DragonFly BSD Digest

Mini-theme: computer error.

• Astronomy community shapes their own destiny with Astropy.
• Debugging behind the Iron Curtain.  (via)
• Reddit stories on crazy bugs.
• A History of Modern Computer Crashing.
• Subcutanean, a book that changes the story every time it’s printed.
• In practice, there are two types of window managers in modern X.
• Figuring out how Amiga 500 RAM expansion projects work.
• Working “Teeny-Tiny Turntable”.
• Sorta related: Is Old Music Killing New Music?
• 22 indie games to look forward to in 2022.  (via)
• prior-art-dept.: OWL Guide, early hypertext, and “replacing” the Web.

Your unrelated personal frustration of the week: Legacy G Suite will no longer be free.   I need to figure out a self hosting solution.

That BBS link is possibly going to eat a zillion hours of your life.  Fair warning.

• Programming in 1987 Versus Today.  (via)
• late 1980s Czech video games.  (via)
• The Best Comics of 2021.
• Cursed.  It gets worse the longer you look at it.
• Haiku Contract Report: December 2021.  Linked cause I am unsure if X11 compatibility is good or bad for an ecosystem.
• World’s First Single Chip Apple II Boots.  (via)
• Public libraries are better than Google.  Sounds reactionary, but I just realized my last 3 real work conundrums were solved by library books.  (via)
• BBSing in the Snow Is the Best Way to Login.
• which led me to the Telnet BBS Guide.
• CathodeTV, like time travel to late night US TV circa 1979.  (via)

Mini-theme this week: small hardware projects.

• Casio watch + ARM.
• RPG Maker: History & Games.  (via)
• Please don’t use Discord for FOSS projects.  Cause then someone else owns your conversation, and the conversation is part of the project.
• Welcoming Recorded Music to the Public Domain.
• TinyNES: An open hardware NES using the original 6502-derived chips.  It’s cute!  (via)
• Get Your Classic Macintosh Online & More! RaSCSI Review and Tutorial.  Also aggressively cute!  (via)
• 202?
• Open Source Security Process Wishlist.
• Stampadia, print and play roguelike.  (via)
• 50 Years of Text Games: 2020: Scents & Semiosis.  This is the last game in the series, and here’s a post about what’s next.
• The Gift of It’s Your Problem Now.   I don’t agree with the political analogy, but there are good points.
• On Max Headroom: The Most Misunderstood Joke on TV.

I almost scheduled this post for 2021/01/02.

• Zolatron 64 – first PCBs.  I like that while the common market for processors is unfortunately only Intel or Apple, small-scale new platforms have become possible on a relatively trivial budget.  (via)
• Make ping audible.  Turn up the volume and you can tell when you plug in the correct cable in another room.
• Sustainable creativity in a world without copyright.  I am sympathetic but it confuses work-for-hire terms with copyright.
• Welcoming Recorded Music to the Public Domain.  Speaking of copyright…
• 50 Years of Text Games: 2019: A.I. Dungeon.  The penultimate chapter.
• Monitoring the vintage server room (and reverse-engineering USB sensors).  I need to set up some temperature sensors too.
• Embarrassing product names created: Windows CE.
• Introduction to the Sam Text Editor.  Your non-Emacs/non-vi link of the day.  (via)
• Software can just never be done it seems.
• mkrl/misbrands: The world’s most hated IT stickers.  The original misconception, 20 years old.  I hate this, I love this.  (via)
• A followup:  I went back to the Ether device I linked a few weeks ago; it seems worth buying just because it’s so different.  Following links to stores that sell it took me down a rabbit hole of analog interfaces on audio equipment.  Note that every store “sells” with a shot of the dials, cause it’s so fun to see.