Viewing profile — Starwatcher2001

Been in software dev for 43 years. Done the 6am and 96 hour weeks. Then realised I'd missed a big part of my kids growing up, and once they were dead, spending little time with my …

I seem to recall that "Drain" spun up the motor on the floppy drive to create the spin dry cycle.

Amateur telescope makers can make glass mirrors accurate to 1/10 of the wavelength of light using very simple tools and processes. https://www.bbastrodesigns.com/JoyOfMirrorMaking/…

One of my first "serious" electronic builds in the 1970s was a variable, current limiting PSU from Heathkit. (Advertised in Practical Electronics). Used that together with a breadb…

“what have you been up to lately?” Be a little careful with this one. I asked a similarly worded question at an event over Easter got the answer "Burying my husband." Thankfully th…

My wife leaves the toilet door open when she's in there, which annoys me. One day I asked her why and she told me she used to do it deliberately when the children were little so sh…

I'm doing something similar. I've decided at 62 to learn to play the keyboard and be able to read music. It's late in the day but I'm slowly getting there 30 minutes a day.

"That still mystifies me: The 6502-equivalent of an if-clause was branch-not-equal (BNE), but how did that work in reality? What's happening on the silicone then? How can a lifeles…

Nicholas Carr's book "The shallows - What the internet is doing to out brains" is a little old (2011), but an eye-opening read. "One thing is very clear: if, knowing what we know t…

You might consider humanism. It provides purpose and community, without requiring a deity.

That looks great. Bookmarked to have a closer look. I cut my teeth on a Model 1 Level 2 in 1979 and have been coding ever since. Still have my original working one, a spare and a m…

>Replacement of nice physical controls with touch screens and touch panels. It's so nice to have tactile feedback when you turn a knob compared to pressing some virtual button. And…

I'd put it back in the box and return it as defective.

> I am terribly afraid of death That's understandable. I'm concerned for my loved ones and the impact it may have on them when I go, but I have no fear of death for myself. I have …

The TRS-80 level 1 ROM was 4k and the BASIC had the luxury of exactly 3 error messages: What? How? and Sorry.

Yup. Light pollution filters are practically useless now. When I started observing 25 years ago, galaxies and nebulae were viable targets from my back garden, now I'm limited to so…

Wonderful resource. I may well get around to clearing my collection from my loft.

Thanks for your site and message. Sorry but personally I found your article difficult to read. Your font choice and background, which seemed to me to overwhelm the text with little…

Thats a really good point. In a similar way the number of available technologies gets bigger and bigger as we age, more choices, more to know and more things to fiddle with. Decade…

I use a heirarchy of folders and within them I create a text file for each main task: \work\customername\StockSystem MyCust001 - Interface not updating PickStatus.txt MyCust002 - A…

I tried paper and log books for a long time (I've got half a filing cabinets worth), but no matter what system I used I couldn't always find what I wanted. (When did I last modify …

I know the feeling. I'm 62 and I can't go as long or as deep as I once could, but I've changed my strategy over the years and although I'm not as fast as I once was I'm still prett…

"First, very funny that with each comment the author is older." Yeah, not quite as quick off the mark as you youngsters :-). I posted a similar comment to yours in 2021: https://ne…

I'm 62 and have been in this industry for 40+ years. The BIGGEST regret in my entire life has been the time I spent as a young man working stupid hours on "super important" jobs, a…

I recall there was a whole paragraph written about the sound command and that 20Hz was the resonant frequency of a chicken's head, discovered empirically. Borland did seem to be a …