Hmm, I don't know anything about"
50 PRINT " ";a$;" ..."
55 PRINT "Maybe a reader can help?"

Using SI prefixes/multipliers in spreadsheets

Note: I’ve lightly tested this with Microsoft Excel (Windows 10), Excel Online, Google Sheets and LibreOffice Calc. It seems to work. Like all spreadsheet data conversions, please verify before trusting your PhD thesis tables to it …

Asked on the GTALUG mailing list the other week:

Does anybody know how to display and work with SI numbers like 10k or 
20M or 40G within LibreOffice?

I came up with the following formula, in this example for data in cell D3:

=IF(LEN(T(D3))=0, D3, CONVERT(VALUE(LEFT(D3, LEN(D3) - 1)),
    RIGHT(D3, 1) & "m", "m"))

which results in:

Input Value
1u 1.00E-06
10u 10.00E-06
100u 100.00E-06
1m 1.00E-03
10m 10.00E-03
100m 100.00E-03
1 1.00E+00
10 10.00E+00
100 100.00E+00
1k 1.00E+03
10k 10.00E+03
100k 100.00E+03
1M 1.00E+06

The right column is displayed in LibreOffice Calc’s newly(ish)-supported engineering notation.

This function works through creative (mis-)use of the CONVERT() function:

  1. if the argument is a numeric value, pass it through;
  2. if the argument is a string, return CONVERT(«numeric part», "«prefix»m", "m"). This is lightly misusing overloading the unit conversion function by going via metres, but it saves having a lookup table.

This function doesn’t work with IEC 60027-2 binary prefixes, but they’re silly and I wouldn’t be caught dead using ’em.

vase mode

I’m still a sucker for vase mode/spiral contour prints … this one made in OpenSCAD:

Thanks to Andrew at ProtoLab for the loan of the PrintrBot. I’ve got a demo at UofT on Wednesday, and my Reach 3D isn’t exactly portable. Yeah, I should probably get a cheap Monoprice printer to lug around to occasional demos, but I’d need to find a donor …

Thingiverse Customizer: a tiny guide

Thingiverse‘s Customizer allows users to customize suitable OpenSCAD models without knowing any OpenSCAD code. While it does have some documentation to help developers along, there’s still a lot of guesswork.

I released my first (working!) Customizer design the other week: Parametric Finger Pen Holder (Vertical). While the docs are the primary source of developer information, you might want to know the following:

  • Customizer assumes that every variable defined before the first module definition in the script is a user parameter. To give it a hint that it should stop displaying variables, add an empty module (such as module naff() { }) after the last variable definition you want Customizer to display.
    (There’s supposed to be a CUSTOMIZER VARIABLES/CUSTOMIZER VARIABLES END comment pair that will do this too, but it didn’t work for me)
  • Customizer will fail if there’s any character other than strict ASCII in the script, and won’t give useful diagnostics about the problem. Check your comments for accents and fancy punctuation
  • Customizer displays a real-time preview of your model. This means the rendering will be a little rough, especially if you use set operations such as union(), difference() and intersection(). If you have to hit F6 to render your model in OpenSCAD properly, it’s going to look a bit off in Customizer
  • If you must use resource-intensive functions such as hull() and minkowski(), try to limit them to 2D paths that are subsequently extruded. Everyone else in the Customizer job queue will thank you
  • Similarly, keep the circle smoothness variables ($fa, $fn, $fs) in sensible ranges
  • Customizer creates a new Thing under your name rather than just letting you download your customized model. You likely want to delete that once you’re finished with it.
    (This also means that Customizer only works for registered Thingiverse users. I can’t see any way around this, unfortunately)

“space acid poisoning …”

Thanks to users sbadger and lurkio on the stardot forum, I’ve been reunited the original BBC BASIC one-liner that begat 2d Star Dodge/Stardodger: Asterisk Tracker!

game screen with zigzag line (you) vs static white asterisks and a frame around the screen. The object is to get through a small gap in the right hand side of the fram and avoid all the asterisks, using only one key
Asterisk Tracker

It was published in the December 1984 edition of BEEBUG Magazine (vol. 3, issue 7; page 9) and is credited to N. Silver.

It’s impossibly short:

1L=0:REP.L=L+3:MO.4:DR.1279,0:DR.1279,452:MOVE1279,572:DR.1279,1023:DR.0,1023:F.I=1TOL:V.31,RND(32)+5,RND(31),42,30:N.:P.(L-3)/3:X=0:Y=512:REP.PL.69,X,Y:X=X+4:Y=Y-(INKEY-74+.5)*8:U.PO.X,Y)=1ORX=1280:U.X<1280:V.7:REP.U.INKEY-99:RUN

It makes extensive use of BBC BASIC’s abbreviations, and the writeup even warns

… Here the programs are extensively abbreviated so that the line will fit into Basic’s keyboard buffer. Because of this, you cannot edit a LISTed version, and so, to allow for errors, it is best to spool out a copy of the text to tape/disc initially. This can be achieved as follows:

*SPOOL PROGRAM
type in program
*SPOOL

The program unwinds to something much more understandable:

   10 L=0
20 REPEAT
30 L=L+3
40 MODE 4
50 DRAW 1279,0
60 DRAW 1279,452
70 MOVE 1279,572
80 DRAW 1279,1023
90 DRAW 0,1023
100 FOR I=1 TO L
110 VDU 31,RND(32)+5,RND(31),42,30
120 NEXT
130 PRINT (L-3)/3
140 X=0
150 Y=512
160 REPEAT
170 PLOT 69,X,Y
180 X=X+4
190 Y=Y-(INKEY(-74)+.5)*8
200 UNTIL POINT(X,Y)=1 OR X=1280
210 UNTIL X<1280
220 VDU 7
230 REPEAT UNTIL INKEY(-99)
240 RUN

The instructions are typical of the day:

The first game (called “Asterisk Tracker”) is a very simple game in which you have to guide a “snake” across the screen, whilst avoiding the stars. As the game progresses, more and more stars will be displayed, and the ease of the game rapidly disappears. The Return key guides the “snake” upwards, but it moves down if Return is not pressed. Aim your “snake” for the gap in the wall, and don’t touch any objects as this causes instant death from space acid poisoning!

Um, yeah, N. Silver, whatevs …

It’s pretty amazing that three type-ins could fit on a page: especially when you consider that the BEEBUG magazine was A5!

page of text from Beebug magazine, including full program text and description of the game
beebug vol 3 issue 7 page 9

If you want to play it (and who wouldn’t? We wasted days on this game) you can either run this Asterisk Tracker alone in the browser: Asterisk Tracker, or lurkio has combined them into one, and put them here: Beebug One-Line Games (Asterisk Tracker, a Truffle Hunt clone, and a treasure hunt).

I just wish Graeme Smith were still with us to play this.

Rob Manuel’s British Council Tile / Bus Fabric Sim

Rob’s British Council Tile / Bus Fabric Sim — described here: Amstrad BASIC that approximates the tiling schemes that a local council might have used for a municipal building in the 1970s — is a joy. So few colours!

No, really: this *was* the seat pattern on Western SMT buses circa 1979

Because I care (and don’t if you don’t), here’s the Locomotive BASIC source, lovingly typed into the Caprice32 emulator then extracted as text using iDsk:


10 ' British Council Tile / Bus Fabric Sim
20 ' by Rob Manuel 2018
30 '
40 ' z/x - change char up/down (ascii)
50 ' space - random palette
60 ' c - show ascii val, inks & pause
70 ' v - random character (128+ ascii)
80 ' b - random char and cols
90 ' n - fill with same line & pause
100 'i - input ascii value
110 '
120 ON BREAK GOSUB 260:MODE 1:LOCATE 1,26
130 DEF FNs=INT(RND*255)
140 SYMBOL 255,FNs,FNs,FNs,FNs,FNs,FNs,FNs,FNs
150 DEF FNp=INT(RND*4)
160 DEF FNi=INT(RND*26)
170 GOSUB 470
180 GOSUB 270
190 o$="":i$=INKEY$
200 IF i$<>"" THEN GOSUB 380
210 FOR i=1 TO 40
220 w$=CHR$(14)+CHR$(FNp)+CHR$(15)+CHR$(FNp)
230 w$=w$+CHR$(c):o$=o$+w$:NEXT i
240 store$=o$
250 PRINT o$;:GOTO 190
260 CALL &BC02:PAPER 0:PEN 1:END
270 aa=FNi:bb=FNi:cc=FNi:dd=FNi
280 INK 0,aa:INK 1,bb:INK 2,cc:INK 3,dd
290 BORDER aa
300 GOSUB 320:RETURN
310 IF c>255 THEN c=32:IF c<32 THEN c=255
320 LOCATE 1,1:PAPER 0:PEN 1
330 PRINT "C:"c;
340 PRINT CHR$(c);
350 PRINT " ";
360 PRINT "I:"aa;bb;cc;dd;
370 LOCATE 1,26:RETURN
380 IF i$=" " THEN GOSUB 270:RETURN
390 IF i$="z" THEN c=c-1:GOSUB 310:RETURN
400 IF i$="x" THEN c=c+1:GOSUB 310:RETURN
410 IF i$="c" THEN GOSUB 310:CALL &BB18:RETURN
420 IF i$="i" THEN LOCATE 1,1:INPUT "ASCII?",c:GOSUB 310:RETURN
430 IF i$="v" THEN GOSUB 470:GOSUB 310:RETURN
440 IF i$="b" THEN GOSUB 270:GOSUB 470:GOSUB 310:RETURN
450 IF i$="n" THEN FOR i=1 TO 25:PRINT store$;:NEXT:CALL &BB18:RETURN
460 RETURN
470 c=INT(RND*128)+127:RETURN

And if you really care, here’s an emulator snapshot — BritishCouncilTileSim.zip

Update: I modified the code slightly (essentially, all INT(RND*n) to RND MOD n) so it would compile with Hisoft Turbo Basic. It works! It’s faster!

Snapshot: BritishCouncilTileSimCompiled.zip

Apple IIgs: before and after graphics

Unless you have the heavy analogue Apple CRT that was specially made for it, composite video output on the Apple IIgs is utterly dismal:

Apple IIgs: composite to LCD display

Adding an Apple IIgs → SCART cable through a SCART to HDMI converter is much better:

Apple IIgs: via SCART and HDMI

There’s still a little bit of shimmer to the background, but at least text is legible.

OpenSCAD might not’ve been the best choice here

OpenSCAD might not’ve been the best choice here

Yup, lots of circles, intersections, differences and offsets went into this attempt at the logo of my favourite museum.

For the determined/demented, here’s the source. It’s probably not that useful for learning OpenSCAD, as it’s written in my typical “carve away all the bits that don’t look like an elephant” style:

// akm logo - why yes this *is* a good tool to use ...

// constants for octagon maths
r1 = 1 - sqrt(2) / 2;           // ~0.292893
r2 = sqrt(r1);                  // ~0.541196
x1 = (sqrt(2) - 1) / 2;         // ~0.207107

sc = 100;                       // size factor
t = 4;                          // line thickness
bigt = 7;                       // strapwork gap thickness
$fn = 256;                      // OpenSCAD circle smoothness

module petal() {
    intersection() {
        translate([ sc * x1, sc * x1])circle(r = sc * r2);
        translate([-sc * x1, sc * x1])circle(r = sc * r2);
    }
}

module hollow_petal() {
    difference() {
        offset(r =  t / 2)petal();
        offset(r = -t / 2)petal();
    }
}

module inner_lobe() {
    difference() {
        for (i = [0:3]) {
            rotate(i * 90 + 45)offset(r = t / 2)petal();
        }
        for (i = [0:3]) {
            rotate(i * 90 + 45)offset(r = -t / 2)petal();
        }
    }
}

module ring() {
    for (i = [0:3]) {
        rotate(i * 90)difference() {
            intersection() {
                inner_lobe();
                union() {
                    offset(r = -bigt / 2)petal();
                    rotate(45)offset(r = t / 2)petal();
                }
            }
            rotate(90)offset(r = bigt / 2)petal();
        }
    }
}

module logo() {
    union() {
        ring();
        for (i = [0:3]) {
            rotate(90 * i)union() {
                intersection() {
                    hollow_petal();
                    rotate(-90)offset(r = -bigt / 2)petal();
                }
                difference() {
                    intersection() {
                        hollow_petal();
                        rotate(45)offset(r = -bigt / 2)petal();
                    }
                    rotate(-90)offset(r = bigt / 2)petal();
                }
                
                difference() {
                    hollow_petal();
                    offset(r = bigt / 2)union() {
                        rotate(-90)petal();
                        rotate(45)petal();
                    }
                }       
            }
        }
    }
}

logo();

Flashprint except without the prints falling over

I use a FlashForge Creator Pro 3D printer for work. It’s okay, but I wouldn’t recommend it: you have to manually level the print bed (ಠ_ಠ), you can’t print via USB, it pretends to be a knock-off MakerBot (same USB ID: naughty naughty) and its slicing software is a mishmash of GPL and other code all bundled up in one proprietary lump. It also doesn’t used g-code, which is a bit poo.

3d print fail
As Vik said: “The Flying Spaghetti Monster has cast forth His noodly appendage and made output in His own image.”

I have been having endless trouble will tall prints losing adhesion, falling over, and leaving a noodly mess everywhere. I’ve fixed it by making some manual changes to the config file, the process as described here: Flashprint advanced print settings by editing the default.cfg configuration file. What I changed was:

[brim]
enable = true                  # valid range {true, false}, default is false # CHANGED
extruderId = 0                  # valid range {0, 1}, default is 0
margin = 10.0                    # valid range [1.0, 10.0], default is 5.0   # CHANGED
layerCnt = 2                    # valid range [1, 5], default is 1           # CHANGED
speed = 60                      # valid range [10, 200], default is 60
excludeInterior = true         # valid range {true, false}, default is false # CHANGED

This makes a colossal double-width, double thickness brim around the prints so that they will not topple. I’m very happy with the results so far.

Rather than mucking about with config files, if you enable “Expert Mode” in Flashprint’s preferences:

Then you can make a brim that stops prints coming off the print bed.

expert brim settings = prints not fall over

And lo, there was much rejoicing …

23½ hour print job done! (They’re LipSync shells, btw)

Eugene’s fishing line header hack for Raspberry Pi Zero

0.38 mm / 5.4 kg test Trilene threaded through Raspberry Pi Zero header holes
0.38 mm / 5.4 kg test Trilene threaded through Raspberry Pi Zero header holes holds jumper wires snugly without soldering

Eugene “thirtytwoteeth” Andruszczenko (of Game Boy Zero – Handheld Edition fame) posted a neat idea to help your Raspberry Pi Zero take jumper wires without soldering. He threaded fishing line through the 40 hole header, making an interference fit for header pins. I tried it with 0.38 mm Trilene, which worked rather well.

Rose plots

source by Dan Anderson: https://www.openprocessing.org/sketch/519299
Enlarged and plotted on a Roland DXY pen plotter: 0.7 mm black pen on design vellum.

Full page:

Even if the 0.7 mm pen is a bit chunky for fine guilloché effects, the plotter output is pretty crisp. Here’s a detail at full resolution:

select this to see the full resolution scan. Original is just under 6 cm wide

Unfortunately, an earlier attempt to print this figure using a fresh-out-the-box 20+-year-old HP SurePlot ¼ mm pen on glossy drafting paper resulted in holes in the paper and an irreparably gummed-up pen. If anyone knows how to unblock these pens, I’m all ears …

birb chirper v2.0

This is one of those toys that you whirl around on a piece of string and it makes a chirping sound like a flock of sparrows. I have no idea what they’re called, so I called it birb_chirper.

Print Settings

Printer: Reach 3D
Rafts: Doesn’t Matter
Supports: Doesn’t Matter
Resolution: 0.3 mm
Infill: 0%

Notes: This is a thin-walled model, so use at least two shells and no infill for smooth walls.

Post-Printing

Take a piece of thin string about 1 metre long (I used micro-cord, very fine paracord), pass it through the hole in the tip, then tie off a jam knot that’s big enough to stop in the hole in the top but still pass back through the slot in the side. Now whirl the thing around fast by the string, and it should start to chirp.

This is intended for the amusement of small children and the annoyance of adults.

How I Designed This

The tip of this thing is an ogee curve. I’ve included my library for creating simple ogee and ogive profiles in OpenSCAD.

// ogive-ogee example
// scruss, 2018
use <ogive_and_ogee.scad>;
ogive(20, 35);
translate([0, -5])text("ogive(20,35)", size=3);
translate([30, 0])ogee(20, 35);
translate([30, -5])text("ogee(20,35)", size=3);

Download: Thingiverse —birb_chirper by scruss. Local copy: birb_chirper.zip

Plotting a card …

I made this two-colour plotted card for the MeFi “holiday card exchange – v.e.” thing. Pen plotter is a Roland DG DXY-1300 (1990s) using Roland 0.3 mm fibre-tip pens. Plot size is 123 × 91 mm, and is driven entirely from Inkscape 0.92.

Building (but not necessarily running) Amiberry on Raspberry Pi 3

I might not have Amiberry — an optimized Amiga emulator for Raspberry Pi — running quite yet, but the build instructions at midwan/amiberry are a bit lacking. If you want to compile it under Raspbian Stretch, you’ll need the following packages:
sudo apt install libsdl2-dev libxml2-dev libxml2-utils libsdl2-ttf-dev libsdl2-image-dev
This will at least allow you to get it to build correctly with:
make -j2 PLATFORM=rpi3-sdl2-dispmanx
More later when/if I get it working.