I also gamed on my first computer. You might not know about it. It was the Oric Atmos 48k, by Tangerine Computer Systems.
Taught myself to code on that - BASIC and Assembly - when I was quite young for my generation. Had to wait years to do it because my parents couldn't find the BASIC programming cartridge for the Atari 2600. The manual is one of the best manuals ever.
Made it my profession (Systems Engineering) many years later.
Taught myself to code on that - BASIC and Assembly - when I was quite young for my generation. Had to wait years to do it because my parents couldn't find the BASIC programming cartridge for the Atari 2600. The manual is one of the best manuals ever.
Made it my profession (Systems Engineering) many years later.
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I taught myself how to program in BASIC on the TRS-80 Color computer. That was circa 1983 I think. The computer had all 4kB of memory. 🙂
I like racing simulators like Asetto Corsa, F1, and Forza, and have an Xbox 360 then Xbox One, and a force feedback steering wheel and pedals. But haven’t touched it in almost 3 years. Just too busy with audio now. Favorite track is Mount Panorama in Oz.
I like racing simulators like Asetto Corsa, F1, and Forza, and have an Xbox 360 then Xbox One, and a force feedback steering wheel and pedals. But haven’t touched it in almost 3 years. Just too busy with audio now. Favorite track is Mount Panorama in Oz.
BASIC was an absolute gift for us Geek beginners. I always think of it fondly.
At the time of the Oric Atmos, there was this French magazine called Hebdogiciels, and there were codes for games in it, on a weekly basis, things with Machine Code - a lot of Bytes with BASIC Pokes for loading all of these - for various computers of the time (Sinclair Spectrum, Calculators, etc...).
Since games were hard to obtain for me on the Atmos, I found Odyssey in the magazine, a game for Atmos, interesting enough to type in. It was a multi-part affair, and since Hebdogiciels was a weekly magazine, I was feverishly typing the numbers and waiting on the next installments and final code listing to be published every week to play the game. It was supposed to be something of a spaceship shooting game and the name promised quite the adventure. I would have been able to save the game to cassette and replay it at will too.
The problem with these types of code was that if you made a single typo, the game wouldn't run at all...
Long hours of typing, over weeks, for nothing! Try finding the typo(s) among the rows and columns of Hex code now...
Worth a laugh in hindsight. We were dedicated.
Nowadays, just download and launch. Our forefathers had it worse: all punchcards.
I did write a game for one of my calculators in high school: you have a session bankroll and you had to bet on your guess about what the next Random Number would be. Silly, but fun.
On the Atmos, since it had only handful of colours, my first full program, was a paint program and I found a way to produce more colours than the hardware can do by interleaving pixels of different colours.
Big fan of racing games too, or should I say of one racing game series: Gran Turismo, ever since PS1.
I now sometimes play Gran Turismo Sport on PS4 Pro. I don't have the wheels and pedals controllers, so it's only with the default controller currently. The Founder of Polyphony Digital, who make the game, is also a driver himself, and he loves photography. This explains why the games look so good.
Ever since last year, I watch F1. Max Verstappen is my favourite driver.
At the time of the Oric Atmos, there was this French magazine called Hebdogiciels, and there were codes for games in it, on a weekly basis, things with Machine Code - a lot of Bytes with BASIC Pokes for loading all of these - for various computers of the time (Sinclair Spectrum, Calculators, etc...).
Since games were hard to obtain for me on the Atmos, I found Odyssey in the magazine, a game for Atmos, interesting enough to type in. It was a multi-part affair, and since Hebdogiciels was a weekly magazine, I was feverishly typing the numbers and waiting on the next installments and final code listing to be published every week to play the game. It was supposed to be something of a spaceship shooting game and the name promised quite the adventure. I would have been able to save the game to cassette and replay it at will too.
The problem with these types of code was that if you made a single typo, the game wouldn't run at all...
Long hours of typing, over weeks, for nothing! Try finding the typo(s) among the rows and columns of Hex code now...
Worth a laugh in hindsight. We were dedicated.
Nowadays, just download and launch. Our forefathers had it worse: all punchcards.
I did write a game for one of my calculators in high school: you have a session bankroll and you had to bet on your guess about what the next Random Number would be. Silly, but fun.
On the Atmos, since it had only handful of colours, my first full program, was a paint program and I found a way to produce more colours than the hardware can do by interleaving pixels of different colours.
Big fan of racing games too, or should I say of one racing game series: Gran Turismo, ever since PS1.
I now sometimes play Gran Turismo Sport on PS4 Pro. I don't have the wheels and pedals controllers, so it's only with the default controller currently. The Founder of Polyphony Digital, who make the game, is also a driver himself, and he loves photography. This explains why the games look so good.
Ever since last year, I watch F1. Max Verstappen is my favourite driver.
You can play all modern games on your RTX2080, I am stuck on GTX980, My CPU i7 3770K i dont think will do better with anything higher than RTX3060 , so i am holding off a bit so that i can convince my mother that i need a new computer.
Honestly i want high refresh rate monitor to experiences why people go gaga over it.
I know, but as I mentioned, maintaining a PC becomes a chore, and using it feels more like work rather than casual gaming. I did play quite a long while exclusively on PC during many years: Bomberman, Far Cry and RPGs, some other games like Flight Sims. Recently, I tried Apex Legends on my laptop under Win and I still prefer using the console, it just feels more casual to me. The console is as close to Turn-On-and-Play as possible. If I were playing competitive, that would be a different choice.
High-refresh rate is really good, especially if you're doing competitive FPS gaming. For casual gaming, it's a nice-to-have, not essential IMO.
There's a budget element to it as well: I rarely buy a game higher than CAD 15. PC games are expensive as you can't get them second-hand anymore.
CPU-wise, I am on a old AMD Ryzen 5 on both the main server and the laptop. Does the job fine so far.
High-refresh rate is really good, especially if you're doing competitive FPS gaming. For casual gaming, it's a nice-to-have, not essential IMO.
There's a budget element to it as well: I rarely buy a game higher than CAD 15. PC games are expensive as you can't get them second-hand anymore.
CPU-wise, I am on a old AMD Ryzen 5 on both the main server and the laptop. Does the job fine so far.
On the virtual bench is the Bob Carver BC2085 stereo power amplifier. Simulations show it is good for 90w into 8ohms at 0.2% THD. We are in the mechanical and electronics integration design stage now. Making sure things all fit. It’s looking nice and follows same design format as the RPM V12 preamp.
Cloud of parts:
A big thanks to JPS64 for the layout and electronics and Darko M. for the mechanicals. It’s going to be a beautiful looking and sounding amp.
The models for the tubes are unreal (or super realistic). 🙂
Cloud of parts:
A big thanks to JPS64 for the layout and electronics and Darko M. for the mechanicals. It’s going to be a beautiful looking and sounding amp.
The models for the tubes are unreal (or super realistic). 🙂
I’m familiar with this track and my impression is that the sound staging and depth you’ve achieved via this combination is superb, lots of body in the presentation too (amazing that you can pull this impression out of a YouTube video, but I think you can). Well done!
Thanks, Stretchneck! The iPhone 12 Promax does an amazing job with video and sound actually. I have been quite pleasantly surprised.
About the same time, I made a couple of the color computers for people at work from the schematic using BICC-Vero Speedwire boards. And I also made a game cartridge with those new-fangled EEPROMs. The cartridge had a connector on the outside so that you could walk into the store, plug the cartridge into one of their computers, and then plug one of their games into the connector. The game was then copied into the EEPROMs. Once the game was removed and the computer was reset, it would play the game from our EEPROM cartridge. I never did that myself, of course, except to baffle the salesmen, which wasn't too difficult 🙂.
I really like wire wrapping. Secure reliable and fast. Built all my digital timing circuits in grad school that way.
Those boards look like they have a castle solder lug at each point? Are those built into the PCB at each node?
Those boards look like they have a castle solder lug at each point? Are those built into the PCB at each node?
It's not wire-wrap: it's insulation displacement. It requires a special tool that straddles the connector tines, and the wire gets fed through the tool. You could wire up a board very quickly, once you had the wire list done. The drawback is that they were expensive--a LOT pricier than wire-wrap. Each of those "lugs" is a gold-plated socket pin on the top, with the IDC connector protruding from the bottom of the board.
Wasn't it Bob Carver who once made a solid-state amplifier of which you could tailor the harmonic profile so that it could sound like an SS amp or a Tube amp?
Yes. He also had the Bob Carver challenge where he said he could tailor his SS amp to match the sound of any amp. Bob Carver, of course, designed the topology of the BC2085 - all done on pencil and paper. When we sim’d it in LTSpice, it worked beautifully. Just amazing that he can design an amp that performs that well off the top of his head - a true genius.
Great story about the Bob Carver Challenge here:
https://www.stereophile.com/content/carver-challenge
Great story about the Bob Carver Challenge here:
https://www.stereophile.com/content/carver-challenge
We were talking about him in another thread - the OP wanted to know alternatives to Tube amps/preamps.
Most of Hugh Dean's SS amps have a harmonic distortion profile that is similar to a low distortion SET. This is achieved with careful design and often the use of non symmetric front end and output stages. The Alpha Nirvana is a great example, as well as the Alpha 20 or Alpha BB. As . far as preamps go, it is easy to make a SS preamp sound similar to a tube preamp. Look at my DCA headphone/preamp, or the Aksa-Lender, the Melboure, and the Hakuin by Hugh Dean.
I experimenting with a an old Linkplay Wi-Fi module for airplay. My standard source is a Rpi + JustBoom Amp hat / hifiberry DAC+ADCpro
but I wanted have a stand-alone airplay device so picked this board up.
Now have to work on the DAC and I have two options ESS9023 + 50MHz TXO ( Linkplay don’t give SyClk / Master clock)
Or PCM5102 ( no hassle DAC )
but I wanted have a stand-alone airplay device so picked this board up.
Now have to work on the DAC and I have two options ESS9023 + 50MHz TXO ( Linkplay don’t give SyClk / Master clock)
Or PCM5102 ( no hassle DAC )
Well, my Technics RS-TR333 dual cassette deck is back in shape again.
The "premium" replacement gears did the trick nicely!
No more "clicking" in forward play mode.
The toughest part was breaking free the two screws holding the head block - they were stuck tight with Loc-Tite.
The "premium" replacement gears did the trick nicely!
No more "clicking" in forward play mode.
The toughest part was breaking free the two screws holding the head block - they were stuck tight with Loc-Tite.