Podcasts about Timex Sinclair

We're joined by legendary game developer American McGee, who takes us on a journey from his humble beginnings on the Timex Sinclair and Commodore 64 to designing iconic levels for Doom II and Quake. He shares behind-the-scenes stories from iD Software, reveals how a Ferrari-driving neighbour turned out to be John Carmack, and discusses the gothic inspirations behind American McGee's Alice. Plus, we hear about his time at EA, and why being fired from iD turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to him! Contents: 00:00 - The Week's Retro News Stories  35:28 - American McGee Interview Please visit our amazing sponsors and help to support the show: Bitmap Books - https://www.bitmapbooks.com Take your business to the next level today and enjoy 3 months of Shopify for £1/month: https://shopify.co.uk/retrohour The Retro Hour Book: https://retrohour.myshopify.com/ We need your help to ensure the future of the podcast, if you'd like to help us with running costs, equipment and hosting, please consider supporting us on Patreon: https://theretrohour.com/support/ https://www.patreon.com/retrohour Get your Retro Hour merchandise: https://bit.ly/33OWBKd Join our Discord channel: https://discord.gg/GQw8qp8 Website: http://theretrohour.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theretrohour/ X: https://twitter.com/retrohouruk Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/retrohouruk/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/theretrohour.com Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/theretrohour Show notes YouTube Turns 20: https://tinyurl.com/mrx88ybs Windows on Game Boy: https://tinyurl.com/25mkwpdp OutRun the Movie: https://tinyurl.com/5n6r8ntk Neon Hearts City: https://tinyurl.com/yvezebcn Upcoming events RetCon 2025 – https://retconfestival.co.uk/ PT1210 – https://www.ptweekender.com/ RetroMessa – https://www.retromessa.no/

Panelists: Paul Hagstrom (hosting), Quinn Dunki, and Blake Patterson Topic: 1981 In 1981, we started communicating with AT commands and Kermit. Timex/Sinclair released the 1000/ZX-81. We got the BBC Micro and the ABC 800. IBM introduced the PC, for business, no fun allowed. And MS-DOS. And more. Topic/Feedback links: Retro Computing News: Vintage Computer(-related) commercials: … Continue reading RCR Episode 281: The IBM PC and its sticks of ennui →

Join us this episode as we travel back in time to 1986 for the release of Sega's Out Run. We also chat about the games that we've been playing. Jump in to the time machine with us! What We've Been Playing Mash Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade - PS5 Sega 3D Classics Super Hang-On - 3DS Excitebike 3D Classics - 3DS Andy Cursed to Golf - SteamOS Penny's Big Breakaway - SteamOS Into the Breach - Switch Note: Mash was wrong about the ZX Spectrum not existing in the US. It was known as the Timex Sinclair 2068.

In this week's episode, I rate the movies and TV shows I shaw in Winter 2024. This week's coupon is for the audiobook of GHOST IN THE PACT as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy. You can get the audiobook of GHOST IN THE PACT for 50% off at my Payhip store with this coupon code: MARCHEXILE The coupon code is valid through April 5th, 2024, so if you find yourself needing an audiobook to leap into spring, we've got one ready for you! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 192 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is March 15th, 2024, The Ides of March, which we're traditionally told to beware, and today we are looking at my Movie and TV Review Roundup for Winter 2024. Before we do that, we will do Coupon of the Week, an update on my current writing projects, and our Question of the Week. So first up, Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon is for the audiobook of Ghost in the Pact, as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy. You can get the audiobook for Ghost in the Pact for 50% off at my Payhip store with this coupon: MARCHEXILE and that is spelled MARCHEXILE. As always, the coupon code will be in the show notes. This coupon code is valid through April the 5th 2024. So if you find yourself needing an audiobook on this Ides of March, we've got one ready for you. So an update on my current writing projects. I am about 56% of the way through the first edit of Ghost in the Veils. That means the book should be on track to come out before Easter (which is at the end of March this year), if all goes well. I'm also 40,000 words into Wizard Thief, so hopefully that will come out before too much longer after Ghost in the Veils. I'm 11,000 words into Cloak of Titans. So that is where we're at with my current writing projects. 00:01:19 Question of the Week Now on to our new feature: Question of the Week. This week's question is inspired by the fact that I've spent a lot of the last few weeks setting up my new computer and getting it configured properly. So the question is: what is the first computer you ever used? No wrong answers, obviously. Joachim says his first personal computer was an Atari 1040 ST with 1 MB of RAM. I participated in the “religious war” with the Amiga 500 users, which was better and looked down at the MS-DOS PCs, which only has 640 kilobytes of RAM. Justin says: my first computer was a Timex Sinclair. It had two kilobytes of RAM and I forked out $50 for the 16 KB RAM extender module. The manual that comes with it says you will never need this much memory. I use a cassette tape recorder/player to record more programs and it ran a 300 baud. Todd says his first computer was in 1994. I purchased a 486 DX 2 8 megabytes of RAM for use in school. I believe the hard drive was about 250 MB. The monitor weighed a ton. I wrote a bunch of machine code and played Wolfenstein 3D like crazy. Tarun says in 1993 it was a 386 with four megawatts of RAM with Windows 3.1. I played a lot of Prince of Persia and got bad grades in school. Then the computer was locked up. In my educational defense, I did do some Pascal programming. AM says: my first computer was an Apple IIe at school. Getting to play Number Munchers or Oregon Trail on it was some kind of behavioral reward (and a very effective one at that). William says his first computer was a Macintosh SE in my parent's home office, though “using” is an overstatement since all I did was play a few simple preinstalled games. I also have fond memories of playing the original King's Quest with said parents and something like a Compaq Portable. Rich says Commodore 64 with cassette drive. Didn't have cassette the first day. Spent the whole day punching in code for a blackjack game. My sister walks into the room to turn the computer off, erasing everything. That is a bummer. Juana says: a Gateway. My whole family came to gawk at it, and me setting it up! It had 120 megabytes of RAM. Twice what was the ones that used in the college computer lab! I thought I was set for life. Venus says Commodore Vic20. We played Radar Rat Race and Mom gave us a stack of computer magazines and tape recorder, so we played every game that was in the magazines at the time after we typed in the programs and saved them to the tapes. You are the first person outside my family that ever heard also had one. More on that later. Cheryl says: we got our first computer in the early ‘90s: an Amstrad with an AWA printer. I was doing courses for work, so I needed something to print the assignments, but we also played games on it: Wolfenstein, Lemmings, and Stock Markets. They're the only ones I can remember. Craig says: Apple IIe. I'm oldish. With dot matrix printer and handheld modem, dial-up Internet access, the one you had the dial phone into the holding cradle after you called it in. Tracy says: at college we used the TRS80s. I think she may win the award for oldest computer mentioned in this topic. And Perry says: IBM PC clone at school, a friend's family had a Commodore 64. Our first family computer was a Commodore 128. For myself, I had the same first computer as Venus earlier in the thread. That would be a Commodore Vic20. It had 20 kilobytes of RAM and the Word file for the rough draft of Ghosts in the Veils, which I'm editing right now, is 355 kilobytes in size. So to load the Microsoft Word document of Ghosts in the Veils in Microsoft Word format, I would need about 18 different Commodore Vic 20 computers. That's like 1 computer per chapter and a half. So it is amusing to see how computer technology has changed quite a bit over time. 00:04:56 Winter 2024 Movie/TV Review Roundup Now to our main topic. We are inching closer to spring, so I think it's time for my Winter 2024 Movie Review Roundup. I got a Paramount Plus subscription to watch the Frasier reboot and since Paramount owns Star Trek and the Frasier reboot was only 10 episodes long, I ended up watching a chunk of modern Star Trek this winter. This was a new-ish experience because the last new Star Trek I watched was Star Trek Beyond way back in 2016. That was only eight years ago, but it's been a very eventful eight years, you know? I did watch a lot of Star Trek back in the 1990s. If you had held a gun to my head and demanded, you know, if I consider myself a Trekkie, I would say no, because I think Gene Roddenberry's socialist/utopian vision for the Federation that he put into Star Trek is fundamentally kind of goofy. The shows and movies were at their best when they stayed away from it or subverted it, like how the Federation can only be a utopia because Starfleet seems to have a Black Ops section that does all the unsanctioned dirty work and regularly runs amuck. Or like how Starfleet seems to have an actual mad science division that cooks up all kinds of nasty stuff. So anyway, these are the movies and shows I watched in Winter 2024, and as always, my ratings are wholly subjective and based on nothing more rigorous than my own opinions. We will go through these in order from least favorite to most favorite. So the first movie I watched was Now You See Me, which came out in 2013. Last year, I compared Adam Sandler's Murder Mystery movie to a C- student, but a fun C- student who everyone likes for his great parties and goes on to have a successful career as a regional sales manager. By contrast, Now You See Me is the sort of moody art student who always wears a black porkpie hat and thinks of himself or herself as deep and complicated, but in fact, they're just confusing. This is an apt comparison for this movie. Anyway, the plot centers around four sketchy magicians who are recruited by a mysterious organization called The Eye to carry out a series of high-profile heists using stage magic. I have to admit, that concept sounds even more ridiculous as I said the previous sentence. Anyway, after the first heist, the magicians become fugitives from the FBI but keep carrying on shows, sometimes staying ahead of law enforcement. The trouble is that nothing they do makes very much sense, and it all falls apart if you think about it for more than two seconds. Additionally, the movie overall feels very choppy since they rushed from scene to scene very quickly. The actors all gave very good performances that were entertaining to watch, but honestly, that was about the only thing the movie had going for it. Overall grade: D- Next up is The Marvels, which came out in 2023. This movie was logically incoherent, but actually rather charming and funny. It kind of reminds me of those ‘70s or ‘80s style science fiction movies that don't make much sense, though The Marvels was much lighter in tone than anything that came out in the science fiction space in the ‘60s or ‘70s. The movie got a bad rap because it didn't make back its budget, and apparently Disney rather shamefully threw the director under the bus. But to be fair, the budget for The Marvels was an enormous $274,000,000. To put this into context, the top three movies of 2023 (Barbie, Super Mario Brothers, and Oppenheimer) combined had a total budget across these three movies of $350 million, and together they grossed something like 15 times more than The Marvels did. Anyway, the plot picks up from the end of Ms. Marvel when Kamala Khan, Captain Marvel, and Monica Rambeau discover that their superpowers have become entangled. This means that if two of them use their powers at the same time, all three of them switch places randomly. This makes for a rather excellent fight scene earlier in the movie when the three characters don't know what's going on and are randomly teleporting between three different battles, much to the frequently amusing confusion of all participants. Once things settle down, Captain Marvel and her new friends realize that an old enemy of Captain Marvel is harvesting resources from worlds she cares about. So it's up to them to save Earth from this old enemy's vengeance. I have to admit, the plot of the movie didn't actually make much sense, but it was overall much funnier than Ant-Man 3 and Secret Invasion. The best thing about the movie was Kamala Khan and her family. Kamala, Monica, and Captain Marvel also had an entertaining dynamic together and the planet of space musicals was also pretty funny. I think the movie's biggest, unconquerable weakness was that it was the 33rd Marvel movie. There are all sorts of theories of why the movie didn't perform at the box office: superhero genre fatigue, everyone knew it would be on Disney Plus eventually, the lasting effects of COVID on movie theaters and the movie business, Disney throwing the director under the bus, Disney inserting itself into the US Cultural Wars, etcetera. All those reasons are subjective and subject to personal interpretation. What I think is objectively quantifiable is that The Marvels is the sequel to a lot of different Marvel stuff: The Avengers movie, Wandavision, Captain Marvel, the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, Secret Invasion, and Thor: Love and Thunder. That's like 50 to 60 plus hours of stuff to watch to fully understand the emotional significance of all the various characters in The Marvels. 50 to 60 hours of watching sounds like almost an entire entire semester's worth of homework assignments at this point. As someone who has written a lot of long series, I know that you lose some of the audience from book to book. I think that's ultimately why The Marvels didn't make back its budget. The Marvel movies as a series have just gone on too long and are just too interconnected. Ultimately, I am grateful to The Marvels. Realizing and understanding the concept of Marvel Continuity Lockout Syndrome helped me decide to write something new that wasn't a sequel or even connected to anything else I had written, which eventually led to Rivah Half-Elven and Half-Elven Thief. Overall grade: B- Our next movie is My Man Godfrey, which came out all the way back in 1936. This movie is considered the progenitor or one of the progenitors of the screwball comedy genre. A homeless man named Godfrey is living in a trash dump in New York, though despite his circumstances, Godfrey remained sharp and quick on his feet. One night, a wealthy woman named Cornelia approaches him and offers $5 if he'll come with her. Godfrey is naturally suspicious, but Cornelia assures him that she only needs to take him to a hotel to win a scavenger hunt by finding a forgotten man, which was a term President Roosevelt used to describe people who have been ruined by the Great Depression and then forgotten by the government. I have to admit, Cornelia immediately reminded me of the way the more obnoxious YouTubers and TikTokers will sometimes pay homeless people to participate in dance challenges and suchlike. King Solomon was indeed right when he said that there is nothing new under the sun and what has been done before will be done again. Anyway, Godfrey is offended by Cornell's imperious manner but after he sees Cornelia bullying her kindly but none too bright younger sister Irene, Godfrey decides he'll go with Irene so she can win. A grateful Irene offers him a job as the family's butler. At his first day at work, Godfrey very soon realizes the reason the family has gone through so many butlers: they are all certified certifiably and comedically insane. In addition to these other problems, Cornelia is harboring a massive grudge against Godfrey for losing the scavenger hunt and wants payback. Wacky hijinks ensue. Fortunately, Godfrey has some hidden depths that he will need, which include being much smarter than his employers. Admittedly, this is not hard. 1936 was towards the second half of the Great Depression in the United States, so obviously the movie has more than a bit of social commentary. The characters joked that prosperity is just around the corner and wonder where they can find that corner. The rich characters are uniformly portrayed as some combination of frivolous, clueless, or malicious. I think the movie was pretty funny, if sharply so, but the big weakness was that the male and female leads were so clearly unsuited for each other but got together at the end of the movie simply because it was the end of the movie. Still, it was definitely worth watching because you can see how this movie influenced many other movies after it. I definitely recommend watching it with captions if possible, because while human nature has not changed in the last 90 years, sound technology has in fact improved quite a bit. Overall grade: B. Next up is Charade, which came out in 1963. This is a sort of romantic comedy, sort of thriller that has Audrey Hepburn playing Regina, an American living in Paris who is in the process of getting divorced from her husband. When she returns to Paris, she learns that her husband was murdered in her absence and it turns out that he was in possession of $250,000 he stole from the US government during World War II. Regina had no idea about any of this, but the US government thinks that she has the money stashed away somewhere. It turns out that her late husband also betrayed the men he worked with to steal the money and they're convinced that she has the money as well, and they're going to get it from Regina regardless of what they have to do. Regina's only ally in this mess is a mysterious man calling himself Peter Joshua (played by Cary Grant), who may or may not be one of the other thieves operating under an assumed identity. I liked this movie, but I think it had two structural problems. First, Regina wasn't all that bright, though she did get smarter as the movie went on, probably out of sheer necessity. Second, it had some severe mood whiplash. The movie couldn't decide if he was a lighthearted romantic comedy or gritty thriller, though finally snapped into focus as a pretty good thriller in the last third of the movie. Amusing tidbit: Cary Grant only agreed to do the movie if Audrey Hepburn's character would be the one chasing his character in their romance, since he thought their age gap would be inappropriate otherwise, because he was so much older than Hepburn at the time of filming. Overall grade: B+ Next up is the new Frasier series from 2023. I admit I had very, very low expectations for this, but it was considerably better than I thought it would be. My low expectations came partly because the original show was so good. Some seasons were stronger than others, of course, but the show had some absolute masterpieces of sitcom comedy throughout its entire run. Some of this was because I think the 2020s are a much more humorless and dour age than the 1990s, so I had my doubts whether the new show could be funny at all. Fortunately, my doubts were misplaced. The new Frasier is actually pretty good. It's interesting that the show's generational dynamic has been flipped on its head. In the original show, the pretentious Frasier lived with his working-class father. 20 years later, it's now Frasier who lives with his son Freddie, who dropped out of Harvard to become a firefighter and consciously rejected his father's love of intellectualism and cultural elitism. The inversion of the original dynamic works quite well. It has some moments of genuine comedy because, like his father before him, Freddie is more like his father than he realizes. The show also avoided the pitfall of bringing back legacy characters that Disney and Lucasfilm stumbled into with Star Wars and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Disney brought back legacy characters like Luke Skywalker and Indiana Jones but made them into sad, old losers. Frasier, by contrast, while frequently an unsympathetic comedy protagonist who brings his own misfortunes onto his own head, is most definitely not a sad old loser. He's famous, respected, and wealthy enough that he can afford to buy an apartment building in Boston at the drop of a hat. If you know anything about the United States, you know that the East Coast is the most expensive area of the of the country. Despite that, he remains the same well-meaning buffoon that he always was, the sort of man who, as a colleague aptly says, always goes that extra, ill-advised mile. There's a story that when Ricky Gervais was advising the creators of the American version of The Office, one of his chief pieces of advice was that Michael Scott could not be as incompetent as David Brent was in the original UK version of the show. American culture, Mr. Gervais said, was generally much less forgiving of incompetence than British culture. I thought of this as I watched Frasier because all the characters were in fact extremely competent at their jobs. Even Frasier himself, when he finally gets out of his own way, is a very good psychiatrist and teacher. Anyway, the show was funny and I think it deserves a second season. We'll see if that happens or not. Overall grade: A- Next up is Star Trek: Lower Decks Seasons One through Four, which came out from between 2020 and 2023. As I mentioned earlier, I ended up subscribing to Paramount Plus for a month after I watched Frasier, so I decided to watch Star Trek Lower Decks, since I'm forever seeing clips of that show turning up on social media. Lower Decks is a pitch perfect, affectionate parody of Star Trek from the point of view of four relatively hapless ensigns on the Cerritos, one of Starfleet's somewhat less prestigious ships. We have the self-sabotaging rebel Mariner, the insecure and ambitious Boimler, the enthusiastic science girl Tendi, and cheerful engineer Rutherford, who nonetheless has a dark and mysterious past that he can't remember. Season Four also adds T'Lyn, a Vulcan whose mild expressions of carefully measured annoyance make her a dangerous loose cannon by Vulcan standards. The show is hilarious because it makes fun of Star Trek tropes while wholeheartedly embracing them. The ensigns run into a lot of insane computers, random space anomalies, rubber forehead aliens, and other Star Trek tropes, including the grand and venerable Star Trek tradition of the Insane Admiral. Starfleet officers always seem to go off the deep end when they get promoted to Starfleet Command. The senior officers are also varying degrees of insane and drama generators. Starfleet, from the point of view of the Cerritos crew, is a vast bureaucratic organization that veers between ineffective idealism, blatant careerism, and whatever crazy project the Insane Admiral of the Week is pursuing. Yet since American sitcom characters have to be competent (like we just talked about above with Frasier), when the crisis really kicks into high gear, the Cerritos crew can pull itself together and save the galaxy with the best of them. I did like how the show grows from an affectionate parody to its own thing, with all the characters experiencing struggles and personal growth in their arcs. I liked it enough that when the 5th season of Lower Decks comes out, I'll subscribe to another month of Paramount Plus (assuming Paramount Plus still exists and hasn't been brought up by Warner Brothers or Skydance or something). Overall grade: A- Next up is Predator, which came out in 1987. When Carl Weathers died in early February of 2024, I realized I had never actually got around to seeing Predator. So I did and I'm glad that I watched it. Predator was an excellent blending of thriller, science fiction, and horror. Arnold Schwarzenegger plays Dutch, who commands a team of operators who do Black Ops work for the CIA. Since it's 1987, the CIA is up to its traditional shenanigans in Central America and Dutch is dispatched to help out his old friend Dillon (played by Carl Weathers), who has been ostensibly assigned to rescue a Pro-American cabinet minister from rebel guerrillas in the jungle. Since this is the CIA, naturally there is more than the mission than is apparent on the surface. However, the mission quickly becomes irrelevant when Dutch and his team realize they are being hunted by an unknown creature with capabilities unlike anything they have ever seen before. It turns out the creature is the Predator, an alien hunter who comes to Earth and takes human skulls as trophies. Soon the movie turns into a death match duel between Dutch and the Predator. The movie did a very good job of showing the Predator's capabilities such as stealth, heat vision, and his shoulder laser without explicitly spelling them out for the audience. It was a very well put together piece of storytelling and it is of course the source of the famous Internet meme of a muscular white arm gripping a muscular black arm and also Schwarzenegger's famous line of “Get to the choppa!” Also to quote a famous Internet meme, if you had a nickel for every future governor of a US state who is in this movie, you would have two nickels, which is not a lot, but even two is pretty weird, right? Overall grade: A. Now for the favorite thing I saw in winter 2024. That honor goes to Star Trek: Picard Season Three, which came out in 2023. Honestly, this was so much better than I thought it was going to be. I thought I would watch one or two episodes and then give up. Instead I watched the whole thing in like two days over the New Year's holiday. I watched the first episode of Picard Season One way back in 2020 was free on YouTube, but I didn't like it enough to subscribe to CBS All Access (or whatever the heck it was back then). The first episode also seemed more ponderous and dour in the sort of 21st century realistic prestige television snooze fest than I really wanted to watch. But Season Three of the show got high reviews from people whose opinions I generally respect when it came out in early 2023. Since I had Paramount Plus for a month because of Frasier, I decided to give it a go. I'm glad I did. How to describe the plot? You may remember that back in summer 2023, I watched the Battleship movie. Battleship is objectively a bad movie, but it does have one interesting subplot that would make a good movie all on its own. When space aliens imprison most of the US Navy, a bunch of retired veterans take a decommissioned battleship out to war to save the day. This basically is the plot of Picard Season 3. The plot kicks off when Doctor Crusher contacts Admiral Picard after they have not spoken for twenty years. Apparently, Picard had a son named Jack with Crusher that she never told him about and mysterious assailants are trying to kidnap Jack. On the original show, Picard and Crusher definitely gave off the vibe that they probably got romantic whenever they were alone in the elevator together. The fact that Doctor Crusher got pregnant with Picard's son is not all that surprising. Picard had always been adamant about his desire not to start a family and given that any son of the legendary Captain Picard would be a target for his equally legendary enemies, Crusher decided to keep the boy a secret. Picard, understandably, is shocked by the news, but teams up with his former first officer, Captain Riker, to rescue his son. Jack has an extensive Robin Hood-esque criminal history, so it seems that his misdeeds might have caught up to him. It turns out that deadly weapon is locked in Jack's DNA and the people pursuing him aren't merely criminals but powerful enemies intent on destroying Starfleet and the Federation. Jack Crusher's DNA will give them a weapon to do it, which means it's up to the crew of The Enterprise to save the galaxy one last time. This was ten episodes, but it was very, very tightly plotted, with not many wasted moments. Sometimes you see movies that seem like they should have been streaming shows, and sometimes streaming shows seem like they really should have been cut down to movie length. But Picard's Season Three does a good job of telling a tense story that we've been impossible either in a movie or the old days of network television. The show very quickly plunges into the crisis and keeps moving from new tension to new tension. The gradual reveal where Picard at first feels guilty that he has to ask his friends to help rescue his estranged son and ex-girlfriend like he's living his own personal version of some trashy daytime TV show, only to slowly realize that something much more dangerous and much, much bigger than his personal problems is happening, was put together well. The show was also another good example of how to bring back legacy characters right. All the characters from Star Trek: The Next Generation are older and have been knocked around by life or suffered personal tragedies, but none of them are sad old losers like in a Disney or Lucasfilm project. The new and supporting characters were also great. Seven of Nine returns as the first officer to Captain Shaw, a by the book officer who thinks Picard and Riker are dangerous mavericks. He has a point. Shaw turns out to be extremely competent in a crisis. Amanda Plummer was great as Vadic, a scenery chewing villain who has very good reasons to hate Starfleet and the Federation. Vadic's love of spinning directly in her command chair was a great homage to Amanda Plummer's late father, Christopher Plummer, who played a villain with a similar tic way back in Star Trek VI in the ‘90s. It is also great how the show wrapped up some of the dangling plot threads from the ‘90s, like Picard's strained relationship with his former mentee Commander Ro Laren or the brief return of Elizabeth Shelby, Riker's former First Officer. A few people have complained that Worf is now a pacifist, but he's a Klingon pacifist, which basically means he'll attempt negotiation before cutting off your head, but he is still probably going to cut off your head. Less Conan the Barbarian, more serene Warrior Monk. I think Data had an excellent ending to his character arc, which started with his character's very first appearance way back in the ‘80s and Brent Spiner did a good job of portraying Data's fractured personalities and then how they achieved unity. I'd say the weakest point of the show was how consistently dumb Starfleet command is. The plot hinged around Starfleet gathering its entire fleet together for a celebration and then putting all those ships under a remote control system, which seems both exceptionally stupid and very convenient for the bad guys. But to be fair, this is Starfleet, an organization whose high command regularly spits out insane Admirals and also has an unsanctioned Black Ops/Mad Science division that it can't control, so it definitely fits within the overall context of Star Trek. I mean, that's like half the premise of Lower Decks. And if you've ever worked for a large governmental, military, healthcare, or educational institution, you understand. We all know that working in a large institution under leaders who are either insane or dumb isn't exactly an anomaly in the human experience. I mean, the Roman Empire circa 190 A.D. was the most powerful institution on the planet and the Empire's maximum leader liked to spend his time LARPing as a gladiator in the Coliseum. Anyway, the emotional payoff at the end of Picard Season Three was very satisfying, and how the show wrapped up a lot of threads from Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager was pretty great. It's like the people who were in charge of Season Three of Picard watched the Star Wars sequel trilogy and thought, you know, we can do better and then they did. Overall grade: A So those are the movies and TV shows I watched in Winter 2024. If you're looking for something to watch, hopefully one of them sounds like it will catch your interest. That's it for this week. Thanks for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you that you can listen to all the back episodes on https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review on your podcasting platform or choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.

Compaq gives birth to the PC clone,  Commodore and TI declare war on Sinclair &  A day of reckoning awaits the software business These stories and many more on this episode of the VGNRTM This episode we will look back at the biggest stories in and around the video game industry in January 1983. As always,  we'll mostly be using magazine cover dates, and those are of course always a bit behind the actual events. Jon from the Retro Games Squad is our cohost.  You can find his other fine retrogaming work here: https://retrogamesquad.libsyn.com/ Get us on your mobile device: Android:  https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly92aWRlb2dhbWVuZXdzcm9vbXRpbWVtYWNoaW5lLmxpYnN5bi5jb20vcnNz iOS:      https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/video-game-newsroom-time-machine And if you like what we are doing here at the podcast, don't forget to like us on your podcasting app of choice, YouTube, and/or support us on patreon! https://www.patreon.com/VGNRTM Send comments on Mastodon @videogamenewsroomtimemachine@oldbytes.space Or twitter @videogamenewsr2 Or Instagram https://www.instagram.com/vgnrtm Or videogamenewsroomtimemachine@gmail.com Links: 7 Minutes in Heaven: River Raid     Video Version:  https://www.patreon.com/posts/78434628     https://www.mobygames.com/game/river-raid     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Raid     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Shaw     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_Pictures#1980s:_Coca-Cola,_Tri-Star,_and_other_acquisitions_and_ventures     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Kassar     https://www.amoa.com     https://www.mobygames.com/game/astron-belt     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEEwZkbSmEU Corrections:     December 1982 Ep - https://www.patreon.com/posts/december-1982-77433012    Ethans new series: https://www.youtube.com/@play_history     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velcro     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaserDisc     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEEwZkbSmEU 1973 Pong doing well     https://archive.org/details/cashbox34unse_28/page/37/mode/1up     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pong 1983 Retailers rethink games     https://www.nytimes.com/1983/01/24/business/stores-reassess-video-games.html?searchResultPosition=20 Nassau County wants big money from operators     https://www.nytimes.com/1983/01/02/nyregion/battle-for-the-dollar-looms-in-albany.html?searchResultPosition=3 SNK sells direct to operators     Replay Jan. 1983 pg. 88        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxEzVjfkELo Japan recognizes game copyrights     Replay Jan. 1983 pg. 18       Games People Jan. 8, 1983 pg. 1 Bally Midway wins pillow fight     Games People Jan. 22, 1983 pg. 1 Pacmania continues     Games People Jan. 8, 1983 pg. 1         https://archive.org/details/arcade_express_v1n12a/page/n3/mode/1up        https://archive.org/details/arcade_express_v1n13/page/n6/mode/1up?view=theater     https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083461/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1     https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085008/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_Supercade Winter CES sees the rise of the software providers     https://www.nytimes.com/1983/01/08/business/the-new-software-suppliers.html?searchResultPosition=4        https://www.nytimes.com/1983/01/08/arts/electronics-fair-views-consumer-s-tomorrow.html?searchResultPosition=5         https://archive.org/details/arcade_express_v1n13/page/n2/mode/1up     https://archive.org/details/Creative_Computing_1983-01/page/n7/mode/1up?view=theater Repackaged Consoles to debut at CES     https://retrocdn.net/File:ComputerEntertainer_US_Vol.1_10.pdf        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJDy0XC6vDg        http://ultimateconsoledatabase.com/classics/odyssey_3.htm     https://history.blueskyrangers.com/parkerbro/unreleasedparker.html Big names are being attracted to games     https://www.nytimes.com/1983/01/13/arts/makers-vie-for-millions-in-home-video-games.html?searchResultPosition=7        https://archive.org/details/arcade_express_v1n11/page/n1/mode/1up      Buy 2 get 1 free is the post Xmas slogan     https://www.newspapers.com/clip/92300722/video-game-market-profile-part-1/         https://www.newspapers.com/clip/92300741/video-game-market-profile-part-2/ MB buys Sanders license     https://www.nytimes.com/1983/01/06/business/milton-bradley-license.html?searchResultPosition=6 Imagic settles with Atari     https://www.nytimes.com/1983/01/05/business/atari-suit-settled.html?searchResultPosition=2 Imagic delays stock offering     https://archive.org/details/arcade_express_v1n12a     https://archive.org/details/arcade_express_v1n13/page/n3/mode/1up     https://archive.org/details/arcade_express_v1n13/page/n3/mode/1up Custer's Revenge resolution goes to court     https://www.nytimes.com/1983/01/23/nyregion/video-games-pose-thorny-legal-issue.html?searchResultPosition=18        Games People Jan. 1 1983, pg. 4     https://www.mobygames.com/game/atari-2600/swedish-erotica-custers-revenge Custer's Revenge discontinued     https://www.newspapers.com/clip/92040119/custers-revenge-pulled-from-shelves/ Atari warns users against 3rd party carts in Germany     https://archive.org/details/atari-club-magazin-1983-1/page/4/mode/1up Modify your games with Answer's PGP1         https://archive.org/details/arcade_express_v1n13/page/n5/mode/1up?view=theater         http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-2600-vcs-personal-game-programmer-pgp-1_20131.html Turn your VCS into  a computer     https://archive.org/details/arcade_express_v1n13/page/n5/mode/1up?view=theater        http://atarihq.com/museum/2678/piggybak.html     https://books.google.de/books?id=7y8EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA9&lpg=PA9&dq=entex+2000+piggyback&source=bl&ots=OX0w8DE4xG&sig=ACfU3U3WG9VdcJUcR9NCX3q7LdlLJxWc8Q&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjJ9830hfn8AhVUgf0HHVo_AZQQ6AF6BAgdEAM#v=onepage&q=entex%202000%20piggyback&f=false Palmtex takes gaming on the go     https://archive.org/details/arcade_express_v1n13/page/n3/mode/1up       https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmtex_Portable_Videogame_System        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP7wtw4rk4g Byte gets hands on with Compaq     https://archive.org/details/eu_BYTE-1983-01_OCR/page/n31/mode/1up?view=theater      Apple unveils the Lisa     https://archive.org/details/popular-computing-weekly-1983-01-27/page/n4/mode/1up        https://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=265&st=1 Intel introduces the 80286     https://archive.org/details/eu_BYTE-1983-01_OCR/page/n473/mode/1up?view=theater 3.5" floppy standard agreed on     https://www.nytimes.com/1983/01/11/business/sony-agreement.html?searchResultPosition=6        https://archive.org/details/eu_BYTE-1983-01_OCR/page/n475/mode/1up?view=theater  CPM compatibility grows more difficult     https://archive.org/details/eu_BYTE-1983-01_OCR/page/n472/mode/1up?view=theater Commodore announces portable 64     https://archive.org/details/popular-computing-weekly-1983-01-20/page/n4/mode/1up?view=theater Tramiel declares war on Sinclair     https://archive.org/details/Creative_Computing_1983-01/page/n7/mode/1up?view=theater      Texas Instruments targets ZX81 with TI99/2     https://archive.org/details/popular-computing-weekly-1983-01-27/page/n4/mode/1up        https://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=267 Timex to distribute Speccy in USA     https://archive.org/details/popular-computing-weekly-1983-01-06/page/n4/mode/1up?view=theater     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timex_Sinclair_2068 Clive sells 10% stake in Sinclair Research     https://archive.org/details/popular-computing-weekly-1983-01-27/page/n4/mode/1up Competition Pro Joystick debuts     https://archive.org/details/popular-computing-weekly-1983-01-27/page/n4/mode/1up     https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_Pro      Roklan moves into cartridges     https://archive.org/details/arcade_express_v1n12a/page/n3/mode/1up     https://www.mobygames.com/company/roklan-corporation Cosmi brings budget software to home micros     https://archive.org/details/arcade_express_v1n13/page/n1/mode/1up     https://www.mobygames.com/company/cosmi-corporation Survival Software pioneers the demo disk         https://archive.org/details/arcade_express_v1n11/page/n1/mode/1up Gamestar advertises Starbowl     https://archive.org/details/Creative_Computing_1983-01/page/n7/mode/1up?view=theater     https://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,7082/ Epyx gets cash infusion     https://archive.org/details/arcade_express_v1n12a/page/n1/mode/1up     Michael Katz Part Part 1 - Coleco - Epyx - Mattel https://www.patreon.com/posts/35169258 Bug Byte defectors dare to Imagine     https://archive.org/details/computer-and-videogames-015/page/n114/mode/1up         https://www.mobygames.com/game/zx-spectrum/arcadia/credits        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oB3QtuL29Cs        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnzE4Oawtww        https://archive.org/details/popular-computing-weekly-1983-01-06/page/n4/mode/1up?view=theater     https://www.mobygames.com/company/imagine Bug Byte ditches mail order     https://archive.org/details/popular-computing-weekly-1983-01-06/mode/1up?view=theater Creative Computing drops out of the software game     https://archive.org/details/Creative_Computing_1983-01/page/n7/mode/1up?view=theater Independent computer stores are closing     https://archive.org/details/eu_BYTE-1983-01_OCR/page/n475/mode/1up?view=theater Returns loom as threat to software industry     https://archive.org/details/software-merchandising-january-1983/page/70/mode/1up Console tech comes to phones     https://www.nytimes.com/1983/01/07/business/baby-bell-offers-its-first-2-phones.html?searchResultPosition=7 Graphics are holding online shopping back     https://www.nytimes.com/1983/01/13/business/technology-retailing-by-computer.html?searchResultPosition=14 The Internet is born     https://www.usg.edu/galileo/skills/unit07/internet07_02.phtml Recommended Links: The History of How We Play: https://thehistoryofhowweplay.wordpress.com/ Gaming Alexandria: https://www.gamingalexandria.com/wp/ They Create Worlds: https://tcwpodcast.podbean.com/ Digital Antiquarian: https://www.filfre.net/ The Arcade Blogger: https://arcadeblogger.com/ Retro Asylum: http://retroasylum.com/category/all-posts/ Retro Game Squad: http://retrogamesquad.libsyn.com/ Playthrough Podcast: https://playthroughpod.com/ Retromags.com: https://www.retromags.com/ Games That Weren't - https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/ Sound Effects by Ethan Johnson of History of How We Play. Copyright Karl Kuras Find out on the VGNRTM   40 years ago: Compaq gives birth to the PC clone,  Commodore and TI declare war on Sinclair &  A day of reckoning awaits the software business These stories and many more on the latest episode of the VGNRTM crash,atari,sega,mattel,coleco,intellivision,vcs,commodore,texasinstruments,apple,lisa, compaq

On this episode Vintage Computer Festival Midwest 2021. California Games · Camelot Warriors · Campaign Manager · Captain America in: The Doom NATO Commander · Nautilus · Navy SEALS · O Octapolis · Odell Lake · Oil ... Computer Errors, Floppy Drives and RAM and imagination and being a computer collector who is consumed w collecting retro computers send a voicemail to 313-MAN-0231.............. ° ͜ʖ ͡°) ◕_◕ ༽ *‿'*(•_•)じゃ ┌༼ຈل͜ຈ༽┐ ¬^(-¬)!! ( ᵖᴼᵒʳ ᶦᶠᶦᵉ ᵐ⁸) _(ツ)_/¯ ಠ_ಠ) Nintendo NES Classic Edition · Nintendo Super NES Classic Edition · Sega Genesis Mini · TurboGrafx-16 Mini · Neo Geo Mini 1. Commodore 64 · 2. Texas Instruments TI-99/4A · 3. Tandy TRS-80 · 4. Apple IIe · 5. Timex Sinclair 1000 · 6 · ABACUS EDUCATIONAL COMPUTER · ABAQ ATW TRANSPUTER 800 · ABC 110 · ABC 20 RCA System 00 · BANDAI TV Jack 1000 · HINO ELECTRONICS CEFUCOM 21 / Multipurpose SLAP

Get ready for a showdown this week on ARG Presents! Just in time for the 40th Anniversary of the ZX81, THE BRENT and Amigo Aaron are playing games on the ZX81's American cousin, the TIMEX SINCLAIR 1000! First, we have a look at a maze program known simply as GULP, and then we play a game tantalizingly titled FORTRESS OF ZORLAC! THEN the fighting begins! #fortressofzorlac #gulp #timexsinclair1000 --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/arg-presents/support

Get ready for a showdown this week on ARG Presents! Just in time for the 40th Anniversary of the ZX81, THE BRENT and Amigo Aaron are playing games on the ZX81's American cousin, the TIMEX SINCLAIR 1000! First, we have a look at a maze program known simply as GULP, and then we play a game tantalizingly titled FORTRESS OF ZORLAC! THEN the fighting begins! #fortressofzorlac #gulp #timexsinclair1000 --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/amigospodcast/message

QWERTY. It's a funny word. Or not a word. But also not an acronym per se. Those are the  top six letters in a modern keyboard. Why? Because the frequency they're used allows for hammers on a traditional typewriter to travel to and fro and the effort allows us to be more efficient with our time while typing. The concept of the keyboard goes back almost as far back as moveable type - but it took hundreds of years to standardize where we are today.  Johannes Gutenberg is credited for developing the printing press in the 1450s. Printing using wooden blocks was brought to the Western world from China, which led him to replace the wood or clay characters with metal, thus giving us what we now think of as Moveable Type. This meant we were now arranging blocks of characters to print words onto paper. From there it was only a matter of time that we would realize that pressing a key could stamp a character onto paper as we went rather than developing a full page and then pressing ink to paper. The first to get credit for pressing letters onto paper using a machine was Venetian Francesco Rampazzetto in 1575. But as with many innovations, this one needed to bounce around in the heads of inventors until the appropriate level of miniaturization and precision was ready. Henry Mill filed an English patent in 1714 for a machine that could type (or impress) letters progressively. By then, printed books were ubiquitous but we weren't generating pages of printed text on the fly just yet.  Others would develop similar devices but from 1801 to 1810, Pellegrino Turri in Italy developed carbon paper. Here, he coated one side of paper with carbon and the other side with wax. Why did he invent that, other than to give us an excuse to say carbon copy later (and thus the cc in an email)?  Either he or Agostino Fantoni da Fivizzano invented a mechanical machine for pressing characters to paper for Countess Carolina Fantoni da Fivizzano, a blind friend of his. She would go on to send him letters written on the device, some of which exist to this day. More inventors tinkered with the idea of mechanical writing devices, often working in isolation from one another. One was a surveyor, William Austin Burt. He found the handwritten documents of his field laborious and so gave us the typographer in 1829. Each letter was moved to where needed to print manually so it wasn't all that much faster than the handwritten document, but the name would be hyphenated later to form type-writer. And with precision increasing and a lot of invention going on at the time there were other devices. But his patent was signed by Andrew Jackson.  James Pratt introduced his Pterotype in an article in the Scientific American in 1867. It was a device that more closely resembles the keyboard layout we know today, with 4 rows of keys and a split in the middle for hands. Others saw the article and continued their own innovative additions.  Frank Hall had worked on the telegraph before the Civil War and used his knowledge there to develop a Braille writer, which functioned similarly to a keyboard. He would move to Wisconsin, where he came in contact with another team developing a keyboard. Christopher Latham Sholes saw the article in the Scientific American and along with Carlos Glidden and Samuel Soule out of Milwaukee developed the QWERTY keyboard we know of as the standard keyboard layout today from 1867 to 1868. Around the same time, Danish pastor Rasmus Malling-Hansen introduced the writing ball in 1870. It could also type letters onto paper but with a much more complicated keyboard layout. It was actually the first typewriter to go into mass production - but at this point new inventions were starting to follow the QWERTY layout. Because asdfjkl;. Both though were looking to increase typing speed with Malling-Mansen's layout putting constanents on the right side and vowels on the left - but Sholes and Glidden mixed keys up to help reduce the strain on hardware as it recoiled, thus splitting common characters in words between the sides.  James Densmore encountered the Sholes work and jumped in to help. They had it relentlessly tested and iterated on the design, getting more and more productivity gains and making the device more and more hardy. When the others left the project, it was Densmore and Sholes carrying on. But Sholes was also a politician and editor of a newspaper, so had a lot going on. He sold his share of the patent for their layout for $12,000 and Densmore decided to go with royalties instead.  By the 1880s, the invention had been floating around long enough and given a standardized keyboard it was finally ready to be mass produced. This began with the Sholes & Glidden Type Writer introduced in America in 1874. That was followed by the Caligraph. But it was Remington that would take the Sholes patent and create the Remington Typewriter, removing the hyphen from the word typewriter and going mainstream - netting Densmore a million and a half bucks in 1800s money for his royalties. And if you've seen anything typed on it, you'll note that it supported one font: the monospaced sans serif Grotesque style. Characters had always been upper case. Remington added a shift key to give us the ability to do both upper and lower case in 1878 with the Remington Model 2. This was also where we got the ampersand, parenthesis,  percent symbol, and question mark as shift characters for numbers. Remington also added tab and margins in 1897. Mark Twain was the first author to turn a manuscript in from a typewriter using what else but the Remington Typewriter. By then, we were experimenting with the sizes and spaces between characters, or kerning, to make typed content easier to read. Some companies moved to slab serif or Pica fonts and typefaces. You could really tell a lot about a company by that Olivetti with it's modern, almost anti-Latin fonts.  The Remington Typewriter Company would later merge with the Rand Kardex company to form Remington Rand, making typewriters, guns, and then in 1950, acquiring the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation, who made ENIAC - arguably the first all-digital computer. Rand also acquired Engineering Research Associates (or ERA) and introduced the Univac. Electronics maker Sperry acquired them in 1955, and then merged with Burroughs to form Unisys in 1988, still a thriving company. But what's important is that they knew typewriters. And keyboards. But electronics had been improving in the same era that Remington took their typewriters mainstream, and before. Samuel Morse developed the recording telegraph in 1835 and David Hughes added the printed telegraph. Emile Baudot gave us a 5 bit code in the 1870s that enhanced that but those were still using keys similar to what you find on a piano. The typewriter hadn't yet merged with digital communications just yet. Thomas Edison patented the electric typewriter in 1872 but didn't produce a working model. And this was a great time of innovation. For example, Alexander Graham Bell was hard at work on patenting the telephone at the time.  James Smathers then gave us the first electronic typewriter in 1920 and by the 1930s improved Baudot, or baud was combined with a QUERTY keyboard by Siemens and others to give us typing over the wire. The Teletype Corporation was founded in 1906 and would go from tape punch and readers to producing the teletypes that allowed users to dial into mainframes in the 1970s timesharing networks. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. How did we eventually end up plugging a keyboard into a computer? Herman Hollerith, the mind behind the original IBM punch cards for tabulating machines before his company got merged with others to form IBM, brought us text keypunches, which were later used to input data into early computers. The Binac computer used a similar representation with 8 keys and an electromechanical control was added to input data into the computer like a punch card might - for this think of a modern 10-key pad. Given that we had electronic typewriters for a couple of decades it was only a matter of time before a full keyboard worth of text was needed on a computer. That came in 1954 with the pioneering work done MIT. Here, Douglas Ross wanted to hookup a Flexowriter electric typewriter to a computer, which would be done the next year as yet another of the huge innovations coming out of the Whirlwind project at MIT. With the addition of core memory to computing that was the first time a real keyboard (and being able to write characters into a computer) was really useful. After nearly 400 years since the first attempts to build a moveable type machine and then and just shy of 100 years since the layout had been codified, the computer keyboard was born.  The PLATO team in late 60s University of Illinois Champaign Urbana were one of many research teams that sought to develop cheaper input output mechanisms for their computer Illiac and prior to moving to standard keyboards they built custom devices with fewer keys to help students select multiple choice answers. But eventually they used teletype-esque systems.  Those early keyboards were mechanical. They still made a heavy clanky sound when the keys were pressed. Not as much as when using a big mechanical typewriter, but not like the keyboards we use today. These used keys with springs inside them. Springs would be replaced with pressure pads in some machines, including the Sinclair ZX80 and ZX81. And the Timex Sinclair 1000. Given that there were less moving parts, they were cheap to make. They used conductive traces with a gate between two membranes. When a key was pressed electricity flowed through what amounted to a flip-flop. When the key was released the electricity stopped flowing. I never liked them because they just didn't have that feel. In fact, they're still used in devices like microwaves to provide for buttons under led lights that you can press.  By the late 1970s, keyboards were becoming more and more common. The next advancement was in Chiclet keyboards, common on the TRS-80 and the IBM PCjr. These were were like membrane keyboards but used moulded rubber. Scissor switch keyboards became the standard for laptops - these involve a couple of pieces of plastic under each key, arranged like a scissor. And more and more keyboards were produced.  With an explosion in the amount of time we spent on computers, we eventually got about as many designs of ergonomic keyboards as you can think of. Here, doctors or engineers or just random people would attempt to raise or lower hands or move hands apart or depress various keys or raise them. But as we moved from desktops to laptops or typing directly on screens as we do with tablets and phones, those sell less and less. I wonder what Sholes would say if you showed him and the inventors he worked with what the QWERTY keyboard looks like on an iPhone today? I wonder how many people know that at least two of the steps in the story of the keyboard had to do with helping the blind communicate through the written word? I wonder how many know about the work Alexander Graham Bell did with the deaf and the impact that had on his understanding of the vibrations of sound and the emergence of phonautograph to record sound and how that would become acoustic telegraphy and then the telephone, which could later stream baud? Well, we're out of time for today so that story will have to get tabled for a future episode. In the meantime, look around for places where there's no standard. Just like the keyboard layout took different inventors and iterations to find the right amount of productivity, any place where there's not yet a standard just needs that same level of deep thinking and sometimes generations to get it perfected. But we still use the QWERTY layout today and so sometimes once we find the right mix, we've set in motion an innovative that can become a true game changer. And if it's not ready, at least we've contributed to the evolutions that revolutionize the world. Even if we don't use those inventions. Bell famously never had a phone installed in his office. Because distractions. Luckily I disabled notifications on my phone before recording this or it would never get out… 

Olá pessoal e sejam bem-vindos à mais um episódio do Castálio Podcast! Nosso convidado de hoje é bacharel em Matemática e Computação e Mestre em Ciência da Computação com mais de 30 anos de experiência em Projetos de Infraestrutura de TI e construção de grandes redes de fibra ótica. Proprietário da PELWARE, empresa de consultoria baseada em Vancouver, no Canada. Já programou desde BASIC em um TIMEX Sinclair 1000 até Objective-C em um Mac. Marcelo Pinheiro, seja muito bem-vindo ao Castálio Podcast.

This episode is brought to you by me. If you like this show and want to support it, please visit my courses on Pluralsight and buy my new book "200 Things Developers Should Know", which is about Programming, Career, Troubleshooting, Dealing with Managers, Health, and much more. You can find my Pluralsight courses and the book at www.developerweeklypodcast.com/About Tim is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) in Cloud and Datacenter Management who is based in Nashville, TN in the United States. His professional specialties include Microsoft Azure, cross-platform PowerShell, and all things Windows Server-related. You can reach Tim via Twitter (@TechTrainerTim), LinkedIn or his website, TechTrainerTim.comShow resources:Twitter @TechTrainerTimLinkedInwww.TechTrainerTim.comTim's YouTube channelTim's Pluralsight coursesAzure FridayAzure LearnLinux AcademyAzure Status UpdatesPluralsight course: Microsoft Azure - What to Use When?Microsoft Azure certificationsFull transcript:Welcome to another episode of developer weekly. This week I'm talking with Tim Warner about keeping up with Azure. Tim is a Microsoft most valuable professional MVP in cloud and data center management based in Nashville, Tennessee in the United States. His professional speciality includes Microsoft Azure cross platform PowerShell, and all things Windows Server related. You can reach them via Twitter, at Tech tamer at Tech trainer, Tim, LinkedIn or his website, tech trainer tim.com. Thanks for being on the show Tim. Tim Warner  1:37  You're very welcome. Very, thanks for having me. It's a pleasure. Barry Luijbregts  1:40  So you are very active with Microsoft Azure. And amongst other things, you create videos about Azure and Azure certifications and even released a new Pluralsight Azure course on Pluralsight today. Tim Warner  1:53  Yeah, that's right. I've been an IT generalist since 1998. And I've always because I'm excited In so many different aspects of it, I've kind of intentionally avoided specialization. But it just happened over the last five or six years that I got involved in Azure. And it's been a perfect fit for me professionally, because I guess, well, more than I guess I know that as your is my professional specialization, but within Azure, given that the ecosystem is so broad, I can be a generalist within Azure. And to your point, the course that we released today is actually a complete redo of a course that I recorded Originally, I think, last summer summer of 2019. It's called something along the lines of developing batch processing solutions in Azure. And originally, I centered it around as your SQL Data Warehouse. But of course, in ignite 2019 as your synapse analytics was introduced, and as your Data Explorer is now in the forefront, so I just decided to scrap the old course and redo it from scratch. Barry Luijbregts  2:58  So you came from From an infrastructure, specialty, right? Tim Warner  3:03  That's correct. As far as the DevOps continuum, I skew more towards the operations side. However, I've always, I consider myself a hobbyist programmer. I guess I'm a professional scripter. I'm proficient with PowerShell. And to an extent Python, but more in an infrastructure scenario, like you said, Barry, but I mean, I remember my first exposure to computer programming this when my dad bought one of those tiny Timex Sinclair t 1000s. It was the $99 computer and Europe. It was called the ZX Spectrum, I think. Right. And basic programming is how I originally got into the field. Barry Luijbregts  3:45  Oh, that's, that's incredible. And now it's all into clouds. You know? Tim Warner  3:48  Isn't that something? It's funny how things turn around. I remember also, just before when I was in college, before I got into it as a career I had a summer position feed These, they look like old fashioned eight track tapes into these IBM tape drives because the company was a mainframe shop. And it's funny how things are circular now with the cloud in some ways, that's almost like a return to mainframe computing, isn't it? Barry Luijbregts  4:16  Yeah, definitely. So you've then been working with the cloud for quite a long time. And you say that you're a generalist and in the cloud, but still because Microsoft Azure is so extremely broad, as in there are developer services, but there is also infrastructure services and everything in between, right? And what do you focus on within Azure? And how do you choose what to focus on? Tim Warner  4:38  Well, in my job at Pluralsight, I'm a full time author. So I have I used to have more flexibility in the subjects that I chose, but I'm more I consider my biggest benefit to the company is that as a generalist, I can kind of pitch in and help if there's a course that maybe nobody wants to cover because it's so knew, I'm happy to jump on those subject. Those subjects. That's kind of how batch processing came onto my workbench. And I've taught a course on messaging services. And those are products that tend to skew out of my infrastructure home. So it was a good opportunity to stretch. I think in general, regardless of whether you're an author or a trainer, if you're looking at Azure as a career, you really have to be committed to always learning. I can't imagine somebody who wants to go into it primarily for financial reasons. And for job security reasons. I would really warn them against unless they really enjoy what they're doing. Because with Azure, you're going to fall behind too quickly. If you're not always actively learning new stuff. Barry Luijbregts  5:47  Yeah, it goes extremely quickly. new services are added all the time and existing services change and new features are added or they get deprecated. So So how do you do that? How do you precisely keep up to date with all those changes. Tim Warner  6:02  You and I have both shared with the community on that subject of staying current with Microsoft Azure. So the first thing I'd recommend your listeners to do is to do a good old Google or Bing search for how to stay current. And they'll find your piece I've presented at some user groups over the last year on that subject. And I'm looking at my browser right now in the Azure architecture center in the cloud adoption framework section. Microsoft itself has a nice article on staying current. Some go to like most important sites that I would recommend that people have bookmarks, or the Azure updates site, which is where I don't know if I guess all the product teams are supposed to post there. I don't know if they all actually do I'd say most. The Azure updates is where you're going to see features that are in private development and then as they come into private preview, public preview in general availability and if you're all dog like myself, In your RSS, you can subscribe to the Azure updates as a feed. There's the Azure service health dashboard within the portal. If anything on Microsoft side is going to affect your services, you can see a personalized view directly on the portal by looking up service health. Let's see I think as your has a top level blog, yeah, Azure dot Microsoft comm forward slash blog. And again, it's up to each product team, how often they post there, but you can keep up to date. And honestly, lastly, as you're working, especially in the Azure portal, pay attention when you're looking through the different blades when you see preview after something Oh, that wasn't here before. I mean, I'm surprised every day and I've, I've talked to enough Microsoft employees and team members that they get surprised too, so don't feel bad as an Azure customer. If sometimes you feel blindsided because I can attest to that I've talked to plenty of full time as your engineer And team members who are also surprised. It's just that fast moving of an ecosystem. Barry Luijbregts  8:06  Right. Yeah, it's, it's crazy. And then you can also use the preview portal right? So preview? Yes. portal.azure.com. Tim Warner  8:14  Very good. Yep, definitely, of course, there's the provision or previz or warning, whatever you want to say that, depending as a general rule, features that are in public preview don't have a support service level agreement attached to them. Sometimes Microsoft will make an exception for that. But generally speaking,  when you see preview after a service, consider that to be dev test and not prod. Barry Luijbregts  8:41  Yeah, right. So when do you consider a service for learning a deeper as in, they might be in private preview or in public preview and generally available? Do you only dive in when they are generally available or already when they might be in preview? Tim Warner  8:57  When I work with customers, I really am pretty concerned. About that, because of the first of all, I'll dig with them to make sure that a team is not offering a service level agreement or any kind of support when a feature is in public preview. An exception to that is Azure migrate, they were doing production support even when the server migration pieces were in public preview, as a plural site, and author, as a policy Pluralsight. And our agreement with Microsoft, we do not cover public preview features simply due to their volatility. I mean, we're already on a six month review cycle, we revisit our training courses every six months and make any changes as appropriate. It would just be too much management overhead if we included public preview features. So I tend to get into public preview features just personally as a professional development thing more than anything else. So I have a leg up to be helpful when the feature gets closer to general available. Barry Luijbregts  10:01  Yeah, yeah, the same same for me as well. Plus, I, after a couple of years of doing this, then you get kind of a sense of where things are going and if a public preview feature is going to stick, or that it might just be something fun to, to experiment with. Tim Warner  10:18  Isn't that something? Yeah, I mean, Asher blueprints is a service that I like quite a bit. It's been in preview public preview, seemingly forever. It's been in preview so long that Microsoft worldwide learning actually includes blueprints on many of the Azure certification exams so that we were joking about that just yesterday when I was chatting with them about that. Supposedly blueprints is gone is gonna go generally available someday. And then other features like as your Bastion and this is just my own personal opinion, I think they went ga on that too quickly. They announced it as a generally available service at Ignite last year. And it still is nice as Bastion, as it has some very significant limitations that I know for a fact are preventing many businesses from adopting it. Barry Luijbregts  11:05  Yeah, I guess many of these things are dependent on marketing efforts, whatever, internal goals and targets to companies. Sure. Tim Warner  11:15  Yeah. I mean, it's human, you know, human, these companies are run by fallible human beings. And when you've got a company as enormous as Microsoft, like you said, You've got all these different groups, it's a wonder that they can ship any software. Barry Luijbregts  11:32  Yeah, absolutely. So when you then go through the lists of updates and new services and things that changed, how do you do that? Do you do that once a day or every week? Or do you do you develop healthy habits around that? Tim Warner  11:50  I don't have a habit of for instance, looking in the Azure updates, but I do have a habit of reading the tech news each day. I just use Google News is my news reader and I have alerts on Azure and Microsoft and this kind of thing. And I have my Twitter feed I checked that several times a day and because I'm connected to a lot of Azure people yourself absolutely included I'm able to get a heads up on on things probably that way more directly than anything else. And once I get a heads up on on a feature service, then I'm inspired to check the documentation and see if there's anything in there look up on the Azure updates page see like you said, the preview portal dot Azure calm if it's surfaced in there, etc, etc. Barry Luijbregts  12:39  Yeah, I do. I do the same thing as well. I create my little internet bubble of like minded people that talk about Azure, for instance, in Twitter and put them on a list and then I can can just keep up to date. Yeah. So once you've selected something like you know about a new surface that you might need to make a course for Pluralsight about how do you go about learning something new like that?  Tim Warner  13:04  That's a fun question. Because I'm really I consider myself a born learner, which means that I'm extra happy and Azure. And also the fact that I am one of those folks who has multiple learning preferences. I mean, some people are more visual, some people are more listening and conversational. I'm grateful that I can adapt to all of it pretty much. If it's a brand new thing for me. Then I'm going to start by just drinking from the fire hose in as many different ways as I can. I'm going to use computer based training, and listen and pay attention to what the instructors are saying. I'm going to see if Scott hanselman talk to any engineering team members on Azure Friday. I'm going to look for blog posts. I'm going to just try to like I said drink from the fire hose to get over That initial hump, that initial learning curve, that's the toughest to get over. I'm also going to be reaching out to colleagues, professional colleagues and friends who are already expert in that technology. And I know I've reached a good point when I'm able to talk intelligently and discuss the subject with people who do it for a living, then I know I've reached that point where I'm over that initial hump, and I'm ready to go to the next level. It's Um, okay, I hope that was helpful. Barry Luijbregts  14:32  Yeah, definitely. And then, do you then also use it in a real world scenario? Tim Warner  14:39  Not everything. But mostly, what's cool about Azure is that it kind of reminds me of a magnet that's picking up metal shavings. It starts collect door a snowball rolling downhill, as my skill set with Azure expands and expands then yes, in my consulting real world life that I Have, I'm able to add those in matter of fact, I've picked up some AI some Azure AI skills over the last year. So I'm going to finally have a chance to flex my muscles on that and a consulting engagement pretty soon. So yeah, definitely as, as I pick up these skills, it's important that I actually apply them in the real world. I don't have a lot of time for consulting. But it's crucial. Like you said, Barry, because there's theory. And there's practice. And the real world practice is quite a bit messier than what you see in a typical Pluralsight lesson. Barry Luijbregts  15:38  Yeah, absolutely. You know, I also create PluralSight courses and they get the chance to edit everything out and things look a bit smoother than they are in the real world. And also, when you actually start working with something, then you get to find out what all the bugs and hurdles and little things are that you don't read about in the documentation. Tim Warner  16:01  Yeah, exactly. There's nothing like feedback expand, it doesn't have to even be me working necessarily. A large part of my professional development is talking shop with people who do this work full time in the field. And by I can capitalize and really leverage their experience and add it to my own. I'm grateful for this as your thing because I remember I've struggled over the entire time I've been in the industry, between the practical hands on experience and then being a credible instructor. And it used to be a lot harder before the cloud to the point where literally, I would work full time as an instructor for a few years, then I'd go out into the industry for a few years, then I'd go back and forth. It's kind of jarring. Now with the cloud, I'm actually able to do both I'm able to do what I love teaching and writing and transferring now But I still from the comfort of the same office that I teach from, I can do real Azure work with customers. It's a beautiful thing to be able to do both of those things simultaneously. Barry Luijbregts  17:13  I have to say my same experience. Absolutely. Yeah. And, you know, there are people that are, let's say, full time authors, they create books and PluralSight courses and other things online. But I do think that you, you need to keep consulting and working in the real world. Otherwise, you don't know if what you're teaching actually works in the real world and how we write and how it affects real customers and real solutions. Tim Warner  17:38  Oh, it's invaluable to the point where, and I think this conversation is really spring, a lot of gratitude in me that I have that because I'm thinking about when I'm teaching and how I'm always thinking of use cases and real practical scenarios and I'm grateful that I can rattle those off because I do have that side. To my skill set. Barry Luijbregts  18:02  So you also have a YouTube channel with a lot of videos on there and also a lot of videos about Azure certifications on there. What do you think of as your certification? And should people take those? Tim Warner  18:18  So long story short, I'd say is Yeah, yes. And some reasons for Azure certifications are number one, it's going to be a differentiator for you in the job market. I've heard some people make the counter argument app. certs are a waste of time all they're good for us to get you past the first step of an interview process the human resources. And I'm like, yeah, that's legitimate. Right? And if you have the cert, you may get past that first step, whereas several other people who don't have the cert don't get past that first step. Another thing is, especially nowadays, the way that these badges work, they're validated very much like SSL TLS certificate. Tickets are. So instead of just claiming that you have this certification, you can actually share it in a way that's validated directly by Microsoft. And third, if nothing else, studying for these certs is a great excuse for making sure that you're current with modern Azure practices because all of these role based certifications, the skills in there are the fruit of job task analysis, or JTA. Is that Microsoft conducted with practitioners. So it's not just speaks to what we were talking about earlier, Barry, how is Asher actually used in the world not just some ivory tower theoretical thing? Barry Luijbregts  19:42  And what would you say to the argument that there might be a lot of people that cheat on these certifications as they download the answers from from the internet or pirate sites and just cheat and then they have the certification and can get into jobs relatively easily? Tim Warner  19:59  Yeah. The brain dump problem has been a problem since the very beginning. The words of the great William Shakespeare come to mind to thine own self be true, really, by using these short circuits. Ultimately you have to do the job, you'd either know how to do the job or you're not. And again, I think of Shakespeare, the truth will out, in my experience, people who rely upon the brain dumps as a way to short circuit certification and get into a job. Eventually, if they're out if they are actually weak in the skills, it's evident. And you know, what typically happens in that scenario? Not always, but I would say most of the time. Above all else, what I find most concerning about the brain dump situation is how normalized they seem to be to the point where many people I've observed. I don't I think that they genuinely don't understand that using these is a breach of the non disclosure agreement. You sign with Microsoft, there are people that believe that they're just these brain dumps, which are thefts of the actual intellectual property of the exams are just as legitimate as, say, a measure up practice tests. So I want to Yeah, educate to the point that no these brain dumps are actually stolen exam content. And by using them, you are in fact, violating your NDA with Microsoft and I have seen people permanently decertified from the program, if Microsoft learns that you've used them. So I would suggest strongly go with legitimate practice exam exam software. Barry Luijbregts  21:39  Oh, that's great. Actually, that that happens. I didn't know that Microsoft penalize people that found that out. Oh, yeah. That's great. Yeah. Because, you know, I know that a lot of people use these brain dumps and then that negates the value of the certifications. Tim Warner  21:57  Yeah, you know, I mean, I understand Your point because if somebody cheats to get in a position, and I don't get the position because of that person, I mean, there's I understand that grievance for sure. I just need to make sure that I'm doing the right thing, because the only person I have control over is myself. And I want to make sure I have a clean conscience as I go forward. Barry Luijbregts  22:20  So what is a good certification to get started with? Like, if you're going to get started in Azure as an infrastructure person or a developer? What would you start with? Tim Warner  22:31  Yeah, I get asked that question a lot. In fact, somebody sent me a DM on Twitter just last night saying, I'm a dotnet developer. And for whatever reason, he or she didn't say why, but they need to get certified. And my answer was, well, I don't know you. But top of my head, if you're a full time developer, the most closely aligned certification would be the Azure. So as your developer role, the library of these certifications is aligned to job roles. It used to be that there was just one One certification for all of Asher, which now is kind of laughable when you think about it. But now we've got this entire portfolio of certifications that aligned to roles. So if you are an infrastructure professional, there's the Azure administrator. There's one, there's a associate cert for security engineer. There's AI data platform, Microsoft 365. There's the introduction as your fundamentals, which is, I think, a great skill set. The what's neat about the Azure fundamentals or the az 900, is that it's not intended wholly for protect people. It's intended for even non technical people like sales or marketing people who may work for a company that's in the cloud, and they need to know the vocabulary, so don't discount as your fundamentals. Barry Luijbregts  23:53  Oh, right. I didn't know that. That was also a target audience. That's good to know. So how are we And prepare for one of these things. It's been ages since I've taken an exam. And when I did it, I used these very big Microsoft press books, exam prep things. I don't know, 500 pages or something. Yeah, I just crammed that way. How do people do it nowadays? Tim Warner  24:17  Those books, Microsoft press still makes the exam rafts, and those are good because they are aligned exactly to the exam objectives. But the the issue with any print book seems to me is that it's almost impossible to keep pace because as your changes so often, and Microsoft worldwide learning revisits the exams every two months, and revisits each certification program every year. So, in terms of prep, you're going to have to go with a more agile approach. Microsoft learn is an excellent place especially for Azure fundamentals. They have a learning path, it's totally free. That covers all of the objectives of course, At Pluralsight what's cool about the Pluralsight Microsoft partnership is that you don't even have to be a Pluralsight subscriber, a paying subscriber to take advantage of a whole bunch of courses Barry or any of your Azure courses in the free partnership. Do you know? Barry Luijbregts  25:16  Yes, a couple of them. I'm not sure which one I think the as your what to use when is one? Oh, yeah. Tim Warner  25:24  Yeah, I mean, a lot of this, like we were talking about earlier depends upon what your preferred learning style is. If you're more of a book reader, instead of looking for a print book, I would suggest you go certainly to the Azure docs but also Microsoft learn, because there you're going to get the most current readable material on Azure computer based training. Obviously, there's Pluralsight. And there's other computer based vendors that I personally like a lot. I like Linux Academy and cloud Academy behind that. Let me see experientially hands on is definitely important. What's Cool about Microsoft learn as well as that they have a whole bunch of hands on labs that give you free access to the Azure portal and Microsoft subscription. So you can do development administrator data, work, whatever, all without using any of your own money or subscription credits. Pluralsight also eventually will have cloud labs for both Azure and AWS. They're currently under development now. Oh, sorry, beget Barry. Last part. There's the theory. There's the hands on but then don't forget about practice exams. Like you said, Barry, especially people who have never taken a Microsoft exam before it's been years. I've seen students get blindsided because they're coming in with lots of knowledge, lots of practical experience, but because they're not accustomed to going through case studies, and different types of interactive items where you're using your mouse. This is the real value of the practice exam to give you confidence and how many Microsoft will evaluate your knowledge. Barry Luijbregts  27:03   So are these Practice Exams exactly what the exam are like?. Tim Warner  27:11  In the case of measure up, it's pretty close measure up is Microsoft's official practice test provider. And those Practice Exams are very similar in length, content and format to the live exam. Of course, you can't use Word for word, but it's pretty close. Then up besides measure up the other company I personally recommend is called whiz labs. And their practice exams are close in content, but not really for format. They don't have all of the different item types that measure up does. And that's kind of a weakness maybe with labs will evolve that over time, but either of those companies in my experience will do a good job of getting you into the frame of mind to clear the live exam when you're ready to take it. Barry Luijbregts  27:57  Alright, that's good. So Becca I took the exams and by the way, I don't take any of these exams currently because it just doesn't fit with my business model anymore as I don't need them at the moment. Yeah, but back when I did it, I needed to go physically to an office of fingers Pearson VUE and then sit behind a computer which was monitored and with cameras and everything should it could make sure that I didn't cheat and then take the exam. Is that still the case? Or can people do it differently especially in these times? Tim Warner  28:33  Pearson VUE is still Microsoft's exam provider. Until the COVID pandemic. Yes, the Pearson VUE testing centers were the way to go. I'm not sure. I guess it depends where you are in on Earth, whether Pearson VUE have begun opening their doors, but I'm really grateful to report that the online testing has evolved to be a really great solution over the last few months since this pandemic Started, I've taken probably a dozen Azure exams using the Pearson VUE online testing format. And it's so good and so reliable and so resilient that I don't plan ever again to go to a testing center. It's so convenient to be able to take these exams from your home or office. Barry Luijbregts  29:19  And then how do they check the cheating, Tim Warner  29:21  the Pearson VUE testing software runs on Windows and Mac, it's called on view. And it's a secure application that has to be the only foreground app running on your system. So the app itself is really resilient and has a lot of security built into it directly. For example, I've used the Pearson VUE software to test on both Mac OS and Windows and it on my Mac, it wouldn't let me go into the exam until I stopped a background process I was using a keyboard shortcut utility. So it does this system this check of all the processes that are running On your system to make sure that only it and the bare OS processes are alive, really impressive. The other aspects of exam security are that you have to be on a computer that's equipped with a webcam I find and I suggest you use a laptop. And a microphone has to be enabled on the webcam as well because that's how you interact with a live Proctor. The live Proctor comes over your speakers. And one time the proctor asked me to swivel my laptop 360 degrees so he could see my room. You do take as part of the preliminary check. You use your cell phone to take pictures of your work environment. You take four pictures, one facing your computer one away, one to the left and one to the right. You have to take a picture of yourself. You take a picture of your ID front and back. So it's pretty nice. It doesn't take that long. To do the check period, I would estimate takes about five minutes total. And if you're in a room that's already pretty distraction free that is, I like to do it almost in a closet, take my laptop into a small closet. You can do it on your office desk, but you want to turn off any additional monitors besides your primary, and you'll want to make sure that your desk is cleared of everything except your keyboard and your mouse. Like I said, the proctor will come online and ask for clarification if there's any situation. So, and then lastly, I'll say that the exam experience is really resilient. I haven't had any crashes this year. A few years ago, when I used the Pearson VUE, I did have a crash during the exam session. But I was able to restart the application I got connected to another Proctor and they were able to bring back my session just like it was before so I don't know exactly what kind of checkpointing they put in but it's pretty good. Good. I've never heard of anybody losing an exam session yet. Fingers crossed. Barry Luijbregts  32:05  Wow. That's very impressive. That's that's come a long way since I've used it. Tim Warner  32:08  They really have. I give Pearson VUE, lots of props. They obviously put a lot of engineering effort into that on view client. It's great. Barry Luijbregts  32:19  All right, that's great. So we've discussed a lot of things that you can use to keep up with Azure and to learn as in there is blogs, there is Twitter, there is videos, there are also certifications that you can take that help you to keep up because then requires you to learn. And then you can also show that you actually know what you're talking about. And then as a final point, I sometimes also go to conferences and local meetups to keep up. And I believe that you're also a user group organizer, is that right? Tim Warner  32:52  That's right. I'm an organizer of the Nashville Microsoft Azure Users Group here in Nashville, Tennessee. Barry Luijbregts  33:00  So people can come to your user group as well to learn and keep up to date. Tim Warner  33:05  Yeah, exactly. It's I admire every single person who participates in a user group, because by definition, they're willing to learn. And that's always near and dear to me. I'm glad that we're closing on this human factor because it is crucial. I mean, as much as these online resources can be helpful, there's nothing like hearing about something from another human being, like you say, conference, a user group. And I would say to your listeners, if they're not already plugged into meetup calm that's, in my experience, the central place to look for Microsoft Azure user groups. And one nice thing I guess about this pandemic is that most user groups have converted to an online format, which means that you're not limited by geographic area. You can present or just participate at an Azure user group anywhere on Earth. Those are great opportunities for learning new stuff, not just from the presenter, but from other people who pipe in with their own experience. And these user groups are a great place to get hooked up with technical recruiters. Obviously, technical recruiters are going to be swarming around user groups to look for job candidates. It's really a win win situation. Barry Luijbregts  34:25  Yeah, absolutely. And I think the same now goes for conferences, as well as most conferences have moved online. Some are even free now. So you can just log on to them and just learn. Tim Warner  34:38  Isn't that something? It's amazing how the world is shifting as a result of the pandemic technical conferences. Look what Microsoft did with build recently. Barry Luijbregts  34:47  Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Tim Warner  34:50  And my wife told me last night that AMC which is a major movie, movie theater chain here in the states is going To a rental model, where instead of going to a physical movie theater, you can stream movies from their website or from their app. I'm like, good for them for shifting. Barry Luijbregts  35:11  Really? That is amazing. Tim Warner  35:13  Isn't that something? Barry Luijbregts  35:15  Yeah, you know, some good came out of this. Yeah. So horrible thing, obviously. But, you know, some good came out of this as in companies need to transform their business models and set and they're doing it is incredible. Tim Warner  35:28  Yeah. And look at you in this podcast, you're transforming as well. Congratulations. Barry Luijbregts  35:35  Isn't it funny, you know, you just record something, put it out there and people can listen wherever they are. Tim Warner  35:40  Yeah, it is. It's wonderful. Barry Luijbregts  35:42  All right. So what are you working on currently and what can we expect from you next? Tim Warner  35:49  Okay, um, let me see. I've got four courses in the Azure Pluralsight partnership right now that I'm updating. Yeah, we're on the it seems like once we finish a six month review cycle, it's time for the next one. But you know, it's a good thing. I'm happy. So I've finished patching a bunch of courses. I don't even remember what they were on. It's kind of a blur. But that that's been my full time stuff. And I've been enjoying posting to my YouTube channel. You mentioned my YouTube channel, I've been posting these little nugget videos about 10 minutes each covering each objective from the Azure fundamentals, az 900 blueprint that's been a lot of fun. That skill sets a lot of fun to talk about and to teach. And it's gotten good reception from people Barry Luijbregts  36:34  That is great content. We will link to that in the show notes. Great, and to all the other things as well that we talked about today. Thank you very much, Tim, for being on, and we'll see you next week.

Panelists: Paul Hagstrom (hosting), Jack Nutting, and Carrington Vanston Topic: Nostalgia, Inc. Some brands/companies generate nostalgia and warm fuzzy feelings even apart from any specific products they created. Things you see on eBay, and always pause over. Or things for which you just have a benevolent attitude. Who were the good companies? Topic and Feedback links: NewerTech Gorilla Banana Printer ad Centech FlashFloppy External adapter for Amiga and Gotek drive Kit version of external adapter for Amiga and Gotek drive Lot of 5,694 PC CD DVD Computer games Age of Gaming YouTube channel CB2 micro kit Retro Computing News: The ZedRipper: a 16-core, 83 MHz Z80 computer Ben Heck’s new Atari 2600 Junior Single Chip Portable Retro Recipes: Amiga movie magic Titanic Amiga hard disk images Auction for the physical Titanic Amiga items Macintosh System Tools disk with Steve Jobs signature sells for $84,000 Was expected to sell for $7,500 SillyVenture 2019 on YouTube Sillyventure 2K19 official site Timex-Sinclair 2068 complete but for the manual TS2068 Yahoo group disintegrates Archiveteam page Will damage the ability to transfer UK phone numbers. Verizon blocking archivists from preserving Yahoo Groups content Upcoming Shows/Gatherings: VCF Pacific Northwest. March 21-22, Seattle. Living Computer Museum + Labs. The 29th Annual "Last" Chicago CoCoFest. April 18-19, 2020. Elk Grove Village, IL VCF East. April 24-26, 2020. InfoAge. Wall, NJ.. Vintage Computer-related Commercials: TI Professional computer Atari XL setup Retro Computing Gift Idea: Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego handheld game Auction Picks: Carrington: Computer Lib The Electric Pencil for TRS-80 The L.E.A.D. 2.5 Word Processor Paul: Apple graphics tablet complete Direct 825 terminal See also: RCR Episode 20, featuring the Direct 831 terminal See also: Computerworld Dec 13 1982 about 831 and 800 line VCR Companion See also: VCR Companion manual See also: VCR Companion 4am crack MacPlay board games gift box TI Portable Professional Computer See also: TI Professional computers Kenbak-1 replica Xetec Expander 4 Grounded anti-radiation filter Feedback/Discussion: @rcrpodcast on Twitter Vintage Computer Forum RCR Podcast on Facebook Throwback Network Throwback Network on Facebook Intro / Closing Song: Back to Oz by John X - link Show audio files hosted by CyberEars Listen/Download:

Rich Dana/Ricardo Obsolete joins Brian to talk about Obsolete Press and their publication: Obsolete! Magazine. From older tech, to movies, to questions about the soul, so many subjects get covered, and it was a lot of fun... Special Guest: Rich Dana LINKS FROM THE SHOW:—”Obsolete Press: Home of Obsolete! Magazine and More” Link: obsolete-press.com/ APPENDIX:How to Submit to Obsolete! Magazine from Rich Dana: Call For Submissions: OBSOLETE! Magazine #8Deadline: April 29th, 2013Issue #8 theme: Obsolete Media: It’s Alive! Greetings! Issue #7 of OBSOLETE! has reached a record number of readers, with 3000 copies being distributed across the US and Canada through our Guerilla Distribution Network. Now, it’s time to get to work on our next issue. Loosely themed “Obsolete Media: It’s Alive!”, we are looking for essays, fiction, poetry, photographs and comics. Let me stress that it is not required to address that theme directly, so don’t let that hang you up. All submissions will be considered. Feel free to pitch ideas before submitting. Essays and non-fiction pieces could include subjects like shortwave, CB or pirate radio, zines, vinyl or cassettes, broadcast TV, film photography, letterpress printing and/or new uses for old communications technology or interactive formats of any sort. Sports, theatre, music, publishing, politics– it’s all open for discussion. We will also be including reviews of books, recording, films and “doopers” (your favorite old-school devices). Fiction need not be science fiction, but anything that might be considered “slipstream” or speculative fiction is welcome. Flash fiction is welcome. Thanks to the generosity of the Iowa Arts Council, we have a small grant that allows us to increase our contributor payments for this issue. The new payment amounts for previously unpublished materials are: $1.50 per line for poems or $7.50 per 350 words of prose (minimum payment for either genre is $20, maximum $150). Artwork ranges from $20 for 1/8 page to $150 for a full page. We will also swap advertising for your book, website or other project in lieu of cash payment. Previously published work is welcome and will be considered, but does not qualify for cash payment. We can trade advertisement for previously published work in some cases. Suggested Lengths:Essays/non-fiction – 3000 wordsFiction -3000 wordsReviews- max 1000 words. Please email your submissions, questions or comments to obmag@feral-tech.com Submissions of writing should be .rtf, .odt or .doc files. Images – .jpg, .tiff or .pdf Please include a one paragraph bio, contact info and mailing address with all submissions. Thanks for being part of OBSOLETE! – We look forward to seeing your work! best wishes, Rich Danaobsolete-press.com How to Advertise with Obsolete! Magazine from Rich Dana: In May, we will be putting out the 8th issue of OBSOLETE! Magazine, and we hope you will consider supporting this free, nationally distributed Arts and DIY tabloid by running an ad for your business, book, band, website, podcast- if you are independent and creative, we want to promote your project in the pages of OBSOLETE! Issue #7 of OBSOLETE! is reaching a record number of readers, with 3000 copies distributed across the US and Canada through our Guerilla Distribution Network. Volunteers deliver free copies to local independently owned bookstores, record shops, coffeehouses, vintage stores, art galleries and nightclubs. We have gotten fan mail from across the planet, including a reader in Florida who picked up copies in Chicago, and even a reader from Serbia who picked up a copy in San Francisco! OBSOLETE! brings local, independent scenes together and helps keep printed media alive. The theme of OBSOLETE! #8 is “Obsolete Media: It’s Alive!”. We will be featuring an essay by a UK artist who makes his art with a 1984 Timex-Sinclair home computer, an article on “Cassette Culture”, original fiction by the great Mick Farren, an excerpt from Christian Schoon’s upcoming novel “Zenn Scarlet”, illustrations by Frank Gresham and much more. RATES:Business card ad: 3 1/2″ W X 2″H $20Quarter page: 4.75″W X 7.75″H $35Half page: 10″W X 7.75″ $60Full page: 10″W X 16″ $100SUBMITTING YOUR AD: You can send us your ad by email, as a gray scale .jpg, .tiff or .pdf file. You can also send your ad by USPS. All ads must be black and white. Design assistance is available for a small additional charge. DEADLINE: Please reserve your space by April 13th. Artwork is due on April 26th.Please reserve your ad by emailing us at: obmag@feral-tech.com.Thanks for keeping the underground press alive! Don't forget you can also visit the Sovryn Tech Soundcloud page (@sovryntech) where you can comment directly onto the podcast as it plays, and listen and download the entire Sovryn Tech show library! Also don't forget you can e-mail the show at: sovryntech@hush.ai www.sovryntech.comwww.gplus.to/briansovryn

Rich Dana/Ricardo Obsolete joins Brian to talk about Obsolete Press and their publication: Obsolete! Magazine. From older tech, to movies, to questions about the soul, so many subjects get covered, and it was a lot of fun... Special Guest: Rich Dana LINKS FROM THE SHOW:—”Obsolete Press: Home of Obsolete! Magazine and More” Link: obsolete-press.com/ APPENDIX:How to Submit to Obsolete! Magazine from Rich Dana: Call For Submissions: OBSOLETE! Magazine #8Deadline: April 29th, 2013Issue #8 theme: Obsolete Media: It’s Alive! Greetings! Issue #7 of OBSOLETE! has reached a record number of readers, with 3000 copies being distributed across the US and Canada through our Guerilla Distribution Network. Now, it’s time to get to work on our next issue. Loosely themed “Obsolete Media: It’s Alive!”, we are looking for essays, fiction, poetry, photographs and comics. Let me stress that it is not required to address that theme directly, so don’t let that hang you up. All submissions will be considered. Feel free to pitch ideas before submitting. Essays and non-fiction pieces could include subjects like shortwave, CB or pirate radio, zines, vinyl or cassettes, broadcast TV, film photography, letterpress printing and/or new uses for old communications technology or interactive formats of any sort. Sports, theatre, music, publishing, politics– it’s all open for discussion. We will also be including reviews of books, recording, films and “doopers” (your favorite old-school devices). Fiction need not be science fiction, but anything that might be considered “slipstream” or speculative fiction is welcome. Flash fiction is welcome. Thanks to the generosity of the Iowa Arts Council, we have a small grant that allows us to increase our contributor payments for this issue. The new payment amounts for previously unpublished materials are: $1.50 per line for poems or $7.50 per 350 words of prose (minimum payment for either genre is $20, maximum $150). Artwork ranges from $20 for 1/8 page to $150 for a full page. We will also swap advertising for your book, website or other project in lieu of cash payment. Previously published work is welcome and will be considered, but does not qualify for cash payment. We can trade advertisement for previously published work in some cases. Suggested Lengths:Essays/non-fiction – 3000 wordsFiction -3000 wordsReviews- max 1000 words. Please email your submissions, questions or comments to obmag@feral-tech.com Submissions of writing should be .rtf, .odt or .doc files. Images – .jpg, .tiff or .pdf Please include a one paragraph bio, contact info and mailing address with all submissions. Thanks for being part of OBSOLETE! – We look forward to seeing your work! best wishes, Rich Danaobsolete-press.com How to Advertise with Obsolete! Magazine from Rich Dana: In May, we will be putting out the 8th issue of OBSOLETE! Magazine, and we hope you will consider supporting this free, nationally distributed Arts and DIY tabloid by running an ad for your business, book, band, website, podcast- if you are independent and creative, we want to promote your project in the pages of OBSOLETE! Issue #7 of OBSOLETE! is reaching a record number of readers, with 3000 copies distributed across the US and Canada through our Guerilla Distribution Network. Volunteers deliver free copies to local independently owned bookstores, record shops, coffeehouses, vintage stores, art galleries and nightclubs. We have gotten fan mail from across the planet, including a reader in Florida who picked up copies in Chicago, and even a reader from Serbia who picked up a copy in San Francisco! OBSOLETE! brings local, independent scenes together and helps keep printed media alive. The theme of OBSOLETE! #8 is “Obsolete Media: It’s Alive!”. We will be featuring an essay by a UK artist who makes his art with a 1984 Timex-Sinclair home computer, an article on “Cassette Culture”, original fiction by the great Mick Farren, an excerpt from Christian Schoon’s upcoming novel “Zenn Scarlet”, illustrations by Frank Gresham and much more. RATES:Business card ad: 3 1/2″ W X 2″H $20Quarter page: 4.75″W X 7.75″H $35Half page: 10″W X 7.75″ $60Full page: 10″W X 16″ $100SUBMITTING YOUR AD: You can send us your ad by email, as a gray scale .jpg, .tiff or .pdf file. You can also send your ad by USPS. All ads must be black and white. Design assistance is available for a small additional charge. DEADLINE: Please reserve your space by April 13th. Artwork is due on April 26th.Please reserve your ad by emailing us at: obmag@feral-tech.com.Thanks for keeping the underground press alive! Don't forget you can also visit the Sovryn Tech Soundcloud page (@sovryntech) where you can comment directly onto the podcast as it plays, and listen and download the entire Sovryn Tech show library! Also don't forget you can e-mail the show at: sovryntech@hush.ai www.sovryntech.comwww.gplus.to/briansovryn

GUEST BIO: David Linthicum is the Chief Cloud Strategy Officer at Deloitte Consulting and was recently named the #1 cloud influencer in a report by Apollo Research.  David is an experienced CTO and CEO as well as an author of multiple books on computing.  He has also presented at more than 500 conferences, has published more than 5,000 articles and has a weekly podcast on cloud computing. EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Today’s guest on the IT Career Energizer podcast is David Linthicum.  In 2016, he was named the #1 cloud influencer. He has been working in the IT industry for more than 30 years. During that time, he has headed up his own business and headed up 4 successful publicly traded companies as CEO. He is a top thought leader in the cloud computing sector, so his services as a speaker are in great demand. David has shared his knowledge widely, writing over 5,000 articles and 13 books. He also continues to host a weekly podcast. KEY TAKEAWAYS: ­­(1.07) – So David, can you expand on that brief introduction and tell us a little bit more about yourself? David explains that he is currently the Chief Cloud Strategy Officer at Deloitte Consulting. During the past 30 years, he has run his own firm and been the CEO of four publicly traded companies. All of which were all sold. He is always looking ahead. Working out what problems we will be solving and identifying how we are going to be doing that. (1.46) – Is there anything in particular that sort of motivates you, that gives you the drive in terms of what you focus on in IT? Helping people is a huge driver for David. He enjoys helping people to leverage computing properly, to grow their businesses change directions when they want and produce great services and products. Seeing people who work with him, read his books, listen to his podcasts and books succeed, is something that David gets a kick out of. (3.00) – David, can you maybe share a career tip, perhaps one that the audience doesn’t know and should. David’s most important piece of advice is to be willing to self learn. In his experience, they are the ones who become truly successful. They are the people who think in terms of where things are going and acquire the skills needed for the future. Often, they become interested in a particular subject and immerse themselves in it and become passionate about the subject. When they do this they automatically become great employees. David also explained that it is important to be passionate about what you do. If you do not enjoy or get excited about your work, it is time to look for a new career. (4.09) – So, you have touched on self-motivation, do you have any particular approaches that you use yourself? Being able to see the benefit of what your doing is a big motivator. Knowing that you are making a difference will push you out of your comfort zone a bit. But, doing so will ensure that you grow and gain recognition for your efforts. Sometimes the reward may be a long way down the road. For example, it took a couple of years for David to see and truly understand the positive impact his first book had on people. You need to figure out what it is that you find rewarding and seek out those projects that are likely to work best for you. Taking this approach will help to keep you motivated. (5.21) – David is asked to share his worst career moment by Phil. Like most people, David made mistakes when he was young and just starting out. He started his career working for MOBIL OIL, as their Computer Services Technical Director. David had a system that he wanted to build. One that he thought would add value, but he was not listening to anyone else. As a result, he ended up building an elaborate system that virtually nobody used. That experience taught David that you have to test the value of your ideas. You need to weigh up the opinions of the target users, your peers and consider the market too. Combined they will provide you with the data points you need to make sure that you are building the right stuff. (6.26) – So how do you do things differently, now? Do you have any particular tips? David’s main tip is to look at the market and what it is going to do in the future. Don’t simply read the analyst reports and use your feelings or opinion to do this. Instead, use all of the data points that you can find. You need to look at the facts to figure out where the market is going. What technology are people using? How are they leveraging the technology? What do they want to do with it next? You need to figure out where the ball is going to be kicked to next, to recognize the upcoming trends. David has been very successful at doing that in the past 20 years, especially when it comes to cloud computing. All he did was to do the research, gather the data, put it in a line and determine what the facts said. It is not magic, you just have to take the time to do that. (7.51) – Phil asks David what his best career moment was. David’s biggest success was AI, specifically enterprise application integration. He saw the need for this in the mid-90s and understood that AI had the potential to integrate legacy data from all of the various systems. David immersed himself in the subject and wrote many articles about it. He also wrote a book called Enterprise Application Integration. But, he could not get it published. Everyone kept on saying no and did not understand the potential of his solution. It wasn’t until people started coming out of client-server and understood middleware that they recognized the value of what David was saying. Once the book was published, things went crazy and David’s ideas were widely adopted and implemented across the world. Today, it is still one of the best selling IT books in the world, having sold 20,000 plus copies and been translated into 21 languages. But, getting there took great perseverance on David’s part. Having to fight so hard for his concept pushed him hard and fast ramping up his level of competence to a level far above his expectations of himself. (10.14) – Phil says people should be able to relate to the approach that David took. Setting themselves a sort of mission is definitely a good way to progress a career. David comments that people typically start out by doing this in an incremental fashion. Even little successes are seen as big successes by your mind. They are something that you automatically build upon. So, something as simple as getting an idea implemented at work gives you the confidence to set bigger missions for yourself. Phil agrees he has also seen what a positive impact relatively small wins have on a person’s confidence levels. That in turn has a significant impact on career progression. David goes on to say that is why you need to learn to get around the failures and move on. Every successful person has failed many times. (11.47) – Can you tell us what excites you about the future of the IT industry and careers? David’s response was the fact that we are going to end up automating a lot more. We are going to be solving the last mile problem. It is finally going to be possible to leverage AI to do many of the mundane tasks we have no chance of completing. This will increase IT’s reach and value to businesses. The work they will be able to do will have far more than monetary value. IoT and the digital economies will start to take off. David thinks that when board directors start to recognize that is happening, he will enter the most exciting phase of his career. (13.08) – Phil shares the fact that a lot of his guests see things the same way David does. They are also noticing that IT is moving towards being the core of what their firms do rather than just being merely a support service. David elaborates on this further. He can see innovative companies leveraging systems and tools to create disruptive technology. To drastically change the markets they are working in. More people are capitalizing on these new markets, creating new products and ways of doing things. Momentum is increasing. If you are innovative and creative you are going to own the market. Those that do not do this will simply fall by the wayside. (14.35) – What drew you to a career in IT, David? From a very age David was building and programming computers. He owned the Timex Sinclair, a Commodore 64 and pet based computers. David loved the fact that they could make our lives better. You could say that he started his career at 12, when he got his first computer. That is when he became a self-learner. (15.44) – What is the best career advice you were given? David was once told to “listen to everyone”. Unless you do that, you are not going to get the 360-degree view. David ensures that he talks to everyone, even people who are low in the organization. They all have something relevant to share. Some of these ideas have changed the business pattern. (17.03) – If you were to begin your IT career again, what would you do? David said he would start by getting directly involved in architecture. The ability to understand the strategic nature of IT is vital. You need to get above the weeds to see the whole picture, so you can produce something that works for everyone. To do this, you need to almost go from the top, down. This is because learning about how everything joins together is far harder to do when you have to go from the bottom to the top. (18.28) – Phil asks David what career objectives he has. David said that he feels he has already achieved everything he wanted to do in his career. In fact, he was planning to retire, write some books, do a little consulting and volunteer after SVP sold. But, that changed when the Deloitte job came along. His current role enables him to continue to do what he loves, which is to help people to solve issues by leveraging technology. Over the years, David has been involved with hundreds of enterprises. So, he is now able to act almost as a doctor would. Now, he has the ability to speak with people and diagnose the issues their organizations have. Then provide them with the solutions, which they then go on and implement. (20.49) – What is the number one non-technical skill that has helped you the most in your IT career? For David, that is communication. When he first started work he struggled greatly with this. He was dyslexic and was also not a good verbal communicator. However, with hard work, he became a successful writer and conference speaker. He has honed his communication skills throughout his career. (21.53) – Phil asks David to share a final piece of career advice. It sounds like a cliché, but the best advice he received to find work that he was passionate about. A great piece of advice that his father gave him. BEST MOMENTS: (2.40) DAVID – “I get a kick out of people who I work for being successful.” (4.36) DAVID – “If you're going to become somebody who's very much self-motivated, you kind of have to get into the work and reward kind of way of doing it.” (6.44) DAVID - “The market doesn't care about your opinion. So, ultimately, we have to look at what the facts are, where the markets going, what technology people are leveraging.” (7.33) DAVID – “The secret is that there's no secret and there's just a lot of hard work that comes into you understanding where things are going.” (11.29) DAVID - “Every successful person out there, I mean, to a person, has failed many times. And the reality is that they learn from the failure, they move on, and they build upon it.” (12.26) DAVID -  “ITs reach within the value of the enterprise is going to be a lot more, you know, than just a simple cost centre.” (13.18) PHIL-  “Some companies are more than now technology companies that have a business, if you see what I mean, rather than a business for the technology supporting function.” CONTACT DAVID: Twitter: https://twitter.com/DavidLinthicum LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidlinthicum/ Website: https://davidlinthicum.com

Panel: Charles Max Wood Guest: James Shore This week on My Angular Story, Charles speaks with James Shore who is the author of the book, “The Art of Agile.” James is a thought leader in the Agile software development community. He combines deep technical expertise with whole-system thinking to help development teams worldwide achieve great things! Check out his complete biography here! Chuck and James talk about Agile development, James’ background, and future projects! In particular, we dive pretty deep on: 0:00 – Advertisement: Get A Coder Job! 0:48 – Chuck: Welcome! James was on a past episode, which was show 205! Give us an introduction, please! 1:05 – James: I have been involved with the software industry since 1991. I have written a book and it’s fairly evergreen. 1:30 – Chuck: Yeah, I remember that’s when the Agile development was getting really, really hot! 2:09 – James: Yeah in the early 2000s there was this energy to do software really well, and it seems like it’s turned into this bureaucracy. I find that to be depressing a tiny bit. 2:50 – Chuck: Yeah, I agree. 3:01 – James: Going back to a perspective where excellence is no longer the priority; excellence in your craft. 3:31 – Chuck. 3:34 – James: Yeah that was Bob Marten.  James talks about the Agile movement. 4:22 – Chuck: This show is a walk back throughout your story. Let’s talk about HOW you got into this stuff. 4:40 – James talks about his background. 4:58 – Chuck talks about his Grandpa and his experience with technology when he was young. 5:10 – James: ...it had a whopping 2K of memory! That’s really how I got involved into programming. Later on I got a Trash 80 then an Apple 2, so I had programming in through my blood. 6:01 – Chuck. 6:08 – James talks about switching between computer and antenna, and his black and white T.V. He also talks about the electrical engineering program at the university. 7:16 – Chuck: I studied ad received my computer science degree. 7:28 – James. 7:34 – Chuck: You have been in the industry since 2001 and you are a bit older than me. 7:50 – James: My first job was in 1994. Then I wrote some things with Fido Net. Fido Net was this early online form thing. Sort of like Used Net / Used Groups (online bulletin web forms) via the telephone dial-up. They were hobbyists running this out from their home. It was basically chat forms. Once you have some experience (doesn’t matter your degree) – it’s...have you done this before? 9:30 – Chuck: This is RIGHT in-line with what I say in my eBook that I am developing now. 10:00 – James: I didn’t even post that I was looking for a job, but I got very lucky. 10:15 – Chuck: What is your journey look like and how did you get into Agile development? 10:30 – James talks about his Kickstarter, knowledge in JavaScript, programming experience, and more here – check it out! 13:16 – Chuck: How did you get to Agile development? 13:31 – James: I was programming throughout my teens. I was working on a really complicated project. I still play Dungeons and Dragons (D&D). It was the most complicated program that I built at that point. I had it in my head and then I didn’t understand it anymore. The program collapsed. To me that was really transformative b/c it’s not writing the algorithms but how it all works together. Then this taught me how to communicate the design to the other members on the team to make it work. 15:50 – James: Have you heard of Rational Rose? You don’t hear about it anymore b/c it was a complete flop. 17:20 – Chuck: Wow! 17:33 – James: It was actually detrimental to get it done. It really was a crisis of faith. I ran into this book: Object Modeling in Color by Peter Coad. Extreme Programming is mentioned, too, by James’ coworker! 21:10 – Chuck: It’s so interesting to me. We focus so much on the technological side, we forget to talk about the people, and the other sides to this. It’s easy to overlook this other stuff. 21:47 – James: There is so much silver bullet thinking within this industry. The original communication from person-to-person is so crucial. It’s so important to software development. Ultimately, the computer doesn’t care, but the collaboration is the real trick and the real challenge. 23:10 – Chuck talks about his brother and his computer science courses experience. 24:27 – James: It could be that 1 team could solve a problem but nowadays it’s working with multiple teams. People want to water things down to help facilitate – but don’t do that. There is a huge large scale Agile that is large interdependent teams. 25:19 – Chuck: MFCEO is a podcast that I am listening to now. He says that nobody wants to sit down and dictate what each member will be responsible for. Chuck reads a quote from an episode from MFCEO – check it out! 26:54 – James: It’s something that people have lost track of. I still program daily even though I do this Agile stuff as well. I have been programming for 25 years and Extreme Programming was the most effective thing for me throughout my career. James: I think XP is the time (now) to have a comeback! 29:41 – Chuck: That was my experience, too. We pushed one team to go to Agile, and then we went to our boss. Chuck: We’d sit down every two weeks and have an Agile-Perspective (what is working and what isn’t working). We are talking about HOW we are writing the software, and that is really what we are after. 30:54 – James: You are building the TEAM that builds the project. Of course, you need to have consistencies across the team, and every team is different b/c every member has different personalities. Mod Programming is we are going to work as a whole group around a screen. Personally, that is not my style but I would TRY it. If it worked for that team then I would do it. 32:00 – Chuck: That is the beauty of it. With this set of programmers x, y, and z may or may not work, and that is O.K. 32:25 – James: I heard about Extreme Programming and I thought it was nuts!! 32:40 – Chuck. 32:44 – James: The more I tried it, and the more it worked. Try Extreme Programming b/c it’s totally a different experience. It’s my book that I wrote 10 years ago but it still is applicable today. Try it for a few months (3 months) or so, b/c it takes time to figure out the different terms and such. Go try out a bunch of new different things, but figuring out HOW to make it work for me. 34:05 – Chuck: Yeah, you need data. Look at the data. Go experiment. 34:47 – James: Try it for real. Check out this essay: “We tried baseball, and it didn’t work.” James: Many things only work in context!  What we do is we change the context in Agile. 35:58 – Chuck: What are you working on now? 36:00 – James: I am actually working on AgileFluency.org. It’s a set of tools for coaches and leaders to CHANGE their context. How can you find those constraints and invest on changing those. 36:31 – Chuck: Where do they go to find you? 36:40 – James: My website - it’s the ugliest website, but it’s been working since 2003. 36:54 – Picks! 37:05 – Fresh Books! END – CacheFly Links: jQuery Angular JavaScript Vue React Slack Zone.js GitHub – Zone.js Chuck’s Twitter Chuck’s E-mail: chuck@devchat.tv Timex Sinclair FidoNet VHDL Book: Java Modeling Color with UML Pivotal Labs Book: The ART OF AGILE DEVELOPMENT BY JAMES SHORE James Shore’s Website Sponsors: Get A Coder Job Fresh Books Cache Fly Picks: Chuck Podcast: MFCEO James Package Management Tool: Nix.org

Panel: Charles Max Wood Guest: James Shore This week on My Angular Story, Charles speaks with James Shore who is the author of the book, “The Art of Agile.” James is a thought leader in the Agile software development community. He combines deep technical expertise with whole-system thinking to help development teams worldwide achieve great things! Check out his complete biography here! Chuck and James talk about Agile development, James’ background, and future projects! In particular, we dive pretty deep on: 0:00 – Advertisement: Get A Coder Job! 0:48 – Chuck: Welcome! James was on a past episode, which was show 205! Give us an introduction, please! 1:05 – James: I have been involved with the software industry since 1991. I have written a book and it’s fairly evergreen. 1:30 – Chuck: Yeah, I remember that’s when the Agile development was getting really, really hot! 2:09 – James: Yeah in the early 2000s there was this energy to do software really well, and it seems like it’s turned into this bureaucracy. I find that to be depressing a tiny bit. 2:50 – Chuck: Yeah, I agree. 3:01 – James: Going back to a perspective where excellence is no longer the priority; excellence in your craft. 3:31 – Chuck. 3:34 – James: Yeah that was Bob Marten.  James talks about the Agile movement. 4:22 – Chuck: This show is a walk back throughout your story. Let’s talk about HOW you got into this stuff. 4:40 – James talks about his background. 4:58 – Chuck talks about his Grandpa and his experience with technology when he was young. 5:10 – James: ...it had a whopping 2K of memory! That’s really how I got involved into programming. Later on I got a Trash 80 then an Apple 2, so I had programming in through my blood. 6:01 – Chuck. 6:08 – James talks about switching between computer and antenna, and his black and white T.V. He also talks about the electrical engineering program at the university. 7:16 – Chuck: I studied ad received my computer science degree. 7:28 – James. 7:34 – Chuck: You have been in the industry since 2001 and you are a bit older than me. 7:50 – James: My first job was in 1994. Then I wrote some things with Fido Net. Fido Net was this early online form thing. Sort of like Used Net / Used Groups (online bulletin web forms) via the telephone dial-up. They were hobbyists running this out from their home. It was basically chat forms. Once you have some experience (doesn’t matter your degree) – it’s...have you done this before? 9:30 – Chuck: This is RIGHT in-line with what I say in my eBook that I am developing now. 10:00 – James: I didn’t even post that I was looking for a job, but I got very lucky. 10:15 – Chuck: What is your journey look like and how did you get into Agile development? 10:30 – James talks about his Kickstarter, knowledge in JavaScript, programming experience, and more here – check it out! 13:16 – Chuck: How did you get to Agile development? 13:31 – James: I was programming throughout my teens. I was working on a really complicated project. I still play Dungeons and Dragons (D&D). It was the most complicated program that I built at that point. I had it in my head and then I didn’t understand it anymore. The program collapsed. To me that was really transformative b/c it’s not writing the algorithms but how it all works together. Then this taught me how to communicate the design to the other members on the team to make it work. 15:50 – James: Have you heard of Rational Rose? You don’t hear about it anymore b/c it was a complete flop. 17:20 – Chuck: Wow! 17:33 – James: It was actually detrimental to get it done. It really was a crisis of faith. I ran into this book: Object Modeling in Color by Peter Coad. Extreme Programming is mentioned, too, by James’ coworker! 21:10 – Chuck: It’s so interesting to me. We focus so much on the technological side, we forget to talk about the people, and the other sides to this. It’s easy to overlook this other stuff. 21:47 – James: There is so much silver bullet thinking within this industry. The original communication from person-to-person is so crucial. It’s so important to software development. Ultimately, the computer doesn’t care, but the collaboration is the real trick and the real challenge. 23:10 – Chuck talks about his brother and his computer science courses experience. 24:27 – James: It could be that 1 team could solve a problem but nowadays it’s working with multiple teams. People want to water things down to help facilitate – but don’t do that. There is a huge large scale Agile that is large interdependent teams. 25:19 – Chuck: MFCEO is a podcast that I am listening to now. He says that nobody wants to sit down and dictate what each member will be responsible for. Chuck reads a quote from an episode from MFCEO – check it out! 26:54 – James: It’s something that people have lost track of. I still program daily even though I do this Agile stuff as well. I have been programming for 25 years and Extreme Programming was the most effective thing for me throughout my career. James: I think XP is the time (now) to have a comeback! 29:41 – Chuck: That was my experience, too. We pushed one team to go to Agile, and then we went to our boss. Chuck: We’d sit down every two weeks and have an Agile-Perspective (what is working and what isn’t working). We are talking about HOW we are writing the software, and that is really what we are after. 30:54 – James: You are building the TEAM that builds the project. Of course, you need to have consistencies across the team, and every team is different b/c every member has different personalities. Mod Programming is we are going to work as a whole group around a screen. Personally, that is not my style but I would TRY it. If it worked for that team then I would do it. 32:00 – Chuck: That is the beauty of it. With this set of programmers x, y, and z may or may not work, and that is O.K. 32:25 – James: I heard about Extreme Programming and I thought it was nuts!! 32:40 – Chuck. 32:44 – James: The more I tried it, and the more it worked. Try Extreme Programming b/c it’s totally a different experience. It’s my book that I wrote 10 years ago but it still is applicable today. Try it for a few months (3 months) or so, b/c it takes time to figure out the different terms and such. Go try out a bunch of new different things, but figuring out HOW to make it work for me. 34:05 – Chuck: Yeah, you need data. Look at the data. Go experiment. 34:47 – James: Try it for real. Check out this essay: “We tried baseball, and it didn’t work.” James: Many things only work in context!  What we do is we change the context in Agile. 35:58 – Chuck: What are you working on now? 36:00 – James: I am actually working on AgileFluency.org. It’s a set of tools for coaches and leaders to CHANGE their context. How can you find those constraints and invest on changing those. 36:31 – Chuck: Where do they go to find you? 36:40 – James: My website - it’s the ugliest website, but it’s been working since 2003. 36:54 – Picks! 37:05 – Fresh Books! END – CacheFly Links: jQuery Angular JavaScript Vue React Slack Zone.js GitHub – Zone.js Chuck’s Twitter Chuck’s E-mail: chuck@devchat.tv Timex Sinclair FidoNet VHDL Book: Java Modeling Color with UML Pivotal Labs Book: The ART OF AGILE DEVELOPMENT BY JAMES SHORE James Shore’s Website Sponsors: Get A Coder Job Fresh Books Cache Fly Picks: Chuck Podcast: MFCEO James Package Management Tool: Nix.org

Panel: Charles Max Wood Guest: James Shore This week on My Angular Story, Charles speaks with James Shore who is the author of the book, “The Art of Agile.” James is a thought leader in the Agile software development community. He combines deep technical expertise with whole-system thinking to help development teams worldwide achieve great things! Check out his complete biography here! Chuck and James talk about Agile development, James’ background, and future projects! In particular, we dive pretty deep on: 0:00 – Advertisement: Get A Coder Job! 0:48 – Chuck: Welcome! James was on a past episode, which was show 205! Give us an introduction, please! 1:05 – James: I have been involved with the software industry since 1991. I have written a book and it’s fairly evergreen. 1:30 – Chuck: Yeah, I remember that’s when the Agile development was getting really, really hot! 2:09 – James: Yeah in the early 2000s there was this energy to do software really well, and it seems like it’s turned into this bureaucracy. I find that to be depressing a tiny bit. 2:50 – Chuck: Yeah, I agree. 3:01 – James: Going back to a perspective where excellence is no longer the priority; excellence in your craft. 3:31 – Chuck. 3:34 – James: Yeah that was Bob Marten.  James talks about the Agile movement. 4:22 – Chuck: This show is a walk back throughout your story. Let’s talk about HOW you got into this stuff. 4:40 – James talks about his background. 4:58 – Chuck talks about his Grandpa and his experience with technology when he was young. 5:10 – James: ...it had a whopping 2K of memory! That’s really how I got involved into programming. Later on I got a Trash 80 then an Apple 2, so I had programming in through my blood. 6:01 – Chuck. 6:08 – James talks about switching between computer and antenna, and his black and white T.V. He also talks about the electrical engineering program at the university. 7:16 – Chuck: I studied ad received my computer science degree. 7:28 – James. 7:34 – Chuck: You have been in the industry since 2001 and you are a bit older than me. 7:50 – James: My first job was in 1994. Then I wrote some things with Fido Net. Fido Net was this early online form thing. Sort of like Used Net / Used Groups (online bulletin web forms) via the telephone dial-up. They were hobbyists running this out from their home. It was basically chat forms. Once you have some experience (doesn’t matter your degree) – it’s...have you done this before? 9:30 – Chuck: This is RIGHT in-line with what I say in my eBook that I am developing now. 10:00 – James: I didn’t even post that I was looking for a job, but I got very lucky. 10:15 – Chuck: What is your journey look like and how did you get into Agile development? 10:30 – James talks about his Kickstarter, knowledge in JavaScript, programming experience, and more here – check it out! 13:16 – Chuck: How did you get to Agile development? 13:31 – James: I was programming throughout my teens. I was working on a really complicated project. I still play Dungeons and Dragons (D&D). It was the most complicated program that I built at that point. I had it in my head and then I didn’t understand it anymore. The program collapsed. To me that was really transformative b/c it’s not writing the algorithms but how it all works together. Then this taught me how to communicate the design to the other members on the team to make it work. 15:50 – James: Have you heard of Rational Rose? You don’t hear about it anymore b/c it was a complete flop. 17:20 – Chuck: Wow! 17:33 – James: It was actually detrimental to get it done. It really was a crisis of faith. I ran into this book: Object Modeling in Color by Peter Coad. Extreme Programming is mentioned, too, by James’ coworker! 21:10 – Chuck: It’s so interesting to me. We focus so much on the technological side, we forget to talk about the people, and the other sides to this. It’s easy to overlook this other stuff. 21:47 – James: There is so much silver bullet thinking within this industry. The original communication from person-to-person is so crucial. It’s so important to software development. Ultimately, the computer doesn’t care, but the collaboration is the real trick and the real challenge. 23:10 – Chuck talks about his brother and his computer science courses experience. 24:27 – James: It could be that 1 team could solve a problem but nowadays it’s working with multiple teams. People want to water things down to help facilitate – but don’t do that. There is a huge large scale Agile that is large interdependent teams. 25:19 – Chuck: MFCEO is a podcast that I am listening to now. He says that nobody wants to sit down and dictate what each member will be responsible for. Chuck reads a quote from an episode from MFCEO – check it out! 26:54 – James: It’s something that people have lost track of. I still program daily even though I do this Agile stuff as well. I have been programming for 25 years and Extreme Programming was the most effective thing for me throughout my career. James: I think XP is the time (now) to have a comeback! 29:41 – Chuck: That was my experience, too. We pushed one team to go to Agile, and then we went to our boss. Chuck: We’d sit down every two weeks and have an Agile-Perspective (what is working and what isn’t working). We are talking about HOW we are writing the software, and that is really what we are after. 30:54 – James: You are building the TEAM that builds the project. Of course, you need to have consistencies across the team, and every team is different b/c every member has different personalities. Mod Programming is we are going to work as a whole group around a screen. Personally, that is not my style but I would TRY it. If it worked for that team then I would do it. 32:00 – Chuck: That is the beauty of it. With this set of programmers x, y, and z may or may not work, and that is O.K. 32:25 – James: I heard about Extreme Programming and I thought it was nuts!! 32:40 – Chuck. 32:44 – James: The more I tried it, and the more it worked. Try Extreme Programming b/c it’s totally a different experience. It’s my book that I wrote 10 years ago but it still is applicable today. Try it for a few months (3 months) or so, b/c it takes time to figure out the different terms and such. Go try out a bunch of new different things, but figuring out HOW to make it work for me. 34:05 – Chuck: Yeah, you need data. Look at the data. Go experiment. 34:47 – James: Try it for real. Check out this essay: “We tried baseball, and it didn’t work.” James: Many things only work in context!  What we do is we change the context in Agile. 35:58 – Chuck: What are you working on now? 36:00 – James: I am actually working on AgileFluency.org. It’s a set of tools for coaches and leaders to CHANGE their context. How can you find those constraints and invest on changing those. 36:31 – Chuck: Where do they go to find you? 36:40 – James: My website - it’s the ugliest website, but it’s been working since 2003. 36:54 – Picks! 37:05 – Fresh Books! END – CacheFly Links: jQuery Angular JavaScript Vue React Slack Zone.js GitHub – Zone.js Chuck’s Twitter Chuck’s E-mail: chuck@devchat.tv Timex Sinclair FidoNet VHDL Book: Java Modeling Color with UML Pivotal Labs Book: The ART OF AGILE DEVELOPMENT BY JAMES SHORE James Shore’s Website Sponsors: Get A Coder Job Fresh Books Cache Fly Picks: Chuck Podcast: MFCEO James Package Management Tool: Nix.org

The Sinclair ZX80 and ZX81 Welcome to the Floppy Days Podcast with myself, Randy Kindig, and a whole host of vintage computers surrounding me, each one wanting their time in the limelight.  This will be part 2 of the 2-part series on the Sinclair ZX80 & 81 computer line. Once again, I will have one of the grand-daddy’s of vintage computer podcasting, Earl Evans, co-hosting with me as we complete the journey through one of the historically significant computers from across the pond.  We will be covering the normal topics from where we left off the last show, so we’ll be talking about peripherals, software, books & magazines, ads, emulators, Web sites and whatever else comes to mind. Before we do that, though, I do want to talk a bit about my new acquisitions and projects, let you know about upcoming shows so you can make your plans, and I might even have a little feedback. I want to thank Ian Bucknell for providing his thoughts and memories of the ZX81. Links Mentioned in the Show: Memories Ian Bucknell’s Frankensteined ZX81 and other retro-computers - https://imgur.com/a/dD4xq New Acquisitions/Projects REX for Tandy Model 100/102 - http://bitchin100.com/wiki/index.php?title=REX Atari ST RGB to SCART cable - https://www.ebay.com/itm/Atari-ST-High-Quality-RGB-Scart-Lead-Video-Cable-TV-AV-Lead-2mtr/250978089310 High Resolution VGA Cable for Atari ST - https://www.ebay.com/itm/142767407804 Sofia Atari 8-bit video board - http://atariage.com/forums/topic/274004-sophia-revc-dvi-board/ Upcoming Shows VCF West - https://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-west/ , August 4-5, 2018 - Computer History Museum, Mountain View, CA Commodore Vegas Expo v14 - http://www.commodore.ca/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=12676 , Aug. 11-12, 2018, Las Vegas, NV VCF Midwest - http://www.vcfmw.org/ - September 15-16, 2018, Elk Grove Village, IL Portland Retro Gaming Expo - http://www.retrogamingexpo.com/ - Oregon Convention Center on October 19-21, 2018 Tandy Assembly - http://www.tandyassembly.com , Nov. 10-11, Springfield, OH TI International World’s Faire - http://ctiug.sdf.org/ - Nov. 10, Evanston Public Library, Evanston, IL World of Commodore - https://www.tpug.ca/category/woc/ - December, Toronto, Ontario, Canada Peripherals and Expansion list of ZX81 Peripherals in the Centre for Computing History collection - http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/cgi/archive.pl?type=Peripherals&platform=ZX81 Early Sinclair ZX81 peripheral adverts - http://www.retrogamescollector.com/early-sinclair-zx81-peripheral-adverts/ Cheetah 32K RAM Expansion Memopak 16K Memopak 64K Memotech 48k Ram Expansion ZX Panda 16K Expandable RAM for ZX81 Fuller FD System for ZX80/81 Mapsoft Keyboard for ZX81 Memotech ZX81 Keyboard and Buffer ZX81 Keyboard Upgrade ZX81 Push-Button Keyboard ZX81 I/O Board Sinclair ZX81 QS-Sound ZX81 QS-Mother Board ZON X-81 BASICARE Micro Systems Magazines and Newsletters Syntax ZX80 - https://archive.org/details/syntaxvol1no2 ZX Computing - http://magazinesfromthepast.wikia.com/wiki/ZX_Computing Sync - Jan/Feb ‘81 - https://archive.org/details/syncmagazine Sinclair Programs Sinclair User - http://magazinesfromthepast.wikia.com/wiki/Sinclair_User Timex/Sinclair User - https://archive.org/details/TimexSinclairUser ZX91 Newsletter - http://zx81.de/andre/zx91/_frame_e.htm Books Mastering machine code on your ZX81 Paperback – 1982 by Toni Baker - https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-machine-code-your-ZX81/dp/0835942619/ The ZX-81 Pocket Book by Trevor Toms - https://www.amazon.com/ZX81-pocket-book-Trevor-Toms/dp/0835995259/ 49 Explosive Games for the ZX-81 by Tim Hartnell - https://www.amazon.com/explosive-games-ZX-81-Reward-book/dp/0835920860/ Making the Most of Your ZX-81 by Tim Hartnell - https://www.amazon.com/Making-Most-Your-Zx-81-Hartnell/dp/0835941884/ Timex Ts1000 Computer/Sinclair Zx-81 Computer (Sams Computerfacts) Paperback – November, 1986 - https://www.amazon.com/Timex-Ts1000-Computer-Sinclair-Computerfacts/dp/0672089696/ Ins and Outs of the Timex T.S.1000/Z. X. 81 Paperback – April, 1983 by Don Thomasson (Author) - https://www.amazon.com/Ins-Outs-Timex-T-S-1000-Z/dp/0861611187/ Fifty 1K/2K Games for the Zx 81 and Timex Sinclair 1000 by Alastair; Walsh, James and Holmes, Paul Gourlay (Author) - https://www.amazon.com/Fifty-Games-Timex-Sinclair-1000/dp/0835919781/ Understanding Your Z. X. 81 ROM Paperback – December, 1981 by Ian Logan - https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Your-Z-X-ROM/dp/0861611039/ Aerospace and Communication Satellite Applications of the Z. X. 81/Spectrum Computers: Programs for Cruise Missile Trajectory Simulation and Communication Satellites Orbital Position, with GraphicsPaperback – Import, November 1, 1983 by H.S. Bluston (Author) - https://www.amazon.com/Aerospace-Communication-Satellite-Applications-Computers/dp/0907350089/ Turing Criterion: Machine Intelligent Programs for the 16K Z. X. 81 Paperback – November, 1982 by Dilwyn Jones (Author), etc. (Author) - https://www.amazon.com/Turing-Criterion-Machine-Intelligent-Programs/dp/0907563201/ Software 3D Monster Maze ZX81 Software Catalogs - http://www.retrogamescollector.com/sinclair-zx81-software-catalogues/ 1K ZX Chess - http://www.zx81stuff.org.uk/zx81/tape/1KZXChess Revival Studios (modern games) - http://www.revival-studios.com/sinclair.php ZX-80 Programs site - http://zx80programs.yolasite.com/ TOSEC at archive.org - https://archive.org/details/Sinclair_ZX81_TOSEC_2012_04_23 This webiste has a very good start on creating a definitive list of ZX81 software - http://www.zx81stuff.org.uk/ ZX81 Download Page - http://www.zx81.nl/dload/ User Groups and Shows ZX-TEAM: THE active user group for the legendary Sinclair ZX81- http://www.zx81.de/zxcms/ , next international meeting March 29-31, 2019 Modern Upgrades The Tynemouth Software Minstrel ZX80 clone - https://www.tindie.com/products/tynemouthsw/minstrel-zx80-clone/ Andy Rea’s ULA Replacement - https://www.sinclairzxworld.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=2928 ZX-TEAM mod for 16 or 32K on the ZX81 motherboard - http://www.zx81.de/english/_frame_e.htm ZXMore Complete Z80 System - https://www.sinclairzxworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=1696 ZXBlast - https://www.sellmyretro.com/offer/details/zxblast-512k-(ready-to-use)--_-ram-pack-and-usb-flash-drive-support-22781 ZX8-CCB for new and modern TVs like Plasma and LCD. - https://www.sellmyretro.com/offer/details/zx8-_ccb--_-video-output-for-zx81-3712 Chroma81 Adds Color to ZX81 - http://www.fruitcake.plus.com/Sinclair/ZX81/Chroma/ChromaInterface.htm ZXpand, a combined SD card interface, 32K configurable memory expansion, and optional joystick port and AY sound interface Emulation XTender - https://web.archive.org/web/20141207130136/http://www.delhez.demon.nl/   EightyOne Current - https://sourceforge.net/projects/eightyone-sinclair-emulator/ Original - https://web.archive.org/web/20180320020429/http://www.chuntey.com ZEsarUX - https://github.com/chernandezba/zesarux/releases NO$Z81 - http://problemkaputt.de/zx.htm SZ81 Main site: http://sz81.sourceforge.net macOS - https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8RnV5G0TZFZRTlJbzdWemtkRm8/view Spud81 - https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21AM71r6k8oPHndJs&cid=4A4ECC65657FDA53&id=4A4ECC65657FDA53%21357&parId=root&action=locate Clock Signal - https://github.com/TomHarte/CLK/releases JTYone - http://www.zx81stuff.org.uk/zx81/jtyone.html jszeddy - http://rullf2.xs4all.nl/jszeddy/jszeddy.html iOS ZX81 - https://zx81-ios.weebly.com Other links mentioned by Kevin: http://www.fruitcake.plus.com/Sinclair/ZX81/Chroma/ChromaInterface_Software_ZXFileConverter.htm http://problemkaputt.de/zxdocs.txt Community Facebook Keeping the Sinclair ZX80 and ZX81 Alive - https://www.facebook.com/groups/133345396703664/ Forums https://www.sinclairzxworld.com/index.php http://forum.tlienhard.com/phpBB3/viewforum.php?f=2 (German) User Groups Timex Sinclair North American User Group - http://ncmedals.com/tsnug/index.html Current Web Sites Article in Kilobaud Microcomputing, Dec. 1980 - https://archive.org/stream/kilobaudmagazine-1980-12/Kilobaud_Microcomputing_1980_December#page/n169/mode/1up ZX-80 at Planet Sinclair - http://rk.nvg.ntnu.no/sinclair/computers/zx80/zx80.htm ZX-80 at OldComputers.net - http://oldcomputers.net/zx80.html Paul Farrow’s ZX-80 Software - http://www.fruitcake.plus.com/Sinclair/ZX80/ ZX-80 at old-computers.com - http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=262 Sinclair ZX81 FAQ - https://www.landley.net/history/mirror/8bits/zx81faq.html http://www.zx81stuff.org.uk/index.html The Sinclair ZX81: As seen in Tezza's classic computer collection - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KsuTg1qHIE Sell My Retro - https://www.sellmyretro.com/category/retro-computers/sinclair/sinclair-zx81 - has many ZX80/81 upgrades/replacement parts ZX81 Forever - http://zx81.de/andre/ ZX81 The Archive - http://www.imarshall.karoo.net/zx81/ References https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX80 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX81

The Sinclair ZX-80 Hello and welcome to the Floppy Days Podcast for May, 2018, where we remind everyone of the days when everyone knew how to program a computer, not just use it for social media.  My name is Randy Kindig and I host this podcast. We are coming near the end of the computers to be covered on this podcast that were introduced at the beginning of the 8-bit era, when things really started to take off, that being the year 1980.  This month, we will be talking about a limited, inexpensive, but definitely historically significant line of computers known as the Sinclair Z80, ZX81, and Timex Sinclair 1000 and 1500. I was very happy to get an old friend, and vintage computer podcasting legend, Earl Evans to help me host this episode.  Earl does a great job of researching and discussing vintage computers and his help was great. In addition, I was able to get some members of the Sinclair ZX80/81 community to provide memories and to help provide information, as well as assisting with going through the topic of emulation.  As a result, there turned out to be so much information to present that it turned into 2 episodes. So, this month we will cover the history of the ZX80 computer line and tech specs and next month we will cover the remaining topics such as peripherals, software, emulation, magazine & newsletters, Web sites and more.  I’m also working on a special interview with someone key to the development of the ZX80 that I’m hoping will come to fruition. Links Mentioned in the Show: New Acquisitions and What I’ve Been Up To VCF Southeast 6 - http://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/otherevents/vintage-computer-festival-southeast/ Streaming video and audio on an Atari 8-bit (from Nir Dary) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJ9RllBv1pg Michael Tomczyk interview on Floppy Days - http://floppydays.libsyn.com/floppy-days-70-michael-tomczyk-vic-20 Sofia RGB board for Atari 8-bit - http://atariage.com/forums/topic/258702-new-development-gtia-in-cpld/page-1 F18A (TI-99) - http://codehackcreate.com/store#!/F18A-V1-8-Video-Board/p/14022176/category=0 Upcoming Shows Pacific Commodore Expo NW - http://www.portcommodore.com/pacommex - June 9-10, Living Computers: Museum + Labs, Seattle, Washington KansasFest - https://www.kansasfest.org/ , July 17-22, 2018, Kansas City, Missouri VCF West - https://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-west/ , August 4-5, 2018 - Computer History Museum, Mountain View, CA Commodore Vegas Expo v14 - http://www.commodore.ca/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=12676 , Aug. 11-12, 2018, Las Vegas, NV VCF Midwest - http://www.vcfmw.org/ - September 15-16, 2018, Elk Grove Village, IL Portland Retro Gaming Expo - http://www.retrogamingexpo.com/ - Oregon Convention Center on October 19-21, 2018 Tandy Assembly - http://www.tandyassembly.com , Nov. 10-11, Springfield, OH TI International World’s Faire - http://ctiug.sdf.org/ - Nov. 10, Evanston Public Library, Evanston, IL World of Commodore - https://www.tpug.ca/category/woc/ - December, Toronto, Ontario, Canada Feedback Memotech MTX sites from Claus Baekkel www.mtxworld.dk http://www.nyangau.org/memotech/memotech.htm http://www.primrosebank.net/computers/mtx/mtx512.htm http://www.primrosebank.net/computers/cpm/cpm.htm Interview with Earl Evans Pi1541 - https://cbm-pi1541.firebaseapp.com/ History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX80 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX81

Databar OSCAR   This is a story about the rise and fall of a compter peripheral and the company behind it. The company was Databar, and the product was called OSCAR, which was short for Optical SCAnning Reader.   In 1983, it wasn't easy to get inexpensive software for your home computer. Floppy disks were expensive. Modems were slow and expensive. You could get software in magazines — a variety of computer magazines offered computer program listings that you could type in. You might spend hours laboriously typing in a program, and it might work. Or more likely,  it wouldn't, because of a typo or because of errors in the published listing. It wasn't easy to get inexpensive software for your computer.   One solution that a couple of companies came up with was to distribute software in books and magazines — but instead of printed listings that you'd have to type in, the programs were distributed as bar codes — long collections of black and white dots. You could use a bar code scanner to read the programs into your computer.    The best known solution was, perhaps, Cauzin Softstrip. And although Softstrip may have been the best known, it was by no means a success. I've already published interviews with the people who created Softstrip.    Another contender in this niche — and the one that this episode is about - was the Databar OSCAR. OSCAR was released two years before Softstrip. OSCAR had two parts — the hardware, the Optical SCAnning Reader that would connect to your Atari 8-bit computer, or your Texas Instruments 99/4A, or your Commodore 64. And, the bar code software, which was to be published in a special magazine, called Databar.   First, let's talk a little about the hardware. A silver plastic device, a little smaller than a loaf of bread, was the brains of the operation. A hand-held removable wand, connected via a telephone-style coiled wire, held the optical reader. That's the part that you would roll over the bar code to read the software into your computer. Finally, there was an interface cable that connected the main device to your computer. This is the only bit of hardware that's different in the Atari, Commodore, and Texas Instruments versions of the product. The Commodore version, for instance, connects to the C64's cassette port. The Atari version also emulates a cassete tape drive, and connects to the Atari's SIO port.   The hardware alone cost $79.95, but it wouldn't do much good without the bar-code printed software, which was the Databar magazine. A 1-year subscription to the Databar magazine would cost an additional $120.   So let's talk about the software: the magazine. "Databar - The Monthly Bar Code Software Magazine" which was published in 1983, and turned out to only have one issue published, so it wasn't very monthly after all.   Databar ran some advertisements in the Atari, Commodore, and Texas Instruments computer magazines. I'm going to read a bit from one of them. [ad excerpt]   The magazine was published in three versions: one for the Atari 8-bit computer, one for the TI 99/4A, and a version for Commodore 64. The cover and front part of the magazine was the same in all editions, with general-interest articles like "Computer Gaming," "To Your Health - Your Health Is Up To You," and "Climbing the Slippery Financial Hills." The second part of the magzaine was different in each edition. This was the part with the bar codes. Each version has pretty much the same set of programs, but customized to the dialect of BASIC used on that particular computer. The selection of non-confrontational, milquetoast programs includes OSCAR's Match (a memory game), Financial Quiz, Math Challenge, Health Assessment, The Law and You, and Miles Per Gallon Calculator.   Only 9 programs were ever published in this format for the Commodore and TI, and they are all in the magazine. 13 Atari programs were ever published in this format, in the Atari version of the magazine.    The OSCAR box claims that the hardware is also compatible with the Timex Sinclair 1000, 1500, 2000, and the TRS-80 Color Computer. But I haven't seen any evidence that versions of the magazine were created for those systems, nor the hardware adapters to connect to them.   One of the benefits of the reader was that it was supposed to be faster than typing. My favorite ad for the OSCAR reader says "Programming the Home Computer — Expert Typist with Keyboard vs. Eight-year-old with OSCAR." The task: entering a two-page BASIC program. The expert typist with a 100 word-per-minute speed and a degree in computer programming can do it in 1 hour and 9 minutes. The little girl with bows in her hair and bubble gum in her mouth, with no prior computer experience, can enter the program using OSCAR in 8 minutes.   Now that we've set the stage, it's time for the interviews. There are three: first, Don Picard, the Executive Editor of Databar magazine; then Kim Garretson, the publisher of the magazine; and finally Neal Enzenauer, the principal engineer for OSCAR.   ## interview 1: Don Picard Don Picard worked for Webb Publishing, a large printing company that owned a number of magazines. Don worked in a division called  Creative Communications, that was a custom publishing house for corporate clients. The division did work such as in-flight magazines for airlines, and custom magazines for Farmer's Insurance and the American Automobile Association. He was the Executive Editor of Databar magazine.   Teaser quotes: "Concept was basically dead before it got born." "When money's invested there becomes a sort of momentum involved. Nobody wants to say, 'This was a mistake.'"   ## interview 2: Kim Garretson The next interview is Kim Garretson, the founding editor and publisher of Databar magazine.   Teaser quote: "Sometimes you had to go across a single line of code three or four or five or seven times to hear the little beep."   ## interview 3: Neal Enzenauer Our final interview is with Neal Enzenauer, the principal engineer for OSCAR.   Teaser quote: "We thought we were going to set the world on fire and make magnetic media obsolete — but I guess we didn't."   ## closing Thanks to Don Picard, Kim Garretson, and Neal Enzenauer. Thanks to Allan Bushman for scanning the Atari version of the Databar magazine and OSCAR instructions; @doegox on Twitter for writing the python script to decode the barcodes without the scanner, @paulrickards for wrangling the Commodore software, and @travisgoodspeed for the PoC||GTFO 'zine, which was instrumental in bringing the pieces together. Thanks to the Internet Archive for hosting scans of the magazines and all the software.    The interview with Don Picard took place on April 5, 2016. The interview with Kim Garretson took place on June 27, 2016. (A video version of that interview is available, including an extended version where we also discuss CD-ROM publishing and the Prodigy online service.) The interview with Neal Enzenauer took place on April 12, 2016.   ANTIC interview with creators of Cauzin Softstrip, another software bar code system   PoC||GTFO   Databar Magazine - Atari edition   Databar Magazine - Commodore edition   Databar Magazine - TI 994/A edition   Decoded Software from Databar Magazine - Atari edition   Decoded Software from Databar Magazine - Commodore edition   Decoded Software from Databar Magazine - TI 994/A edition   An Introduction To Oscar And Bar Code Scanning - Atari Version   Databar OSCAR Box scans   Databar OSCAR unboxing video   Databar OSCAR Software Binder   Kim Garretson interview, extended video version   More background on the format   Decoding software in python   Databar Bar Code Reader patent   Expert Typist with Keyboard vs. Eight-year-old with OSCAR   Databar ad in Antic magazine   Another ad in Antic   Databar mention in JACG Atari newsletter   Databar article in Enthusiast '99 magazine   PC Magazine article about OSCAR

I sit down with William Laurence and we discuss his love for technology way back when he was putting hours into his Timex Sinclair 1000 we also talk about why we do what we do, learning how to reinvent yourself and how to take the customer experience to the next level! Make sure you check out William's work at: http://new.williamlaurence.com Here's a quick write up on William: William Laurence is the premier Designer Photography studio in Northeast Arkansas, Northwest Tennessee and Southeast Missouri. We specialize in photographing real people using our acclaimed fashion+art approach, and are continually designing new and creative solutions for the needs of today. William is California born and bred, but has traveled the world and photographed internationally. His backgrounds in fine art and fashion photography produce the unique flavor and texture of his work. Whether shooting portraits, fashion or fine art, the goal is never to simply capture a good likeness of someone but rather to say important things about them through imagery. We’d love to find ways we can serve you better check out Entreneato.com to hear archived episodes and send us comments and questions via our contact form. Instagram: Entreneato Twitter: Entreneato Click here to get a FREE audiobook of your choosing and a FREE 30 Day trial with Audible!  Want to help support the show? You can send a one time gift or become a monthly supporter!  Patreon  https://www.patreon.com/Entreneato   Resources Mentioned: "Release Your Brilliance" with Chris McAlister  

I sit down with William Laurence and we discuss his love for technology way back when he was putting hours into his Timex Sinclair 1000 we also talk about why we do what we do, learning how to reinvent yourself and how to take the customer experience to the next level! Make sure you check out William's work at: http://new.williamlaurence.com Here's a quick write up on William: William Laurence is the premier Designer Photography studio in Northeast Arkansas, Northwest Tennessee and Southeast Missouri. We specialize in photographing real people using our acclaimed fashion+art approach, and are continually designing new and creative solutions for the needs of today. William is California born and bred, but has traveled the world and photographed internationally. His backgrounds in fine art and fashion photography produce the unique flavor and texture of his work. Whether shooting portraits, fashion or fine art, the goal is never to simply capture a good likeness of someone but rather to say important things about them through imagery. We’d love to find ways we can serve you better check out Entreneato.com to hear archived episodes and send us comments and questions via our contact form. Instagram: Entreneato Twitter: Entreneato Click here to get a FREE audiobook of your choosing and a FREE 30 Day trial with Audible!  Want to help support the show? You can send a one time gift or become a monthly supporter!  Patreon  https://www.patreon.com/Entreneato   Resources Mentioned: "Release Your Brilliance" with Chris McAlister  

David Ahl and Betsy Ahl, Creative Computing Magazine   Dave Ahl was the founder and editor-in-chief of Creating Computing Magazine, which was the first personal computer magazine.  Four editors served in the first six years: Dave Ahl, Steve Gray, John Craig, and Ted Nelson. Betsy Staples (now Betsy Ahl) then took over for the rest of its run. Creative Computing was published starting in November 1974, was acquired by Ziff Davis in 1983, and ceased publication in December 1985.    In addition to Creative Computing, Dave and Betsy published a variety of other magazines including Sync (dedicated to the Timex Sinclair computers), Microsystems, Small Business Computers, and Creative Computing Video & Arcade Games Magazine. They also released a record album -- First Philadelphia Computer Music Festival (1979), a board game called Computer Rage, and software for a variety of platforms under the Creative Computing Software label. Dave was author of BASIC Computer Games, the first million-selling computer book; plus its sequel, more BASIC Computer Games, and many other early computer books.   After Creative Computing, Dave was publisher and Betsy was editor of Atari Explorer magazine for five years and he started Atarian magazine in 1989. Later, he published Military Vehicles magazine.    This interview took place on April 3 and 4, 2013, when I was doing research for a book about the first personal computer magazines. Although I've decided not to write the book, I am publishing the interviews that I did for them. The other major interview was with Wayne Green: there's a link to that interview in the show notes.    The first part of the interview took place in the bar at the Heathman Hotel in Portland, Oregon. (There's some ambient background noise and music — remember, this recording was meant to be my notes for a book, so a little background noise wasn't an issue.) The second part of the interview was recorded in my dining room, a much quieter atmosphere.   The day before this was recorded, Dave and Betsy attended a grand opening get-together of tech luminaries at the Living Computer Museum in Seattle, Washington. This event is mentioned several times during the interview.    A full transcript of this interview is available at ComputingPioneers.com. Also, there are many links to related articles, interviews, and magazine scans in the show notes at AtariPodcast.com.   Teaser quote: "When I started Creative Computing, I mean there weren't even personal computers at that point. I was convinced, I guess, that they would come about. I had no idea that it would be three months later that the Altair came about."   Outro music: Scott Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag, played on an RCA COSMAC by Joe Welsbecker on the First Philadelphia Computer Music Festival record (1979.)   Transcript of this interview   Scans of Creative Computing at Internet Archive   Full text of 35 issues of Creative Computing at AtariMagazines.com   Best of Creative Computing volume 1, 2, 3   Creative Computing Magazine pages per issue   Scans of Atari Explorer at AtariMania   First Philadelphia Computer Music Festival record   Computer Rage board game   Dave Ahl: Blunders in Personal Computing, talk at VCF East 6.0   My Arthur Leyenberger interview   My Arlan Levitan Interview   My Wayne Green interview   My 2003 written interview with Dave   Dave Tells Ahl: The History of Creative Computing" by John Anderson

DEF CON 101: The Panel. Mike Petruzzi (wiseacre), Senior Cyber Security Penetration Tester Nikita Kronenberg Not a Security Researcher, DEF CON PushPin Plug Russ Rogers Chief of Operations, DEF CON DEF CON has changed for the better since the days at the Alexis Park. It has evolved from a few speaking tracks to an event that still offers the speakers, but also Villages, where you can get hands-on experience and Demo Labs where you can see tools in action. Of course, there is still the entertainment and Contest Area, as well as, Capture The Flag. There is so much more to DEF CON than there was in the past and it is our goal to help you get the best experience possible. In addition to introducing each of the different aspects and areas of DEF CON, we have a panel of speakers that will talk about how they came to be part of DEF CON and their personal experiences over the years. Mike Petruzzi has been hacking managers for over 25 years. Mike is a Senior Cyber Security Penetration Testing Specialist working at various Federal Civil Agencies for the last 15 years. Yup, that's the title he was given. Naturally, he got all his IT experience as the result of selling beer, wine and liquor. He has tricked everyone into believing that he can do anything at all. Twitter: @wiseacre_mike Nikita works full time for DEF CON doing stuff, and things. She is DEF CON’s administrator, director of the CFP review board, speaker liaison, workshop manager, and overall cat herder. Helping out over the past decade she has been involved in some capacity for over a dozen departments, activities, contests, and events. She provides annoyance, planning, and support in many ways, thus dubbed the “administrator of chaos”. If you hate the schedule, or are mad your talk was rejected, you can blame her. Nikita likes to think of herself as approachable, and loves to make people feel welcome at DEF CON, despite having R.B.F. Her hardest job yet was writing a serious third person bio. Twitter: @niki7a PushPin is an uptight, perfectionist, who is very rarely content working with idiots and enjoys his Jell-O Pudding cups. He can neither confirm nor deny working for any of the three letter agencies that oversee WMDs, high energy weapons [LASERS, YO], and play around with other countries. It is literally impossible to see him without his laptop at any given time during the day and has been told frequently to put it away in public; otherwise, you’ll find him at work devoid of any form of social life. I hate you all, seriously.. Twitter: @X72 Plug is a Mexican immigrant that immigrated to the States at age 18. While learning to read English found a 2600 magazine that lead him to his first LA2600 meeting in 1998, from that point forward he has been a computer security enthusiast. Over the years he has worked a System's Administrator with a focus in security, eventually moving full time to work in information security. Plug currently works as a Senior Security Engineer securing the network of a prominent finance and foreign exchange company. He is also working on a volunteer project to teach 5th graders basic computer security skills. In his free time he enjoys playing with synthesizers and modular systems, when possible he volunteers his time to computer security events. This is Russ’ 17th year as a DEF CON goon, and he has over 25 years experience in hacking. Russ first learned to program around the 1982 timeframe, when he received a Timex Sinclair, which used only programs keyed in via BASIC. He’s been involved in a numbers of aspects of DEF CON over the years, including the vendors, contests, DEF CON Groups, security, Hardware Hacking Village, and planning. Russ currently works a the Chief of Operations, where he depends heavily upon the other experienced hackers and goons that help run the world’s largest hacker conference.

Hello. My name is Duke and I'm addicted to video games. How It All Began In some ways, I blame my father. One of my earliest Christmas memories is of us all retreating into the office in the back of the house, where the Timex Sinclair had been pitifully serving as less of a computer and more of an advanced calculator (programs on the Sinclair were actually run from a standard audiocassette player). There, on the desk, was a brand new, shining Apple //e. (Okay, it wasn't actually shining. But in my memory it has a child-of-Bethlehem glow around it.) Enjoy If you have any opinions, send Emails to: podcast@veterangamers.co.uk Gamertags Chinny – 360 ChinChinny, PS3 Chinny1985, The Daddy – 360 Big Daddy Blast, PS3 xXBig-DaddyXx Duke – 360 Dukeskath, PS3 Dukeskath