Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal/Opinions

  • 🔤SpellBinding: TGIOPRF Wordo: GUNKY

  • after the heat

• Technology and Free Software

  • Tenebra 2

    How cool is Tenebra, and how cool is its sequel, Tenebra 2.

    A puzzle game by h4plo disguised as a dungeon crawler, released for pretty much every 8-bit and 16-bit console and home computer.

  • The Floppy That Time Forgot: Mitsumi’s 2.8-Inch Quick Disk

    Something you don’t see every day.

    In the early 1980s, there was a war between floppy disk formats — and Sony’s 3.5-inch disks came out on top.

    This one here is one of the many losers: the 2.8-inch Quick Disk format by Mitsumi. Each side could hold 64KB, and you had to flip it over like the old 5¼-inch floppies. It used a spiral track, so there was no random access — all data was written in one long winding track, like on an audio cassette.

  • Old Computer Challenge 2025

    OK, after seeing some phosts about the Old Computer Challenge 2025 [1] I decided to participate, even though the plane is already in flight. It is already day ][. Since this round is DIY, I will try something different.

  • OCC 2025 Day III

    Spent this afternoon replacing the 3.5" floppy drive on the Korg Triton Pro X with a USB Floppy emulator. I have been meaning to do this since I'd rather not use or store floppies/magnetic media anymore and the USB Floppy emulator can emulate 1000 floppies on a USB stick. The emulator I have is the GoTEK SFR1M44-U100 (Grey).

    Most of the time was spent trying to clear some space in the lab to work on the 88-key Triton. I ended up laying down some yoga mats and working on it on the floor. The Triton is heavy and bulky and I did not want to mess it up. I took off some of the knobs so they did not get damaged or in the way before I turned it over.

    The Triton has many, many screws that needed to be removed and a couple panels to access the internals. I think I counted around 50. This was a chore since even though I had floor space to work, it was still a bit cramped.

  • OCC 2025 Day IV

    For today, I upgraded the hard drive on the Fujitsu Lifebook P1610 to a 64 GB SSD. The original is a 60 GB Toshiba 1.8" hard drive (MK6006GAH). The replacement is a 64 GB Gamerking mSATA SSD. To properly interface the SSD with the P1610, I used an mSATA to CE/ZIF adapter and a 1.8" ZIF to 1.8" hard drive connector. Quick and easy upgrade. Also the parts were pretty cheap since the technology is old. Tomorrow I will load an OS (antiX Linux).

  • OCC 2025 Day V

    Downloaded the latest 32-bit antiX Linux (v23.2) ISO. Wrote antiX ISO to USB stick. Checked BIOS for new SSD. Booted antiX via USB. Installed antiX to SSD. Updated antiX.

  • OCC 2025 Day VI

    I had the opportunity to learn more about where things are at with Linux audio. It still confuses me and I spent most of the OCC time doing some research on ALSA, PulseAudio, JACK, Pipewire, MIDI, etc.

  • OCC 2025 Day VII

    connection until today (Sunday.) I found this article [1][2] by sndrtj to be quite helpful in getting the Triton to work with the P1610 via the Keystep.

  • OCC 2025 Epiphlogue

    Again, I enjoyed taking the time out to work on my old computers. Even though I did not have a chance to join irc to chat, I look forward to reading more of the community's writeups for OCC 2025. Thank you all in the OCC community for participating and keeping this challenge going!

  • Testing a reset of the one week jail

  • 20 years of Linux on the Desktop (part 4)

    The fragmentation of the Ubuntu/GNOME communities became all too apparent when, in 2010, Mark Shuttleworth announced during the Ubuntu-summit that Ubuntu would drop GNOME in favour of its own in-house and secretly developed desktop: Unity.

    I was in the audience. I remember shaking my head in disbelief while Mark was talking on stage, just a few metres from me.

    Working at the time in the automotive industry, I had heard rumours that Canonical was secretly talking with BMW to put Ubuntu in their cars and that there was a need for a new touchscreen interface in Ubuntu. Mark hoped to make an interface that would be the same on computers and touchscreens. Hence the name: "Unity". It made sense but I was not happy.

    The GNOME community was, at the time, in great agitation about the future. Some thought that GNOME was looking boring. That there was no clear sense of direction except minor improvements. In 2006, the German Linux Company SUSE had signed a patent agreement with Microsoft covering patents related to many Windows 95 concepts like the taskbar, the tray, the startmenu. SUSE was the biggest contributor to KDE and the agreement was covering the project. But Red Hat and GNOME refused to sign that agreement, meaning that Microsoft suing the GNOME project was now plausible.

  • Internet/Gemini

    • Notes on Community in Geminispace

      Like a lot of people, I've been reading clseibold's thoughts on the state of the Gemini community in mid 2025. He writes about a number of projects he's worked on to broaden the capabilities and appeal of Geminispace, and of the frustration when the uptake wasn't anything close to what was envisioned.