2019 May 22

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Andros and Tinos

I’ve just got back from a walking holiday in the Greek Cycladian islands of Andros and Tinos; very different, but very similar in many ways, with winding walking paths, terraces, amazing wildflowers, lizards everywhere, and far, far too much good food (and wine and beer).

2019 May 21

blog programming

A small, portable and thoroughly evil Forth interpreter

I recently found a Forth interpreter I wrote a few years ago for the FUZIX operating system, and then forgot about; I’ve polished it up and given it a proper release on Github.

2019 May 06

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Demonstration and teardown of a Canon TypeStar 4 portable typewriter

I found a new toy in my favourite local junk shop! It’s a battery-powered portable typewriter from 1986, the Canon TypeStar 4 (slightly German edition), which uses an interesting technique to make the marks on the paper: a thermal print head, which I hadn’t seen on a typewriter before. It would print on special treated paper or use an equally special ribbon (which came with it). I got it for five francs, and I can see them on eBay for about $15, so that’s 200% profit.

2019 March 31

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TypeTalk: smalltalk about Javascript

I’ve been prototyping a Smalltalk-esque live coding system based on TypeScript and Javascript, which runs entirely inside a browser. It’s now ready for release, which means it kinda works and I will probably get distracted by something else shiny soon, so I made a video about it.

2019 March 12

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The Brother LW-30: a typewriter, not a computer

Back when I bought the IBM WheelWriter 6 at the junk shop for five francs, I also got myself a Brother LW-30 typewriter word processor (also for five francs). It’s a fascinating piece of early 90s consumer technology, and is actually surprisingly useful; I wrote a letter on it just the other day. I made a moderately incoherent and rambly video about it.

2019 February 24

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FluxEngine demo reel

I made a short demo video of my FluxEngine ultra-cheap floppy disk drive controller in action. See if you can spot the cunningly hidden Brother LW-30 typewriter cameo!

2019 February 14

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FluxEngine released!

It’s been a while since my last post but it’s been all go here: I’ve been working on a toy I’ve dubbed The FluxEngine, which is a floppy disk controller based around a $15 (sometimes $10) off-the-shelf microcontroller with no additional parts. Literally, solder on 17 pins in a row and you’re done.

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