Man, for a not-a-weekend, my 8-Bit Week is off to a GREAT start!
Read @Lunduke's article about C64 ads, got that song stuck in my head again š¤£
Started on Lunduke's top 10 article - got distracted and fired up TheVIC20... definitely coming back to it tho.
Found (and learned to use) a word processor. It was something called "easy script" (sounds more like a code thing to me lol) and it was surprisingly easy. There was, though, one pretty big hiccup: It's a D64, which means I can't save to disk (TheVIC20 doesn't do cassette emulation or more than 1 disk drive). So that didn't last long. I did, however, find other word processors I want to play with (including a full-on office suite called "Mini Office II", though I couldn't find a download link for that one). There was even one I read about that was a type-in BASIC program! That's kinda nuts, and the kind of thing I would only be crazy enough to try to create in Assembly or C (maybe Forth?) so obviously not going there anytime soon.
Played some games (it looks like a VIC-20, so it deserves some Omega Race for the pic, doesn't it?) š¤£
And got to tinkering with C64 Forth! Fortunately, this one is on a cartridge file, so I can save my work. Unfortunately... I don't know how. š¤£
The manual is more reference-style than tutorial-style, so there's a long list of words and very little on how to use them. There's a word called "NAME" that I guess you can use to set your file name. It expects a string pointer (0-terminated?) on the stack, but there is no s" word so that's out... then there's a word "CSAVE" but it looks like that's specifically for cassette (which again is a thing TheVIC20/TheC64 doesn't do) so... well, I did some tinkering anyway. I love how it uses @ and ! (standard Forth words to get/set a variable) for PEEK and POKE. If I can crack saving, I think I might start using C64 Forth a lot more. :)
Anyway, I got other stuff to do, but figured I'd kick off our 8-Bit Week posts with a fun night of "keeping up with the Commodore".
After receiving an Al generated email, the programming legend (known for his work on Go, Plan 9, UNIX, & UTF-8) says, "F**k you people. Raping the planet."
Torvalds on Vizio Ruling: Software Freedom Conservancy Looks Like "a Bunch of Incompetent Aholes"
Regarding a recent ruling, in SFC v. Vizio, Karen Sandler (SFC Director, former GNOME Director), responds to the Linux creator by saying "maybe you didn't read".
Microsoft's Goal: Replace "Every Line of C" with Rust by 2030?
A Microsoft rep made the statement, saying the company would use Al to hit a target of "1 engineer, 1 month, 1 million lines of code". Then quickly went into damage control.
Ads are filling the entirety of the Web -- websites, podcasts, YouTube videos, etc. -- at an increasing rate. Prices for those ad placements are plummeting. Consumers are desperate to use ad-blockers to make the web palatable. Google (and others) are desperate to break and block ad-blockers. All of which results in... more ads and lower pay for creators.
It's a fascinatingly annoying cycle. And there's only one viable way out of it.
After 20 years together (18 years married), I was finally able to get my lovely wife to watch Die Hard. She never had any interest because of how violent it was, but for whatever reason she was open to it this Christmas. Iām happy to report that she loved it! Yippee-ki-yay everyone. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, and have a happy New Year.
If you've done 6 impossible things this week, why not round it off with a trip onboard "thE grAvY trAIn" TONIGHT at 21:00 UK! (1pm Pacific/4pm Eastern)
The FOMO of not having a Lifetime Subscription to The Lunduke Journal
Time for some Fun Lunduke Journal Facts of Fact-ly-ness!
The āper-monthā cost of a Lifetime Subscription to The Lunduke Journal is an asymptotic line. The longer you have that subscription, the closer it gets to $0.00.
The Lifetime Subscription was first introduced 3 1/2 years ago⦠and is still going strong.
The price of a Lifetime Subscription is currently discounted to $89. For life. Thatās less than 1/3rd the normal price.
The earlier you pick one up, the quicker that asymptotic line begins approaching zero. Which is fun.
We Donāt Have Time Machines
If you think you might ever want a Lifetime Subscription, now is the time.
Imagine missing this discounted priceand missing out on months of, mathematically certain, asymptotic line fun. This is one of those scenarios where Future You (tm) would want to travel back in time to tell Present You (tm) to snag a Lifetime Subscription.
There are some options.Ā For both subscribing and donating.Ā They're all on this page.
Bonus: At the bottom of this page you will find the invite link to the super-secret Lunduke Journal Discord Chat Server.Ā This is only available for full subscribers, which makes it a nice place to hang out.Ā No riff-raff.
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