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Quorten Blog 1

First blog for all Quorten's blog-like writings

Review of Macintosh Classic software development tools, and also evolution of ROM/BIOS programming

quorten

2019-09-17

Categories: mac-classic   unlipic   tour-de-force   reiterate  
Tags: mac-classic   unlipic   tour-de-force   reiterate  

Macintosh programming started out with Pascal, and indeed Windows API functions were made to use Pascal calling conventions. The transition from Pascal to C was a gradual one in the PC world. However, Windows used C strings and data structures. Likewise, the PC world transition to Unix-like operating systems.

  1. No ROM, no ROM bootloader, computer hardware only
  2. ROM routine library and ROM BASIC
  3. ROM routine library, ROM BASIC, ROM bootloader, custom operating system
  4. ROM routine library, ROM bootloader, custom operating system
  5. ROM/Flash routine library, ROM bootloader, custom operating system
  6. ROM/Flash routine library, ROM bootloader, Unix-like operating system
  7. ROM/Flash bootloader, Unix-like operating system
  8. ROM/Flash bootloader, Linux-based operating system

This is talking about the history of mainstream computing. So, even though Unix-like operating systems came about earlier when non-rewritable ROM chips were still being used, it was not in the purview of mainstream computing at the time.

There is a thing, there is a time where we cut out BASIC and all interactive ROM prompt interfaces and are left with a brick of a computer if you can’t boot an operating system. Because there is no longer a front-panel control switch either, that has been replaced by the ROM BASIC and ROM monitor program. Unless you can use an add-in card to provide one.

Read on →

The trick to understanding MacBinary

quorten

2019-09-17

Categories: mac-classic  
Tags: mac-classic  

On one hand, it is a great convenience that ZTerm includes support for encode/decode to MacBinary within it by default. On the other hand, it is a real crux that Mini vMac does not support serial port emulation. Instead, I am confined to using this non-standard emulation extension of ImportFl and ExportFl. So, that means I still need external software to perform the encode and decode of MacBinary.

Okay, so where do I go looking for this MacBinary software? The Gryphel project is a good place to start. Unfortunately, I’ve found only MacBinary II over there, which states that it is designed for System 7 and up. I need an older version for the older computers. But where is it to be found? After some careful reading up on Wikipedia, I found out that “BinHex 5.0” encodes and decodes MacBinary. Oh wow, now that’s a real know to throw. Use BinHex 4.0 if you want to encode in “BinHex.”

20190916/http://www.gryphel.org/c/sw/archive/macbinii/index.html
20190916/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BinHex
20190916/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacBinary
20190916/http://www.gryphel.org/c/sw/archive/binhex/index.html

So, now that I’ve given it a test drive, I have to say. Why didn’t I just start out with BinHex 5.0 instead of Mini vMac binunpk? Advertising. Yeah, that definitely has everything to do with it.

Good Reads website and social cataloging

quorten

2019-09-16

Categories: inven-sys  
Tags: inven-sys  

Good Reads, yes a venerable website. Basically, it’s a virtual bookshelf that you can place all books you’ve read on, and most importantly, make it available to the rest of the world to see, publicly visible. Now, books is just the start of what can be done by this similar methodology, you could also do it with the movies you watch, for example. Yes, indeed Wikipedia does have a good deal to say about the subject. It assigns the broader category the name social cataloging.

One thing that is particularly noteworthy reading into the subject is that the main interest and merit as it is seen in the concept is that of commercial exploitation: the design of machine learning recommender systems that can answer the question “people who like this also like this.” Yeah, on one hand it’s good that people are motivated to assemble such systems of social cataloging, but at the same time, it’s kind of sad to see that the main motivation of doing so stops promptly after the point of sale of “consumable” media content.

20190916/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodreads
20190916/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_cataloging_application

20190916/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recommendation_system
20190916/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_start_%28computing%29

Trigger a Jenkins job whenever a branch is pushed to GitHub

quorten

2019-09-16

Categories: git   jenkins  
Tags: git   jenkins  

Suppose you want to run a Jenkins pipeline any time commits are pushed to GitHub. Easy, right? In abstract, yes. But, when you have additional requirements, it is not so easy.

At the outset, GitHub provides a webhook that allows you to receive push notifications. That is, any time someone pushes a commit to GitHub, a GitHub sends an HTTP POST event is sent to the indicated URL, with the details of the push in JSON format. Jenkins has Git and GitHub plugins that make it really easy to build pipelines any time there are pushes to GitHub.

First of all, a few words of warning are worth stating in relation to how you setup triggers in your pipeline. If you have the multibranch pipeline plugin, you can view the configuration for each branch, but you cannot modify it. Instead, if there are any rules you want to enforce on particular branches, you write those in your Jenkinsfile in the pipeline syntax. The particular rule that you might be interested in configuring is branch triggering. Unfortunately, as it turns out, for pipeline branch strategy, you cannot assign webhook triggers to individual branches.

Read on →

Details on how to develop a Macintosh dd

quorten

2019-09-15

Categories: mac-classic  
Tags: mac-classic  

After a few months of delay, I’ve finally come back to picking up on the project of sending Macintosh disk images over the network. What am I going to do? I am going to keep it really simple. I will follow in the footsteps of my simplicit “early PC” disk imaging program: send/receive a disk image over a serial communications connection, using an extremely simple protocol involving only a 32-bit size header and literal data. This is easy enough and compatible enough to work on the Macintosh 128K. Similar to the PC case, the practical limit comes at the high end: once your computer is too new, your disk is too big, and serial communications too slow, you’ve got to switch to an Ethernet-based disk image transfer program. But, lucky for us, the new computers with big disks (both PC and Mac) have no trouble running Linux, so we’re covered with a classic dd and netcat on that one.

So, for my own sake of being able to develop the Macintosh disk image software, I will summarize my findings here. Essentially, all of my findings come from research sources previously reverenced, especially the original Inside Macintosh printed book, Volumes I, II, and III.

Read on →

Interesting article about heart structure from different exercise

quorten

2019-09-14

Categories: random  
Tags: random  

Interesting article on different exercises affecting heart structures depending on what the activity is, running or swimming. The main difference is due to the fact that runners exercise in an upright position where they must fight gravity, whereas swimmers exercise in a horizontal position and also have buoyancy to support them.

20190914/https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/03/well/move/heart-health-swimming-running-exercise.html

Wikipedia article on risks of blue light

quorten

2019-09-13

Categories: misc  
Tags: misc  

Sure, we know that ultraviolet light has its risks to humans, both for skin and for eyes, but purportedly even strong blue light can be risky too. How? It can more readily cause irreversible changes in the retina that can lead to permanent damage. The risks to humans in domestic uses such as LED lighting currently seem relatively low, and in general, this is much more of a risk factor when blue light is abused or when people are otherwise overexposed in factory environments, for example.

20190913/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-energy_visible_light#Blue-light_hazard

Interesting article on the disadvantages of DIY

quorten

2019-09-13

Categories: home-network  
Tags: home-network  

Do-it-yourself can be great when you need some degree of customization that may not be possible if you have someone else do it for you, but for some modifications, do-it-yourself can be dangerous and is termed as “destroy-it-yourself.” This interesting articles has discussion about that.

20190912/https://www.dispatch.com/zz/homes/20190910/diy-do-it-yourself-or-destroy-it-yourself

Interesting spacesuit moisture control mechanism

quorten

2019-09-12

Categories: random  
Tags: random  

How do spacesuits control moisture from human sweat and water vapor? Very interesting, they remove it via a condenser cooler system, and the additional water can be used in a sublimator to carry away heat, allowing cooling to be functional for longer.

So sweat will cool you off by evaporating in your suit, AND by sublimating out of it… This is beautiful – Antzi

20190911/https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/38712/how-do-eva-suits-manage-water-excretion

Git's antiquated contributor process and nedmalloc

quorten

2019-09-12

Categories: random-software  
Tags: random-software  

Many times I have looked at the Linux and Git repositories on GitHub. Yeah, sure, they state clearly, they are mirrors for reference only, pull requests are not accepted, those are done the alternate, traditional Git way. Which is what? E-mailing patch files to the mailing list. Yep, they’re still doing that, even in the year 2019. Wow, that’s like the raging 90’s era way of doing open-source software, and hardly even considered open at that!

Nevertheless, some daresome adventuring has shown that there actually are pull requests on the GitHub repository ofr Git, and some review comments at that, namely from dscho, i.e. the Microsoft employee on Git for Windows. What gives? Basically, even though pull requests are not officially accepted there, they are still used as a useful staging ground for preparing Git patches, and there are in fact even tools to help make the patch submission process easier. Two notable tools are GitGitGadget and submitGit.

20190911/https://github.com/git/git/pulls
20190911/https://github.com/git/git/pull/498
20190911/https://gitgitgadget.github.io/
20190911/https://submitgit.herokuapp.com/

Yeah. that’s an open pull request that never made it originally, but was duplicated and merged by someone else, but what about a successfully closed pull request? Look here.

20190911/https://github.com/git/git/pull/632

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