Saturday, September 23, 2017

Why So Serious?

I haven't posted here for a while... the main reason for that is I've just been busy on non-code-related projects, so I didn't have much to say here. Sure, I could post the odd rant like I used to, but let's face it, those were for me. And I only posted the stuff that was tame enough to not scare the children.

I've been programming for a long time. By long I mean "damn long". It's true I'm not one of those old mainframe-y types (stop fixing my spelling Blogger. If I don't want to use a hyphen, that's my right!)... but I started with TI BASIC back in 1983 and barely a day has gone by that I haven't done SOME kind of code.

To me, of course, 1983 must have only been like 17 years ago, cause time stopped at 2000, didn't it? But when you do the actual math and realize it's actually been 34 years, then yeah, I'm going to start accepting the scale of "damn long".

No, I'm serious. It's a weird phenomenon. To me (and I've seen posts from others with a similar viewpoint), 30 years ago still means 1970. So it's weird. Time stopped in 2000.

There /is/ a thought that's sticking in my craw and needs to be written out, but in truth I haven't figured out how to say it nicely enough yet... let alone what solutions to offer. So there's no article there.

But... you can expect this blog to slowly re-awaken. The non-computer stuff got done and my next task is the development of the Dragon's Lair cartridge for the TI-99/4A. This is a full-motion video and audio production of the classic laserdisc, running on authentic hardware. The proofs of concept were good, now I need to actually build the hardware. Hoping to have something by Christmas, but watch this space, since it's as good a space as any. (If it'll stop being picky on my spelling...)

For after that, I have a huge list of things I want/need/obsess to do, and rather than be picky, I decided to crowdsource the decision. I considered kickstarter and such, but if you give me money then I'm obligated. So instead I went for SurveyMonkey. If you have 3 minutes (the average completion time), do me a favor and go click what looks most interesting to you. I think I get up to 100 responses for free or something.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/8CJDR5C

Thanks for that! Or if you don't, thanks for nothing! Either way you get some kind of thanks!