The LED Marquee 3d-printed parts are finished! They should be here by the end of the week, and who knows, maybe the Shenzhen parts will be here by then too!
Ready for the group build?
Hey look!
November Meeting tomorrow evening
Our November meeting is tomorrow evening Monday 11/18. Show up as early as six if you want. We’ll be in the basement again, it’s so much more comfortable than the library. Registration on the dc540.org website, remember, not on Meetup.
I will try to put some lighting in the side and back yards to make the path easier to navigate now that it’s getting darker earlier. I promise you won’t get murdered here, this is a nice neighborhood.
BYOB if you’re picky. There’s still some Durian candy left over.
As expected, the LED marquee group build stuff won’t be here in time for tomorrow’s meeting, but really should be here in time for the December meeting.
If there’s something you want to say, learn, try or do during the meeting, speak up. I’m just a facilitator, not a leader. 🙂
My kink is fringe culture, always has been. What’s yours? Bring something for show and tell.
WeWork continues fucking up…
LOL, first they annouce the pricing change, NOBODY is accepting that. So they tried to walk it back, saying it was meant to be a “test” for “select groups.”
Riiiiiiiiiiiight….
Now they’re messing with the employees.
An interesting piece of early Loudoun County telephone history…
Anyone who knows me knows I’m a bit of a phone fetishist. I was about sixteen when I first involved myself with phreaking, switch-hook dialing and fun stuff like that. I worked at an answering service manning a large vintage analog switchboard.
So I greatly enjoyed coming across this article when researching Loudoun County history.
loudounhistory.org-The-Development-of-the-Telephone-in-Loudoun-CountyOff-Grid Cyberdeck…
I’ve been staring at this tab that I’ve left open on my browser for days now. Do I really need another project? I mean you guys don’t know half the projects I’ve got going on already.
I try to push it out of my mind, each time there’s a new amazing project on the table, but my FOMO kicks in, and tells me, “BUT I NEED IT!”
I really don’t.
I didn’t need the VIC-20.
I didn’t need Project GoCube.
I didn’t need the Project MF Blue Box.
I didn’t need the Altairduino or the PiDP8/i.
Nor do I need this. BUT I NEED IT!
New group project for December meeting…
Thanks to 801Labs @_bashNinja for a wonderful holiday gift idea.
I’d love to do this at the November meeting, but I sincerely don’t believe the parts will be here in time. 801Labs announced they are doing this project as a December group build, and they are offering the kits for $10. I thought I’d play along and do it through our group as well.
I couldn’t justify sourcing enough to get the price QUITE that low. I can do them for $15/each. If there’s enough interest.prepayment I’ll order more. Like 801, this is a group build in person, I’m not doing shipping for these.
So if anyone wants to participate in the group build for these, I should have all the parts in time for the December meeting. Any leftovers will be held for future meeting attendees.
It’s a simple but elegant LED marquee display in a 3d-printed case using a Wemos D1 mini Wifi IOT module and a 4-in-1 dot matrix LED module. I ordered them in white PLA and red LEDs, just like the photo. By default it will display time, bitcoin price, random advice, weather, maybe a few other configurable things, but once you get it in place, you can likely make it do display anything you want. I was thinking it might be fun to add in a display when someone logs into the DC540 Citadel BBS.
And the retrocomputing continues
Getting the Altair-duino working was such a rush that I’ve decided to hang onto the momentum and get the PiDP8/I going next.
cDc has got me a little verklempt.
So I’m finally getting around to digging into the cDc book, which I preordered and was looking forward to.
I’ve only completed the first few chapters, but reading this book is like reading my own story. Trafficking in MCI numbers, hoarding esoteric text files, running multiple BBSes over the years. Close calls, and learning from the mistakes of others. Familiar names.
I feel like it’s time to release a set of text files about MY history, and see what comes out of the woodwork.
They’ll be on the citadel. There is no better place for them. If it takes five years for the right people to find them, then so be it.
I might drop some knowledge on different techniques that might be used to carve a successful career on your own from a disadvantaged position.
Registrations are fixed
Registrations are back open for the next two meetups. Apologies for breaking them. Sometimes I have a nasty habit of not testing changes as a muggle.
Last DC540 of the year!
Last DC540 of the year — rescheduled from 12/23, which is too close to the end-of-year holidays. Please register here, the RSVPs are closed on Meetup. Contact me directly if you have trouble with the registration system.