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Using ChatGPT to create a flight simulator flight plan in Little NavMap format
Short post to just document the prompt I use with ChatGPT. It works ok, for short flights. For some reason, ChatGPT seems to stall out if the flightplan has more than five or six user waypoints, in addition to the departure and destination waypoints. I should probably look at optimizing this prompt, it’s a bit long 🙂
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Aziz! Light!
An AI chatbot leads me on a coding adventure that ultimately ends up ignoring all the work the AI did in the first place.
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Note to self — use the reboxing service
Shipping something a fair distance? Pack it well or use a packing service. I learned a lesson the hard way.
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Bob tries out a new plane.
Bob tries out a new plane on a short cross-country mid-winter flight into the Rockies. Things go wrong, but Bob prevails.
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Q. What’s the best way to add a new boot drive to a Windows 10 system, without losing too much of my installed configuration?
Some steps to adding a new boot drive to an existing Windows 10 system.
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TS1000 upgrade – log entry 4 — Oh the memories we’ll make with 16k!
Part four already? Memory — that thing where the more you’ve got, the better things are for your computer? Yeah, that stuff. We’ll be upgrading this vintage computer using a bit more modern tech to get it up to a whopping 16K. Oh, and there’s a bit of gold in this story too…
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The Mood Mosaic
The Mood Mosaic albums are a series of compilation albums that feature a collection of eclectic and diverse music from various genres and eras, often arranged around a central theme or mood. The first album in the series, titled “The Mood Mosaic — A Touch of Velvet, A Sting of Brass”, was released in 1996 […]
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Space Debris Precautions for Launch — Considerations for a Safe Mission
Precautions have been implemented to ensure safe space launches amidst the growing threat of space debris. These measures include advanced detection and avoidance technology, enhanced launch vehicle design, precise launch windows, orbital cleanup, and emergency protocols. By implementing these measures, we can mitigate the risks associated with the Kessler Syndrome and protect valuable assets in orbit.
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Lastpass security breach blog post — AI summarised
LastPass suffered a security breach, but there’s been no activity since October 2022. The company has enhanced security measures, and we’ve got the details in this AI-summarized blog post. Find out what happened, what LastPass has done, and how you can protect yourself.
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Don’t want to install employer’s Multi-Function Authentication app on your phone? Five reasons to support your position.
In case you are looking for a few reasons beyond ‘I just don’t want to’, which is fine, and a valid reason on its own. Here’s more.
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TS1000 upgrade – log entry 3 — On The Big Screen!
If you’ve been following along, you may recollect that this journey to modernizing my vintage Timex Sinclair began when I watched this four-part video series by The Byte Attic, and decided ‘yeah, that looks like something I could do’. If you’re jumping in at this point, well, I’ve done things and have more things to do. This post will look at converting the video output of the computer from an RF signal to a more modern composite video signal with a simple hardware modification.
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I’m don’t have the knowledge, but ChatGPT does…
I’m working on a website, building pages that have random pull-quotes on them. And I’m making mockup / placeholder pages. Many mockups. This gets old pretty quickly so I’m thinking to myself, “Self? Let’s see if we can have some fun with these quotes”. But, rather than just do a search for quotes, I thought I’d […]
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Made a thing: Compact Benchtop Power Control Switch Box
What do you do when your benchtop power supply doesn’t have a switch to energize/de-energize the circuit, just a master power switch? You make one: https://www.printables.com/model/387401-compact-benchtop-power-control-with-this-switch-bo
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TS1000 upgrade – log entry 2 — More Power!
As I’d mentioned in my previous post in this series, I’ve been poking around my TS1000 a bit and doing some online digging. I found this series about refurbishing and upgrading a Sinclair ZX81. And since I wrapped up my last post testing the that unit is still alive and kicking (I think. Video is still a thing to verify with the MK One eyeballs, though it looks good in the multimeter), it’s best to jump on to the next stage. Upgrading the power converter.
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Rogue One: A Masterpiece of Star Wars Storytelling
Star Wars is a universe of myths and legends, a place where the impossible becomes possible, where dreams are made real, and where heroes rise from humble beginnings. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story continues this tradition, weaving a new tale of hope, sacrifice and courage into the fabric of the Star Wars universe. The […]
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Using ChatGPT to generate Dungeons & Dragons adventure scenarios: Abandoned mineshaft near Oakdale
I was playing around with the ChatGPT artificial intelligence recently, and decided to prompt it to see how well it could create a Dungeons & Dragons adventure. Surprisingly well, it turns out. I’m tempted to run this sometime… Abandoned mineshaft near Oakdale Prompt: Using the 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons rules, create a small dungeon […]
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TS1000 upgrade – log entry 1
#retrocomputing has been taking up more of my attention recently. Specifically, I found this series about refurbishing and upgrading a Sinclair ZX81. Since the Timex Sinclair 1000 is essentially a ZX81 that jumped the pond (and doubled it’s native RAM in the process), I’ve got one. And it’s been sitting in a box for 20ish years, used heavily previous to that. Time to rectify (ha!) that situation.
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A Virtual Parallel Printer for a Vintage Computer
One of the neat things about using vintage computing equipment is figuring out modern ways to work with the older technology. Why virtual printing? Recently, I wanted to explore printed output from my NEC PC-8201a. For one thing, working ‘on the hardware’ in this case has a display limit of eight lines of forty characters […]
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I Made some RAM for my NEC PC-8201a — and it’ll work on a Tandy Model 100 too!
Original expansion RAM for the NEC PC-8201a and Tandy Model 100 is pretty hard to find these days — so I made some.
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How long will a NiMH battery pack last in a NEC PC-8201 or PC-8201a?
As I was converting NEC battery packs to be recharegable, I wondered just what the run-time of a battery pack would be. So I came up with is a simple BASIC program to run the computer battery down, and record the time that it dies and calculate the run-time. This is the story…
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Vintage Computing: Saving data to an audio device
Back when the early days of personal computing, you did your work on your computer and either printed out the finished work, or stored it to work on later. Early on, cassette tapes were the storage medium of choice as they cassette tape recorders were commonly available, and reasonably affordable. Some computer system did have […]
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Aloha to a Hawaiian TRS-80 Model 100
Well, finally got a chunk of free time to get back to my ‘Model 100 school’. My goal is to learn about these m100s through hands-on learning. A new friend (Hi Larry) sent me his ailing m100 to further my education. Who knows? Maybe I can get it running again — it’s a nice looking […]
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Looks like we’re doomed
Picked up Gloomhaven. Think of it as D&D as a boardgame. It’s the number one game on BoardGameGeek, so it’ll likely be pretty good. Also, the reviews like it. We set up and started getting familiar with it last night. Consider it Session Zero in D&D parlance. Can’t wait for Session One!
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NEC PC-8201a Adventures – Part Three: Getting Rid of the Dirty
Welcome back to part three of my restoration and adventures with an NEC PC-8201a vintage computer circa. 1983. Let’s get to it! Stripping Down It’s actually not that grungy to look at. Sure, a minor scuff or two, but from the looks of it, this unit is actually quite clean. So, let’s get it apart and get […]
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NEC PC-8201a Adventures – Part Two: Rebuilding the NiCad Battery Pack
These were great batteries, 40 years ago. This was a good task to start on. It’d been years since I’ve done any serious electronics work, and my previous Arduino project, while successful, reminded me just how much I’d forgotten about electronics over the years. And my skills had mostly vanished too. So a nice easy project was […]
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NEC PC-8201a Adventures — Part One: It’s here, now what?
Back in the early-to-mid ’80s, personal computing was finding it’s way. Desktop computers were becoming more visible in smaller businesses, but the work of computing still had to be done at the workplace. Portable computers were really just shrunken down desktops — they were called luggables at the time. Then came the revolution, as they say. […]
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Instructable: Arduino Keyboard Joystick Extender Box and Sound Controller Thing Using Deej
Update Jan. 23, 2021: Looks like the Joystick circuit has failed as it no longer toggles the Mute function. Well, I wasn’t too happy with the initial wiring job so this may be an opportunity to update that. A while ago I developed an interest in Arduino microcontrollers, and this is my first ‘actual’ project. […]
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The Waiting Followers
(Character sketch and background for a Dave Gross Call of Cthulhu campaign: Horror on the Orient Express, 2016) The club was lively; a typical Thursday evening at our usual retreat in Birmingham. When our schedules permitted, we traveled north to escape the din and bluster of London as the week ended. Benny Peyton’s Jazz Kings […]
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For 3d Printing, Levelling the Bed is Finicky
So a week or so ago I tweaked something on my printer. Maybe it was initial layer height. Maybe I adjusted a bed screw. Not sure, but all of a sudden my prints wouldn’t stick to the bed properly. Using the ‘paper drag’ method of bed levelling ‘sort of’ worked. But it really was trial […]
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3d printing small board game accessories
I’m really happy when I can combine two of my hobbies. This time it’s Boardgaming and 3d Printing. Often, many games have tokens or chits that are pooled for players to take at different times during play. Usually, these sit in piles around the main game area. On Thingiverse, swholmstead shared this neat design — which I […]
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