Ariel Millennium Thornton @arielmt@computerfairi.es

Welcome to IBM PC-XT (5160) Cassette Basic in ROM, required for the earliest PC-DOS BasicA even though the cassette port & header pad both ceased to exist after the 5150.

The most reliable computer I have today:

Almost.
?

And repaired! (I made it mine in 1998; don't judge.)

Adding picture captions in Tusky is a little less obvious than on your instance website but still easy. After picking the picture, tap on it & choose "Set caption."

Add captions for the sake of the fully sighted as well, not just the partially or fully impaired. It saves you from "what am I looking at" questions whose answers may be obvious only to you.

But I now have a hardware reference for a DIY keyboard, not just a PDF scan.

This both complicates things and explains why so few keys worked. Both ribbons were almost completely separated at the connector, & the bits still clinging on snapped right off while carefully lifting the board out. Bits of keyboard are still in both connectors.

It's so tiny that my 2007 netbook has a larger footprint.

Thank goodness for the Big Book of Amiga Hardware. I had to take my (secondhand) A500 apart to see if a RAM upgrade I was eyeing is compatible, but I found this weird little Kickstart switcher card I couldn't identify in the ROM socket instead. http://www.bigbookofamigahardware.com/bboah/product.aspx?id=669

Today is the 20th anniversary of Serial Experiments Lain.

...And it's official. GitHub sold out to Microsoft: https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2018/06/04/microsoft-github-empowering-developers/

I'm still tinkering with with my desktop icon theme.

I decided I don't need a tall xload because I'd only need to know if the load average gets above 4.0 or 5.0, not necessarily how much above.

I also decided that a wider xcal would help me reread date info a lot quicker. (I just realized I'll have to widen it more for "September.")

Combine those together, & that let me move xclock closer to the corner, too.

(Wallpaper is the left part of "Chakats at the Onsen")

Swiped from https://twitter.com/AlecMuffett/status/999616307241906176 on birdsite:

NPR has the best creative solution. (You can shortcut it by replacing "www" with "text" in the URL.) https://computerfairi.es/media/_7qtaotMWoqCRAl_vqU https://computerfairi.es/media/pgoIMpkj0wtCx3WaMEg

... I have 66 icons to manage so far, wow. :/

- 18 icons I configured to do nothing but look pretty (by running `true` if clicked)
- 48 icons that actually do things when clicked
- also, 5 programs running in windows that look like icons

I ended up writing a shellscript to help me manage them all (so much for not being as hard as it looks), because I'm definitely not done moving them around and adding more. https://computerfairi.es/media/FPgpo1AoVETrludsk38

I am so close to liking this icon theme I'm working on well enough to call it ready to write about. Whole screen, left-edge icons, and top-edge icons.

(Wallpaper: "Chakats on the Beach" by rickgriffin https://www.furaffinity.net/view/5271044/ )

(Also, I like sailorhg's fairyfloss editor theme too much: https://sailorhg.github.io/fairyfloss/ - https://github.com/sailorhg/fairyfloss/ - and that's why I turned my xterm pastel purple, which I also need to share.)

. https://computerfairi.es/media/kZoOszITrkVFQqYQnds https://computerfairi.es/media/eBqRzkim3uTTyykgsv0 https://computerfairi.es/media/3Q-HA6O69O5sSQnk4sE

Plug a cheap bog-standard USB mouse into the PC.

Linux: It just works.
Unix: It just works.
Windows: https://computerfairi.es/media/OgwMZ2cgyNhoq-MlT-Q

Want to use xman on #FreeBSD? Start it this way to get manpages formatted right:

#!/bin/sh
export GROFF_NO_SGR=1
/usr/local/bin/xman

Before & after: https://computerfairi.es/media/4Ac1TAE-XvlGV9p_G0M https://computerfairi.es/media/9-5mWICKz0GBtbG1nXg

More progress with my desktop theme. There's still some work left, but it's mostly usable & somewhat presentable.

4 xbiff mail boxes beside 3 mail action icons (read mail, write mail, use webmail), above "Netscape" (Firefox), Xpdf, Gimp (rockin' the Deluxe Paint I brush), canfield solitaire, & a drawer for pcmanfm. I still need a volume mixer & frequent Web bookmarks.

Wallpaper: "Chakat Newbeat" by Kacey Miyagami.
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/10233357/ https://computerfairi.es/media/GKMrrLbeF8KSewYLrSQ https://computerfairi.es/media/3XI6U8IP47PQ_KgHw50

My minimalist work desktop so far. wmx as my window manager, idesk for all the decorations & static icons, & xcal, xload, xclock, & xbiff as undecorated windows. My load avg peaked above 1.0, & I got new mail while taking screenshots (using xbiff icons I drew today).

Wallpapers used in the screenies:
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/21975312/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/3771319/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/22242412/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/10675384/

https://computerfairi.es/media/4nwnJtKjToTFJiKUvNc https://computerfairi.es/media/oZbZ3MCWf_dtbB5dE54 https://computerfairi.es/media/zSlPkjiMRl0OwpmMblA https://computerfairi.es/media/ALcjM5bO3qvun0CcKzM

Good morning, folks. I'm still having a really hard time believing that this is somehow a controversial opinion to have in 2018.
(Art by ladysnakebite on FA.)
https://computerfairi.es/media/h1JjeOjZLB9xCQSzPW0