Viewing profile — scruss

S-100 went as far as 68020 and Unix clones, but you'd be at a dead end there

Thing about the C65 is … what do you emulate? Since it only ever got to prototype stages, the original C65s that are out there run a bewildering array of slightly buggy systems. Al…

as someone with a visual processing disorder, this is like having a page scream at me. Repeatedly. Never do this

You might have luck on the wayback machine. But some of the links are really, really old: [Inscribing a regular pentagon in a circle – and proving it]( https://web.archive.org/web/…

Horizon was horrific. The spec was so old that the contract was with colonial favourites ICL, before they were fully renamed Fujitsu. Several postmasters committed suicide when the…

It's using CircuitPython, Adafruit's fork of MicroPython. The source is MIT-licensed, but the required credit is missing from the docs and distribution image.

if you want to see how it's done in modern plotters/CNC, Bart Dring's [Grbl_ESP32]( https://github.com/bdring/Grbl_Esp32 ) is fairly easy to follow with good docs. I have one of Ba…

didn't know about Engauge: thanks! I've always used [WebPlotDigitizer]( https://automeris.io/WebPlotDigitizer/ ), which doesn't require any installation

and you guys finally got rid of the US survey foot - the bane of this Canadian's existence when working on big civil jobs in the states. We'll get you guys using proper units afore…

HP-GL was always able to plot text labels and make graph data markers: it was meant for scientific graphs, after all. Later plotters added arc sectors and filled (hatched) polygons…

You can still make many HP and compatible laser printers speak HP-GL (well, HP-GL/2) through some arcane PJL commands. Fun fact: HP-GL is equally compatible with metric and US cust…

the mailing address for Ferranti-Cetec was at Crewe Toll. I have a vague memory of the Ferranti-Cetec office being further west, though, but I could be wrong

I'm always amazed when (or how) an article of mine shows up here. I suspect it came about through this twitter exchange regarding a mystery device that came with someone's Calcomp …

Hey - I wrote this article. Kind of surprised how popular it is; think I've had more hits today than I had all of last year. To me, the 4 GB Raspberry Pi 4 is quite an acceptable d…

You might not, but 90 people using other languages might appreciate it. That's a pretty good purpose. Substituting ᱁𑛂೩᮴୫᱆᥍𑇘᱙꘠ for 1234567890, though: that would definitely be con…

I wrote the article. I'm guessing not everyone on HN is a huge fan of “Strictly Ballroom”, as the title is a key quote for dance movie otaku. It was also a weak joke about testing …