[X] My Assistant

If they were still being manufactured, I'd recommend hall effect switches as being pretty easy to change the travel length on and relatively light.

Checked out the android sources; they were around 90GiB. Just started the build now. We'll see how far it gets. Good thing a friend of mine just gave me a ~480GiB SSD when he upgraded his desktop, because that's the only way I have room for all this bloat.

Edit: so far, built 6GB of binaries. Whee. I wonder how much of that is debugging symbols.

When I last built Seamonkey/Firefox, libxul.so with debugging symbols was around 1.2GiB, but when stripped of debug symbols went down to around 85MiB. Currently I only keep the debug library around for my PowerPC build, since that's the one that would be the most troublesome to debug and build again.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Dec 31 2020, 21:43

Got my surface mount USB audio card kit thingy today, tried to start on it and immediately lost a 130 ohm resistor. I guess I'll just tack a through-hole one on the SMD pads.

I _think_ I managed to solder the SSOP part (PCM2906, 28-pin USB chip) correctly, though, so that's a plus. Hopefully I didn't overheat it or anything. I know I got the other SMD IC's on correctly because they're the larger TSOP (which I've done before).

Meanwhile, Android 10's still building; no errors quite yet. Looks like it's building ART at the moment (the Android Runtime, successor to Dalvik).

P.S.:
Core temperatures while building this on all four cores seem to be hovering around 70°C after a few hours of building. I think I've talked about core temperatures before, which is why I bring it up. Still using the stock intel cooler from 2012 or so (has the copper slug in the middle) and an ivy bridge i5-3350p, with all of the fans set to run at a constant (but far lower than max) speed in the BIOS.
The loudest part of this computer is definitely the 15 year old hard disk drive, but since I'm building this on that SSD I was given (only drive I have that has enough room left on it), it's been pretty quiet today (not that I mind HDD noises).

CODE

nct6776-isa-0290
Adapter: ISA adapter
Vcore:         992.00 mV (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +1.74 V)
--snip--
CPUTIN:         +53.0°C  (high = +80.0°C, hyst = +75.0°C)  sensor = thermistor
AUXTIN:         +43.0°C  (high = +80.0°C, hyst = +75.0°C)  sensor = thermistor
PECI Agent 0:   +71.0°C  (high = +80.0°C, hyst = +75.0°C)
                         (crit = +105.0°C)
--snip--
coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Package id 0:  +71.0°C  (high = +85.0°C, crit = +105.0°C)
Core 0:        +71.0°C  (high = +85.0°C, crit = +105.0°C)
Core 1:        +70.0°C  (high = +85.0°C, crit = +105.0°C)
Core 2:        +67.0°C  (high = +85.0°C, crit = +105.0°C)
Core 3:        +69.0°C  (high = +85.0°C, crit = +105.0°C)

Edit again:
I also just built the AOSP launcher (Launcher3) from sources and discovered the whole "Adaptive icons" thing. I hate it. I also don't like the search bar being un-removable. Back to using the ancient ADW Launcher (version 1.3.6, the last open sourced version).

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Jan 1 2021, 04:05

Made a korn shell (KSH '93) script ages ago, originally for sorting floppy disk images on a flash drive, but which I later hacked up further to allow me to use it for sorting any files containing numbered patterns (like 001_fooC.jpg, 002_fooB.png, etc). Basically it lets you 'increment' your files' names up or down a given number of digits. This is useful when you have numbered images (say, 0-60) and you want to save new images as image #49 and #50 (for instance if an artist came back to add variants or a sequel to an existing image). For that situation you'd want to make the current image 49 into 50, 50 -> 51, 51 -> 52, etc.. up through 60.

To accomplish this with my script you'd write something like:

CODE

mvshift 49 2 3

The numbers mean (in order, left to right):
49: which file number to start at (the lowest number that should be renamed/moved).
2: how many numbers to bump files up or down by. Since we're inserting two new images, we'll want to make space for two. Negative numbers mean to decrement.
3: the number of digits that the files are using for numbering.

Optionally, an additional argument can be used (it becomes the first argument in this case): a string prefix. For instance, on my Amiga floppy disk flash drive, I have all my files named DSKA001[…], DSKA002[…], etc. - so I'd make the prefix 'DSKA' and then supply the other three arguments as usual.

It's only been tested in ksh93, but likely working in mksh as well, and possibly even pdksh/openBSD's ksh. All it really uses is 'typeset' for easy zero-padding. I also wrote a function for zero padding that should work in any POSIX shell, but since it'd require some more work to actually change everything else in the program to operate correctly with it (especially as POSIX shells treat leading zeroes as indicating an octal value) I didn't do any more work on it.

It also uses GNU extensions to sort and tail for delimiting on nulls, but some clever use of 'tr' could likely sidestep that at the cost of no longer handling filenames with newlines properly (which are cancerous anyway).

I was pretty lazy on this one, but it works so I thought I'd share. It's handy for dealing with adding new images to galleries that you've previously downloaded archives of. Especially when the uploader adds new images at the start of the gallery.

CODE

#! /usr/bin/env ksh93
# Shift filenames from $1 through the end by an increment of $2,
# padding to $3 digits.
# Originally made hastily for facilitating sorting of Amiga floppy images
# (on a FlashFloppy Gotek).

if [[ "$#" -ne 4 ]] && [[ "$#" -ne 3 ]]; then
  echo "Wrong number of arguments given. Should be:"
  echo "[prefix] [starting number for shifting] [amount of shift] [number of digits]."
  exit 2
fi
if [[ "$#" -eq 3 ]]; then
  PREFIX=''
else
  #PREFIX='DSKA'
  PREFIX="$1"
  shift
fi

getnum() {
  #  echo "$2"|sed 's/_.*$//'
  if [ "$PREFIX" ]; then
    echo "$1"|sed 's/'"$PREFIX"'//;s/[^0-9].*$//'
  else
    echo "$1"|sed 's/[^0-9].*$//'
  fi
}

getdescriptstart() {
  echo "$1" | sed 's/'"$(getnum "$1")"'.*$//'
}

# old
getdesc() {
  echo "$1"|sed 's/^[0-9]*//'
}

getdescriptending() {
  echo "$1" | sed 's/^.*'"$(getnum "$1")"'//'
}

zero_pad()
{
  # unused due to ksh93 typeset, but included in case someone wants to port
  # to a purer POSIX shell.
  # args: filename [width]
  # width is $NUMDIGITS if not specified
  # depends on $PREFIX being set (or unset == empty string)
  if [ "$2" ]; then
    PADWIDTH="$2"
  else
    PADWIDTH="$NUMDIGITS"
  fi
  PADNUM="$(getnum "$1")"
  PADDESC="$(getdescriptstart "$1")"
  PADNUM="$(printf '%0'"$PADWIDTH"'d\n' "$PADNUM")"
  echo  "$PREFIX""$PADNUM""$(getdescriptending "$1")"
}

LOWESTNUMUNPADDED="$1"
CURNUMINC="$1"
INCREMENT="$2"
NUMDIGITS="$3"
echo "increment $INCREMENT"
# this whole thing can likely be greatly simplified into one case, but I'm
# feeling kind of lazy right now
if [[ "$INCREMENT" -gt 0 ]]; then # incrementing upwards by n (right shift)
  # we need to move the highest number first and work down
  # ksh-specific: automatic zero padding. This is the only ksh-ism here
  # that I can remember.
  typeset -Z"$NUMDIGITS" LOWESTNUM
  LOWESTNUM=$LOWESTNUMUNPADDED
  typeset -Z"$NUMDIGITS" DESTNUM
  typeset -Z"$NUMDIGITS" CURNUM
  
  # find largest filename.
  # gnu sort and tail extensions used.
  LARGESTNAME="$(find * -maxdepth 1 -type f -name "$PREFIX"'[0-9]'"*.*" -print0 | sort -zV | tail -zn1 | tr '\0' '\n')"
  CURNUM="$(getnum "$LARGESTNAME")"
  CURDESCSTART="$(getdescriptstart "$LARGESTNAME")"
  CURDESCEND="$(getdescriptending "$LARGESTNAME")"
  CURDESC="$(getdesc "$LARGESTNAME")"
# no need for overwrite test here since we find the largest file match and work down
  while [[ "$CURNUM" -ge "$LOWESTNUM" ]]; do
    DESTNUM="$(expr "$CURNUM" '+' "$INCREMENT")"
    echo mv "$PREFIX""$CURNUM""$CURDESCEND" "$PREFIX""$DESTNUM""$CURDESCEND"
    mv "$PREFIX""$CURNUM""$CURDESCEND" "$PREFIX""$DESTNUM""$CURDESCEND"
    CURNUM="$(expr "$CURNUM" '-' '1')"
    CURDESCSTART="$(getdescriptstart "$PREFIX""$CURNUM"*)"
    CURDESCEND="$(getdescriptending "$PREFIX""$CURNUM"*)"
    CURDESC="$(getdesc "$PREFIX""$CURNUM"*)"
  done
elif [[ "$INCREMENT" -lt 0 ]]; then #incrementing downwards (left shift)
  # we need to move the lowest number first and then work up
  typeset -Z"$NUMDIGITS" HIGHESTNUM
  typeset -Z"$NUMDIGITS" CURNUM
  typeset -Z"$NUMDIGITS" DESTNUM
  CURNUM=$CURNUMINC
  LARGESTNAME="$(find * -maxdepth 1 -type f -name "$PREFIX"'[0-9]'"*" -print0 | sort -zV | tail -zn1 | tr '\0' '\n')"
  HIGHESTNUM="$(getnum "$LARGESTNAME")"
  CURDESC="$(getdesc "$PREFIX""$CURNUM"*)"

  CURDESCSTART="$(getdescriptstart "$PREFIX""$CURNUM"*)"
  CURDESCEND="$(getdescriptending "$PREFIX""$CURNUM"*)"
  
  DESTNUM="$(expr "$CURNUM" '+' "$INCREMENT")"
  if [ -e "$PREFIX""$DESTNUM"* ]; then # don't overwrite existing!!! Single square brackets important
    echo "Refusing to overwrite existing files. Exiting. (file ""$DESTNUM"' exists!)'
    exit 1
  fi
  while [[ "$CURNUM" -le "$HIGHESTNUM" ]]; do
    DESTNUM="$(expr "$CURNUM" '+' "$INCREMENT")" # same as with incrementing due to adding negatives
    echo mv "$PREFIX""$CURNUM""$CURDESC" "$PREFIX""$DESTNUM""$CURDESC"
    mv "$PREFIX""$CURNUM""$CURDESC" "$PREFIX""$DESTNUM""$CURDESC"
    CURNUM="$(expr "$CURNUM" '+' '1')"
    CURDESC="$(getdesc "$PREFIX""$CURNUM"*)"
    CURDESCEND="$(getdescriptending "$PREFIX""$CURNUM"*)"
  done
else
  echo "Shift was 0 or not specified, doing nothing."
fi

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Jan 1 2021, 11:49

^ I use vifm for that - it allows me to use my vim addons to edit all filenames in a directory in bulk

I'm an emacs user, myself.

Nothing against vi(m), just not what I learned first.

I successfully built AOSP (Android open source project) for my Pixel 4 XL and got it flashed (made a userdebug build for easier/more convenient root, as well as read/write access to the /system partition). I think I'm going to be able to live with it, actually. Managed to fix every annoyance that's come up so far at least, and I don't need things like 90hz video.

I'm actually kind of amazed that barely anyone seems to talk about running actual AOSP on Pixel phones, considering they're pretty much ideal AOSP devices apart from cost.

Grafx2 is fun, but tricky sometimes. The more you limit your color palette the more you feel it. Trying to take a hand-drawn piece by Yoshida Toru (original illustrator for this character) and turn it into something like what would have been in the game she originated from (Phantasy Star II).
Yeah, I know a lot of it needs work (cheeks especially).


This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Jan 2 2021, 12:18

Why don't they use AI upscaling to re-release all the retro anime?

Why don't they use AI upscaling to re-release all the retro anime?

For me, the answer is that I prefer the original look of the film. For stuff that was hand drawn using cels, I like to see the imperfections.
If no film stock is available, and in cases where the film stock has degraded beyond the point of practical restoration, I'd take master tape copies at original resolution over rescaled stuff.

If the only existing copies are on some VHS/betamax tape/laserdisc or something, then I might be okay with ai processing to try to clean it up.

Still drawing Nei; pretty happy so far. I added details below where the artist stopped drawing her head based on other art I've seen.
Whenever it's done it'll probably become a new profile pic.
Also, it's pretty nice how low-color my desktop is (my window manager, at least) because it means a lot of screenshots I take can be indexed to save space and compressed with zopfli or pngcrush (zopflipng at least will automatically index an image if it has ≤ 256 colors in it).

Minor update: So far:

Hair is hard.
Original artist's image (from twitter):


This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Jan 3 2021, 01:30

Ordered a laptop battery on ebay. The only US seller (and only one with free returns) was asking $100 for stupid clone batteries, and they were the variety that don't fit with my docking station, so I had to pull the trigger on one from Shenzen. We'll see how this turns out. Last one I got from there was DOA.

OEM batteries haven't been available for years now, by the way. So that's not an option. I might try re-celling a clone battery I already have if the one I just ordered shows up dead.

Barely worked on the pixel art at all today; was busy.
Edit: WIP 2

Edit 2: probably will tweak this more soon but here's something


This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Jan 4 2021, 11:34

Jan 4th 2021 was the expected date for the extradition hearing of Julian Assange to be taken to the USA

Jan 4th 2021 was the expected date for the extradition hearing of Julian Assange to be taken to the USA

I guess that's kind of tech related?

I guess that's kind of tech related?

Not anymore, but if one still remembers the context of when Wikileaks first appeared in the first decade of the 21st century, it was an interesting use of technology to spread whistleblower info across the internet without a media site censoring publication upon orders of a company or government.


Anyways, I want more [en.wikipedia.org] NOT_FURYA from Vin Diesel. Until then, there's stuff like this 1440p raytrace gaming from his starring role in an upcoming XBox release:

game

I've realized that I pretty much never, ever use my right shift key for anything; I wonder what I should remap it to.
I already am using the windows 'menu' key (context menu/right click key) for a compose key.
Maybe I could use it to switch input methods or something.

Also, I just patched mcomix3 to support a "nearest neighbor" rescale toggle; I use it so I can quickly view pixel art in it without going into the preferences menu each time to turn Lanczos filtering on and off.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Jan 5 2021, 00:09

I might try re-celling a clone battery I already have if the one I just ordered shows up dead.

good luck getting it open, I've yet to non destructively open a pack.
they're usually either sonically welded or glued but maybe if its really old you'll have better chance

I've realized that I pretty much never, ever use my right shift key for anything; I wonder what I should remap it to.
I already am using the windows 'menu' key (context menu/right click key) for a compose key.
Maybe I could use it to switch input methods or something.

for what its worth to you its apparently 'more ergonomic', I just happend to always use it out of habbit so cant really vouch for that being true or not.
I see that doing the rounds a lot out of nowhere lately though, suddenly people care about using or not using the right shift, was there an article somewhere or something?

nice job on the pixel art btw

This post has been edited by cate_chan: Jan 5 2021, 00:51

good luck getting it open, I've yet to non destructively open a pack.
they're usually either sonically welded or glued but maybe if its really old you'll have better chance

Only 10 years old, so probably not screwed. I'm going to assume I'll have to destructively open it and then seal it with epoxy or something afterwards. Hopefully I don't have to re-cell to begin with though.

I see that doing the rounds a lot out of nowhere lately though, suddenly people care about using or not using the right shift, was there an article somewhere or something?

I actually don't know; I just was talking with a friend and discovered he toggles the caps lock key for uppercase and doesn't actually use either shift key except for symbols. That happened yesterday, which is why I started thinking about it. Compound that with the fact that my right shift key popped off my laptop board today and I had to fix it up and I've thought more about it in the last two days than I would pretty much ever do in normal circumstances.

nice job on the pixel art btw

Thanks! Still working on tweaks here and there now; moved it over to my Amiga and am poking at it in DeluxePaint (old stomping grounds, slightly more comfy than grafx2 when I don't need layers).

Long time no see, by the way. Nice to hear from you again.

Update: widened right shoulder (her left shoulder, our right).

[i.imgur.com] (IMG:[i.imgur.com] https://i.imgur.com/AwqMCRSg.jpg)

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Jan 5 2021, 10:12

I see an iMac G3 for sale that's really tempting. 600MHz, maxed out RAM, SSD retrofit. Found a matched keyboard, and the part it needs too...
I know it's mostly just nostalgia I want one for, but knowing theres a build of debian 10 for it makes it more tempting, but is there any other limix that'd run on it? It has a PowerPC 750CXe cpu at 600MHz, and 1GB of ram.

It does look like I can use any keyboard and make a usb inline power button. It just grounds out D-.

This post has been edited by Wayward_Vagabond: Jan 5 2021, 14:30

I see an iMac G3 for sale that's really tempting. 600MHz, maxed out RAM, SSD retrofit. Found a matched keyboard, and the part it needs too...
I know it's mostly just nostalgia I want one for, but knowing theres a build of debian 10 for it makes it more tempting, but is there any other limix that'd run on it? It has a PowerPC 750CXe cpu at 600MHz, and 1GB of ram.

I'd not do that, just because it's a G3 and also because there are apparently known issues using SSD's with powermacs (at least with OS X). That said I have no idea how much ram it has exactly. And if it's one of the translucent kinds then it might be tempting just because they're cute. I seem to remember the G3's having issues with their flyback transformers, though.
Definitely check what GPU it has, since some GPU's don't work very well with modern linux on PowerPC. Some Radeons need to be locked at PCI bus speeds and (IIRC) the old nvidia ones are just garbage.

I have a Powerbook G4 1.33GHz (with 2GB RAM) running Sid myself. Gentoo also works. I have to do the radeon PCI speed thingy on mine or it freezes randomly pretty soon after boot.
if you do decide to get the G3 and want any help or anything, I've gotten pretty good at messing with them and know most of the obscure tools/utilities you can use to get your desired behavior.

I also can supply a mozconfig that would probably let you build a fixed up version of firefox 52 or seamonkey for it; I'd share my binaries but they are optimized for the G4 (-mcpu=g4 GCC option) and might not even run on a G3. The version in Debian has a couple bugs in it that negatively impact stability and performance which I was able to fix with compile-time flags.

_Current_ Firefox requires node.js for its build system, though (kind of ironically IMHO), and node.js doesn't currently work on PPC32. So you'll be stuck with a somewhat older release.

If you don't want to set up a cross build environment I could also build you a G3 optimized kernel; unlike firefox it was pretty easy to get the kernel to cross-compile and I have scripts set up to do it on my G4 which I could tweak slightly. Alternately I could just share my scripts.

If you do get the G3, do the world a favor and run over the stock keyboard with a snow plow or steamroller.

I think Matias might still sell a keyboard that looks like a decent match for the old imacs while not feeling like punching a dead octopus.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Jan 5 2021, 14:36

GPU is "ATI Rage 128 Ultra with 16 MB of SDRAM"
SSD is already installed in it, as is the 1GB (max supported) RAM. Needs a new optical drive, but also found one for it.

What's so wrong with the stock keyboard? I have zero plans on a stock mouse though.

On keyboards, I ordered a Cherry Stream for my desktop to use for IRC and heavy typing, as I just can't stand mechanical keyboard typing. It supposedly scissor key based, so I'll have to see how it feels.

This post has been edited by Wayward_Vagabond: Jan 5 2021, 14:44

GPU is "ATI Rage 128 Ultra with 16 MB of SDRAM"
SSD is already installed in it, as is the 1GB (max supported) RAM. Needs a new optical drive, but also found one for it.

What's so wrong with the stock keyboard?

Edited my post, but they feel like punching a dead octopus.

Matias tactile pro 2.0 is a good match visually, but no longer available. [matias.store] This one is, though.

I'd use an Apple Extended Keyboard, myself (with homemade ADB adapter), but eBay prices be crazy and they're beige. That or a Sun type 5 keyboard if you want rubberdome that doesn't feel like garbage.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Jan 5 2021, 14:42

Is the black apple pro keyboard that superceded the G3 keyboards any better? I was eyeing a graphite iMac, so fairly neutral colors.

I had been eyeing a sun type 6 keyboard, it's USB and has an optional wrist rest. A little more reasonable priced than a type 5 as well..
Curious how key mapping on it'd work to PC or Mac though.

This post has been edited by Wayward_Vagabond: Jan 5 2021, 15:00