Member Bio - Eric Miller (_SDGOL_)

Eric's Edge

Tinkerer
Oct 31, 2021
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Age: A little older than my teeth
Height: Too short for my mass
Beard: Yes and getting longer every day. I've had one since I was 16 give or take a few years.
First Mac: That I've owned? My Macintosh Plus. First used? A Macintosh 512K.
Favorite Macs: The one I'm using - lately that would be my PowerBook 520c
Favorite Apple App: HyperCard
Most Preferred Mac OS: System 7.6.1
Strengths: I'm a fair programmer - my full time vocation until switching to management.
Weaknesses: Too many hobbies to keep up - retro tech, analog photography, building electric guitars (can't play worth a damn), any orphaned computer.
Favorite Classic Mac Game: Leemings
Windows PCs: Various. I also have a Tandy TRS-80 Model 102 portable computer, TI 99/4A, Mac SE, Mac SE FDHD, Mac Plus, PowerBook 520c, MacBook 2010, OLPC XO-1

I've been fascinated by computers since the 70's. Was planning to become a professional photographer and took computer programming classes for fun. Dropped photography for computer science. Most of my career I worked in the Microsoft stack. Now I manage people instead of programming.

I've been dabbling in HyperCard programming recently and wrote a simple game to play the Royal Game of Ur. I'll eventually rewrite it in C. Most likely Think C. I've started buying all of the computers I couldn't afford when I was young and learning to repair/restore them. My soldering skills are minimal but improving. I most recently rebuilt the batteries to my PowerBook 520c.

I've also recently started back into analog photography. Purchased a Chinese twin lens reflex camera with a sticky shutter and rebuilt it. Working on rebuilding my black and white darkroom, etc.

My goal is to acquire an A/UX compatible Quadra and get back into Unix programming. I miss using Unix back in college. Linux doesn't scratch that old time Unix itch.

About the handle, _SDGOL_. it's based on a character in a television serial written by the characters in Heinlein's book "The Rolling Stones". Supreme Dark Galactic Overlord - Scourge of the Spaceways. My kids insisted I join Steam so they could subject me to modern gaming - this was the only name I could come up with for the account.
 
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ScutBoy

Administrator
Staff member
Founder
Sep 2, 2021
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Northfield, MN USA
I recently came into an OLPC XO-1. I'm really trying hard to like it, but it's so un-intuitive to use, I can't imagine handing to to someone who's fairly "computer illiterate" and expecting them to be successful with it.

Not to mention that it's dog slow at doing anything you can figure out. If you have any words of wisdom, I'm all ears.

+1 for being a Heinlein fan :)
 

Eric's Edge

Tinkerer
Oct 31, 2021
122
87
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I recently came into an OLPC XO-1. I'm really trying hard to like it, but it's so un-intuitive to use, I can't imagine handing to to someone who's fairly "computer illiterate" and expecting them to be successful with it.

Not to mention that it's dog slow at doing anything you can figure out. If you have any words of wisdom, I'm all ears.

+1 for being a Heinlein fan :)
A couple of things you can do.
  • Upgrade the firmware and the OS to the "latest" version.
  • In the newer OS versions you can switch back and forth from Sugar to Gnome.
  • You can install some apps. You need to modify the yum configuration to use the http instead of https mirror. Make sure you exclude kernel updates!
  • You can also install and run the OS from a SD card instead of the built in 1 GB flash drive.
I've poked around a bit but agree it's rather limited and very outdated. I might see if I can get a build environment going (a very slow build environment) so I can tinker with building apps from source. Too bad there's not a project going to update the OS for this little machine.
 

Eric's Edge

Tinkerer
Oct 31, 2021
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Great write-up. Happy to have you in our community!

I love HyperCard, and I also love A/UX. I'm working at putting together a well-curated set of verified working original images of the installation media, which I will uploadsomewhere when I get the time.

Enjoy the site!
I see that someone has successfully hosted A/UX in Qemu. I’m interested in trying it out.
 

atariorbit

Tinkerer
Nov 1, 2021
27
25
13
Yep, it works and is really nice. Just needs a few fixups around shutdown and rebooting and it will be ready to go.

there are full already intalled disk images floating around also...


Screen Shot 2021-10-06 at 9.13.14 AM.png
Screen Shot 2021-10-06 at 5.16.21 PM.png
Screen Shot 2021-10-06 at 5.02.14 PM.png
 

Eric's Edge

Tinkerer
Oct 31, 2021
122
87
28