Tony is a Geek

Whilst looking for something completely different, I stumbled over this little gem. https://github.com/rossumur/esp_8_bit However, if you look at the screenshot, it's not that image that took my interest... it was the .htm file in the repo. A quick click on the file, selecting [RAW],  copy & paste and make a local .htm file on my Desktop... then open it in a web-browser... The little OHID letters on left-hand side actually are the menu items, O = Open File. I opened a few .atr files that I just happened to have to hand (as you do)... and lo'and'behold, I can now see the machine code that the .atr file is made up of  Why is that interesting?  Well, how many times have you thought, "I wonder how they coded that?" or, "I wish I could learn to do something like that".  Unfortunately, the knowledge / skill / tutorials etc.. for this type of thing just don't exist anymore. There are not any books or online tutorial guides that will take you through how...

So...I've had a radio controlled boat / ship, well, it's 4ft long, so it's still a boat, but it's mighty large, since covid-19 lockdown time - I bought the boat around April/May2021-ish (I think).... my plan was when the lockdown lifted to visit the Warminster boating lake and use the radio controlled boat on a Sunday morning for a bit of fun and for something different. The boat I bought was a replica of one I starting building way back in the mid-1980s, the boat knocked around for a while, I fitted the prop-shaft and rudder and fitted a period correct water cooled fuel engine - the one's that were used in RC planes.  I never got the engine working properly.  Anyway, I did keep the boat with me until the end of the 1990s when I sold it to my sisters husband (at the time) who was more skilled at this sort of things.  He rebuilt the engine and got it working/running.  However, he didn't do anything in relation to the radio control gear.  He did paint the boat how...

Okay, so as you saw in the previous article - the FujiNet device arrived, I plugged it in - I gave it a little whirl, I loaded a few things and pondered what to then do with it. Well, I then decided to do something with it.  Inspired by the weather API lookup and display app, I wondered if I could get it to call out to a node-red API that I'd custom written and get the resulting data and output it to the screen on the Atari 800 XL. As this is version 0.1, I wasn't expecting miracles, not was I expecting it to be polished or pretty - I was just after pure function and I believe I achieved that. So....after scanning a few online videos on good old YouTube and watching many side distraction videos along the way, I found a nice chap who was knowledgeable in all things Atari BASIC - yes, you don't need to code in C (yet), so long as you load up the right APP first!  I confess I did forget that as part of the start of the video and did waste about 15mins wondering what on earth I...

As I expected, the start of the year did it's usual - I had a lovely time over xmas/new year period doing fun things in my personal time and then a return to work and the big blue dominant shadow of work/work overshadowed and eclipsed everything.  TBF though I could just ignore it and carry on as before, however, I needed to wrestle back control of my current project as it was being overrun by people intent on a downward spiral of destruction and I couldn't have that - I have worked too bl00dy hard for the past 3-years to allow it to all collapse and die just because they were not mentally capable of changing into a Research & Development mindset.  Alas, something has to give and for me that is/was my time and effort.  I am glad to say, I and the project are back on track and heading into a positive trajectory. I digress. Whilst my return to Captain-ship and alleviation of mutiny was squashed , I did take the plung and order myself a FUJINET device for the 8-bit Atari...