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swetland

@swetland@chaos.social

Writes the codes. Recovering OS Engineer (BeOS, HiptopOS, Android, LK, Fuchsia). Embedded systems hacker. Hobbyist Digital Designer. Player of video games. Etc.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. For a complete list of posts, browse on the original instance.

vampiress , to random
@vampiress@eigenmagic.net avatar

Good Morning, folks!

Breakfast has occurred, the espresso machine is being fired up, and today I am working on Dungeons of Freeport.

Today's plan is to implement a graphical rendering mode that slots in to replace the high ASCII text mode the game currently uses, as I want the proper release of this game to seamlessly work in a nice windows on mac/linux/windows.

It's also a first step to adding a graphical tileset.

swetland ,
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@vampiress With the usual not-a-lawyer disclaimers, to the best of my understanding bitmap fonts are not copyright-able (at least in the US), compared to vector fonts that can exist as "programs" (especially kerning), so including a copy of the classic EGA or VGA BIOS fonts as extracted from video card ROMs is probably safe.

vampiress , to random
@vampiress@eigenmagic.net avatar

So, starting this week... things will be a bit different.

For reasons that I'll talk more about later in the week, I now have time to work on my own projects, along with [redacted].

For my first task, well…

swetland ,
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@vampiress That's a bonus. The big UI overhaul that's in beta for Caves of Qud makes it quite playable on Steam Deck with a controller scheme, which I found impressive for something that leans hard on classic roguelike design. Even with keyboard bindings it uses far fewer dedicated keys than say Nethack.

swetland ,
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@vampiress One other thing I really like about Caves of Qud is they use a very distinctive retro-but-not-too-busy graphical style for all their sprites and icons -- two colors plus translucent -- which has a very NES/GB tile/sprite feel and avoids being too visually noisy (in a way that some tile conversions of older roguelikes tend to be).

I'm excited to see people returning to some of the more classic roguelike designs while taking advantage of several decades of UI/UX/gameplay evolution.

swetland ,
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@vampiress That's a fun look! Will be interested to see how it turns out.

vampiress , to random
@vampiress@eigenmagic.net avatar

I used to be really excited for what the next smart phone would offer. Or the next tablet. Or hell, the next smart watch.

Not any more. And of course this happens when all technology (or gadgets) become old-hat.

Thing is there IS new stuff that might be exciting. VR. MR. AR. They haven't hit their stride yet. I SHOULD feel excited to see what happens when they do.

But I don't.

Why/? I honestly think is the software. The monetisation. The -companies- themselves.

The companies selling the new gadgets make me not care.

No matter how fancy the tech, it won't stop it just straight-up boring me. Even when Apple or even Meta show off something new with a VR headset, I never do more than glance at it for a moment, before browsing away to a different article or video.

Basically, what I'm saying is: capitalism killed my interest in gadgets and technology, almost entirely.

I'm more excited by weird $40 open source bits of hardware, despite many using decades old tech.

So that's what I think I'll focus on. The weird shit. The cool shit. The bizarre re-uses of 8-bit Z80 or 6502 processors. Of cheap e-Ink displays on 2010-vintage microcontrollers.

Maybe I'll find some joy again there.

swetland ,
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@vampiress For me, a big part of being burnt out on mobile devices (beyond working on building mobile platforms from 2000-2012, Hiptop/Sidekick through the first few iterations of Android) is a profound disappointment in how appliance-ized they're making modern computing.

The magic of computers, for me, growing up with the C64, PC clones, then Linux, etc in the 80s and 90s was that anyone could write software for them and run whatever software they want on them. Walled Gardens make me sad.

swetland , to random
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This keynote speech by @marthawells about writing non-human intelligences and Murderbot is fantastic.

https://marthawells.dreamwidth.org/649804.html

"There are a lot of people who viewed All Systems Red as a cute robot story. Which was very weird to me, since I thought I was writing a story about slavery and personhood and bodily autonomy. But humans have always been really good at ignoring things we don't want to pay attention to. Which is also a theme in the Murderbot series."

vampiress , to random
@vampiress@eigenmagic.net avatar

Alright, I'm onboard with this "Trinitron PVMs are great” thing. Everything I plug in here looks SO crisp and perfect.

(Not that I can capture it properly with my phone camera because, y'know, CRT, but…)

A Commodore 64C plugged into the same PVM. The crispest damn display I’ve seen on any of these era of machines.

swetland ,
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@vampiress Damn, that C64 BASIC power on screen is just pure weapons-grade nostalgia.

vampiress , to random
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[Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

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    swetland ,
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    @vampiress Replacing the PRAM battery before it explodes was a good first step (those things make an amazing mess). I forget if the SEs also have electrolytic caps that would do severe damage if they leak due to heat/age/etc (as many later 80s/90s Macs do), but if so replacing them is probably a priority to avoid potential disaster.

    jacqueline , to random
    @jacqueline@chaos.social avatar

    it's a weird vibe that 2023 was the year i became very proficient in C++ (and to a lesser extent C).

    you hear a lot about the shiny new languages and the cool features they have and problems they solve. i think it's easy to forget that, with the way C/C++ are constantly improving, the gap between them and languages like Rust is not really as big as i feel it's made out to be.

    swetland ,
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    @vampiress @jacqueline Same boat. First exposure to C was very early 90s. I've used it personally and professionally ever since (with C++ in the mix here and there). I'd love a better systems language but they still don't seem to have quite nailed it, and C remains a super useful and powerful tool that I can comfortably use to just Get Things Done).

    The lack of extremely opinionated, tightly-coupled build/package/etc systems remains a feature, not a bug for me (especially in embedded/OS work).

    vampiress , to random
    @vampiress@eigenmagic.net avatar

    [Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

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    swetland ,
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    @vampiress Something I've found increasingly intriguing in my 30s and now 40s was actors, authors, musicians, etc being contemporaries -- people who grew up reading the same books, watching the same movies, more and more playing the same games, etc.

    As a child (partially just because of the viewpoint of course) books were written by or games were programmed by Much Older People (often in The Distant Past) and I'd never imagine them being relatable or someone I might ever meet or talk to.

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