Ramblings and Broken Code

Yesterday I went ahead and bought a Fuzebox which is an open source 8-bit console that is compatible with the Uzebox. Sadly, it won’t be here till next month (most likely.) It’s currently back ordered (which I knew while ordering it) but is expected to be back in stock the 29th. So hopefully early next month it’ll be here. Of course, it’s probably better that it’ll be a couple weeks it gets here. That’ll give me enough time to get paid again, and probably buy a better tip for my soldering iron. Now that I have ordered it … Continue Reading

I’ve been sort of obsessing over Uzebox lately. Even without purchasing the hardware yet, I’m getting a pretty excited about the possibilities of this small little console. Not just from the programming aspect, but also because Fuzebox looks like a great exercise in assembling/soldering. I’ve also been considering how/where I should cut the case that Fuzebox provides in their “Starter Kit.” For instance, the one of the things I imagine I’ll be using often is the FTDI to upload code to test and play with. With the current enclosure, it’s inaccessible (unless you remove two screws, what a hassle!) It’s … Continue Reading

I decided it was time to have some form of backups in place. Currently all I’m really (automatically) backing up is the WordPress MySQL table since it’s the thing to changes on a regular basis. Everything else on this server can be backed up by hand when/if I make changes. It would be faster if/when something does fail (hard drive most likely) to have a recent full backup image to restore from, but really, a good backup of the MySQL table(s), a backup of important configuration files (since they rarely change, I back them up manually after change(s)), and a … Continue Reading

I have to say, my server is performing beyond my initial expectations! I think I have everything tweaked to not use massive amounts of RAM (*cough*MySQL*cough*.) Here’s how the free -m currently looks: $ free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 121 90 … Continue Reading

Because of my renewed interest in Z80 and wanting to better learn assembly programming, I ultimately want to do a bit with Game Gear/SMS coding. For this though, an emulator with at least some basic debugging facilities would be useful. After searching Linux Game Gear emulators, none really had what I was looking for.

On my first attempt, I decided Dega looked interesting, it has source available. The two major turn offs of Dega was the Z80 core which is x86 assembly, which is obviously not portable and it’s license which basically says, do what you want to the source, as … Continue Reading

I’m currently learning Z80 assembly (I’ve read the book once, but now I’m actually working through the exercises.) I have to say, it’s fun and a bit challenging at times. The challenge is partly learning the tools. I’m currently using z80pack. From that I’m using z80asm and z80sim. I’ve played a bit with the cpm2&3sim emulator that comes with it, but I currently only really need z80sim. z80asm can be a bit strange at time (or perhaps just more strict then the book.) For instance, LD C, (IX – 5) doesn’t work. Instead, I have to use LD C, (IX … Continue Reading

So, while I’ve been trying to get kdelibs 4.3.2 built on Arch Linux PPC. I decided since Arch PPC hasn’t had any packages updated in about six months that I should probably do something crazy like grab the official Arch’s ABS to build all the packages from. Now, 130 built packages later I’m close. Perhaps I should put into perspective what was needed to be updated. The packages ranged from GCC, Binutils, & Glibc, to xulrunner, to hal, to mysql, to pygtk, to gnome-vfs. There was just a whole lot of unmet versions that I basically just had to … Continue Reading

Now, Arch Linux and I have had our differences in the past. It’s handling of documentation for instance has always been a bit backwards IMO. What’s that? I really have to recompile every single program which I want the API documentation for? Can we get with the times already and make perhaps -doc packages by default? Worried about their being lots of -doc packages when you do something like pacman -Ss some-program? Then put them in a separate repo call documentation and have it disable by default! This isn’t a hard concept people.

But that’s not what I want to complain … Continue Reading

Well, I’m going to try to cut down on the spam (only a few spam bots so far have attempted to post, but I know there will be more.) I’m trying out SI Captcha to see if that helps. I just wish it had an option to still email upon failed comment posts (or something similar till I’m sure it’s working.) Oh well, I’ll still be moderating comments, but I hope this will help cut down on the amount of spam comments I have to moderate. If not, I don’t think I’m not any worse off than I was before.

First off, I’m a big fan of Halloween to begin with, and I was kind of on the ropes if I should do a Halloween theme for this month or not. Well as you can tell, my girlfriend talked me into using this theme. Honestly, I do quite enjoy how it does quotes. When the month is over I think I know what theme I’ll be using for the foreseeable future. I have a month to decide for sure. (I hope people can still take me seriously with this theme ) That is all.