Tony is a Geek

I short while ago, I teased that I was going to do some time-travelling back to the 1970/80s.... I did actually purchase a Z80 MBC3 device , getting around the Brexit problem of not being able to purchase items from The Netherlands because of the massive VAt charge for importing the goods into the UK - yeah, great, thanks populace dim-witted knuckle-scraping thug heads for that decision - anyway, way arond it was for the seller to pay a small fortune themselves in fee's / costs and also for me and to get the item via eBay too.... yep, of course there is a loop-hole.  don't expect it to stay open for too long though. More info at github  and a new WEBSITE to purchase the kits from I received the board and all the parts and was ready to do a soldering session and then a really odd thing happened in the UK - the sun came out...for more than 1 day.  This meant I had to switch from doing things "in the house" and go and do all those "other things" that involve ...

I have been asked by more than a few people about my views on A.I. ( which does NOT exist btw - there is no Artificial Intelligence, it does not exist yet, get over it ) and what I've been doing with it in relation to my work/work.  Well, I cannot tell you that, obviously. I have though in the past, populated articles on this site that reflect things that I have been doing / investigating for work/work and have made a record of them so that if/when I wish to repeat them I can return here and follow my instructions OR I have posted 'items of interest', things that I think might be interesting to follow up on at a near date/time in the future. I steer away from all the ChatGPT or Generative AI ( again, pi$$ poor name ) hype-b*ll*x that has been spewing out from very ignorant and naive people over the past 6-months.  Most of them should know better, as to the rest, well, they are the clueless one's, no change there, and they are just focused on the money $$$$ side of thin...

After watching a great video from Noel's Retro Labs - and watching until the end to find out the "proper" pin to connect to! I decided to solder up a connection for me to plug my, now not used, "old" mobile phone, that is perfectly okay, but no need for a SIM.  It's an Android phone that connects to the wifi perfectly fine - so I downloaded the 'PlayZX' app, yes, I appreciate that it is for the Spectrum, but it works just fine for the Amstrad too, just so long as you change the file extension from .cdt to .tzx - the actual files themselves are in the same format internally.  So, after writing a couple of python scripts (yes, it sometimes does have its uses) to extract a zip file that created 1000s of folders that internally had .cdt files - the files were all moved into a single folder and then renamed to .tzx.  Then I copied them all to the phone SD card - they used up a massive 300MB or something.  I did order a TZXDuino from eBay, which is taking...

Just that name conjures up sci-fi thoughts from back in the 1970s/1980s! "Zilog" and "Z80" - very futuristic.  Well, as usual, I'm late to the game, but what with all this "new" technology that pretty much sucks, is over-complicated and is mostly bloat-ware... I've returned back to simpler times that are actually very much more capable and flexible enough to do a lot of what is needed. I'll just leave this here : I wonder what is on my "plans for 2023 whiteboard"?.. . .

This was a kickstarter that I backed ages ago... I am actually glad they didn't rush and output something just due to cost / speed as it would have been an "and also" type robot device. Whereas this robot has evolved, changed and updated as new technology has come along - now, I know very well, that keeping on adding the latest new & shiny can sometimes mean you don't ever have a complete "thing" and there is a point in time where you just have to "go with what you've got", but I'm glad they are taking their time with 'Little Sophia' Have no idea what I'm talking about?  Check out the latest video here: In fact it was due to this little robot that I ended up finding out about a tiny little STT / TTS audio chip that is amazingly small & amazingly powerful and REALLY cheap, something like £2 each - now that sort of technology was something I played with about 10 years ago and was about 10 times the size and 10 times lower ...

Sounds like a Resident Evil naming, however, it's not.  Basically, I purchased a CPC 464 with the built in tape-player listed on eBay as 'untested' and the when it arrived, well, it was rattling... The packaging was great, cannot fault the seller, they sold the machine as-is & I was buying it as-is. After unpacking, it was clear that the tape-player was no good, there were bits of plastic & metal rolling around inside.  I did what you'd expect, I unscrewed everything, took it all apart and did some retro archaeology.  The machine wouldn't power on.  No surprise there, it was listed as untested. I got my probes out and started to have a fiddle around.  So...power was getting to the main board, however, it is the cassette tape that controls the power switch and connects to the main board and gets the machine working.  The switch was duff.  Tested it and it didn't matter where the switch was, no electricity passing through it.  Maybe I can ju...