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2024-05-08
It's been a long time since I wrote anything here, so I think it
is time to revive this space. What have I been up to for the last
few months?
To begin with, I've picked photography up again. The last few months
it has been pretty hard to motivate myself to do anything creatively,
but now that spring has finally come into bloom, my mood has returned
and I find joy in it again. I recently took my old D90 out for a
stroll. Unfortunately it jammed during the first few hours of use,
and It seems that it is the shutter that is malfunctioning because of
lack of use and lubrication. To get to the shutter, you'd need to quite
extensively disassemble the camera it seems, so I've put it on the
shelf for now. There are a few instructions on how you can lubricate
the shutter without complete disassembly, but I have yet to try it.
Instead, I got a deal for a used D800 and a few good lenses; a
Nikkor 50mm f/1.4, and a Nikkor 35-105mm f/3.5-4.5. These are both
good lenses, since I can also use them on my analog gear like the
Nikon F50 I recently got, and the Nikon FM (my favorite). Digital
photography has been off-putting to me for a long time, but I have
just started to change that conviction, and I think it has helped me
get back the joy for photography in general.
I've also recently been doing a lot of playing around with CP/M Plus on
the Z80-MBC2. I recently ordered and built the Z80-MBC2 from the open
schematics. It has been a fun challange, and it runs pretty well. I
previously had a re-designed version called the Z80-MBC3, that I bought
in kit-form from Tindie, but unfortunately the creator didn't publish
the changes he had made to the IOS, which runs on the MCU. So my idea
that it would be fun to get Fuzix running on it (since it has since
been introduced in the MBC2-IOS and diskset) were scrapped, and I built
the MBC2 instead for that purpose. Unfortunately Fuzix does not seem
very stable on this platform, and I have suffered a lot of crashes.
This has caused me to instead deep-dive into CP/M Plus again.
CP/M Plus or 3 as it is usually referred to, is a pretty capable OS
for these small computers. It is also essentially a museum of early
computer culture, which is nice. There are a lot of old software for
these 8-bit computers that basically runs on anything that CP/M Plus
runs on. I have been diving into two different collections of software:
These are loaded with old stuff, and it has been fun to go
through. There are also a lot of commercial abandonware that can
be acquired, as well as modern updates to old packages available in
different places around the web.
The fun thing about these collections is that they usually include
source and it seems that the general idea was to share improvements
and ideas. It is very refreshing to see.
I've also been experimenting with alternative BDOS/CCP-implementations
like Z3LPUS/ZCPR. Despite being commerical these had a lot of software
developed for them by hobbyists, and it was usually shared in the
manner described above (with source). One of the highlights about
using Z3PLUS is that it contains terminal definitions, a bit like
an early termcap implementation. This makes software written for
it behave according to you configured terminal, without having the
software specifically target it. There are also other things that
can be expected from a CCP-replacement, like named directory/user
combinations, and replacement implementations of man of the standard
utilities that are actually faster and target the z80-specifically.
All in all, a fun experience, and it has caused me and a friend
to start looking into RC-Bus-computers as our next project,
to get some real peripherals like floppy devices and IDE-drives
connected to a CP/M-machine. RC-Bus is basically RC2014-compatible
and standardized. The difference is that the implementation of the
backplane is open. RC2014 is open apart from the design files for
the backplane, which makes it impossible for us to order these as
PCB's directly from a manufacturer. My friend has also been working
on a 3D-printed case for these machines, and the plan is to order
panels with machined holes for the parts to use as front and back of
the case. It is going to be a fun project I think! Perhaps Fuzix runs
better on that platform as well?
I've also been spending more time in nature these past few months. I
bought new hiking boots late last year, and they are holding up
well. So far, I have not spent a single night outside this year, but
I took my first dip in a nearby lake this past weekend. Since there is
a holiday coming up this week, I have also planned a trip to a nearby
natures reserve with a few friends. We are going to stay out for
three or four days, exploring the reserve. I am using my dehydrator
to get some food prepared for the trip as we speak. A lentil-stew
with some coconut milk and curry. Hopefully it is as tasty as it was
last night out in the field. The idea is that we prepare food for
one night each, so this will be my contribution. Since we have some
who are vegetarians with us, we have adjusted the recipes we use to
that. I plan on taking a camera and take some pictures. Maybe I can
share some here afterwards?
https://github.com/SuperFabius/Z80-MBC2
https://hackaday.io/project/159973-z80-mbc2-a-4-ics-homebrew-z80-computer
https://archive.org/details/cdrom-1994-11-walnutcreek-cpm
http://cpmarchives.classiccmp.org/
https://archive.org/details/Humongous_CPM_Archive_Collection
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