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Day 12: Retrocomputing Advent Calendar – Cromemco Z-1 #retrocomputing #firstcomputer #electronics

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Day 12: Retrocomputing Advent Calendar - Cromemco Z-1 #retrocomputing #firstcomputer #electronics

A different one today! Cromemco was founded in 1974 by Stanford Ph.D. students Harry Garland and Roger Melen to develop a series of peripherals for early microcomputers, such as the Cyclops digital camera and the Dazzler color graphics interface. In 1976, they came out with their first full microcomputer, the Z-1, which used the same chassis as the IMSAI 8080 but fitted with a 4 MHz Zilog Z80 processor instead of the Intel 8080.

Day 12: Retrocomputing Advent Calendar - Cromemco Z-1 #retrocomputing #firstcomputer #electronics

The Z-1 was very flexible for the time, with 8 KB of static RAM and 22 S-100 bus expansion slots. This allowed the computer to immediately function upon power-up, without manually loading a boot program. Cromemco’s vibe from what I could read was a commitment quality and reliable system, its systems found wide acceptance, and by 1986, more than 80% of major-market U.S. television stations were using the system for news and weather graphics. The company continued to keep going until it was acquired by Dynatech Corporation in 1987.

Day 12: Retrocomputing Advent Calendar - Cromemco Z-1 #retrocomputing #firstcomputer #electronics

Adafruit team member Franklin’s story …

After reading Byte magazine and Jerry Pournelle’s Chaos Manor articles I bought a Cromemco motherboard, (Cromemco named for CROthers MEMorial Hall – the Stanford residence where the founders lived, came into existance in the mid 1970s, and grew to become a major player in the S-100 business systems market.) Cromemco began by making S-100 boards. Their first system called the Z-1 was based on an IMSAI chassis with Cromemco boards, however they quickly moved on to building their own complete systems. I hand soldered the S-100 daughter boards and placed them in a TEI case but had no way to program it. Jerry wrote about Tony Pietch who was in Cal Tech close to me so I looked him up and contacted him. He agreed to burn ROMs for XMON and, with XMON and Tarbell Basic I had a working computer. That was sometime in the late 70’s.

Day 12: Retrocomputing Advent Calendar - Cromemco Z-1 #retrocomputing #firstcomputer #electronics

So of course I needed to find out more about Jerry Pournelle and Chaos Manor! One of the first bloggers!

Pournelle’s journalism focused primarily on the computer industry, astronomy, and space exploration. From the 1970s until the early 1990s, he contributed to the computer magazine Byte, writing from the viewpoint of an intelligent user, with the oft-cited credo, “We do this stuff so you won’t have to.”He created one of the first blogs, entitled “Chaos Manor”, which included commentary about politics, computer technology, space technology, and science fiction.

Have first computer memories? Post’em up in the comments, or post yours on socialz’ and tag them #firstcomputer #retrocomputing – See you back here tomorrow!

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jepler
12 days ago
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We saw a Cromemco at Vintage Computer Festival Midwest this summer.
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Drones, Surveillance, and Facial Recognition: Startup Named 'Sauron' Pitches Military-Style Home Security

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The Washington Post details a vision of home security "pitched by Sauron, a Silicon Valley start-up boasting a waiting list of tech CEOs and venture capitalists." In the future, your home will feel as safe from intruders as a state-of-the-art military base. Cameras and sensors surveil the perimeter, scanning bystanders' faces for potential threats. Drones from a "deterrence pod" scare off trespassers by projecting a searchlight over any suspicious movements. A virtual view of the home is rendered in 3D and updated in real time, just like a Tesla's digital display. And private security agents monitor alerts from a central hub.... By incorporating technology developed for autonomous vehicles, robotics and border security, Sauron has built a supercharged burglar alarm [argued Sauron co-founder Kevin Hartz, a tech entrepreneur and former partner at Peter Thiel's venture firm Founders Fund]...

For many tech elites, security is both a national priority and a growing concern in their personal lives... After the presidential election last month, the start-up incubator Y Combinator put out a request for "public safety technology" companies, such as those that produce tools that facilitate a neighborhood watch or technology that uses computer vision to identify "suspicious activities or people in distress from video feeds...." Sauron has raised $18 million in funding from executives behind Flock Safety and Palantir, the data analytics firm, [and] defense tech investors such as 8VC, a venture firm started by Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale... Sauron is targeting homeowners at the high end of the real estate market, beginning with a private event at Abraham's home on Thursday, during Art Basel Miami Beach, the annual art exhibition that attracts collectors from around the world. The company plans to launch in San Francisco early next year, before expanding to Los Angeles and Miami...

Big Tech companies haven't deployed tools such as facial recognition as aggressively as Hartz would like. "If somebody comes onto my property, I feel like I should know who that is," Hartz said... In recent years massive investments have driven down the cost of drones, high-resolution cameras and lidar sensors, which use light detection to create 3D maps. Sauron uses lower-cost hardware and tools like facial recognition, combined with custom-built software adapted for residential use. For facial recognition, it will use a third-party service called Paravision... Sauron is still figuring out how to incorporate drones, but it is already imagining more aggressive countermeasures, Hartz said. "Is it a machine that could take out a bad actor with a bullet or something?"

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jepler
17 days ago
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we live in the fucking darkest timeline
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Mitutoyo Digital Caliper Stand #3DThursday #3DPrinting

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sweatyfox shares:

This is a universal stand for 150mm and 200mm digital verniers, it fits my Mitutoyo and RS Pro calipers and should fit others.

It prints without any supports and uses 24 grams of filament.

download the files on: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6806636#google_vignette



649-1
Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!

Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!

LIVE CHAT IS HERE! http://adafru.it/discord

Adafruit on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adafruit

Shop for parts to build your own DIY projects http://adafru.it/3dprinting

3D Printing Projects Playlist:

3D Hangout Show Playlist:

Layer by Layer CAD Tutorials Playlist:

Timelapse Tuesday Playlist:

Connect with Noe and Pedro on Social Media:

Noe’s Twitter / Instagram: http://instagram.com/ecken

Pedro’s Twitter / Instagram: http://instagram.com/videopixil

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jepler
20 days ago
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sorry but calipers belong in the case. anything else is incorrect.
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Infinite Armada Chess

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Stockfish 16 suggests the unconventional opening 1. RuntimeError: Out of bounds memory access
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jepler
20 days ago
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It feels like you'd want to give away all your non-queen material ASAP. Like, if White started without king's bishop and king's bishop pawn it's 1. Qf7#; If you start with all standard pieces except king removed, it's 1. Qe3# (either one)

If it's true that 'whoever takes a pawn first is loser' (which I've far-from-proven, but this is what opens up "I can use my whole infinite file of queens") then the game feels like a draw: you'd decline all pawn captures, ending up with a structure that can never pass queens. You won't checkmate with 2 knights against infinite queens.

Of course, capturing a pawn with a pawn also opens one of *your* infinite queen files; so maybe it suffices to play out all 14(?) different file pairs that could participate in pawn-pawn captures.

Another opening would be the normally-bad 1. e4 ... 2. Qh5, threatening Qxf7#. Normally ... g6 suffices as a response, but white has 3 more queens on the diagonal behind that one to make good on the threat. I guess 1. e4 h5 means that 2. Qxh5 has opened up one of black's queen armadas, so that's no good for white.
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macr0t0r
20 days ago
It's because of awesome people like you that I prefer reading XKCD in Newsblur.
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2 public comments
cjheinz
21 days ago
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Holy crap!
Lexington, KY; Naples, FL
alt_text_bot
21 days ago
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Stockfish 16 suggests the unconventional opening 1. RuntimeError: Out of bounds memory access

Paper Pyramids

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three paper pyramids of different sizes, laying on the table as if a stack were just tipped over.

So apparently I haven't written about Looney Pyramids yet! Formerly known as Icehouse Pyramids, these were invented by Andy Looney in 1987 as a prop for a science fiction setting for his book The Empty City. The game was called Icehouse, and it was meant to be a Martian counterpart to Chess, but "alien" in every possible way:

a paper pyramid next to a bottlecap, for scale. the pyramid is about half an inch wide at the base.
  • The game is for 4 players, with no assigned partners. Diplomacy is allowed but only once play begins.
  • Pieces cannot be moved after placing, except in rare circumstances, similar to Go.
  • There is no board! The game is played on any flat surface, typically a coffee table. Each player is allowed a small reserve space for their 'out of play' pieces, and literally everywhere else is considered 'in play'.
  • There are no turns. You can move whenever you feel like it. You can make lots of quick moves, or you can wait and make lots of late moves.
  • To prevent stalling, there is a timer set to 'about 30 minutes', and placed where nobody can see the remaining time.
the paper pyramid compared to a plastic Looney Pyramid. it's about the same size.

These design concepts were ahead of their time in my opinion. Andy Looney and friends, I think they called themselves the 'Wunderland Toast Society', they absolutely changed board gaming in a way we wouldn't see again until James Ernest started Cheapass Games and started selling cut-and-play titles like Kill Doctor Lucky in 1996. In fact, whenever a James Ernest game says to use 'tokens of your choice', I always use Looney Pyramids.

three paper pyramids stacked upright in a pine tree shape, with a hand visible holding them in place.

Anyway, I had to blog about this because I found Bill Adams' Origami Icehouse Pieces page buried in the Internet Archive. I've downloaded a local copy in case anything happens to the Archive and I'll probably mirror it at some point unless he objects. I'm not sure if he's still around or how to get in touch with him; if you do then let me know.

The pieces are a bit tricky to fold! When he says "fold the corner to the right", you actually have to hold the previous fold in place and fold over it. I should take my own pictures honestly. Right now I just want to show off a few pieces I folded for fun though. Ok bye!

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jepler
21 days ago
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I only was recently introduced to looney pyramids / icehouse pieces, and now they're everywhere!
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denubis
21 days ago
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I brought my set to my uni students to play at the end of the end of the semester. My set was older than most of them. I almost crumbled to dust...

For those who are interested, Zendo is my most favourite game ever, and Volcano is durably replayable. https://looneypyramids.wiki/wiki/Award-Winning_Games is a useful list. I've played... more than I care to count.

Caliper wire measuring/cutting jig #3DThursday #3DPrinting

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Shared by Spiraltrophy on Thingiverse:

I needed to cut some short lengths of wire as accurately as possible for making a wifi antenna. This jig was an experiment to aid the accuracy.

Note: the jig is deliberately designed to cut too short – you need to calibrate it. See below.

Small differences exist in every setup caused by different print accuracy and how flush to the jig you can cut with your wire cutters

.

Download the files and learn more


649-1
Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!

Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!

Read the whole story
jepler
27 days ago
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oh interesting idea
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