Oldskooler Ramblings

It has taken me decades to understand my own behavior.  Saving you the lengthy self-analysis, I can sum up most of my actions as a reaction to negative stimuli.  No control over my social environment?  Learn to program computers, who always do what I say.  Can’t afford games?  Get a job at the local software store, then learn to crack and courier warez.  And so on.  Most of my hobbies can be traced to events like this.

So what happens when the negative stimulus is gone?  It depends on the hobby.  I don’t pirate (new) games; like movies, I can now afford to purchase or rent them.  I’ve stopped collecting hardware and software because I no longer have a need for the comfort and security that familiar things bring.  As I get older, I find I am finally able to let go of everything that gave me short-term benefits but led to longer-term detriment (collecting software is easy; collecting hardware takes up a ton of space!)

Finally, some of my championed causes have come to fruition and matured:  MobyGames remains the only organized, normalized database of computer and videogames, run by many volunteers.  MindCandy 1 and 2 have taken a small slice of hidden skill and wit and preserved it forever.  DOSBOX exists, and does a (nearly) fantastic job of making DOS games playable, and my efforts combined with others have gotten the games out there.  I’ve made some of my friends laugh with my programming ideas.  That’s a lot of personal accomplishment for someone who has to put family first and work first, and I’m happy thus far.

So.  The time has arrived to shore up and buttress the hobbies.  Here’s the Trixter 5-year pledge, to me as much as to you, in order of project start date:

1. Finish up MindCandy 3.  Four hours of home theater showcase material on tasty Blu-ray (DVD too).  It’s 80% done and should be ready by March or April.
2. Complete The Oldskool PC Benchmark, a project I’ve been tossing around for a while.  I’m unhappy that no PC emulator is cycle-exact for any model, not even known fixed targets like the 5150/5160, so this benchmark should help emulator authors get that taken care of.  It will maintain a database of systems that have been tested, so that users and authors of emulators can target a specific model to run programs in.  As each system I own is benchmarked, it will be donated back into the collector community, save for a handful of machines that I need for further development work (see below).
3. Gutting and rewriting MONOTONE.  Adding features people actually need (like volume and frequency envelopes, or an interface that doesn’t suck ass) as well as a few only I need, like flexible hardware routing.  Remember, kids: You’re never going to wow the pants off of people unless you can drive seven(*) completely different soundcard technologies all at the same time.
4. Bootable diskette PCjr demo, using the PCjr’s enhanced graphics and sound.  Hopefully presented at a euro party.  You best step aside, son.
5. Build the Soundcard Museum, another project I’ve been tossing around for quite a while.  (Now you see why MONOTONE enhancements came before this.)  This will take up many months of free time, but I promise it will be worth it for the soundcard otaku.
6. …and that’s it.  I have nothing else planned.  If they’ll have me, I’ll return to working at MobyGames, with maybe another MindCandy project in the works, if the project doesn’t run out of money.

And between all of these projects, I will play longform games that I’ve been meaning to get to (Mass Effect, Red Faction: Guerrilla, Fallout 3, etc.).  Because I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.

Air-cooled coding keyboard for professional use

(*) It is technically possible to put a Sound Blaster 1.0/1.5 (CMS+Adlib), Bank Street Music Writer card (essentially a PC Mockingboard), LAPC-1, IBM Music Feature Card, and SCC-1 into a Tandy 1000-series computer if you take the cover and metal frontplate off to allow room for the full-length cards and configure the LAPC-1 and SCC-1 so that they don’t share the same port and IRQ.   That’s six technologies — the seventh is the Tandy 1000 itself, with its SN76496 3-voice squawker.  If I had a 5161 expansion unit for the 5160, I could become more evil — it adds 7 additional ISA slots to the 7 already in the 5160.  I’d lose the 3-voice Tandy, but the additional slots would allow for adding up to three more IBM Music feature cards and an additional Sound Blaster Pro 2.0, and maybe even an additional SCC-1 (I’d have to check what settings it supports).  But I don’t have a 5161; they’re ludicrously difficult to find complete.  And besides, once you have two SCC-1s in a machine, what is the point of driving anything else?