Alright
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I have managed to successfully do Computer Stuff for two days in a row!
(That's even sort of not true. It's more like a month, but most of what I was doing prior to two days ago was either maintenance I'd put off or "wouldn't it be neat if I set up a local IRC server and a couple of MS ComicChat clients?"
I was doing bullshit.
The last couple of days have been significantly more structured.)
I have some plans (some of which are personal, some of which are professional, some of which are community oriented (communal!))
Before I get too deeply embedded in my own Computer Bullshit, I'd really love to hear from you.
What are interesting hardware and software projects happening right now?
Who's doing weird stuff with computers?
What are projects that haven't gotten enough attention.
I was, when I was paying attention, really into LoRa mesh stuff, project gemini/smallweb stuff, retrocomputing, and anything that positioned a microcontroller as a PC replacement or companion.
I was carrying a palm, or a HP200LX, and I was doing a bulk of my daily work on an HP Omnibook 430 (or 425?) running MS-DOS and Win31 from ROM on AA batteries (It's the best computer that ever existed.)
I've been working on things involving other ways of computing.
I've been re-reading @loriemerson's book (https://www.hemlockbazaar.com/product/other-networks-a-radical-technology-sourcebook-emerson-lori-hardcover/ Other Networks: A Radical Technology Sourcebook) and thinking about what could be different.
I've been going over old notes and thinking about what I want from computers, and drawing diagrams and really just trying to understand how I can have a relationship with computers that isn't defined by capital.
I'm mostly doing this stuff around making toys and media about toys.
For the last 10 years and change, making toys and media (and video games featuring the characters from our toys and media) has been my escape from tech.
But for the last 2 years we've been working on (and have succeeded at!) making toys and media and video games professionally.
You can see some of my toys here: https://www.mountaintowntoys.com/kumiai-ki-the-mighty-union-machine/
And games here: https://ajroach42.itch.io
(Well "professionally". Me and sundog are figuring this shit out from scratch in a rented garage using educational/hobby level gear, but it's working.)
And as I've gotten deeper into making toys and games and stuff like that "professionally" I keep finding myself reaching for computers again as a change of pace from the things that dominate my workday.
But, as I'm sure you've noticed, a lot of the world of computers is *bad* right now and that makes doing Computers as an escape from work a little uncomfortable, you know?
So I'm positioning every step of what I do with computers right now in opposition to the modern capitalist digital hellscape.
The things I look for in computers:
- Low power utilization
- Flexibility
- Networking (but optional, don't demand or even expect an active connection. My favorite computer could only "network" over a serial connection to another computer or to a bluetooth modem that'd hotspot off my phone.)
Until 5 or 6 years ago I mostly worked in plain text and/or markdown.
It didn't matter what "computer" I was using, because everything I did either lived on a remote server that I was accessing via SSH (or via serial, or via a serial connection to a computer with a wifi connection and then via SSH) or was in plain text files on a USB stick or a CF card or SD card that all got mirrored or updated based on various BS cron jobs I ran on the "server" that was an old desktop at my house.
The majority of my digital life was in a couple of text files and a few web pages that generated RSS feeds that got consumed by rinky-dink software I wrote.
These days, especially for "work" I'm mostly doing heavy 3D work and editing video.
I don't write nearly as much as I used to.
You can see some of my experiments in that space on my blog ( https://ajroach42.com/blogging-at-19200-baud/ ) and under the hashtag #zinestation or #zinestation486
What you'll find is that I mostly talk about these things when they're just barely working, and once I have them working well I mostly forget to talk about them anymore.
If you really go digging, you might be able to find some blogposts I wrote about doing a similar thing with the Tandy 100 or 102. I know I wrote about it somewhere, but I can't seem to find the posts. (Probably they were on my blog on my old tilde. RIP)
And if you *Really* dig, you might find some blog posts I did about a similar thing on the HP 200LX back when I was still using blogspot.
