Dan Sanderson @dddaaannn@xoxo.zone

🎉 I made a Twitter bot that announces activity from the #mega65 Filehost, including new and updated files and new articles! Follow it here:
https://twitter.com/MEGA65Files

I don't currently have plans to have it also post to Mastodon, but I'll read up on Mastodon.py and keep it in mind. lmk if that'd be useful to you personally.

Let me know what you think! 💫

I wrote a #mega65 Welcome Guide for new owners! It's a supplement to the User's Guide that captures the gap between the factory-installed software and current state of things, providing a smooth on-ramp to long-term enjoyment. Feedback welcome! https://dansanderson.com/mega65/welcome/index.html

Excited to be formatting a floppy disk in 2022!

The HELP key is just a fast way to enter the HELP command. I would guess applications could re-map it to their own internal HELP systems but I don't know.

Just shows how little time I've spent with the C128. Gotta remedy that! The Mega65 also has a HELP key that does the same.

The Commodore 128 has a dedicated key labeled HELP, and if you just press it it prints "HELP" and does nothing. It's actually a way to locate an error in a BASIC program! After a program exits with an error, the "HELP" command displays the line and highlights where it happened.

Having a fantastic time with the new #Mega65, a modern recreation of the Commodore 65, the legendary unreleased successor to the Commodore 64. Injection molded case, vintage keyboard layout, 3-1/2” floppy drive, classic cartridge port, C65 OS with BASIC and a C64 compatibility mode, 40 MHz. HDMI and VGA out, microSD card, Ethernet, modern fixes to vintage bugs, Cherry kbd switches. FPGA-based, can run other “cores” including a full C64 core (work in progress). Vibrant, nascent community.

Apple’s backhanded PR language has always fascinated me. This announcement about discontinuing the iPod is three paragraphs that don’t mention the iPod and one sentence about how “customers can purchase iPod touch.” https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/05/the-music-lives-on/

… Hmm, Micro.blog for iOS failed to attach photos, jank attachment UI. And I can’t cross-post in a thread-like fashion to Twitter. I may need to build my own cross-poster. 🤔

Paid too much for a vintage copy of Machine Language Routines for the Commodore 64/128, but still glad to have it. ML fundamentals are not hard to figure out, but mastery requires experience. I like to read code by others to see what I’m missing—and what I’m not missing.

I think I gained five pounds just from making Disney World dining reservations.

It worked! Nice.

I’ve restarted my Micro.blog as an experiment. You don’t have to do anything differently, this is supposed to cross-post. (This is a test.)

I have renewed my interest in my Mastodon account for some reason!

As you access a Twitter-like site intermittently over many years due to the time dilation of space travel, you watch all of your friends leave this site for another one, until all that's left is ads and bots. It's admirably well done.

I downloaded my 9 year 10k+ post Twitter history, then deleted it from Twitter. The only thing left is to upload it to Mastodon...

(jk about that last part. 😅 )

(Apologies for subtooting. I want to be more sensitive about jumping into other people's conversations, lest the new place start to look too much like the old place.)

There's plenty of room to demand improvement. End-to-end encryption and tighter controls on (or elimination of) the use of "aggregate" personal info would be huge wins over the status quo. I even have faith that we can build privacy tech to be deployed widely and easily. Until then, only a few companies actually meet the bar, and they are the big ones everyone worries about.

Apparently some people I follow here are of two minds on how to model private user info security with hobbyist-run federated services vs. monolithic tech co's. There are only a few big co's I'd trust to defend user info from both external and internal attacks, but I'd trust them a lot more than anyone smaller, no matter how well intentioned. Tight fine-grained internal restricted access, logging, and auditing are hard problems requiring experience, public pressure, potential whistleblowers.