The August of Progress

It turns out that the cheapest replacement mobo I could buy new was a dual Pentium 1600 with a semi-decent Via video chipset.

The end result is that (despite not having a proper driver for the chipset yet) this ex-cranky-old-junker is now new from stem to stern (well, bar the screen) & cranks along quite nicely, running the Matrix3D screen-saver smoothly & flawlessly & responding to things like web pages instantly.

Dear old grandma Mardie’s email toolkit now includes 41 GUI games — including, it happens, some old favourites which have the James-&-Jane nephews salivating about future visits — & this is without the plethora of Commander Keens etc which DosBox has effectively made available.

When a driver floats into existence for the Via 3371 chipset (I think that amounts to a Chrome9 P4M900) this little box will hum along quite nicely with full-blast OpenGL etc.

For those who are wondering, this is like the March of Progress, only a little bit later/more rushed.

Comments

every-application-is-part-of-a-toolkit at work

I have a LibreOffice Impress slideshow that I wish to turn into a narrated video. 1. export the slideshow as PNG images (if that is partially broken — as at now — at higher resolutions, Export Directly as PDF then use ‘pdftoppm’ (from the poppler-utils package) to do the same). 2. write a small C program (63 lines including comments) to display those images one at a time, writing a config file entry for Imagination (default transition: ‘cross fade’) based on when the image-viewer application (‘display,’ from the GraphicsMagick suite) is closed on each one; run that, read each image aloud, then close each image in turn. 3. run ‘Imagination’ over the config file to produce a silent MP4 video with the correct timings. 4. run ‘Audacity’ to record speech while using ‘SMPlayer’ to display the silent video, then export that recording as a WAV file. 4a. optionally, use ‘TiMIDIty’ to convert a non-copyright-encumbered MIDI tune to WAV, then import that and blend it with the speech (as a quiet b

new life for an old (FTX) PSU, improved life for one human

the LEDs on this 5m strip happen to emit light centred on a red that does unexpectedly helpful things to (and surprisingly deeply within) a human routinely exposed to it. it has been soldered to a Molex connector, plugged into a TFX power supply from a (retired: the MoBo is cactus) Small Form Factor PC, the assorted PSU connectors (and loose end from the strip) have been taped over. the LED strip cost $10.24 including postage, the rest cost $0, the PSU is running at 12½% of capacity, consumes less power than a laptop plug-pack despite running a fan. trial runs begin today.

boundaries

pushing the actual boundaries of the physical (not extremes, the boundaries themselves) can often remove barriers not otherwise perceived. one can then often resolve an issue itself, rather than merely stonewalling at the physical consequences of the issue.

Plantagenet Penguinista

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