Today I finished reading “Dolphin Island” by Arthur C. Clarke
Listening – The Wall
This week I listened to “The Wall” by Pink Floyd
Read – Tintin #3 – Tintin in America
Today I finished reading “Tintin #3 – Tintin in America” by Herge
Read – Tintin #19 – The Red Sea Sharks
Today I finished reading “Tintin #19 – The Red Sea Sharks” by Herge
The Gamble Is Whether You’ll Pay Me
You’ve gotta know when to code it,
Know when to upload it,
Know when to boot her up,
Know when to run.
You don’t count your money,
When you’re sitting at the keyboard,
There’ll be time enough for counting,
When the coding’s done.
— With apologies to Mister Cash, Rogers and Schlitz.
Listening – London Calling
This week I listened to “London Calling” by The Clash
Read – Tintin #4 – Cigars of the Pharaoh
Today I finished reading “Tintin #4 – Cigars of the Pharaoh” by Herge
Read – If I Ran the Circus
Today I finished reading “If I Ran the Circus” by Dr. Seuss
Read – Tintin #23 – Tintin and the Picaros
Today I finished reading “Tintin #23 – Tintin and the Picaros” by Herge
Read – Tintin #15 – Land of Black Gold
Today I finished reading “Tintin #15 – Land of Black Gold” by Herge
Money is never free
You are free to pay me money, you just have to realise that I cannot be bought.
Read – Danny Dunn and the Automatic House
Today I finished reading “Danny Dunn and the Automatic House” by Jay Williams
Read – 6502 – Assembly Language Programming
Today I finished reading “6502 – Assembly Language Programming” by Lance A. Leventhal
Read – Danny Dunn and the Homework Machine
Today I finished reading “Danny Dunn and the Homework Machine” by Jay Williams
Read – Danny Dunn and the Swamp Monster
Today I finished reading “Danny Dunn and the Swamp Monster” by Jay Williams
Persistent persnicketyness
Patience may be a virtue, but patient persistence will bring you success every time.
Read – Rescue Party
Today I finished reading “Rescue Party ” by Arthur C. Clarke
Read – Danny Dunn and the Weather Machine
Today I finished reading “Danny Dunn and the Weather Machine” by Jay Williams
Read – Reach for Tomorrow
Today I finished reading “Reach for Tomorrow” by Arthur C. Clarke
Read – The Sands of Mars
Today I finished reading “The Sands of Mars” by Arthur C. Clarke
Read – The Wind From the Sun
Today I finished reading “The Wind From the Sun” by Arthur C. Clarke
It’s time for a pun
What do you call a cow born with no legs?
Ground beef.
The difference between dogs and cats
Dogs have owners.
Cats have staff.
Read – Danny Dunn and the Fossil Cave
Today I finished reading “Danny Dunn and the Fossil Cave” by Jay Williams
Read – Across the Sea of Stars
Today I finished reading “Across the Sea of Stars” by Arthur C. Clarke
Read – The Deep Range
Today I finished reading “The Deep Range” by Arthur C. Clarke
Read – Danny Dunn, Scientific Detective
Today I finished reading “Danny Dunn, Scientific Detective” by Jay Williams
Read – Danny Dunn And The Voice From Space
Today I finished reading “Danny Dunn And The Voice From Space” by Jay Williams
Read – Programming the 6502
Today I finished reading “Programming the 6502” by Rodnay Zaks
Read – Danny Dunn on a Desert Island
Today I finished reading “Danny Dunn on a Desert Island” by Jay Williams
Read – Danny Dunn and the Smallifying Machine
Today I finished reading “Danny Dunn and the Smallifying Machine” by Jay Williams
Read – Danny Dunn on the Ocean Floor
Today I finished reading “Danny Dunn on the Ocean Floor” by Jay Williams
Fostering strange thoughts
Should I tell my parents I’m adopted?
Do they know?
P.S. This is a joke.
Read – The Other Side Of The Sky
Today I finished reading “The Other Side Of The Sky” by Arthur C. Clarke
Read – Danny Dunn and the Anti-Gravity Paint
Today I finished reading “Danny Dunn and the Anti-Gravity Paint” by Jay Williams
Read – Danny Dunn and the Heat Ray
Today I finished reading “Danny Dunn and the Heat Ray” by Jay Williams
Read – Danny Dunn, Time Traveler
Today I finished reading “Danny Dunn, Time Traveler” by Jay Williams
Read – Danny Dunn and the Universal Glue
Today I finished reading “Danny Dunn and the Universal Glue” by Jay Williams
Better date format
If I write my dates backwards, year, month, day, and time (using the numbers 0 to 23 to represent the hours of the day), when I sort them, they sort from earliest date & time to latest date & time.
Read – Danny Dunn, Invisible Boy
Today I finished reading “Danny Dunn, Invisible Boy” by Jay Williams
Update from the adult Justin: This was the first book I read in the Danny Dunn series, and I devoured them all in any order I could get them.
This was also the very first book I checked out of the public library on a brand new library card from the Penarth public library.
I also learned, a few weeks later, I had the power to fill out a little rectangular card with up to a half-dozen book titles, and have them brought from another library somewhere else in the country directly to my local library so that I could read them.
May the days in between be very long
There are just two days in your entire lifetime that are not 24 hours in length.
Infinite loops
Is it possible for the CPU in my Atom to figure out if the CPU is in an infinite loop?
Is there something I can do to test this?
For the infinite loop I mean?
I can easily test for $100 JMP $100 or in BASIC “10 GOTO 10”, or an equivalent, but how about a harder loop condition?
Word Search Game part two
If I store combinations of letters in a lookup table, because in the English language there are letter groups that go together quite often.
So CH is a common letter group. And so is TH. And so is ING.
How many common letter groups are there?
How many would I use in all of my word dictionaries?
If a word search has a theme, say names of colours, or names of animals, would there be overlap between the same words used in different word search games?
Hrmmm.
Let’s assume I have a list of words I need for a word search level. Each word is actually just a one byte value that is an index in to a table where the real words are stored.
So we have a “word search word list table” that has a string describing the theme of the table, .e.g “COLOUR NAMES” and four bits that indicate how many words are used in that word search level.
Then I have a list of between 8 and 23 words which are just one byte values into another table that is the actual individual word.
Let’s call that other table “word table.”
That word table can contain up to 256 words.
Each word is stored as a series of six bits for a letter group along with three bits to indicate the letter of the word, i.e. how many six bits sequences make up the word.
Those six bit sequences are an index into another table called “letters” which are actually either individual letters or groups of letters.
So effectively I have to think of the English language as having 26 letters plus another possible 38 “letters” made up of two letter pairs and three letter triples. Single. Double. Treble.
Footnote: The problem I was trying to solve was how to store hundreds of words in as small an amount of memory as I can. I only had about 4KB of RAM to play around with as I recall. I wanted to store hundreds of different words, graphics and code.
Word Search Game
I only have about 4KB of RAM to play around with as I recall.
I want to store hundreds of different words, graphics and code.
I need to pack words in to memory efficiently.
The problem is that there are 26 letters in the alphabet which takes up fives of memory.
Which is inefficient.
And I would need some complex code to decipher every five bits in a stream.
Because it is a word search I have a limited number of words to be searching for within a theme.
If I choose my words carefully so that all of the words only use 16 different letters then I can pack two letters in to a single byte.
Assume three bits to indicate word length.
But the word length value 0 through 7 is added to a base value of 3.
No word will be shorter than three letters.
So that gives me words between 3 letters and 10 letters in length.
That gives me four bits to store the first letter of the word and one bit left over.
Footnote: The problem I was trying to solve back then was how to store hundreds of words in as small an amount of memory as I can.
Read – The Sentinel
Today I finished reading “The Sentinel” by Arthur C. Clarke
Read – Prelude to Mars
Today I finished reading “Prelude to Mars” by Arthur C. Clarke
Read – The Fountains of Paradise
Today I finished reading “The Fountains of Paradise” by Arthur C. Clarke
Read – Profiles Of The Future
Today I finished reading “Profiles Of The Future” by Arthur C. Clarke
Read – The Nine Billion Names of God
Today I finished reading “The Nine Billion Names of God” by Arthur C. Clarke
Read – A Fall of Moondust
Today I finished reading “A Fall of Moondust” by Arthur C. Clarke