Hacker News: classichasclass

New comment by classichasclass in "The vi family"

classichasclass — Wed, 13 May 2026 05:05:00 +0000

Long ago I wrote my own really incomplete vi subset for the C64 that I really should dust off. But there's a more polished vi clone for 6502 machines, including the C64, Apple II and Atari: https://vi65.sourceforge.net/

Griffin PowerMate driver for modern macOS

classichasclass — Mon, 11 May 2026 21:35:38 +0000

Article URL: https://github.com/jameslockman/Griffin-PowerMate-Driver

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48100970

Points: 80

# Comments: 29

New comment by classichasclass in "Eight More '8-Bit Era' Microprocessors"

classichasclass — Sun, 10 May 2026 22:40:32 +0000

Zaccaria pinballs I think used it pretty heavily as well. Again, no clear explanation there either.

New comment by classichasclass in "PC Engine CPU"

classichasclass — Fri, 08 May 2026 20:36:09 +0000

I've got a TurboExpress. Recapped, it's a great little handheld. Screen is adequate for the era (though I've seen upgrades). My favourite 6502-based handheld is still the Atari Lynx, but this is close.

New comment by classichasclass in "An open-source stethoscope that costs between $2.5 and $5 to produce"

classichasclass — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 18:21:08 +0000

I regularly wipe my stethoscope, but I have never sterilized it. I doubt many would survive an autoclave.

New comment by classichasclass in "An open-source stethoscope that costs between $2.5 and $5 to produce"

classichasclass — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 18:19:11 +0000

I've actually found them pretty terrible. I can't hear subtle findings at all with those. My usual stethoscope is an older-model Littman Cardiology III with stiff rubber and a dual pediatric-adult head. I've had it for over 25 years.

New comment by classichasclass in "Mo RAM, Mo Problems (2025)"

classichasclass — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 02:08:30 +0000

Yes. None of the 603 series, including the 603e, was intended for multiprocessing, so the same hacks were required.

New comment by classichasclass in "[dead]"

classichasclass — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 01:50:45 +0000

Top-quality passive-aggressive FAQ.

New comment by classichasclass in "XOR'ing a register with itself is the idiom for zeroing it out. Why not sub?"

classichasclass — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 14:41:27 +0000

Ah, thanks, I couldn't recall off the top of my head.

New comment by classichasclass in "XOR'ing a register with itself is the idiom for zeroing it out. Why not sub?"

classichasclass — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 13:04:37 +0000

Unfortunately, 6502 can't XOR the accumulator with itself. I don't recall if the Z80 can, and loading an immediate 0 would be most efficient on those anyway.

New comment by classichasclass in "XOR'ing a register with itself is the idiom for zeroing it out. Why not sub?"

classichasclass — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 13:02:03 +0000

PowerPC: "r0 occasionally" (with certain instructions like addi, though this might be better considered an edge case of encoding)

New comment by classichasclass in "Soul Player C64 – A real transformer running on a 1 MHz Commodore 64"

classichasclass — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 23:02:02 +0000

If you're running this in VICE, run it under the SuperCPU with warp mode on.

New comment by classichasclass in "Let's talk space toilets"

classichasclass — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 21:45:30 +0000

A possible point of comparison might be pool drain injuries (a/k/a suction entrapment), and some of these have disemboweled people, though largely children. Vacuum toilets in cruise ships have also been implicated in such incidents (see, among others, https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/03/06/70-year-old-womans-i... ). A more, er, pressing concern in adults might be rectal prolapse.

Mexican surveillance company Grupo Seguritech watches the U.S. border

classichasclass — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 00:36:21 +0000

Article URL: https://restofworld.org/2026/mexico-seguritech-government-surveillance-profile/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47712134

Points: 80

# Comments: 84

New comment by classichasclass in "The 1987 game “The Last Ninja” was 40 kilobytes"

classichasclass — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 04:57:11 +0000

Not much more. It all fits on a single side of a 1541 floppy. Even considering compression it couldn't be more than a couple hundred kilobytes.

https://csdb.dk/release/?id=99145

Make your own ColecoVision at home, part 5

classichasclass — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 03:45:07 +0000

Article URL: https://www.leadedsolder.com/2026/03/24/colecovision-diy-part-5.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47656758

Points: 25

# Comments: 0

New comment by classichasclass in "Breaking Enigma with Index of Coincidence on a Commodore 64"

classichasclass — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 01:09:34 +0000

Although he's trying to avoid using floating point, the dirty secret in many Microsoft-derived BASICs, including Commodore's, is that everything is floating point. In fact, even if you explicitly declare a variable as integer, it actually gets truncated and expanded: the native format for calculations is still 40-bit MBF. The only advantage integer variables have is smaller array storage. Every variable in his program is actually internally handled as a floating point value even though they're all integrals.

New comment by classichasclass in "Big-Endian Testing with QEMU"

classichasclass — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 20:06:42 +0000

We already know that's the case. I had to add little endian typed array emulation to TenFourFox.

New comment by classichasclass in "Big-Endian Testing with QEMU"

classichasclass — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 18:13:39 +0000

So do I. I don't find that outrageous at all. Anyone trying to do the port to something unusual would appreciate the warning.

Granted, I still work on a fair number of big endian systems even though my daily drivers (ppc64le, Apple silicon) are little.

New comment by classichasclass in "Big-Endian Testing with QEMU"

classichasclass — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 18:11:56 +0000

For Linux, yes. AIX and IBM i still run big.