Derp!

14:02 Friday, 26 December 2025

Current Wx: Temp: 16.93°F Pressure: 1015hPa Humidity: 90% Wind: 9.62mph
Words: 76

Okay, this pic was supposed to be in the previous post. I ran the script from Photos, but when I tried to switch to Tinderbox, it wouldn't come forward with CMD-TAB. I used Exposé to show all the windows, and selected the marmot's window and it came forward with the "Fun" note created.

I failed to notice it wasn't an image post. I did notice after I'd exported and uploaded, hence this post.

Carry on...

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More Fun

13:45 Friday, 26 December 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 17.01°F Pressure: 1016hPa Humidity: 88% Wind: 9.62mph
Words: 248

Spent a little time playing around. More investigation is required, but it appears as though the 32MB hard drive images appear in Slot 2. Not sure why that would be the case, but if I boot from the internal drive, ProDOS can see the HD image at Slot 2, Drive 1.

Fractal //e was one of the programs on that HD image I'd set up a couple of years ago. I tried it out on the IIc Plus and this image took over an hour to render, closer to two I think. That wasn't problematic, I rather enjoyed it. I could watch each line as it rendered. Pretty cool.

So the IIc Plus can be over-clocked, well, some of them can. I need to go back and find where I read about how to identify which motherboards support it. All it takes is swapping in a new crystal. Might be fun to run it at 8MHz.

It's snowing pretty hard out right now. We'll get some accumulation, I'm sure. I bought some ICETRAX cleats for my boots, and I broke them out of the packaging today. I went out the day before yesterday to check the mail and fell on my ass. I worry about Mitzi because of her fragile bones, but she doesn't seem interested in using them. The snow can cover ice from previous melting snow, it's slippery and you'd never see it. I know I didn't. Anyway, they slide over my boots easily enough.

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Post-Holiday Note

09:27 Friday, 26 December 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 15.01°F Pressure: 1024hPa Humidity: 82% Wind: 4.07mph
Words: 835

I hope everyone had an enjoyable holiday.

A lot of yesterday was spent on the iPhone, FaceTiming with family. It was nice catching up with everyone, but it was also a bit demanding, being that "social," switching contexts pretty rapidly. Still, it was better than spending a couple hours in the car, driving from place to place to say hello.

After doing all that, Mitzi and I went to see a movie, which is something that is in her tradition. We haven't been able to do it in the past, because "hours in the car," kind of put the pinch on spending time in a movie theater. I was reluctant to go because New York is one of the states where the flu is spiking hospitalizations. But I figured it was Christmas, how many people could there be? I packed a mask anyway.

We went to see Anaconda. It was entertaining. Reminded me a lot of Tropic Thunder. I did wear my mask, because there were more people than I anticipated, and the couple that sat down next to us (we had a seat in between) reeked of cigarettes. The mask wasn't to reduce the smell, though it did have that effect, it was mostly that the smell suggested to me just how much can be transmitted through the air.

We didn't get snacks and I tried not to touch anything except the recliner buttons on the seat.

COVID has ruined me.

After the movie, we had dinner at a vegan Thai restaurant that was open on Christmas. We were the only couple in the place, though we got there right after they'd opened. Before we left the host mentioned that he'd just answered a call from a group wanting to know if they were open, so hopefully they got a little more traffic.

The Apple IIc Plus arrived on Wednesday, minus the power cord. I messaged the seller and got an, "I'm sorry." Minor disappointment, because it uses a fairly standard power cable, and there happened to be one next to me for the EcoFlow River3 battery I have on hand. The computer itself was in better shape than I expected. The photos did not do it justice.

I don't know if the seller was a retro-computing enthusiast, or how they acquired the machine, but it seems to have received some TLC earlier in its life. Stickers inside the machine indicated it had been re-capped (The electrolytic capacitors had been replaced, against the possibility of eventual leakage.) and the ROM (read-only memory) had been replaced with a custom version developed for the IIc Plus that affords some additional features.

The memory expansion card had a 2032 battery installed, which was empty in the pics. Figured I had to open it to install a battery, but there was one in place. No idea how old it may be.

The memory card is a recent, modern version, with a built-in clock/calendar. The disk image with the driver at Plaven's web page seems corrupted, I can't get it to mount. Searching for another one, I learned that it was based on the Applied Engineering D-Clock for the Apple IIc, and it has some bugs in it that interfere with the proper operation of the RAM disk. I looked for a compiled binary, but there doesn't seem to be one, which was pretty surprising.

Looks like I'm going to have to learn how to instal CC65, run CA65, compile that source with the FIX_BUGS flag set. That should be an adventure. (I'm not looking forward to it, but it doesn't appear insurmountable.)

The computer itself is very clean, passes the diagnostics and the disk drive reads and writes as it should. I had some difficulty getting it to boot from a SmartPort HD image on the Floppy Emu, but I'm going to put that down to operator error for now. I had one 3.5" floppy drive laying around, and I was able to mount floppy disk images with the Emu, so I started building a start-up disk that I could transfer to the RAM disk. I'm pretty sure I can't cold-boot from the RAM disk (from power-on), but a boot from BASIC should work. The battery should allow the RAM disk contents to remain intact, and since I'm not running the clock code, it should survive shutdown. Haven't tried that yet, but hopefully today I'll get around to it.

Video output to the Benq 27" monitor was stable. I was surprised to find that I like the Alps keyboard on the 4100 better than the one on the 4500 (the c Plus). It's fine, better than the OG 4000, but the keystroke are less "crisp."

Anywho, that's what's on tap for today. Weather is supposed to be arriving this afternoon, snow and such. It's cold right now. I'm warm in the house but my fingers get cold. Not missing Florida for all that though.

The beat goes on...

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