2023-01-07 00:31:03 <vms14       > volksForth X-Forth FigForth Antic Forth QS-Forth Mesa FORTH Graphic FORTH ES Forth SNAUT  Yet another Target Compiler
2023-01-07 00:31:21 <vms14       > wikipedia says those forth systems could be used to program the atari consoles
2023-01-07 00:31:24 <vms14       > :0
2023-01-07 05:42:06 <veltas      > crc: https://pastebin.com/raw/dnLxnxtP
2023-01-07 05:43:08 <veltas      > Boots and exits, not sure how much faster it is, if you get a chance to try it I'll be interested to know what difference has been made
2023-01-07 05:51:09 <veltas      > Also the C version of ilo displays "RetroForth/ilo : 9052/59999" and takes a while to start
2023-01-07 05:51:20 <veltas      > Turns out the Lua version just starts immediately
2023-01-07 05:51:26 <veltas      > Is there some reason why they're totally different
2023-01-07 07:29:21 <veltas      > This is bloody cool https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1611024931348959232
2023-01-07 07:30:11 <veltas      > I've not kept up much with SpaceX, so to just watch that (sped up) video all of a sudden it's quite an engineering accomplishment all in one go
2023-01-07 11:13:30 <crc         > in read_block() , the sp = sp + 2 should be sp = sp - 2
2023-01-07 11:13:37 <crc         > timings:
2023-01-07 11:13:57 <crc         > 0.53 (c, w/-O0)
2023-01-07 11:13:57 <crc         > 8.73 (old lua vm)
2023-01-07 11:15:17 <crc         > this is loading my current blocks & rom, and additional arland's graphics vocabulary from the blocks (the lua doesn't support the graphical extensions, but they compile successfully), then exiting
2023-01-07 11:19:27 <KipIngram   > SpaceX has done some amazing things.
2023-01-07 11:19:55 <KipIngram   > None of it "unbelievable"; it's all just basic engineering.  But it wasn't happening without them.
2023-01-07 11:23:20 <thrig       > SPACE PORK
2023-01-07 11:23:22 <KipIngram   > That's a great video.
2023-01-07 11:24:05 <KipIngram   > The first time I saw that particular achievement was when they did the first successful test flight of the Falcon Heavy.  The day they launched that Tesla car into solar orbit.
2023-01-07 11:24:24 <KipIngram   > When those boosters came and set themselves down on their launch pads there were tears in my eyes.
2023-01-07 11:24:43 <KipIngram   > That maneuver had just been science fiction in my mind before that day.
2023-01-07 11:25:28 <KipIngram   > And the enabling technology was our stuff - microprocessors, the software to run them, etc.
2023-01-07 11:26:13 <KipIngram   > That technology just gives us such a fine level of control over the things we do.  Opens the door to so much.
2023-01-07 11:26:45 <thrig       > somehow all 50 states have work for NASA
2023-01-07 11:27:08 <KipIngram   > I'm sure there were other things too.  Advances in materials, lightweight senors, etc.
2023-01-07 11:27:52 <KipIngram   > But none of that stuff "gets you there" if you don't have timing precision.
2023-01-07 11:28:05 <thrig       > ... iterating by blowing up a lot of stuff ...
2023-01-07 11:28:29 <KipIngram   > NASA is on my happy list again these days, after a LONG time off of it.
2023-01-07 11:28:41 <KipIngram   > I just kind of lost faith in them during the post-shuttle years.
2023-01-07 11:28:51 <KipIngram   > Figured they'd never do anything big again.
2023-01-07 11:28:53 <thrig       > or the post-1972 astronaut years?
2023-01-07 11:29:19 <KipIngram   > But thankfully they've "woken up" with this new moon program.
2023-01-07 11:29:29 <KipIngram   > I was still ok with them for a few more years.
2023-01-07 11:29:56 <KipIngram   > The shuttle program was cool.  Not as cool as Apollo, but it just took a while for me to actually catch on to the decline.
2023-01-07 11:30:13 <thrig       > where was the Mars rant...
2023-01-07 11:30:41 <KipIngram   > Yeah - what I really wish was that they'd gone directly for Mars after the Apollo program.
2023-01-07 11:31:27 <thrig       > https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34213549
2023-01-07 11:32:29 <KipIngram   > Ugh.  So, the terminator terminal emulator will highlight a whole string if you double click on it.  Really great for copying url's out of stuff.
2023-01-07 11:32:41 <KipIngram   > But... it regards that = sign in that one as a separator.
2023-01-07 11:32:51 <KipIngram   > I wish I could tune that - maybe there's a way.
2023-01-07 11:33:12 <thrig       > xterm can tune that, maybe, so check the manual?
2023-01-07 11:33:18 <KipIngram   > Yeah.
2023-01-07 11:33:43 <KipIngram   > Ok, re: that thread you linked.  I've never been in the "robots are good enough for space" camp.
2023-01-07 11:33:54 <KipIngram   > If we're not sending people places, we're not really "going there."
2023-01-07 11:34:22 <KipIngram   > The whole point is about US getting there - progress toward a system civilization like in The Expanse.
2023-01-07 11:34:38 <KipIngram   > For me the goal of it all is "expanding our home."
2023-01-07 11:34:59 <KipIngram   > Not just visit these places like tourists, but to eventually LIVE there.
2023-01-07 11:36:37 <KipIngram   > "We're not capable of building Mars colonies any time soon, that's true, but who knows what we'll invent as we blunder our way in that direction nonetheless?"
2023-01-07 11:37:12 <KipIngram   > I don't know that I agree with that - I'm actually not going to be surprised if Musk actually situates a small colony on Mars.  He's certainly got enough audacity.
2023-01-07 11:37:50 <KipIngram   > There's plenty about Musk I don't like a lot, but you really can't deny his "drive."
2023-01-07 11:45:44 <decay       > do not idolize the billionaire apartheid emerald mine owner.
2023-01-07 11:45:54 <decay       > musk never invented anything, he just acquired it.
2023-01-07 11:47:22 <KipIngram   > Quite agree.  Like I said, there's a lot about him I don't like.  And I don't think there's *anyone* I "idolize."
2023-01-07 11:47:35 <KipIngram   > I'm just noting that you can't brand him as "incompetent."
2023-01-07 11:47:58 <decay       > no, but I can brand him as a cancerous social mass.
2023-01-07 11:48:07 <decay       > cancer isn't incompetent.
2023-01-07 11:48:08 <KipIngram   > Sure - that's fair.
2023-01-07 11:48:19 <KipIngram   > I'm sure some folks would disagree, but plenty would agree.
2023-01-07 11:48:53 <KipIngram   > I've just noticed that in most situations in the world people wind up adopting positions at the extremes, and that's rarely really accurate.
2023-01-07 11:49:55 <decay       > that's a fallacy that right-wingers use to appear as "centrists". be careful.
2023-01-07 11:50:20 <KipIngram   > You've got people who want us to jump on every one of these "grand space initiatives."  And you've got people who want us to spend ZERO on it - "we've got so many problems to solve here at home."  So it seems to me the right outcome should be that we spend SOME money on them.  Not as much as the first camp would like, but not ZERO either.
2023-01-07 11:50:34 <KipIngram   > A divided constituency should lead to a compromise policy.
2023-01-07 11:50:55 <KipIngram   > Neither camp should get to totally dominate the agenda, at the expense of the other.
2023-01-07 11:51:20 <KipIngram   > But that's boring and doesn't make good news stories, whereas full-on idealogical warfare does.
2023-01-07 11:52:41 <decay       > we should be exploring and developing technology that'll get us off-planet in a viable fashion so we don't go extinct.
2023-01-07 11:53:09 <KipIngram   > I agree.  All it would take is one asteroid.
2023-01-07 11:53:15 <KipIngram   > We have the prospect of changing that.
2023-01-07 11:53:21 <decay       > we should also stop destroying the one thing that we're clinging to.
2023-01-07 11:53:26 <KipIngram   > We should be aggressively working on asteroid deflection too.
2023-01-07 11:53:42 <KipIngram   > What a great thing for international collaboration.
2023-01-07 11:53:53 <KipIngram   > I agree with that too.
2023-01-07 11:54:12 <KipIngram   > We can't just "shut down" progress, but we could be doing things so much more carefully.
2023-01-07 11:54:13 <decay       > but since life's really really good for just a few people and average to miserable/borderline biblically tragic, that won't ever happen.
2023-01-07 11:54:40 <KipIngram   > Yeah - I even agree with that.  Hence my big distaste for large corporations.
2023-01-07 11:54:54 <KipIngram   > We've knocked all the middle rungs out of the economic / social mobility ladder.
2023-01-07 11:55:08 <KipIngram   > It's MUCH harder now than it used to be to make a go of a small business.
2023-01-07 11:55:21 <KipIngram   > It's not "impossble," but it used to happen a whole  lot more than it does these days.
2023-01-07 11:55:40 <decay       > IMO, we're never surviving past this planet. we can't collectively act together, we just aren't built for it.
2023-01-07 11:55:52 <KipIngram   > And that very goal of protecting the planet has been used by the wealthy to secure their position against competition from "the little guys."
2023-01-07 11:56:04 <KipIngram   > Doesn't make it a bad goal.
2023-01-07 11:56:13 <KipIngram   > But it's been "hijacked."
2023-01-07 11:56:51 <decay       > the cells that make up your body act more collaboratively than we do as a population.
2023-01-07 11:56:58 <KipIngram   > We have all those protective regulations.  But they're regulations the big guys can deal with with all their lawyers and so on.  The burden of them falls most heavily on small business.
2023-01-07 11:57:11 <KipIngram   > And they're likely not the RIGHT regulations anyway.
2023-01-07 11:57:19 <KipIngram   > They're regs that make a show of protecting the world.
2023-01-07 11:58:39 <KipIngram   > You get corps claiming "zero emissions" while they go right on polluting the world and just buy "carbon credits."
2023-01-07 11:59:07 <KipIngram   > The bullshit is pervasive.
2023-01-07 12:01:56 <KipIngram   > Yes, I've becocme a bit of a cynic.
2023-01-07 12:02:06 <KipIngram   > I must be officially "old" now.
2023-01-07 12:04:03 <thrig       > get off my lawn! damn cloud kids!
2023-01-07 12:41:17 <KipIngram   > So, I watched a video on the Swiss Micros DM42.  That is a really nice machine.  And what's even better - it's an open platform; explicitly designed to allow re-flashing.  It could probably be a fantastic "playground."
2023-01-07 12:41:57 <KipIngram   > I saw another video that implied some guy is working on a port of the HP-48 general environment to the DM-42.
2023-01-07 12:42:17 <KipIngram   > There were some hurdles to get over, but that would be quite cool too.
2023-01-07 12:42:54 <KipIngram   > The DM41X runs a Saturn emulator and on that runs the original HP-41 firmware.  So that's a pretty "fixed target."
2023-01-07 12:43:24 <KipIngram   > But the DM42 operates differently - it has an operating system Swiss Micros designed on it, and on that runs the "Free42" emulation of the HP-42S.
2023-01-07 12:43:42 <KipIngram   > The same software I run on my phone's HP-42S emulator.
2023-01-07 12:44:08 <KipIngram   > That gives it a big leg up over the 42S - the 42S was a closed platform, with no way to communicate with it electronically.
2023-01-07 12:44:23 <KipIngram   > But the DM42 will plug into a USB port and shows up as a storage device.
2023-01-07 12:44:31 <KipIngram   > You can move content off of it, onto it, etc.
2023-01-07 12:45:43 <KipIngram   > My phone emulator doesn't work as a USB device, but it does have ability to export and import programs.  You get at that menu by tapping the display.
2023-01-07 12:46:15 <KipIngram   > Rather than having some extra control on-screen.  On-screen it looks EXACTLY like the HP-42S.
2023-01-07 12:46:19 <KipIngram   > And it's gorgeous.
2023-01-07 12:47:50 <KipIngram   > Just for fun I'm going to try making my own WP-34S.  That's the one that takes an HP business calculator (HP-30B) and re-flashes it.  I snagged a new HP-30B on eBay yesterday for pretty cheap, and downloaded all the WP-34S files from SourceForge last night.
2023-01-07 12:48:54 <KipIngram   > Downside of doing it myself vs. buying a ready to go 34S is that the 30B won't have a clock crystal installed.  There are instructions for adding one in the download package, but it looks fairly delicate.
2023-01-07 12:49:34 <KipIngram   > Installing the crystal itself looks fairly straightfoward, but it also needs two capacitors that are "sub grain of rice" size.  Not sure fumble fingers me is up to that.
2023-01-07 12:50:57 <KipIngram   > Also, the pandemic seems to have disrupted the availability of the vinyl overlays that re-label all the keys.  You can tape a paper image of the keyboard on top of the keyboard and that's adequate for testing it, but it's not really a "long term solution."
2023-01-07 12:51:41 <KipIngram   > But a finished WP-34S is $150 now, and they're not available anyway at the moment.  Meanwhile, the 30B is a $20 thing.
2023-01-07 12:53:12 <KipIngram   > OH!  That 34S emulator that I got from the app store (which erased the calculator when you quite the app) is also on GitHub, and it looks like a year ago or so they added persistence across sessions.
2023-01-07 12:53:19 <KipIngram   > I need to figure out how to install that.
2023-01-07 12:54:56 <MrMobius    > KipIngram: seems like youre making some progress :)
2023-01-07 12:55:13 <KipIngram   > Looks like that project is receiving maintenance, or was a year ago at least.
2023-01-07 12:55:19 <KipIngram   > Their "to-do" list is here:
2023-01-07 12:55:21 <KipIngram   > https://pastebin.com/nGyZpqzz
2023-01-07 12:55:24 <MrMobius    > just a small correction - 41/42 use a Nut processor which is difference than the Saturn processor in the 28/48/49/50
2023-01-07 12:55:29 <KipIngram   > Persistence is the only one marked DONE.
2023-01-07 12:55:39 <KipIngram   > Oh, you're right.
2023-01-07 12:55:45 <KipIngram   > And there was HalfNut and FullNut.
2023-01-07 12:55:56 <KipIngram   > HalfNut came after Full.
2023-01-07 12:56:19 <KipIngram   > Anyway, I like a lot of those to-do's, but persistence was definitely the first one to nail.
2023-01-07 12:56:52 <KipIngram   > And on GitHub the *source code* is available - I could hack on it if i wanted to.
2023-01-07 13:01:07 <thrig       > in theory, the source code for chromium is available as well
2023-01-07 13:02:20 <veltas      > There was that guy maintaining a fork of Firefox for ages
2023-01-07 13:02:30 <veltas      > Pretty much on his own as far as I know
2023-01-07 13:07:24 <thrig       > and I can counter that anecdote with several people who look at the mess that is the modern browser and nope right out of there
2023-01-07 13:33:57 <veltas      > Look... a calculator emulator is probably approachable, depending on what you want to do
2023-01-07 13:34:14 <veltas      > Best thing to do would be to ask the maintainer about this, look at issues etc
2023-01-07 13:34:25 <veltas      > Might (probably) be in the works
2023-01-07 13:36:09 <veltas      > It's not exactly chrome
2023-01-07 13:37:15 <veltas      > crc: Thanks for fixing my code and testing it, the results are at least an improvement although there is probably much more room for optimisation
2023-01-07 13:37:46 <veltas      > Do you think you'll integrate some of the changes?
2023-01-07 13:38:06 <veltas      > I'm not actually sure the string.pack/string.unpack code is faster than what was there (or an optimised version of that)
2023-01-07 13:44:34 <KipIngram   > Yeah, I don't have any particular wp-34s mod agenda.  But I do imagine it would be approachable, if I decided I wanted to try something.
2023-01-07 13:45:47 <MrMobius    > a guy at the calculator conference a few years ago showed his labels on his keys and they were mostly worn completely off
2023-01-07 13:45:52 <MrMobius    > just plain white
2023-01-07 13:46:18 <MrMobius    > so for the calculator im building, I have a button set up on a breadboard I press on when I have free time to gauge durability
2023-01-07 13:46:30 <MrMobius    > and measure clicks with a microcontroller. up to 32k or so and no ink loss
2023-01-07 13:46:43 <MrMobius    > his WP-34s keys I mean
2023-01-07 14:29:02 <KipIngram   > Oh, good.  I'd love to learn more about your materials, printing, and so on.
2023-01-07 14:35:24 <KipIngram   > One thing I like about the WP34S programming instructions is that in addition to the usual "LBL" support for control transfers it also has "BACK" and a forward equivalent (I forget its name) - those just jump some number of steps forward or backward in the current program.
2023-01-07 14:36:11 <KipIngram   > That makes programs harder to change - if you change anything jumped over, you have to modify the jumps - but it eliminates the need to take up space and execution time with labels.
2023-01-07 14:36:30 <KipIngram   > It's basically how compiled  Forth jumps work.
2023-01-07 14:37:03 <KipIngram   > It's probably faster too, because you have to find labels.
2023-01-07 14:37:12 <KipIngram   > But with these you know exactly where to go.
2023-01-07 16:03:25 <KipIngram   > Hmmm.  You know, instead of having just conditional returns and conditional jumps, I could allocate one value for some of the upper bits, so I could have 2, 4, 8, up to whatever number my instruction set will allow.  Instructions in that range would have both conditional and unconditional versions.  So, "up to a few" I could have other instructions have conditional versions as well.
2023-01-07 16:03:56 <KipIngram   > The original plan was to have two.  I probably couldn't afford more than 4 or 8, just because otherwise I'd run out of instruction codes.
2023-01-07 16:04:12 <KipIngram   > But if I think about it there might be other instructions that could useuflly have conditional versions.
2023-01-07 16:06:34 <KipIngram   > I'd already decided to have ; be 111111, ?; be 111110, me be 111101 and ?me be 111100.
2023-01-07 18:39:09 <KipIngram   > It's a shame e-ink displays can't be refreshed fast enough for real interaction.
2023-01-07 18:39:17 <decay       > yet.
2023-01-07 18:39:22 <KipIngram   > Because they are SO power efficient.
2023-01-07 18:39:25 <KipIngram   > Yes, yet.
2023-01-07 18:40:08 <KipIngram   > And they're fairly inexpensive, too.
2023-01-07 19:55:47 <KipIngram   > Ok, I found a link to the updated wp34s emulator.
2023-01-07 19:55:51 <KipIngram   > With the persistence fix.
2023-01-07 19:56:12 <KipIngram   > To make it work, you have to turn the calculator "off" the same way you would when you turn off the real one.
2023-01-07 19:56:22 <KipIngram   > You can't just kill it while it's running from Android.
2023-01-07 19:56:34 <KipIngram   > I guess it's the "off" op that's when it writes things out.
2023-01-07 19:56:37 <KipIngram   > Works fine that way.
2023-01-07 19:56:45 <KipIngram   > I'm happy.  :-)
2023-01-07 20:13:29 <KipIngram   > https://imgur.com/gallery/Q3Dt3Xt
2023-01-07 20:17:07 <KipIngram   > Now *that* is a busy calculator keyboard...
2023-01-07 21:06:25 <Zarutian_iPad> KipIngram: mind posting the link here, for the public logs?
2023-01-07 21:12:35 <KipIngram   > For the WP34S project?
2023-01-07 21:13:04 <Zarutian_iPad> yebb and the emulator that runs on android
2023-01-07 21:13:18 <KipIngram   > https://github.com/odkq/awp34s  <-- emulator
2023-01-07 21:13:41 <KipIngram   > file:///home/kipingram/Downloads/Manual_wp_34s_3_1.pdf  <-- WP34S User's Guide
2023-01-07 21:13:48 <KipIngram   > Oh, sorry - that's my copy.
2023-01-07 21:13:50 <KipIngram   > Hang on.
2023-01-07 21:14:32 <KipIngram   > https://sourceforge.net/projects/wp34s/files/doc/Manual_wp_34s_3_1.pdf/download?use_mirror=phoenixnap  <-- WP34S User's Manual
2023-01-07 21:15:13 <KipIngram   > https://sourceforge.net/projects/wp34s/  <-- The project itself (resources to convert an HP30B to a WP34S)
2023-01-07 21:26:06 <KipIngram   > The instructions on the conversion are very good, and include "all the extras" - that real time clock crystal, the addition of a small board for a USB port, etc.
2023-01-07 21:26:37 <KipIngram   > It looks like the host side software for flashing it is available for Windows, MacOS, and Linux.
2023-01-07 21:27:07 <thrig       > better than "Windows only and $9000"?
2023-01-07 22:18:28 <KipIngram   > For sure.
2023-01-07 23:45:43 <crc         > veltas: I'm continuing to test things; it's definitely better than my original. I added a check/return for opcode 0 (nop) rather than calling the instruction handler; that seems to improve things further.
2023-01-07 23:47:49 <crc         > I'll likely merge your improvements sometime tomorrow or Monday