Back to the Future

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Published: Sunday, 30 May 2021 00:00
Hits: 349

Today I found a funny picture taken at the A.B.B.U.C. annual meeting on October 26, 2019. I was wearing my 1980's CASIO CA-851, as one should at a retro event. At some point, I was wondering about the date and pushed the date button and I was struck by surprise. It was the "THE DATE", the very date when Doc Emmett Brown and Marty McFly went back in time on 1985-10-26 in Back to the Future. So why was my watch doing that: Well when the watch was created in 1980, nobody thought it would be used after 1999. So they only used two digits for the year and hence 1999 is the last year you can set the clock date to. My solution to the problem is to use the perpetual calendar. I set the clock every new year to that year between 1980 and 1999 which uses the same sequence of weekdays. And for 2019 that was 1985. So I literally went "back in time" myself that day, to the year when the future was about to begin. Because in 1985 I bought my first computer :-)

Site Update

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Published: Monday, 24 May 2021 00:00
Hits: 291
  • The new section hardware has been added to the Atari 800 category and my scan of ezcontents' excellent Atari 800 XL PCB remake is the first entry. It helps a lot in finding the correct component on a populated board.
  • All "capped.tv" links have been removed from productions since the corresponding website is down. Going forward I'll try to provide youtube videos where they are missing.
  • FAQ, Bad Apple HD, and other articles with been enhanced with more details, better wording, and fixed links.
  • AtariROMChecker has been enhanced with and the "Atari ROM Patcher" tool to display, compute and fix OS checks sums for Atari XL/XE computers. Also, typos and swapped columns in the documentation have been fixed. Also, the disk images are now single density, so they also work on Atari 810.

 

 

WUDSN IDE update 1.7.2 released

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Published: Thursday, 01 April 2021 00:00
Hits: 511

The aim of this release was to get back on the latest Java and Eclipse versions. There no functional changes.

Java and Eclipse

  • Java 11 is now the minimum requirement. Tests have also been conducted with Java 16.
  • Eclipse 2021-03 (4.19) is now the minimum requirement. Things will very likely also work with version 4.12 to 4.18 but they have not been tested explicitly.

Compilers

FAQ

  • New answers to recurring questions regarding the installation of Java added.

Fixes:

  • Many typos fixed in the features and installation pages.
  • Copyright, features, and GPL to updated to 2021.
  • If you see error messages and missing icons on the tabs in Eclipse upon start, your workspace needs to be refreshed. To this end, the ".metadata" folder inside the workspace folder needs to be deleted. Be aware that this will also reset all your preferences, so you should export them before using "File / Export / Preferences / Assembler Preferences". When Eclipse is started again, you can import the projects and preferences again into the workspace.

Request for Help

It's 11 years now since I started with the plugin. Some major things have changed in Eclipse and I'd need some help in replacing the deprecated action/actionSets extension point. So if there is anybody reading this who has experience with PDE development in the recent Eclipse builds, please contact me.

WUDSN IDE update 1.7.1 released

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Published: Friday, 16 October 2020 00:00
Hits: 2085

The aim of this release was to gain long term stability and include pending fixes. It contains a lot of internal cleanups that you cannot set at the surface. The following visible changes are relevant for the users.

Java and Eclipse

  • After 7 years of successfully maintaining compatibility with Java 1.6/1.7, all Eclipse versions and the 32-bit architectures an era ends. Support by fixes in Java and Eclipse is only available for Java 1.8 and Eclipse 4.10 and later and both do not support 32-bit development environments anymore. Understandable in a time where every mobile phone has an 8-core 64-bit architecture. Therefore WUDSN IDE 1.7.1 requires Java 1.8, Eclipse 2019-06 (4.12), and a 64-bit operating system as a minimum.
  • The 1.7.1 is intentionally a minor version update, so there are no major feature changes and people who cannot migrate to the new environment can, of course, download the older version from the Releases page.

Pascal:

  • Source code editor added with the first version of syntax highlighting for Pascal Source Files (".pas")  that can be used with Mad Pascal.
  • Since building with MapPascal is a multi-step process, an example script file for compiling is included in the "Atari800/Pascal" folder of the zero installation download.

Hex Editor

  • Support for parsing the structure of files in Interchange File Format ("IFF") added.

Sound Editor

  •  POKEY emulation updated to ASAP 4.0.0 for compatibility and more accurate replay.

Fixes:

  • Online help now works again thanks to the update to Java 1.8 and the newer Eclipse version.
  • Atari TrueType fonts by Mark Schmelzenbach updated to version 1.2, which fixes the look of the capital "J".
  • If the "Skip All Breakpoints" option is active, breakpoints are now correctly skipped.
  • Copyright, features, and GPL to updated to 2020.
  • All links to the WUDSN site updated from "http://" to https://"

Request for Help

It's 11 years now since I started with the plugin. Some major things have changed in Eclipse and I'd need some help in replacing the deprecated action/actionSets extension point. So if there is anybody reading this who has experience with PDE development in the recent Eclipse builds, please contact me.

Farewell Ultrasyd

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Published: Thursday, 15 October 2020 00:00
Hits: 1015

My all-time favorite chiptune musician Sydney unexpectedly died at the age of 39. I cannot believe this. I had the luck to meet him several times in person in my life at SillyVenture and Revision. I was blown away by his music, his motivation, and his kindness. Some of the best moments in my life were supported by him and his music. Another incredibly sad day in the year 2020. All I can say is thank you Sydney.

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