Jakyamuni

Retrochallenge 2008, T minus 3 Weeks

2008-06-10T19:18:00.003-04:00

It's three weeks till July, but I'm gettting antsy.

Really antsy.

Like, this-is-the-most-exciting-thing-I-could-be-doing-right-now kinda antsy; ya get the picture?

With that in mind, my proposal for the 2008 Retrochallenge: to produce a series of images.

Let's back up:

In late May through early June, the possibility presented itself, in a new apartment, for time-lapse photography out my front window; alas, the only digital camera I have [and the only one that would functionally qualify for this anyway] is an Apple Quicktake 100 Plus; however, getting and saving and setting up images on a regular basis [automated by Applescript] was not feasible. My thoughts on that involve how the camera behaves when connected to the computer- it mounts as an external storage device, and would have to be mounted and put away on a regular basis; neither recording or writing a script would work here.

It seemed that I might not do this contest again, when another possibility came along: in this time without an analog darkroom or even the ability to process black-and-white film, this is an opportunity to get more comfortable with Photoshop, color film, and digital alternative processes.

For the Retrochallenge: I have a Microtek Scanmaker 3600; it's at least 10 years old, and I've never been impressed with the transparency scanning capabilities... since I now have another scanner, it almost got relegated to disposal. However, it is a well known fact that if something can record an image from a plate of glass, it can record it from the focal plane of a camera; it is on this principle that most of the large format digitizers [including the one at my University] operate.

In addition, scanners can do other things: they can play music, take panoramic pictures,take them in infrared, and still scan things if there's enough spare parts left over.

That's kinda what I'm going to do; specifics to follow.

CHAPTER FOUR DELTA BRAVO NINER:

2007-07-09T22:58:00.001-04:00

Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2007 22:58:09 -0400
Message-Id: <20070710025809.CAQW26124.aa02.charter.net@[192.168.1.60]>
X-Chzlrs: 0

It's day nine of the RC- and those words in the beginning haunt me right now.

I've been on Hiatus from retroness due to a downstate doctor's appointment since
last Thursday night- and don't know where it belongs. Dos is more difficult to
install than I had thought [still think it's the RAM/Virtual memory/lack of RAM
issues] but more disturbingly, I'm being pulled in many different directions.
My regards to those of you with offspring, this would be nothing compared to
that, but still.

Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying the challenge, the excitement, the retrocity-
but computers are not the only rapidly aging technology. I'm glad it's not all
about the winning; and I'm not leaving... other things are calling me at the
moment. So if I don't get done writing my Hannibal Lector-esque account of the
night of July 4th, that's why.
For the termanally curious:

I'm awaiting a catalog from a foremost supplier of printmaking doodads, Graphic
Chemical and Ink; when this comes I will put in a purchase order for the next
Printmaking season. This has to be balanced with my photo order, itself almost
$200 per semseter. This alone saves me over 40% from the local suppliers, and
as much of a fan of the little guy as I am, the Institution run program is not
the little guy.

On the photo front, I've long neglected my Speed Graphic. It needs new rails
and I need lensboards and focal work done. A major advantage of the Graphic
over the Crown or Kodak Easyshare is the rear curtain shutter with speeds up to
1/1000 of a second- meaning I can use any lens I want: enlarger, eyeglass,
pinhole, etc.
I want that done before August and the trip there.

The doctor's appointment was 'inconclusive' and more tests and records and talks
must be done to figure out what to do. At least I don't have that pesky
internship anymore.

And I haven't been to Fifi's since May.

I'm not abandoning the project, but I'm not obsessivly 'gung ho' about it
either. Reality schooled me, and like any good American, I'm lowering my
standards to match. But I now have all the fun DOS and early windows software
from my youth, and I want to at least give it a go. I also want to spend more
time drawing- on paper and on Wacom- and trying futilly to justify my art major
[I'm about to begin year 5 of college] and continued continuity. Lest this note
be an excuse not to finish, feel free to prod me about whenever I'm on RC Telnet
or in Luddite's Cave.

Till then,

Chapter Four: The Great Frozen meltdown...

2007-07-05T00:36:00.001-04:00

I'm writing this chapter from SE/30...and intend to break out the Newton in a
bit, if only because I'm absolutly disgusted with the MS DOS installation deal.
I've never frozen up a Mac so often in my life- I may have set a new record for
Cuptertino.

It wasn't always this way, and now that I'm reminded of the sheer joys of Black
and White- and that I really need to clean this keyboard- it's going to get
easier.

More time spent doing non-computer things; this time, labeling a photograph of
the moon I had taken through a telescope a year and a half ago. Still not done,
and though the detail is exquisite, the amount of dirt on the prints destroys
any other usefulness.

First order of business (on a whim, of course) was to get RealAudio to work on
the Performa. This is not a task for any other than the undead, and since
Cheney was out of town, it fell to me. In short, never ever do this. I
downloaded 5 different 'compatable legacy installers' only to find out they were
all 'expired' and that I had to 'install the latest version' [for Mac OS X, of
course]- only to find a copy of RealPlayer already on the hard drive. Hope be
damned again, since this didn't work either- listing compatabilities with all of
three browsers, all of which I downloaded, all of which crashed.

Seriously!

I had been doing this since I got up [for the second time] at noon.

So, 1900 rolls around and I begin doing something decidedly *un*retro.
Those who know they're in the know know about something referred to as the iBook
dual-usb motherboard replacement service program; essentially, around 2002 and
2003, Apple screwed up a batch of iBook dual usb model computers. I bought one
of these strait out high school [before the flaw was made public] and my
motherboard was replaced twice, both times exhibiting the same symptoms-
intermittant, freezing, and fractured video followed by the video going away-
permanently. The last time this happened, in September 2006, I saw it coming
and hooked it to a tv and got everything I could to an external hdd before it
failed again. No video, no sound, no sleep light. It seemed all was lost,
except what was saved. I bought Pismo, and iBook 900 has been in a coma in a
desk drawer ever since.

Long winded? Yes. You see where this is going? Whaddya mean, 'no'?

Procuring a vga monitor [just in case] and all the needed cables and cords, I
pull the iBook out of the drawer. Is this a violation of the Spirit of
RETROCHALLENGE? I don't think so, especially knowing what is going to happen.

Holding this 12-inch block of ivory electronica in my hands again, I'm daunted
by how light- nay, anorexic- it feels. It weighs under six pounds; my Pismo
almost eight. I had bought it for that quality, that weight should not impede
it's usefulness and integrity; what was given up were expansion and
robustatude. Tape tells the tales of wear and tear: scotch tape on the
keyboard letters keeping the Q on; masking tape on the corner to mask where the
edge of the plastic chipped and fell off. The ethernet port has gunk in it from
a bad cable and dirt and grime from my hands have caked the surface, except for
the trackpad where the texture has completely worn off.
For a long time I had kept it in the hope I could get a proper external case for
the hard drive. But what if it could still turn on?

The Monitor gets plugged in to the external video port and then the power brick
is plugged in as well; and though the luminous blackness of the monitor tells
one story, the Num Lock key clearly screams "I'm Alive."

The machine is alive, simply blind. There is no video output of any kind.
That first sentance is a good sign. Very good.

This particular machine, you see, shipped with two operating systems: Mac OS
9.2.2 and OS X 10.2.8. Both of these are capable of Appletalking to Mac OS 7.

Eyebrows raising yet?

I plug the long-orphaned appliance into a switch with the rest of my Macs.
Immediatly the lights flash acknowledgement that something is poking it's way
about the network- and Performa gets booted up. No file servers appear under
the Chooser though, which disappoints. I open a program to ping my entire LAN
of Macs- MacPing- and the following appears on the list:

Darwin 65440/150
Power Macintosh 65280/1

and several agonizing minutes later, at 1945, the Chooser heralds the existance
of a new filesharer.

In short, my System 7 network can now acess via AFP and ethernet a 40 gig file
sharing headless server that may also be a gateway to other usb volumes- which
is very nifty as Mac OS X 10.4.8 cannot do this directly.

On the dos front [and this is where it gets long...]

I have been entirely too tramatized to post this tonight.

I might get to it tomarrow.

CHAPTER THREE: SO THIS IS WHY WE DON'T USE DOS ANYMORE...

2007-07-04T02:25:00.001-04:00

Date: Wed, 4 Jul 2007 02:25:01 -0400
Message-Id: <20070704062501.JEFD1254.aa04.charter.net@[192.168.1.60]>
X-Chzlrs: 0

0131, 4 July 07

First, the BBC Gaza corrospondant Alan Johnston, captive for 16 weeks and the
subject of an armada of pleas by politicians, journalists, and over 200,000
signers of an electronic petition,
has been freed.

Much in the way of huzzahs are definatly in order.

Now then, being forcibly removed from modern computing, I find myself doing...
less computing at all. Developed two rolls of 620 film today [shout out for
fomapan] but did attempt to circumvent the performace problems.

I have a feeling these issues are due to extensive use of virtual memory; and
though that can speed up certain operations, they probably don't follow this
trend as dos does not file-map in the same way as native PPC code.

So, at the suggestion of LS on the telnet chat, I went to
emulation.victoly.net/windoze and downloaded a program called 'PCx'- a freeware
[really it seems abandonware] x86 emulator.
It downloaded and installed without a problem [I ditched IE for Mac and went
back to Opera, which still has memory issues but I think those are due to lack
of physical ram as well], and I set up a 16meg ram buffer and 50meg hard disk.

Henceforth followed a long wait before activity [does this happen everytime? I
don't know...] and a full boot screen shows, with the requisite blocky dos
letters.

The boot screen indicates the processor emulated is "80586sx", which makes me
wonder if this is a Pentium. Might have to look that up.

I insert my totally legal copy of MS DOS 6.2.

"General failure reading drive A"

-->Retry

Setup boots to a standard load screen, dark blue. Is this the 'Blue Screen of
Life' fabled in so many manuals?

It asks to allocate and prepare the disk, and reboot.

*reboot*

Blue screen. System settings appear- and they are correct. But the date is
shown as 7/04/07- is this ok? Is there a lesson to be learned from Y2k? And
does DOS care?

-->Accept these settings.

Installation proper begins.

I have a panicky thought here. On most x86 emulators, the computer's hard disk
is represented by a mounting image (Virtual PC 6) or a folder (SoftPC) that
allows the sharing of files back and forth. Does PCx do this? Opening the hard
drive document a few moments before writing this confirms that this is not the
case, as it launches the program like most documents would. Is my only recourse
to getting files in floppies? Can I burn a cd it would read?

..time might tell. If you ask it really nicely.

In a few moments, this asks for Disk 2. Normally, a Mac would eject Disk 1
here; it doesn't. Flipping to the Finder shows no disk either. So via
paperclip it comes out. Disk 2 is inserted.
This one is read quickly, and just as quickly dismissed- forcing me to paperclip
it out as well, reinsert, and hit enter.

No dice.

I hit F3 to exit the program. It says to put in #1. I do, hit F3 again- and

it reboots to the A:\> prompt.

Somewhere along in years past, I've used MS DOS 7.10 or so and seem to recall
that it was released under the GPL- and that I have disks of it around here.
Spending at least another hour looking for them (I only have around 1,000
floppies, almost none of which are labelled...) yeilds nothing.

And the A:\> stares me in the face.

A:\>setup

"Continue setup and replace your current version of DOS" is the route I want to
go-- I wonder if I can download a disk image of DOS 7 now...

Twenty minutes after the first time I needed it, I discover the eject button in
PCx- hidden in a menu in an off-screen screen you're not looking at.

When it needs the next disk, I properly eject and replace- which it munches
until... "An error occurred while reading or writing to drive A".

-->Try operation again.

10 seconds pass... same error.

--->Try operation again.

Seems ok this time...

Around 57% installed, it begins to behave like a bag of popcorn left in the
microwave a tad too long.

"An error occured while writing to drive A"

-->Try operation again.

"An error occured while writing to drive A"

-->Try operation again.

"An error occured while writing to drive A"

-->Fail operation.

"Error reading --> subst.exe"

-->Enter (continue)

The bar graph that had read 57% installed wipes to zero, but the drive is active
and file activity is had.

Read/Write error, again.

-->Fail Operation.

"Error reading --> unformat.com"

-->Enter (continue)

"Error writing --> subst.exe"

-->Enter (continue)

"Error writing --> unformat.com"

-->Enter.

Here, I am prompted for Setup disk 3.

Plan of attack for tomarrow? You bet. Gunna actually use it?
Maybe not.

Chapter Two Point Five: this is SO not a gaming solution...

2007-07-02T22:45:00.001-04:00

2 July 07, 2200

Whoever said Ônot a gaming solutionÕ wasnÕt kidding.

ItÕs ten on a cool central Michigan night. Looking outside my window, all light
is gone... yet, invited by the chill and quiet, I make my way outside. Here,
unlike on a computer, reality not only confronts you, it surrounds you; and in
surrounding you, it ultimatly controls you. There is no Ômaking nature
cooperate with usÕ, no compromise- She learned that lesson when we captured
little bits of her and gave them air conditioning. And so there is no little
ÒXÓ on the top corner of life or reality out there, no popups, no barrage of
information at our fingertips and no anonymous poking.

Unless you want to go to jail.

Outside, itÕs not totally dark; the fleeing remains of daylight are simply
drowned out by the lights inside. There is still some luminance straining off
to the west- and sounds of fireworks fill the distance. Or maybe theyÕre
shotguns at the sporting range. But itÕs cold, and wet, and immersive- and
real. Not text, not IMs, not 8-bit color at 60 hertz. But the most immersive
thing is the expanse and the silence. I felt half... well, more than half...
tempted to quit this contest and wander off ala Frodo Baggins; but lacking Sam
or the Ring [I swear Cheney has it] that must be done at another time.

After all, I had to do something after straining through DOS for an hour.

Growing up, from age 8 on, the family computer was an MS-DOS 6/Windows 3.11 box
made by a company called ÒPonyÓ- a simple, ubiquitous beige metal box. Some of
my fondest computing memories come from there, in dos and windows, from a time
where gameplay ruled over graphics and code was lean as a rule.

My, how times have changed.

Tonight, anything with any sort of graphical element beyond the dos shell was
remarkably slow... at the behest of the manual to Nitemare 3D [best dos FPS
*ever*] I checked the ÒmemÓ command.
Installed RAM: 640k. Largest usable block: 590976 bytes. 577k.
N3d takes 500k free to run. Not liking the sound of cutting so close, but I
give it a shot anyway- and

ÒSoftPC has encountered an illegal processor instruction CS:1393 IP:0c6f OP:66
c7 06 44 41Ó

*Reset SoftPC*

The main way to get around the 30Meg hard disk size here is to use a network
disk- really, a Mac folder allowed to operate as a hard drive. Poking around in
there, I find another peice to try out:
Red Baron 16 colors.

It decompresses from the dos shell and loads like a color tour bus driven by a
blind monkey that canÕt reach the pedals, after which I go insane.

Back on the Finder side, I up the memory allotments for SoftPC... nearly
tripling it. Then I add 4Mb of extended memory to the 640k base that Bill Gates
was stated as saying, Òought to be enough for anybody.Ó

N3d: same illegal processor error. Shame, itÕs my favorite game.
Red Baron: Faster, but my dead great-grandmother can still beat it.

Telnet: Tried the telnet client for dos; I wasnÕt expecting this to work [not
fully expecting a packet driver to work with emulated processors on a non-shared
ethernet card anyway] but furthermore, I wasnÕt expecting a long list of files
with incoherant names [yay for eight plus three!] that prints two lines on the
screen and goes away.

Windows 3.1. There is something wrong with the installation file.
I have a screenshot of reading the directory tree on the disk followed by a Ônot
ready reading drive aÕ error.

So, I up the PC memory again. Expanded memory is now to 5 meg, extended, 1mb.

*reset softpc*

ÒNonsystem disk or disk error...Ó

*eject floppy*
*hit ÔanyÕ key*

Red Baron: The screen loads in and wipes faster, but the 3d plane models are
only *slightly tolerable* to look at.
Frankly, IÕd rather volunteer at a fox news telethon.

Windows 3.1: general failure...

So then.

How ya doing?

Chapter Two... That P stands for what again?

2007-07-02T17:43:00.001-04:00

2 July 07 4:50pm

Tried getting the word processor working; but the drive keeps failing... not
only the preparing [no, the disks arenÕt locked, it would say so] but also
writing the files, which it just wonÕt work.

The Smith Corona PWP 77d Personal Word Processor is one of those machines I like
a lot... more versatile than my Atari, it serves a functional purpose beyond
entertainment; and as a typewriter, served all those crazes of the eighties and
nineties. There were numerous typestyles to choose from, whichever daisy wheel
was on the machine was what it printed... and can function as both a saving word
processor (to 800k 3.5Ó floppy disks) to be printed later or as a realtime
typewriter. In the world of computers, these documents can be converted to
ASCII text in the machine or to Wordperfect format via a DOS-based utility.

In practice, this machine is somewhat more elegant than the office-oriented
machine (replacing the external CRT with an intergrated LCD) but not by much.
The keyboard is stiff and lags, often resulting in spelling errors, which it
informs you about with a ÒchirpÓ noise. Occasionally, the screen gets wiped to
pan down and lines you typed in moments before simply... vanish.
There are two seperate keyboard shortcutting system; and those familiar with
command line interfaces will still be lost... as I still donÕt know how to copy
and paste in it.

Even if the disk did work, the Mac wonÕt recognize the existance of it due to SC
formatting... so this might not work...

Let's get it on!

2007-07-01T21:52:00.001-04:00

1 July 2007 2118

AND SO IT BEGINS.

Starting late due to a family reunion (always the first Sunday in July) I
finally began the Challenge: at 2034 EST the final text files were emailed to
the open web and hence to the Performa... and then, the ÒPowerÓ button was
pushed and the Pismo went away.
It is currently in a laptop box taped shut (if I can attach photos via email, I
will) that will be held off premise for the entire month. The only peice left
out will be the external hard drive, which is used for photo work and doesnÕt
work with either machine anyway.

There is some thought that certain parts of the modern computing experience,
particularly the internet, instant messaging, and social networking, are
desirable by their users almost to the point of addiction [or beyond?]... no
doubt this is due to the social nature of humanity as a species, and the
MTV-driven need for McInfo- essentially soundbytes of data that anyone can find
anywhere. I will admit I feel like something has been removed from me, but not
cold or depressed as so often is the steriotype of addiction yoinked from oneÕs
hands.

Alas, though...no facebook, myspace, youtube, jibjab to pass the time and lower
the national productivity further... no iTunes to listen to blasting, no falling
asleep with iChat on in the hopes someone will poke me. Growing used to that
sort of thing is as gaining a virtual appendage to an information world.

I hope I donÕt end up with a Òshop classÓ accident.

Chapter One Point Five: What To Do in the next... Ten Hours?

2007-06-30T14:13:00.001-04:00

PRE-LAUNCH TO DO: (due date, 1 July 07, 12:01 am)

**Assemble software:
-Reliable Mac web browser
-Mac Telnet
-Email client
-AIM client that doesnÕt suck

-Dos web browser
-Dos telnet
-Dos email client?
-Dos text editor
-Dos graphics editor

Most of this is already done; all copies I already have are
collected and several were found online. IÕm also assembling a lot of Mac
software that may be handy too.

**Burn software to System 7-compatable CD
There are fabulous instructions for this at System7Today.com
though it really amounts to making a disk image, whacking the powerbook upside
the head to change the format [MacOS Extended--> MacOS Standard] and burning.

**Newton-ing it up:
-Cleaning, charging batteries
-Checking condition of touch screen [is that scratch *really as bad as it
seems?]
-Updating calander and resetting notes.

**Configure Mac as primary
-Configure Eudora email client; or Claris Email;
-Purge/clean up desktop and Hard Disk root
-Configure telnet and web browsers
-Configure AIM
-Post this to blog.

**Configure PWP 77d
-Plug & Play

Chapter One: The Rules

2007-06-30T14:09:00.001-04:00

THE RULES

Several Retrobloggers have created a set of rules for themselves; here is my set
of variations:

FOR LO; UPON THYNE APPOINTED TIME, THY PISMO SHALT BE TURNED TO THE POWER STATE
OF ÔOFFÕ AND SHALL BE PLACED, WITH POWER YOYO AND WIFI CARD, INTO THY LAPTOP BOX
AND SHALT BE SEALED FOR THAT LENGTH.

At 12:01 am, 1 July 2007 my Powerbook G4 shalt be turned off and packed away
[off premise, if possible]. For the purposes of this excersize, IÕm not allowed
to touch anything under ten years old.
I will still carry a phone, but it will be off and not an Orwellian Electronic
Tether. And no, no iPhones are to be had.

PRIOR TO PACKING AWAY, THY PISMO SHALT YEILD UP ALL DOCUMENTS AND CLASSIC
APPLICATIONS ON COMPACT DISKS OF MACOS CLASSIC FORMAT; AND FUTHERMORE, THESE
FILES SHALT ALL BE BACKED UP TO PORTABLE EXTERNAL MEDIA.

ThatÕs the next job...

THY WEB SHALT BE AVAILIBLE, AND YET THERE SHALT BE NO FACEBOOKERY, MYSPACERY, OR
YOUTUBERY.

This also means my addiction to Jibjab will be put to the test, and no IllWill
Press, either.

THY SHALT EMBRACE HONORED METHODS OF WRITTEN COMMUNICATON.
Not only email and IRC, but also written letters, at least three letters a week.

DOCUMENTATION SHALT BE HAD IN HORDES; THY SHALT TAKE COPIOUS NOTES,
PHOTOGRAPHS, AND SCREENSHOTS, AND ALL SHALT BE BLOGGED.

Chapter Zero Point One: The little "Intentionally Blank" Endpaper

2007-06-30T13:56:00.001-04:00

So, Interweb Explorer isn't nearly as fast as... anything, and this serves as a
test of email-blog-posting capabilites.

It's 1353 EST, the Pismo goes down in 10 hours 7 minutes.

::crosses fingers::

Prolouge...Chapter Zero

2007-06-30T13:20:00.000-04:00

Offline entry, ~4:10pm, 29 June 07

I’M IN! My application to Retrochallenge Y2K+7 is accepted and I am in.. and thus begins

THE PROLOGUE.

I’d heard of the retrochallenge via an Applefritter posting [I think...] back in April, and have been considering entering immediately. Those plans were put on hold for a fairly intense, high-end internship. Budgetary crises cut that into the second week; and my depression set in. Following a full week of cleaning [and I’m still not done yet] there was once again much anguish over whether or not to enter. The tension boiled over with the lack of a viable project, until the discovery of an old copy of SoftPC and a few dos games I had from my childhood snapped everything in place.

At 10:04 pm, last night, I clicked “SEND” and my application went in.

A few minutes ago, I received a reply and myself replied with the notification of this blog.

CHAPTER ONE: THE PROJECT

In the words of Professor Johanna, “I have never seen you finish anything, ever.” Lofty goals are my heroin [not condoning drug use, just an analogy] and yet always seem to be cut with baby formula expired in 1956, that actually contains the ashes of a thousand broken dreams and dead passions. This may come from an overwhelming lack of justifiable self-importance, but more likely from paradoxically inflated ego and lack of drive to finish anything big.

I intend to change that.

The original project (v 1.0) involved using the nifty collection of audio/video editing and graphics software to make an animated movie... live action, even?... and use HyperCard to make it interactive or something like that. This project is largely stymied by a lack of a means to capture video, and by time and sanity restrictions [as anyone who has ever animated *anything* will be quick to point out]; as well as editing video with 16Mb of ram and no way to use Virtual memory.

Going back and actually *reading* the retroblogs and realizing what is possible, and what not, allowed me to filter down the tangental energy and focus more on what others were doing and what I can.

Project 2.0 will be centered around that copy of SoftPC and MS-DOS 5; it emulates an Intel 80286, possibly 386.

Thus, I will attempt to do everything, including post to the blog, by DOS. There will also be Hypercard programming and extensive use of the Newton and Quicktake digital photography.

Or, put another way, not only will there be the endurance of breaking ties with the OS X world and stepping back in time [a whole 10-20 years] but a push to get DOS to be useful and recognizably so in applications that would not have been possible or probable in it’s heyday.