The Ramblings of a Geek

I have “dyslexic” fingers… To explain what I mean, no matter what I intend to type even though I am a reasonably quick typist sometimes my fingers go there either before or after my brain meaning that keys or words just get completely messed up.

It’s also why I am a piss poor guitarist as my fingers kind of get ahead of themselves and fuck things up majorly.

I have absolutely no accuracy and my mind may be running at a million miles an hour but my fingers just struggle to type properly even though I have worked with keyboards for years and years.

It’s not that I can’t spell I can I just can’t type without mistakes. I don’t hunt and peck like some people do I can manage to find keys just not always press them correctly.

I just can’t seem to type consistently even though after all this time I should be able to type hundreds of words a minute but I can’t as my fingers are drunk I seem to hit extra keys add letters or completely miss spaces and it’s frustrating as hell.

In order for me to maintain a level of typing which isn’t totally illegible I have to level my concentration up and even then it fails me. It seems no matter how hard I focus on the keyboard my fingers just refuse to hit the right keys what the hell is wrong with my brain.

It drives me round the bend as my fingers are just so uncoordinated and its painful to think that I can’t type as fast as my mind is working without a major slowdown. If I don’t add keys that are adjacent to the key I want to hit due to hitting between two keys I get doubles of the same letter as my keyboard is adding a repeat due to my lack of delay.

Truly it is a frustrating thing because I really don’t understand why after all this time my fingers should just know where to go on a keyboard but then again I don’t follow the standard home keys setup of the typists of old because this isn’t a typewriter.

Even when I used a typewriter I never could do the home keys nonsense. I could type considerably quicker than most but I never could get muscle memory to develop to do such as instructed in the RSA typing courses.

It’s the same with a guitar no matter how much I seem to sit with it the muscle memory just doesn’t develop I kind of improvise the fingering rather than following the adapted methods used by musicians and I am bloody hopeless because of it. My fingers just get confused and end up in the wrong place.

It’s ludicrous when you think about it given I have been using keyboards since I was 8 years old I should be able to type consistently by now, but no that is not the case.

I type like a drunk man walking down the street very rarely do I manage to get through an entire paragraph without some complete gibberish which makes no sense and I have to go back and correct the damned thing.

Part of it wonders is it my ADHD brain getting totally messed up as even if I look at my fingers to do this I still manage to type so many mistakes its unreal.

If I didn’t go back and correct the many mistakes I make this entire thing would be completely unreadable. To prove a point I will type the next section without any correction.

So any mistakes that I make when typing this complet selection I| qam going to intyentionally leve in and see just how ridiculoius the typing truly gets

There you go, yes you can probably interpret what the hell I want to type but is got lots of stupid addition letters and mistakes, which no matter how hard I try not I completely fuck it up.

How is that even possible after all these years of typing I should be an absolute expert when it comes to typing as I have literally typed hundreds of thousands of words worth on various keyboards over the years.

I really wish I could explain the phenomenon but I really can’t it is totally beyond any form of reasoning or explanation. It’s as if my brain or my fingers have some form of mental block. There is definitely a communication breakdown between my brain and what my fingers do.

It is worrying because no matter how hard I try and concentrate on it the worse it seems to get. If I focus on every key press my brain seems to misfire even more and I type more mistakes then if I just let it flow.

I doubt I am the only person who has this phenomenon. In fact you should have a typing session and see what happens when you type at speed. Unless you have been classical typing trained do you type using this strange mistake making style or am I just an idiot.

Honestly I don’t have an answer for it I really don’t. Is it an ADHD brain thing? Am I mentally broken somewhere? Is it an issue to do with dexterity? After all its nothing wrong with my eyes its just my fingers either hit between keys and add extra letters or my fingers just doesn’t know when to stop.

I can see the entire keyboard so it is not an issue of sight, more that my hands just travel too fast over the keys and do things either before or after I should rather than being accurate.

It really is perplexing why such the two just will not sync up no matter how much I type if anything the more I type the worse it seems to get as my brain starts to run faster than I can actually type and things just become a complete mess.

It doesn't matter what type of keyboard I use either. Whether its a laptop keyboard or a mechanical keyboard I have tested with many different types and sizes I still make major mistakes when typing.

It’s strange I have been looking at some of my past writings which was on a very old CD now some of it is good, some is bad and some is just god damned awful it’s unbelievable.

For every semi decent idea there is a lot of awful stuff. Now I admit a lot of these were written when I was a younger man. Which can be a double-edged sword because for one I was willing to try writing styles I had never done for good or bad but equally some of it has the maturity of a complete idiot.

However one thing I can say is I did have some degree of creativity, which is a shame because its something I lack in my adult life. I really seem to lack any imagination when it comes to things nowadays.

The tragic thing about my writing is I take a lead character that normally is about as dimensional as a circle, yet their companion has a much more interesting story without trying as they actually have a modicum of personality.

I will give a few examples from my own stories…

Blades Edge – A Blade Runner universe story, which starts following Tjuana who lives in the Nevada desert with several escaped replicants helping them survive and escape. Half way through the opening chapter I introduce a character by the name of Kyle who we know is a replicant. Now I am sure you are now saying they both seem on a similar level.

However I’m the author and I know Kyle has a much deeper back-story than Tjuana who has the depth of an average puddle. Kyle is a Nexus replicant but unlike most of his contemporaries he knows he is and just wants it to end.

His life span is limited four years he has been told but because he has no desire to live the drugs designed to destroy him do not kick in. So he gets more and more twisted and bitter and goes in search of answers.

He discovers his lack of wanting to live is stopping him from dying. For the drugs to work you need to want to live beyond your life not embrace death. Making him kind of unique.

The story was to take him off into the desert, out there he realises without people to interact with, and his life has no meaning. He realises Tjuana was trying to get him to understand that. The idea was he would get back explain it to her and die in her arms after realising his life was worth living… Irony.

Where as I had no idea where I was taking Tjuana I was going to have her discover a new type of Nexus replicant but it was nowhere as deep as Kyle.

Ok so that one you say…

Second entry – Wavecatcher

One there is no reason it should be called that as the actual Wavecatcher ship which is the initial opening chapters disappears after two chapters or so never to be seen or heard of never again so its pointless calling it that.

Roger Fishman is pulled onto a spaceship while looking at a star from his window and is dropped off on a planet a bit later only to discover he was sent away to Earth many years ago as he has a kingdom to restore and rule. Yep I said not all of it was great.

One of his companions is Riverwind. He is a native Indian type companion so he has much more back-story and he is a trusted warrior and fighter with many battles to his name. I even had him a wolf companion called Shadow in a side story. He had lost his family to war and he had dedicated himself to right the wrongs done against him. He was spiritual and a warrior and actually had depth.

Roger on the other hand was just a throwaway character to get the story flowing even though he was your main character as he had zero depth, and to be honest I don’t think he really shows any redeeming qualities. However I think I was hoping to address that in Wavecatcher 2, which was never finished.

I also seem to like making my deeper character being some sort of problem.

Vampire Dawn - Yep VD not the best acronym for a book I know that now. As the name implies the main story is a local group of vampires are trying to create a day walking vampire using the underground levels of a mental hospital called the Derian Institute (Also in my Asylum story).

Now our lead was Rebecca Flint who was trying to seduce, cajole or get Dr Paul a leading gene research Professor to join the project. The story was not great and its pacing was all over the place.

However the guy claiming victims while in the first chapter doesn’t say much we discover he is Ashwin. He was a victim to a vampire woman and he has become the most reluctant vampire in existence.

He is not particularly fond of the taste of blood. He was the total opposite of the typical vampire. He was awkward, not great with social skills, considered quite normal looking, definitely not attractive and the institute were using him to get victims for experimentation.

Obviously this was why they used Ashwin because no one in a million years would suspect someone as dull as him. So it was nothing short of wonderfully ironic.

But once again Ashwin was interesting meanwhile Rebecca (Becky) was about as exciting as a wet Tuesday in Swindon.

Looking back at some of them, could some of them be saved? I’m sure they could. Will I ever do it? Probably not.

I just no longer have the creative angles I had when younger. It’s a shame as some did have potential. Could I have made something from these thousands of words of total waste of hard drive space?

As I have said before I have started many things but actually finishing anything I just don’t do that with my creative stuff.

The only set I finished was the Ways, which was a three-part story following Maya Di Martini who walks between dimensions weaving a path between worlds using gates. Part 1 I introduce the wolf Jade. Part 2 Maya loses Jade, but ultimately finds her at the end. Part 3 Maya returned home to see the family and settle down. I actually completed a trilogy

Then I lost a hard drive and Part 3 has now gone. I wrote Parts 1 and 2 many moons ago but it took me over 15 years before I finished Part 3. Then I lost it again as the file is gone.

I have been through all my archive discs and various CDs, DVDs and Hard Drives and nope the file no longer exists.

So for all I actually finished a story and I sent it to a few people not one person has got an actual copy of the full trilogy. Or if they have no one seems to be able to return it to me.

Why do I seem to have lost interest in everything computer related? I used to love playing with old machines but to be honest lately my heart has really fallen out of the industry.

I just don’t seem to enjoy playing with this stuff. I used to like messing around with emulators and playing with things like DOS but now I feel like I have played around and done most things I can do in that field.

I had an interest in Linux but to be honest it seems to have faded. Maybe because I have hit the limits of my hardware so I don’t have any areas to explore.

People have always said I have had an esoteric choice of machines I like. Although I admit my first machine was a 48k ZX Spectrum back in 1983 as common as you get. I have always been interested in the more obscure or failing machines.

I have always had an interest in machines such as the MSX machines, PC Engines & Sharp X68000. This is because they were not on every computer shop in town. They didn’t make huge impact at all in the UK where I am based.

Obviously a lot of the software is in Japanese and I have no ability to read Hiragana, which is what it normally is. So even if I get emulation running I have no idea what its about or what I am supposed to be doing if it’s beyond basic menus.

I also like machines like the NeXT, which was also not hugely available so when to get to see them I am really interested.

I then used OpenStep 3.3. via the emulator called Previous and really discovered how little software is actually available for this system. However using it really did show how much NeXTStep is still in Mac OS X even to this day.

Why do I prefer typing in old word processors like this one and Word Perfect 5.1 for DOS or LocoScript PC. Give me a copy of LibreOffice or Modern Word and I sit and stare at a blank page.

I also seem to type more if you give me a minimalist word processor like Writeroom or Focuswriter. So maybe it’s a psychological thing.

It seems the more obscure the item is the more my interest is.

I also have a vast interest in running things in emulators. I have no ability to write said emulators but have always had a fascination in seeing if I can do it on said machines.

It started when I got my first 486 SX25 . The first emulator I ran was JPP in DOS to emulate a ZX Spectrum. Then I found things like Z80 and Magic Engine I bought keys for both. The Magic Engine key I still have and still works but the Z80 one went AWOL a long time ago.

It was cool to subvert the machine make it doe something it was not designed by trade to do, It was exciting and when you got something working it was cool.

I then found things like Nesticle, (NES) Genecyst (Genesis/Mega Drive) and Callus (CPS1) from Blood software and I entered a rabbit hole of emulation. BSNES and ZSNES (both SNES ) and things like M72 (Irem M72 boards), RAINE (CPS1/2) and MAME.

Obviously I remember MAME when it started and would only run 5 games but it sharp managed to keep adding more and more games, making it very interesting at the time.

MAME of course is still going today and can do lots of things as it now includes many of the older projects being amalgamated into it. It now includes MESS, (Multi Emulation Super System), MFME (Multi Fruit Machine Emulator) and PINMAME (Pinball DMD roms).

All of these at one point had separate instances but now MAME coves them all including the ever growing arcade roms and architectures it supports.

As well as multi machine emulators like MAME. Several arcades had their own dedicated programs. I remember things like The New Zealand Story and the 4 player Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had their own dedicated emulators written for them.

Obviously over the years many emulators have come and gone and the images of the roms have been upgraded or updated. I think I saw recently that if you wan t to emulate some of the newer systems on MAME such as Sega M1 or Naomi upwards you need to use CHD (Compressed Hunks of Data) files and if you want a complete collection of such then you need over 10TB worth of hard drive space.

Which is ludicrous considering that half of them don’t work very well due to requiring a beefy CPU to run said games and lots of GPU memory to create the virtual graphics cards.

So machines without a eight-core processor or higher and anything less than a Nvidia 3000 series graphics card need not apply.

Over the years the emulators have continued covering all major platforms and even to this day as I said MAME continuers its quest. However even more recent platforms are not safe from the emulators.

They have emulation for Xbox 360, Playstation 2 & 3 and even a Switch emulator. In fact was just announced about RPCS4, Orbital, PS4EMX, PS4Emus they have got Playstation 4 emulation now in the functional stages.

Scary stuff. I love emulation even though I could not program one to save my life. I just like seeing a machine running something it was not intended to do.

This is also why I used to like playing with Hackintosh stuff because it was once again subverting what the machine is. The PC was not supposed to run Mac OS X but the fact that someone managed to get such things running was absolutely fascinating.

People have accused me of being quite brutal on machines because I tend to try and get these emulators to work or run software never designed for it. The fact that things such as emulators and the various VMs to run obscure stuff I am not the only one who wants to do this.

Thankfully they do exist because if you were waiting on me to write such it would never happen as I just don’t have that sort of skill or knowledge.

Of course the new Apple Silicon has pretty much made the Hackintosh redundant and also I really didn’t quite understand how to get OpenCore working it was far too complex for my limited brain.

Normal stuff like PC gaming or consoles don’t appeal to me very much until they become a challenge to run them. As I said I like the obscure I like the having to resort to unorthodox methods.

I would be the type if I did play PC games and got good I would have to beat Call of Duty 904 with a Steering wheel just be obnoxious. I’m not going to do that so don’t look to find it.

Obviously as I said new emulators require machines far beyond my reach at the moment but one day who knows I may get back up in the high end PC market again.

Until then I type this nonsense on a iBook G4 using Microsoft Word 2008 then probably upload it using my Dell i7 M6800 laptop to Tumblr.

However to answer the question what happened. I think I have played with most of the obscure things and now I have nothing to do or see.

Going back to the run of the mill is boring and I honestly find most modern games and consoles lifeless. They may be photo realistic and have 4k graphics and more but have about as much excitement to me as a pebble.

While I am only 47 years old, I really feel I am losing my enthusiasm for the computer industry and its constant nonsense.

I no longer have an enthusiasm for machines that are current gen. I have no interest in modern online gaming and have not had an interest in video game consoles since the PS2 era.

There is no excitement in the game. Nothing makes me think oh wow … I want one of those.

Windows 11 fills me with just dread due to its restrictions. TPM & Secure boot, Microsoft account now mandatory and everything now going through the Microsoft Store. Sure they state it’s for security but its just another line of inconvenience from the computer industry.

Apple are no better with the M1 Mac range with its locked up environments, their soldered components and obsession with the App Store.

Also why is everything turning into an icon driven world. The desktop now looks like it has fallen off the Fisher Price development cycle. It’s annoying and inconvenient.

This is why I avoid Gnome 3 on Linux I really don’t like this horrible interface. It’s fine for phones and tablets, but I do not want it at a desktop level.

I used to be willing to experiment with machines and rebuild said items, now I set up a computer and very rarely change things. My sense of adventure is missing, as there is nothing I want or feel compelled to do.

Now when I get a machine, I get it to a reasonable level. Can it browse the Internet; collect email, word processing available. Then sit back and use the machine. I no longer care if it can play certain games, can it emulate current consoles, and can it be a video-processing machine. That is not my deal anymore.

Consoles now have not been in my life for a long time. I own a PSP that I use predominantly for emulating old 8 bit computers on the move. I can’t remember when I last bought any games for it.

I have a Dreamcast that gathers dust, as there is something wrong with the video output that I just can’t be bothered to fix. It is probably a dry solder joint but I can’t solder to save my life so it will remain in the cupboard until I eventually get rid of it.

Linux while something I now can use regularly. I have set up in Endeavour OS and I have no need to find any other version. It does what I want it to do without problems. I update it regularly enough and I have no need for a new improved version of the machine it is on.

Sure I keep the Linux arena in check but for all there are new versions of Ubuntu, Fedora, and Mint. Not one of them will I be considering for installation as Endeavour with the rolling release Arch base means I am always a little ahead of these fixed distros so I will never install them.

As much as the AMD Ryzen line exists and I have never really used them in anger. To be honest I don’t feel I am missing anything exciting.

Was I still producing magazines, podcasts and video then maybe I would appreciate having the extra cores and threads that said processing could offer me but I’m not.

Proof in point I am typing this entire article on an Apple iBook 1.42Ghz G4 laptop using Microsoft Word 2008 under OS X 10.4.11 (Tiger) just proves I really don’t need powerful systems to get my information out.

Hello ladies and gentlemen to the final day of the daily blog challenge for the month of January.  As today is the last day I thought I would look at something that I enjoy outside of computers and that is Pinball machines.

Sadly arcades are becoming a lesser thing in this modern world as most arcade machines and pinball setups are heading to private collectors so the available machines to play is becoming a smaller and smaller set in the public domain.

Now to own Pinball Tables is definitely not cheap you are talking several thousands of pounds to do such.  So finding them in an arcade is very much a joy.

When I was younger I lived in the North East of England and thankfully there was still a lot of arcades along the coast so during my teenage when I was supposed to be studying for college I spent far too long playing Pinball than actually learning.

Oh well such is life.

Here are some of my favourites.

5. Lethal Weapon 3

Lethal Weapon 3 is a pinball machine produced by Data East Pinball in 1992.

It is based on the movie of the same name from Warner brothers directed by Richard Donner, was the most popular movie in summer 1992.

The game featured a Generation 3 FullView dot matrix display, which was larger than the current industry standard, and displayed digitized movie clips.

The game also featured a levelling system, in which players "grab hold of the Data East gun handle and eliminate bad guys in one of three video crime simulator shoot outs.

By 1994, it was Data East's all-time most successful pinball machine.

The game was designed by Markus Rothkranz.

4. Super Mario Bros

Super Mario Bros. is a pinball machine licensed by Nintendo and developed by Gottlieb. It was released in the U.S.A on April 25, 1992.

The machine is designed by Jon Norris, with artwork by David Moore and Constantino Mitchell.

It was the first pinball machine produced by Gottlieb to use the Dox Matrix display, a screen on the bottom of the lightbox which keeps track of the current score and can also display various animations during gameplay (such as Mario running towards a Castle).

Despite the name Super Mario Bros. the machine appears to share a majority of its artwork with Super Mario World.

This table is very unforgiving and quite a tough game to play but with a bit of practise it does get a little easier.

3. The Getaway : High Speed II

The Getaway : High Speed II is a 1992 pinball by Steve Richie form Williams.  It is a sequel to the 1986's High Speed table.

Basically there a few new updates to this table.

The scores are now displayed using a Dot-matrix display (Resolution: 128x32)screen.

The plunger is replaced with a gearshift, which is also used during main gameplay, as well as the video game mode.

A small elevated loop, fed by the left ramp and fitted with a magnetic ball accelerator called the Supercharger.

Some of the targets in the upper playfield were moved slightly to make room for the new ramp.

Also the game now uses La Grange from ZZ Top as it’s main music.

The main playing challenges of the game are to try and max and loop the Super charger and the other is to run the red light and trigger a police chase.

This involves hitting the appropriate ramp and getting the ball to lock.  Three balls locked and you initiate the Run which is a Multiball.  Hit the various ramps and targets for bonus.

I spent far too much time playing this machine.  It’s a one of those Oh just one more go machines.

2. The Addams Family

The Addams Family was released in March 1992, Designed by Pat Lawlor and Larry DeMar and manufactured by Midway(under the Bally name).

It is a solid state electronic pinball arcade game. It was based on the film of the same name released in 1991 by Paramount Pictures, and features custom speech (mostly derived from the motion picture) by the stars of the film, Raul Julia and Anjelica Huston.

More than 20,000 units have been sold as, making it one of the best selling pinball machines of all time.

This table is an absolute classic.

It even got an upgrade in October 1994, Bally produced a so called "Special Collectors Edition", often referred to as The Addams Family Gold.

Towards the end of the original production run of The Addams Family some machines had been produced with golden features to celebrate the machine's sales record.

The "Special Collectors Edition" similarly featured specially designed gold accents on the playfield/cabinet and an updated software program

Also on the Gold Table a few of the targets were triggered unique bonuses.

Only 1000 of the Gold editions were made so these are definitely a one to find.

1. Twilight Zone

Twilight Zone is a widebody pinball machine, designed by Pat Lawlor and based on the 1959 TV Series of the same name. It was first released in 1993 by Midway (under the Bally label).

Following the huge success of The Addams Family pinball game, Midway gave Lawlor full creative control over the design of his next game, and the result is an unusually complex machine.

Among its special features are the following:

A working gumball machine, which holds three balls and can dispense them or receive others during play.

A working, 12-hour analog clock that can display the current time and function as a timer during certain rounds.

The Powerball, a white ceramic ball which is lighter than the other steel balls in the machine and unaffected by magnets.

The Powerfield, a triangular mini-playfield whose underside contains magnets that propel the ball.

In addition to adapting the theme music from the original TV show, the game's main background is an interpretation of the 1982 song "Twilight Zone", by Golden Earring.

Tim Kitzrow provided the voice of Rod Serling.

I absolutely adore this table it is fun, it’s pretty unique and also brutally challenging.

During the game unless the have the Powerball the balls get thrown around by magnets which can be rather disconcerting when it first happens.

Hello ladies and gentlemen to Day 30 of the daily blog challenge for the month of January.

Many moons ago when I used to be in college we used to play role playing games every lunchtime.  I ran several games as did a few in the group.  Obviously I have not run a full scale campaign for anything for years.

I have however ran a few minor things with my daughters over the years and introduced them to the world of Dungeons and Dragons which they did also with friends at college when they got there.

However the games keep coming and here is a few I would have liked to have tried and probably never will as I am too old for such and don’t keep a large group of gamers on hand.

1. Shadowrun

Shadowrun is set in a dystopian future where the corporations of this world are run by dragons and various humans have been transformed into such as orcs and trolls have crept out of the woodwork due to a leaking of magic in the world.

Basically it’s a combination of fantasy mixed with technology to create a cyberpunk world.

The game is not new by any stretch it was originally published in 1989 by FASA Games.  The current incarnation is the sixth edition by Catalyst Game Labs in 2019 to celebrate 30 years of the game.

However I have always avoided it as the decker plays in a virtual world which means it can slow the game down terribly if you have to play that bit.  However you can streamline that but means the decker becomes a minor character.

2  Rifts

Once again this is not a new game in the slightest originally released in 1990 by Kevin Siembada through Palladium Games.  Its probably one of few ongoing updating games outside of D&D

Rifts is a multi genre role playing game.  As the name suggests Rifts have opened around the world and from these you can have various monsters, or have various rifts open to different time periods meaning that you have a very large array of options.

The game is quite complex and has so many options of things you can do with it that its quite ludicrous what options are available to you.

It has an entire manual just for magic but has equally a book for transport such as jets and more. In total there is over 80 books from between 1990 and 2011.

It really is an elaborate world they have left you to play with.

I think that’s why I have avoided it.  I like games with variety but this is massive

3. The Laundry

This is a game released by Cubicle 7 in 2010 and is apparently based on a series of books called the Laundry files by Charles Stross.

The entire idea is you are a member of a British intelligence agency who is in charge of paranormal activities.

Obviously the idea is that you are a group of ragtag loonies keeping things in line without causing too much disruption and trying to keep the information away from the public as possible.

However that can lead to you having to do things in order to stop exposing them to the world and can be chaotic.

So basically a very silly combination of a UK Based X files / Men in Black and bumbling incompetence.

4. Numenera

Numenara is a science fantasy role playing game released by Monte Cook Games in 2013.  However I believe the update was originally funded through Kickstarter but has now become a world wide published game.

Numenera is set on Earth a billion years in the future.  We are now in the Ninth World as we know it as eight civilisations have come and gone in that time.

Basically the world has very little technology left and what has been left is controlled using the various magic that has risen over the years.

It sounds amazing but it’s not one I have really sat down and investigated in great depth.

Recently updated the system to Numenara 2 also via Kickstarter in 2017.

Hello ladies and gentlemen to Day 29 of the daily blog challenge for the month of January.

if you like remakes of Classic Spectrum games.  Then if you have not checked out Retrospec, then I definitely recommend you check them out at retrospec.sgn.net.

Here are 5 games I enjoy...

1 Highway Pursuit

Highway Pursuit written by Adam Dawes is a remake of the classic game of Spy Hunter.

Spy Hunter of course it a driving and shooting game which was incredibly popular.

A decent remake which has only three lives as opposed to a timer of the original.

Try it yourself.

2. Klass of 99

This is a remake of the classic Skool Daze by Richard Jordan.

The original plot of Skool daze is you play as Eric and its his job to get into the Headmasters office (Mr Wacker) and steal his report card.

He can do this by hitting all of the shields.

Well Klass of 99 is a slight update where you have to delete the report card from Rose’s computer.

Basically Eric can do this during his journey to lessons or playtime. He can skip lessons but if he does then the teachers will come after him.

Eric has five days to achieve his task in which time he has to try and do so avoiding getting lines.  If Eric gets 10000 lines then he will be expelled.

If you have played Skool Daze it is highly recommended giving this update a try

3. Wizball

This remake by Graham Goring is a remake of the C64 classic Wizball.

For many years, Wiz and his magical cat lived happily in brightly

coloured Wizworld. All was not well however as a malevolent force had discovered the vista and intended to stamp out brilliance once and for all. The evil Zark and his horrible sprites have moved in to eliminate the spectrum and render all landscapes drab and grey.

So jump in your transporter and with the help of your

faithful servant Catelite, restore Wizworld to its former glory.

The landscapes in Wizworld are comprised of three colours each.

Your task is to restore the original colours by shooting the Red,

Green and Blue colour bubbles and then using Cat to collect the droplets of colour as they fall to the ground. Droplets collected will be stored in the cauldron displayed at the bottom of the screen, until such time as you have enough of each colour to make the target colour displayed in the cauldron on the far bottom right of the screen.

In the three levels which have aliens on: one has red, one has green and one has blue. It is therefore necessary to move between the three levels using the tunnels to collect all three colours.

To complete a level, you must colour in the whole landscape.

After this, Wiz enters Wiz-Lab and is given a Wiz-Perk by his guardian angel. You may select one weapon or control, which will be magically endowed up on all subsequent Wizballs from birth, or opt for the bonus of 1000 points x Wiz-Level number.

When certain aliens are killed they will deposit a green pearl which will remain stationary on the screen. If Wizball passes over this pearl and picks it up the first icon on the top of the screen will glow; this indicates that Wiz has the option to select a feature represented by the icon.

If you want to select another feature collect more pearls until the icon you want is glowing. Several icons have two possible functions.

The icons are, from left to right:

        1) Thrust     - Gives Wiz more control over the Wizball allows him to move it left or right.

       Antigrav   - Gives Wiz total control over the  and stops the bouncing.

        2) Beam       - Gives Wiz supa-beam weapon.

           Double     - Gives Wiz and cat automatic two-directional firepower.

        3) Catellite  - Gives Wiz a cat fresh from training school        

        4) Blazers    - Gives Wiz and Cat rapid fire blazers.

        5) Wiz Spray  - Gives Wiz mega spray protection.

           Cat Spray  - Does the same for Cat (but Wiz and Cat can’t have spray at the same time).

        6) Smart Bomb - Kills every sprite in sight.

        7) Shields    - Gives Wiz and Cat shields (limited time)    

A fast paced but very difficult game.  Highly recommended.

4.  Jet Set Willy

This is a remake by Andy Noble of the classic Jet Set Willy game.

The story is such Willy having amassed such wealth from mining  bought a mansion and threw a huge party.

However the guests have now left and Willy just wants to go to bed.

Maria his housekeeper has other ideas so Willy has to go around the mansion and collect all the items left strewn about the mansion before he will finally be allowed to go to bed.

If you have played the original this a faithful update graphically but still the same fun game.

5.  Manic Miner

This obviously is the first game to feature Willy, once again remade by Andy Noble.

Now the Windows version is a classic remake of the actual spectrum original.

However if you get the DOS version it seems to be new set of completely modified levels.

Hello ladies and gentlemen and welcome to Day 28 of the daily blog challenge for the month of January.

Scalping is nothing new and has been happening for many years, but it just seems that its much more prevalent since the pandemic kicked in.

Obviously people remember those people at the beginning who were hoarding toilet rolls and hand sanitiser.  That was just the tip of the iceberg it seems.

I remember people not been able to find gluten-free stuff.  Which is ironic as a man who has worked in retail and normally we couldn’t give away the stuff.

As I said this isn’t a new thing.  If anyone has been to a concert in the last five years or more.  Unless you have an inside line to when the tickets were being made available.  People were buying them up and selling them online for three times the price and more.

Obviously the latest scalping item is the new consoles of the PlayStation 5 and X Box Series X.  Now its not something that affect me but it is totally ludicrous that even the main gaming YouTubers of the world can’t get hold of such.

You would think that having seen the way things have been hoarded that the likes of Walmart and the likes would be on to this scam, but it seems like they are encouraging such.

Surely they must know that stocks are limited so should limit how many you can buy, these scammers have so many shell email accounts that it is understandable but surely if the same card is being used for these purchases they should be flagged and stopped.

I’m not a musician but the latest John Mayer PRS Silver Sky Lunar Ice was made in a limited number and not a surprise they sold out in a number of seconds.  I believe that 500 of these were made.

Now yes several were sent to actual guitar shops which were listed at the price stated by PRS, but I guarantee many of them will be on Ebay at silly prices.

I’m sure there is many more items that I am not aware of that are being held for ransom by these people.

However it definitely seems scalping is on the increase.

Is this done on purpose, I used to think that it was just individuals but now I am starting to believe there is more to it.

These seem like teams doing this.  It is the only way it can be done.

Equally part of me wonders if this keeping stocks at limited levels is done intentionally by companies in order to keep the economy at a tilt.

They know that these items are going to be scalped and seem to be doing absolutely nothing to stop such.

This false inflation of need seems to be a common factor.  Everything now has to be hyped beyond belief.  

Going back to consoles, just look at how they made the Nintendo Mini series limited production, it was pretty obvious the scalping types were going to jump on such.

It actually seems that the actual manufacturers are doing this on purpose.  If that’s the case I think one that’s rather sinister and two encouraging this scalping lifestyle.

Hello ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Day 27 of the daily blog challenge.  So once again we are looking at emulators that are not MAME.  Now I realised when I examined System 16, I mentioned M72 but had not looked at it.

I had intended it to be the first emulator I looked at but for some reason I seem to have been side tracked. I even started a write up but somehow I must have forgotten to put it up.

Oh well here we are better late than never I guess. Ironic...

M72 is an emulator written by Li Jih Hwa or Nao as he was better known at the time.  As the name of the emulator suggest is plays games that use the Irem M72 arcade boards.

Nao stopped working on the M72 emulator because he joined the MAME team so he could work on further arcade emulation.  Although MAME can play the M72 games it seems the M72 emulation seems to run the game faster than MAME.

The M72 emulator plays 12 games.  I have a virtual full collection of ROMs the only one I could not find was the R-Type (Japan) ROM.

So here is some of the games that are worth playing.

1. Hammering Harry

This is a platform game where you fight your enemies using a large mallet.

The game is rather challenging as most enemies will wipe you out with one shot so you really need to make sure you get rid of the enemies pretty quickly.

The game did apparently lead to an anime called Ikuse! Gen San.

2. Dragon Breed

Dragon Breed was released into arcades in 1989.

The player controls King Kayus, who rides a large dragon named Bahamoot. Bahamoot is immune to enemy attacks, capable of blocking most projectiles and damaging enemies on contact.

Kayus, however, is not, but is armed with a forward-firing crossbow.

Bahamoot's body is flexible and responds to Kayus' movement, enabling Kayus to use Bahamoot as a mobile shield or as a whip-like weapon. The player can also circle the tail around a group of enemies to kill them. The tail of the yellow or blue dragon can be coiled around the player to offer almost complete invulnerability for a limited time.

Bahamoot can also spit fireballs. By holding the fire button down, the dragon will build up fire in its mouth; the longer the button is held down, the more powerful the fireball will be. There are four levels of fireball power; at its strongest, the fireball resembles a dragon's head.

The game also contains some platforming elements - the human is able to dismount on horizontal platforms.

Power-ups comes in the form of orbs acquired by shooting small green dragons that appear intermittently throughout stages, or they can be collected from the ground on foot.

There are four different types of orbs, each of will change Bahamoot to a different colour and grant him a new attack power. The red orb enables the dragon to breathe a flame. Gold enables Bahamoot's body to fire crescents in all directions. Silver enables the dragon to produce up to four miniature dragons, which home in on enemies. Blue enables Bahamoot to fire downward bolts of electricity from its underside.

The player can further enhance Bahamoot's powers by picking up the same type of orb up to three times.

3. Legend of Hero Tonma

LOHT was released on arcades in 1989, it is a side scrolling platform game.

The story is very simple.   The player controls a caped hero named Tommy in his quest to rescue a princess. Tommy can cast fireballs which can be upgraded in power to dispatch enemies, and jump on their heads to temporarily stun them.

For all the story is simple, the game is quite challenging.

2. Ninja Spirit

Ninja Spirit is a platform arcade released in 1988.

You play the lead character Tsukikage.

His journey takes him through seven stages, varying from woodlands, wastelands, swamps, temples, and cliffs. Each stage begins with the player slashing his way to the end until he confronts a level boss.

The ninja is always armed with the katana, Righteous Cloud, which can be fluidly used to attack in all directions. Extra weapons include the Swirling Leaf (shurikens), the Bamboo Thunder (bombs), and the Rising Dragon/Shouryu (kusarigama).

There are also several power-up items, such as one unleashing multiple ninja ghosts to assist the player.

This is yet another challenging game where one hit can end your life.

1. R-Type II

Yes as I have said before, this is my favourite arcade game.

R-Type II was released in the arcades in 1989 and is the second in the series.  Once again you are taking on the Bydo Empire.

The player controls a ship called the R-9C, which is an improved version of its predecessor game's ship, the R-9. The ship's design was changed slightly, and the wave cannon was given a new charge level.

Two new types of weapons (the Search Laser and Shotgun Laser) were added, bringing the total number of weapon types up to five. A new anti-ground unit bomb was added to the missile inventory.

Though the number of levels was decreased from the previous game, the number of enemies, their durability, and the number of bullets they shoot were greatly increased.

Enemy movements and terrain were also made trickier, bringing the game's difficulty up considerably.

The same revival system is used as in R-Type, where the player is brought back to a checkpoint whenever their ship is destroyed.

The game consists of six levels.

Hello ladies and gentlemen and welcome to Day 26 of the daily blog challenge.  Now I know modern computer games are far more complicated than the older ones and budgets and requirements are much higher than they ever were.

However it seems the trend is to release a game that is far from tested or sometimes not even finished.  Then companies spend time putting out day one patches which are sometimes bigger than the original game.

Obviously lately everyone is aware of all the broken elements of CD Projeckt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077.  Reports of bad optimisations for consoles, broken quests and much more.

Now given the hype behind such a game it was always going to be difficult to meet up to people’s expectation but you would at least think that someone like CDPR would get the base functionality of the game working.

However they are not the first or the last to do this. 

Just look at the train wreck that was Fallout 76 by Bethesda.  If ever you are looking for a broken, badly designed project it was just total carnage.

Everything about that game that could go wrong, did go wrong.

The crazy thing is up to Fallout 76.  The Fallout series was quite a loved franchise with many fans.

The game may have been fixed up to a degree but it still seems many elements of the game is forever broken and even Bethesda have given up trying to fix various bugs and what you have is what you are going to get.

I think what’s worse with a lot of these games, they fix one series of bugs and introduce so many many more problems.  Sometimes they patch one set and return an old set of bugs back in the game.

Now I admit I’m not a programmer and I am sure creating games of such magnitude takes an awful lot of work.

However what is a more concerning issue is they are working these programmers to death, and we here reports of constant crunch and damaging mental health of these poor programmers.

Only for them to have their games pushed to market by companies, sometimes even knowing a product is no where near finished.

At times it really feels as if the gaming industry has given up any form of caring for quality.  Just shift units we can patch and fix the issues later.

I guess it was due to Hello Games No Man’s Sky such things became acceptable.  Promise the moon, put out a substandard version of such.  Then spend the next three years bolting on the features that were promised and a few extra twiddly bits on top.

If anyone remembers the sheer backlash of No Man’s Sky when it first came out.  It was unreal.

This is another issue.  Games publishers and marketers promising the greatest thing since sliced bread and then people being disappointed when they don’t deliver the golden calf.

I think Anthem by Bioware firmly fits into that category.  Oh yes you have a very pretty and functional world but sadly it has the gameplay of about an afternoon’s worth of play.

Now I get that games can have bugs and yes they can be fixed.  However the worrying trend is why bother we can just release a mess at a premium price, then spend time for the next year fixing it.

Hello ladies and gentlemen to Day 25 of the daily blog challenge for the month of January.

So Word Perfect 5.1 for DOS is very much an old word processor in fact it was released in November 1989 so yes it is over 21 years old.

Yes it was the first real word processor I ever sat and used in anger.  So the program is quite special to me in that respect.

I remember running it using two floppy drives with the Amstrad PC 1640 DD which I believe was an Intel 8086 machine. So that may be an earlier version

But we were definitely using Word-perfect 5.1 for DOS when I was at college.

Now many people remember that blue screen with its white text and it was one of the best selling products for Word Perfect at the time.

However most may not know why it’s a blue screen with white text as opposed to most word processors which use black text on a standard white background like Microsoft Word and many more.

Well this is due to an experiment by the author Jerry Pournelle who tested various colours of backgrounds and text colours.  After extensive research he realised that black text on white backgrounds would start to strain the eyes causing it to blur if you had to sit and type for longer than twenty minutes or more.

For long term typing he worked out that using a blue background with white text.  This allowed you to type for many hours without getting eye strain and text tended not to blur over long time reading.

Microsoft Word actually still has this colour setting in the options but it is not turned on by default.

So Word Perfect 5.1 is designed for writers in mind as they realised many people in this field spend hours staring at the screen so they were one of the first to default this colour scheme.

Borland also used this colour scheme for its primary IDEs for Turbo Pascal and Turbo C so it was a definite proven factor.

I also believe Jerry Pournelle said that if you can’t get white text on blue. He recommends yellow text on a red background can be equally easier to read which several Microsoft IDEs took up.

If anything Jerry proved that black text on a white background while it may look good on paper it is far from the best way to view documents.

It’s funny really as it took the computing world a long time to grab this as you will notice that most operating systems are now using a dark mode.

Anyway I am getting sidetracked... Word Perfect 5.1 for DOS was one of the most used word processors during the DOS era.

However Word Perfect 6 for Windows was not popular it was a WYSIWYG based processor and was black text on white background like Microsoft Word.

Microsoft Office suite of course was the best for Windows and it slowly put Word Perfect out of business.

It then became owned by Novell, and was passed to Corel who I believe still own it today but it has never been the major force it was during the DOS days.

Hello ladies and gentlemen and welcome to Day 24 of the daily blog challenge for the month of January.  So I must say I primarily use my PSP for emulation when on journeys which due to the latest pandemic has been a thing I have not be getting out there.

So here are the few PSP games I like

5. Taito Legends Powerup

This is a compilation of Taito arcades that is quite playable.  Games included in the list are Space Invaders, Phoenix, Elevator Action, Legend of Kage and New Zealand Story

It also includes a few updates of certain games to give a modern take on such games as Cameltry 2005 and Legend of Kage 2005 which enhance these games with new and more modern graphics.

These are quality playable versions of the arcades and they are quite fun.

4. Micro Machines V4

If you know me I am a big fan of the Micro Machines franchise so a PSP version will always appeal to me.

Now it’s the most understated looking of the Micro Machines and to be honest I would love to say it was a great game but I would be lying.

The PSP version is OK but average at best and the implementation of power ups would be a little broken.  So  as a Micro Machines fan I can put up with the game but it’s far from good

3. Burnout Legends

I adore Burnout games something that I appreciate from Criterion Software.

Burnout Legends is an amazing game.  You can work your way through the various challenges to unlock the various cars and races.  There is the standard races, the takedown challenges and there is also such things like the drift challenges which I admit I am not a fan of.

Burnout games really don’t need much explanation.  High octane racing with fantastic crash physics. If you want realistic racing then go else where but if you want fun then this is the game for you.

2. Lego Pirates of the Carribean

I absolutely love this game.  Obviously it is based on the films of the Disney Pirates of the Caribbean.  Now TT Fusion made an amazing game here.

The cutscenes made in the style of Lego are absolutely amazing.  The gameplay of the game is simple but fun.

They really have got Johnny Depp's Captain Jack jaunty walk down to a tee and it uses elements of the LEGO world to make an incredible fun adventure.

Even when you complete games.  You unlock the free play versions which you can take various characters to open certain sections of the game to gain all extra bonus items.

Really fun and worth a play.

1. Castlevania : The Dracula X Chronicles 

This is the updated version of Rondo of Blood which was originally on the PC Engine.  This will be for some the first time some will have seen it as it was primarily only released in Japan.

This is an amazing version with new cutscenes and overall polish up on what was probably one of the best Castlevania games out there.

One thing is the original PC Engine version can be unlocked but also you can unlock the best Castlevania game of all time, in the form of Symphony of the Night.

Hello ladies and gentlemen to Day 23 of the daily blog challenge for the month of January. So today I am looking at RISC-V due to a post of a new SBC (Single board Computer) from Seeed and SiFive coming soon in the form of the Beagle V.

Now lets start at the beginning...

What on earth is RISC-V. ?

RISC-V is a instruction set for a new generation of chips that has been designed to compete with the likes of the x86 CISC and ARM RISC systems.

RISC-V (pronounced RISK Five) is an open standard reduced instruction set (ISA) which is royalty free and open source.

So long story short RISC-V can be used to create a processor and you don't have to pay for licensing to do so.

RISC vs CISC?

This has been an ongoing war for years with the likes of the PC in the form of Intel/AMD using CISC based processors. Obviously the advantage of CISC is you have a full instruction set which controls all aspects of the processor. While slower in principle has proven to be advantageous for main desktop usage.

RISC processors on the other hand used by the likes of Motorola and now ARM have always been seen as technically inferior but have proved to be better at certain tasks due to their predictive branching technologies and priority management of threads. So have proved handy in the mobile market and even now are challenging for desktop with the likes of the Apple Silicon M1.

For many years RISC processors were cheaper and were not really considered as main competition but due to development via the likes of ARM, Apple Silicon and other such as the Amazon designed X1 processor. RISC has pulled back an awful lot of ground.

So RISC-V ?

RISC-V is the new design extending and improving on the RISC system apparently worked on for many years.

However like RISC it has advantages and it has risks.

The fact that RISC-V is an open source design it can be incorporated into any processor you care to design meaning you can build your own custom processor unit.

SiFive have an actual program on their website where you an design your own processor so you can include aspects you like and remove those you don't.

Which is incredibly handy if you want to make a chip for basic control say to run a hard drive. You can make a chip with those functions only to control I/O and cut out excessive network and other extraneous functions out.

Western Digital are taking advantage of such and newer large drives may have a RISC-V controller to run the drive.

However you can equally start with a very basic processor and step up the system until you have something that challenges the desktops of the day.

This all sounds great but I will throw a spanner in the works.

Linux is primarily open source too and the issue with any system made by committee is a slow process.

Linux is 20 years plus in the making and still seen as a desktop failure due to too many cooks.  

RISC-V has been banded about for years and although the standard exists now. The application seems sketchy at best as once again committee design takes forever.

So for all the Beagle V board is now on the horizon. If I was the likes of ARM, Intel or AMD. I am not going to sweating about such.

RISC-V is a nice idea but is going to be stifled by committee indecision like any open source project.

I'm not saying open source is bad but things can move incredibly fast or equally incredibly slow in this area.

Until I see something the RISC-V system can prove to give systems an outright advantage with it remains a nice novelty.

Hello ladies and gentlemen and welcome to Day 22 of the daily blog challenge for the month of January.

Today’s topic is pretty self explanatory... The BBC Micro was introduced in December 1981 and I believe it cost around £250 for the Model A and around £350 for the Model B.

Now I know they were introduced into virtually every school in the UK at the time and ours was no exception.

However I always found the BBC a very dull and bland machine even then.

Now I admit I was an owner of a ZX Spectrum but I never felt envious of BBC owners.

They may have had Microvitec monitors and 5 1/4" floppy disc drives but they seemed extraneous to me given the very limited graphical capability of the machine.

I remember trying Repton on one. It may look like a vague Boulder Dash clone but it was far less exciting.  

I'm sure someone will point out the important element I am missing in Repton but nope it just never clicked for me.

Another game they raved on about and still do to this day which I found about as interesting as paint drying was Elite.

The space trading game that has topped many gaming charts for some god unknown reason. I have never played a game that is as slow and uninteresting as it in my life.

Maybe I'm being harsh on the machine as for many this may have been their first opening into things like the world of BASIC.

However as I said the other day I am not really a programmer type so BASIC was very dull to me.

The BBC always seemed to be an underpowered machine. It was a 2Mhz 6502 processor machine.

Now don't get me wrong it seemed to have plenty of expansion and I was very impressed when I think I saw one with a Ceefax receiving card. You could even edit and make your own Ceefax pages with it I believe.

Now obviously as I said it was aimed squarely at the educational market and to be frank if you owned a BBC at the time you were rather middle class.

Maybe that’s another factor as I was just a common kid with my £99 Spectrum so there was definitely a separating factor.

BBC Micro owners always believed they were slightly better than the common Speccy owner because they were featured in programs such as Micro Live.

I have since gone back and tried to see what the fascination was using emulators such as Beeb Em and I really just don't seem to get the magic.

The games are weak, the machine itself while it got better over time with the BBC Master models. Never seemed to click with me.

Some machines I would happily like to own but funnily enough the BBC Micro machines are not highly upon that list.

Hello ladies and gentlemen welcome to Day 21 of the daily blog challenge.  So today I am looking at another emulator in the form of Zinc.

Zinc is an emulator that covers Sony ZN1 and ZN2 boards.  It also can run Namco System 11 games.  Now both Sony arcade boards seem to based on PlayStation 2 hardware.

Now Zinc itself is a command line based emulator so I have been running it using the Frontend ZincGUI.

Now I admit quite a lot of the games are fighting games which I am not a huge fan of,  However the games emulated do seem to run faster than the MAME versions.

Zinc is available in a complete pack including frontends, plug-ins and the emulator itself.

So here is a lot at some of the games

1. Strider 2

The Strider 2 arcade was never released outside of Japan and Asia.  However I do believe it was released on PlayStation 2 on disc for the rest of the world.

Obviously a sequel to the original Strider.  You once again take the role of Hiryu Strider and you must fight your way through various levels fighting robots and various bosses.  Ultimately you have to beat the Grand Master who is ruling the world

I must admit the game is fast, furious and actually quite fun.  However it is quite brutal if you fall off the levels which is pretty easy to do.

2. Raystorm

RayStorm is a shoot em up from Taito where the player control a starship, the R-Gray, in its mission to destroy the Secilia Federation before it destroys Earth.

Simple principle and simple gameplay but definitely an interesting game.  You have two weapons on your ship.   You have the laser which is used most of the time.  However you also have missiles which lock on to the various targets before you can fire them using some of your special weapon power.

The game is pretty straightforward shooter territory but that doesn’t mean its an easy game to beat.

3 . G-Darius

Once again another shoot-em up from Taito but this is from the forth instalment of the Darius series.

G-Darius is a prequel story that revolves around a conflict between the humanoids of Amnelia and cyborg/chimera biovessels known as the "Thiima" (meant to mean simply "deliverer of death").

The Thiima had been aroused by the Amnelian army's use of the weapon A.N. (All-Nothing) to annihilate the world Blazar, whom Amnelia had been at war with over jurisdiction over the moon Mahsah. Determined to protect their existence, and long ago programmed to protect the universe from just such threats as A.N., the Thiima swarmed on Amnelia.

Although the armed forces were badly ravaged, Amnelian scientists and engineers were able to make use of both A.N. and reverse engineered Thiiman technology/life systems to create the Silver Hawk fighters.

Ultimately, two pilots—Sameluck Raida and Lutia Feen—are chosen to perform a decisive attack on the main Thiima base: Kazumn, a satellite of the planet Darius.

A difficult shoot em up but it has the new twist this time you can use capture balls to grab enemies to fight on your side.

That’s three that interested me, the rest are fighter games such as Street Fighter Ex Plus, Plasma Sword and more of that ilk.  If that’s your bag it may interest you.

Hello ladies and gentlemen to Day 20 of the daily blog challenge for the month of January.  When I was in college we were given a few lessons of Pascal programming using Turbo Pascal 5.5 for DOS.

When I say limited learning I honestly believe we were told how to open the IDE.  I honestly can’t remember anyone giving us beyond the basic routines and I don’t know whether I was taught that or I learned it myself from reading a book on the thing.

I know I did at one point own a book that covered the basics of Turbo Pascal 5.5 or 6 (I can’t remember, all I know is I don’t have the book any more) which I think I bought from a bookshop in Sunderland.

I remember learning the basics of loops and how to write procedures but beyond that.  I can’t think of anything I was actually taught.

So the only thing I remember spending ages on was playing with the Graphics module and creating a really corny front screen for a very lame share calculation program.

The first screen was a logo of a company I created called

Doughnut Developments and it drew a doughnut in a rounded rectangle box and then announced the name of the program using the Triplex font.

I think I spent more time fiddling with it than I did the actual main program which kept shares in a basic text file.

You could enter or recall various shares from the file enter the amount you had and the current price and it would tell you what they were worth and I think it kept the previous values so you could compare if you had made any money or not.

I know the program was incredibly basic and if I am brutally honest. I’m not even sure it kept the previous value so was about as much use as a chocolate fireguard.

All of my college notes are long gone so anything I actually did during that time is thankfully lost to the annuls of time.

As you can see from the above graphic I recently installed Free Pascal in Windows.

I honestly can’t for the life of me recall any Pascal programming beyond what I typed there.

I honestly don’t know why that useless bit of code has stuck in my memory but things like ClrScr to clear the screen and using the Readkey function are not standard Pascal but things I believe that were in Turbo Pascal itself.

So I remember a program that uses non standard Pascal functions.  How unusual is that.  Luckily Free Pascal is heavily compatible with Turbo Pascal right up to version 7 which is where I think it started to get object orientated.

I think when I started object orientated code that’s when my brain totally fell apart.  As much as I understood how objects worked it got immensely complicated with it’s multiple file step through and more.

My brain just didn’t seem to want to work with multiple files it was much easier when everything was in one file and I knew what the hell was going on.

I think it just proves I was never really destined to be a programmer as my mind was just not smart enough to keep up with the complexity required to get the job done.

I may have Aspergers and ADHD which many say is a good platform for many programming types.  Well it seems not the case with me, things just would not stick, I got very frustrated and I didn’t have the patience to wade through hundreds of lines of code to find a missing semicolon.

So the example is probably about as far as my Pascal programming will go now, as it was never great to begin with and now my brain is far too old to start re-learning at this point.