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Ripjetski
Jan 17, 2025
In General Discussions
Basement Flair content media
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Ripjetski
Jan 03, 2025
In General Discussions
Out of frustration (and some wasted time) with existing offerings that I am aware of, I decided to roll my own. Presented here is a functional preview of Mr. Paint which is a text mode ATASCII drawing (not animation) program. The core features work and can be used today. It is written in C, and uses my TUI library also written in C. I will post the source to my GitHub once its ready for final release, as well as an update to my C library. Features: -Modern TUI interface (dialogs, progress bars, popup status, help, popup horizontal menu with drop down selections) -File save, load, and new. Print is on the menu for now but may be removed. -Full ATASCII support (lower, caps, special, and the inverse of those) -Cursor wrap at screen edges -Cursor auto advance on/off via preferences. -Block operations (copy, paste, inverse, clear) -Support up to 8 drives, can set default via preferences. -Editor buffer destruction protection, aka "Are you sure?", anytime you load or quit with a modified editor screen. -It will eventually have the ability to insert figlet strings from fonts designed with Mr. Figlet (once I get that complete). Todo: -Directory -Block operations -Print (may be on the chopping block) -Figlet integration MrPaintPreview.mp4 Thoughts?
Project: Mr. Paint content media
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Ripjetski
Oct 20, 2024
In General Discussions
Well, look what was advertised in the otherwise wholesome Antic Magazine in December 1984. Erotic electronic chat room.. Lol.
After Dark Comms content media
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Ripjetski
Jun 27, 2024
In General Discussions
Got a pile of projects waiting. Still havent touched the Multi-SIO or FujiNet Pro from Lotharek. Hobby ToDo's off the top of my head. -Need to build the Mac68K emu SD for the Pi400. -Need to build the Amiga emu SD for the Pi400. -Need to build the DOS emu SD for the Pi400. -Need to get the latest FujiNet-PC working on Mac. -Need to put final touches on the Atari 8 Bit Database engine/software. -Need to complete database browse routine for A8DB demo program (shows first page only right now - 10 entries). -Need to document the A8DB. -Need to convert player/missile routines from Action! to C. -Need to complete Mr. Figlet (needs P/M routines for C). -Need to read more Antics for The Antic Files. -Need to draft notes for an Inverse ATASCII best of and worst of episode(s). -Need to build portal axles for my 1/10 Suzuki Jimny R/C. -Need to paint/polish/build the shell for my 1/10 Toyota Land Cruiser LC70 R/C body, and mount it to the Traxxas TRX4 carriage. -Need to finish Baldurs Gate 3. -Need to install remaining dash cam (other one installed and working finally). -Want to put some Nickelback and Dokken songs into AMS on the A8. -Want to get one of the new Portfolio USB memory cards and play with that machine again. -Want to learn Klingon via Duolingo. I really need to organize these in a todo list like the podcast. I'll refrain from listing house todo's.
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Ripjetski
May 17, 2024
In General Discussions
As a followup to the BBS discussion around the refurb of my 1981 Pioneer PL-220 Turntable. I got this new as my first major life purchase. It was part of a complete rack system, Syscom 3300, that looked almost identical to this tall one (only pick I could find). This pic has the digital tuner (not analog), and a graphic EQ that I didnt have. Instead of the "720" components, mine had "520" components which were generally less featured. Example, the 720 cassette has auto reverse, the 520 didnt. The 720 tuner was digital, the 520 was analog. etc. One nice thing about this 81-83 era of Pioneer equipment is the blue guages referred to as the "blue line". They moved to green then orange as time went on, and the faces become increasing black in color over time too. The blue and silver looks fantastic IMHO, and you can see the design language implemented the same across the components (colors, button sizes, control locations, etc). My mom used the system for a few years in the 90's after I upgraded to newer equipment, then she moved it around the country as they moved, except for the cabinet. I dont know what happened to the cabinet or the speakers. I know the cassette died and I replaced it with a newer one that was black which I still have somewhere (CT760 maybe?). About 20 years ago, I reclaimed what was left - the amp, and the turntable, before any more of it could disappear. The SA-520 amplifier I've used on and off for various things since then. It was hooked up to the computer for many years, and I put it away (again) about 5 years ago. I hadnt opened the turntable since reclaiming it. That was a mistake. It needed some love, cleaning, and repair. I opened and cleaned up the amp before using it again as well. So after people were talking about turntables on Fergs discord, I got interested in getting mine operational and playing some of my LP's. My wife has been asking to hook it up for many years too. I ordered new belt, new needle, Deoxit, etc. Took it apart, cleaned it all up, checked the caps, then gambled with the old needle on a crap record because the tonearm had been unlocked while boxed, and the platen wasnt secured. I was surprised the damage was only minimal and the needle was ok (repalced anyway before putting on a good record). The bad news is, one of the mount points for the isolation feed is busted. I've tried to plastic weld 3 times, and each time, there is just too much torque when screwing it in and I feel it snap in the same place. I may look for a donor unit for the upper case and dust cover since mine has some deep scratches in it. The Novus polish kit didnt help much. I had a Shure RXT5 cartridge and needle on it, an upgrade done many years ago. The RXT5 is a Radio Shack specific version of the XT5 IIRC. This has a charged fiber sweeper that cleans a few grooves ahead of the needle tracking in them. I bought an LP Gear replacement needle which sadly doesnt have the sweeper, but did plug right in. Shure no longer makes needles. I need to take it apart one more time as well. I found that the auto start drops the needle RIGHT at the edge of the record, and if a record is pressed slightly smaller diameter, it will miss prompting a quick grab or raise of the handle before needle hitting the spinning platter. So it needs an adjustment. I had to buy a service manual because one wasnt available for download free. I'll scan and post it so others dont have to buy it. Since then, I searched around and found the tuner I had (TX-520), made an offer for it, the guy accepted and sent it. Cleaned it up inside and out, and its in excellent condition. I also found the clock/timer (DT-510) that a guy just totally refurbed with new caps and cleaned inside out, and its case is like new too. If I come across a CT-720 cassette, I'll likely pick it up, but I'm not searching agressively as I really have no use for it. To get sound out of it, I fed the tape outputs from the amp into an RCA to 1/8" stereo jack, and plugged that into the JBL 3.1 soundbar. You cant see it in the pics, but the 10" sub is behind the entertainment center, and it pounds! So line level out and the JBL power itself with volume control through the JBL. I set the speakers OFF on the amp, and the volume at 3 (not required, just so the VU meters are active). Now we are looking for a small rack, not necessarily Pioneer. I have a huge sentimental attachment to the equipment, maybe more than my Atari. LOL. I'm pretty proud how nice my original components look as well - take care of your stuff! And I'm glad I was able to find replacement components that look great as well. It almost looks new! Right after I got the turntable working, with a new needle: With all re-acquired components:
Vintage Hi-Fi content media
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Ripjetski
Mar 02, 2024
In General Discussions
Well, After several different method trials, I finally got a record save routine that isnt bound to any user defined field list - it just doesnt care! And here is a screenshot of the VERY FIRST record PUT into a test database consisting of 6 fields.: unsigned char fname[11]; // character string of 10 chars (11 is terminator) unsigned char lname[11]; unsigned char bday[9]; unsigned char atari; // single char (char or bool type) long costa; // numeric type long costb; Data populated into the fields (so you can see the values): strcpy(fname, "first-name"); strcpy(lname, "last--name"); strcpy(bday, "20240226"); atari = 'T'; costa = -123498; // -1234.98 costb = 98712; // 987.12 Going to work on the get routine now. I also added a couple of functions to print the structure, and generate a piece of C code for the db structure to include in a program, revised the menu a bit, streamlined how I had implemented unsaved changes checks, and open file indicators (now on the bottom line). And I dropped the 2nd "table" art that appeared in the backdrop, now its just a DB icon in ATASCII. And I changed the CHAR type to TEXT (for strings), and created a new CHAR type for single chars - effectively the same as BOOL. I'm debating if I force logical adherence for bools at time of put (code size vs letting user program limit input). I'll do another video after I get record GETs completed. And I will blog about it once I get it ready for use, and the example program complete. THe record starts at "first", and ends at the last "heart". The final character (04) is the data terminator.
Sneak Peek Update content media
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Ripjetski
Feb 22, 2024
In General Discussions
Here is a sneak peek of a major project I have been working on for some time. Its a database "engine" for the Atari 8 bits, which uses a file format very similar (not quite the same) to that of xBase (dBase / Clipper). I'm calling the format ADB (Atari DB). It is designed to be a flat file, non relational database. There will be functions to get a specific record, save a record, delete a record (mark it for deletion with a pack function later). It is built using CC65, my C Library, and my unreleased DB routines which are currently WIP. I havent worked out indexing, yet. I know how to implement it, but memory is a HUGE issue. This is essentially a proof of concept to see if it could be done. I always wanted xBase for the 8 bit, now I'm getting close. A long while ago, I blogged about some work I did to read DBF (xBase/Clipper) files. Its here: https://unfinishedbitness.info/?s=DBF The utility shown here is the maintenance utility. It is for creating database structures, viewing basic database information from the database file header (# records, last modified date, etc), and packing the file. Due to memory I will probably have to move the viewing and packing into seperate binaries. You can see its already quite large, so I may end up compiling for XL and using banked memory somehow. After I get the basics working, I have a simple database app planned to exploit it.
Sneak Peek content media
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Ripjetski
Feb 11, 2024
In General Discussions
Inverse ATASCII season 8 episode 2 featuring MMG Career Counselor has been published: https://inverseatascii.info/2024/02/10/s8e02-mmg-career-counselor-supplement/(https://inverseatascii.info/2024/02/10/s8e02-mmg-career-counselor-supplement/) This was a fun one to research!
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Ripjetski
Jan 28, 2024
In General Discussions
Season opener is released. Expect new episodes every 2 weeks through August! Inverse ATASCII season 8 opener, episode 1, featuring OSS The Writers Tool has been released: https://inverseatascii.info/2024/01/27/s8e01-oss-the-writers-tool-supplement/ (https://inverseatascii.info/2024/01/27/s8e01-oss-the-writers-tool-supplement/)
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Ripjetski
Jan 15, 2024
In General Discussions
This is the result of my weekend project. I started out working on a year old project to create bootable images for classic OS's for my RPi400. I started with MacOS 9, back when the O/S had personality. I had limited success getting it to run on the Pi. While troubleshooting I stumbled on QEMU, and it has the ability to do exactly what I wanted on the Pi, but on my Mac, even better as it becomes immediately accessible. After spending several hours getting it installed, network working with the host O/S, and printer setup (hint, make sure your network printer is actually turned on! Doh!), I finally got a nice booting Mac OS 9.2.1 system that connects to the internet and can print to my network prnter. It emulates a 1 Ghz PowerPC, and feels just as speedy as the 900Mhz G4 I had in the early 00's. I'm trying to document all the steps I did to make it happen, but sadly I didnt track all the notes, so I may not. The one thing I really love about this O/S, Window Shades. I wish they would bring that back.
Weekend project content media
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Ripjetski
Jan 07, 2024
In General Discussions
#6 is released (February/March 1983). In your favorite podcatcher, or here: https://inverseatascii.info/2024/01/07/the-antic-files-episode-006-supplement/
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Ripjetski
Jan 07, 2024
In General Discussions
I've been wanting to do this for quite a while. Earlier this week I found a bug in the service statistics report of my Vehistics program. I set about fixing it, and then decided to finish (mark off the todo) the fuel statistics. Got them down between 1/4 and 1/7. I can sort on the columns, there is an indicator on the one with current sort. This is written in Clipper 5.3. Fun stuff! Samples of data going back to 1999-ish. I have older data going back to early 90's but its not been imported into the database due to the format it resides in. Yup, there used to be a BP station right by me. I didnt used to track the fuel grade, so where not tracked I had assigned just plain old regular in absence of knowing:
Vehistics Update content media
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Ripjetski
Dec 11, 2023
In General Discussions
I stumbled on this while researching Springboard's The Newsroom. I was going to hold off posting, but what the heck. This is a 2 stage screen. One you press a key, the 2nd screen appears, which has a scroller at the bottom. You're probably most interested in the 2nd one which has Alcatraz mentioned in the scroller. Note they got the title wrong. It should be "The Newsroom", not "The News Room".
UFP Crack Screen content media
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Ripjetski
Dec 10, 2023
In General Discussions
is released: https://inverseatascii.info/2023/12/09/the-antic-files-episode-004-supplement/ Get it in your podcast player or the website. Enjoy Wade
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Ripjetski
Nov 26, 2023
In General Discussions
Inverse ATASCII -The Antic Files Episode 03 featuring Antic #003, Volume 1, Number 3, August 1982 has been released: https://inverseatascii.info/2023/11/26/the-antic-files-episode-003-supplement/ (https://inverseatascii.info/2023/11/26/the-antic-files-episode-003-supplement/)
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Ripjetski
Oct 03, 2023
In General Discussions
HQ, yes its that color.
Denny's content media
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Ripjetski
Sep 18, 2023
In General Discussions
So we all know what I thought about the Indus titles. I went looking to see how many episodes in total I posted, and found this interesting stat. Check out the download count for the Indus titles! Now I'm trying to understand what makes these episodes so popular? Was it the bashing? Was it because everyone with a drive, and their brothers, had these titles?
Popular Indus Titles content media
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Ripjetski
Sep 11, 2023
In General Discussions
While researching podcasts, I ran across the walking man animation I was fascinated with when I was a kid. I typed it in, made some improvements, and gave it a go. It uses character animation instead of a player. All done in BASIC. Fun stuff! Here is the source article:
Animation content media
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Ripjetski
Sep 09, 2023
In General Discussions
Article from Antic February 1985.
200+ Atari BBS's you can call! content media
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Ripjetski
Sep 09, 2023
In General Discussions
Article from Antic December 1984.
So you want to start a BBS? content media
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Ripjetski

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