graafen | Entries tagged with geekery

After fiddling about with my ZX Spectrum yesterday, and being unable to tune the TV into it's signal correctly I decided to have another go with the stuff today.

( Long and possibly rambling account. )

TL;DR - I fixed the Spectrum. It worked. We had cake.

A quick update as to the status of those ZX Spectrums.

I took ownership of a second-hand TV today (for the princely sum of £15), plugged the Speccies in one at a time, and failed totally to tune them in. I could see the images from them but they weren't perfect (lots of video distortion), and the Spectrum+ didn't even show a prompt... just flashed like some kinda test screen.

So I took the 16K Spectrum to work (where we have two TVs) and tried it on both, failing each time. However this has reminded me of something that happened quite recently... the introduction of "Channel 5" and what a kerfuffle that caused with VCRs.

I thought that I was stuffed until I stumbled upon a gem of a blog post: ZX Spectrum Composite Video Mod.

It turns out that bypassing the RF modulator within the Speccies, and thus outputting Composite, is a 10 minute job! One that I shall be attempting before work tomorrow.

If all goes well I should have at least one working Spectrum. Fingers crossed!

r4nger5 has been getting rid of a lot of his old tech, and I've ended up as the new owner of quite a sizable chunk of it!

A ZX Spectrum, a ZX Spectrum +, an Amstrad PPC640, and a Macintosh Classic!

All I need now is a TV for the Speccies. XD

Forgive me $DEITY for I have sinned...

Seriously though, I did something I didn't think that I would ever do again. Today I built a machine and installed Windows XP on it.

This isn't for someone else, mind you; it's for me.

Why would I do this? Simple; there are no good¹ Non-Linear Video Editors for Linux. None that compare to Adobe Premiere Pro.

KDEnLive is OK but it lacks what I have come to expect from Premiere.
Open Movie Editor shows promise but at the moment isn't as stable as I would like.
Kino is just Windows Movie Maker for Linux.
PiTiVi is in the same league as Kino.
And Cinelerra is just an arse to install.

So now I have a machine (made from spare parts) running Windows XP specifically for my video editing; nothing else.
Athlon XP 64 3700+ (2.2GHz), 1GB DDR RAM, and a 500GB SATA HDD (7,200rpm).

I'll be making some videos soon with Premiere niceness².

¹ That's in my opinion, so YMMV.
² Ditto.

Past 3am and unable to sleep (not for the lack of trying), so I'm working on the iMac again.

Working on the iMac has made me realise what I missed about Gentoo. Sure, everything needs to be compiled, but once it is (and if configured correctly) everything runs a lot faster than in some binary distributions.

I did install Debian on it yesterday, but certain things aggravated me; how recompiling the kernel to make it custom can break a lot of programs (YMMV, this is from personal experience). Installing Gentoo on this machine hasn't given me those problems.

I've also rekindled my relationship with the command line again, even to the point where I've customised /etc/issue and /etc/motd to give ANSI logos at the login prompt and after login. Screenshots/photos will be provided soon.

My next step is to get ALSA running, then X.Org, followed by a lightweight window manager (possibly Fluxbox, Window Maker, Enlightenment, or IceWM).

At some point I may actually decide in which direction I want to take this machine, but right now it proves a much welcome distraction. ;)

- Hardware upgrade to file-server (move from Mini-ITX board to ATX board (Athlon XP 64 3700).
- Rebuild file-server OS and reinstall software (Samba), plus general file management.
- Convert MiniITX machine to Media Center PC (MythTV) or a low-end Desktop.
- Install Linux (Debian or Gentoo) on an Apple iMac (G3, tray loading).
- Backup V's huge DVD collection to hard disks.

Certainly the most interesting thing will be installing Linux on the iMac. :)

Picture proof that primal is now running xubuntu. ^_^

cavebearranting will be brining over his Armada when he gets it for similar treatment. :D

( Oh and this elusive character... )

And now, off to work!

( Cut for geekery! )

In other news my Internet connection at home is more stable today. I'll see how it goes when I get back this evening.

It was a Bad Idea^TM for me to build primal with Debian Etch (Stable). Sure things will be stable, but it's too old for me to do what I want to with it.

So I'm going to see about slapping Gentoo on it when I replace the 12GB HDD with a 40GB one. I know it means that it's gonna take a long while for things to compile/install, but it's a lot more current and I can configure things specifically for my machine. As I'll only be installing FluxBox as the WM and a few other minimal applications for web-browsing, email, and IMs it'll be worth the hassle.

I might still try xubuntu though.

Well, after too much farting about following conflicting HOW-TOs and manuals I finally got dhcpd3 and tftpd-hda configured properly. I've now installed Debian Etch on my Compaq Armada (hereby known as primal) via PXE. :D

Now I just need to configure it, which I'll probably do tonight.

( Geeky stuff. Feel free to skip. )

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The Lair of The Dark Knight

MOVE!

Entries tagged with geekery

ZX Spectrum Update

Speccy Update

New(ish) Kit

To quote Avon: "UNCLEAN!"

Geeky Update

Plan for next week

Woo and Yay!

Easy mistake

More Laptop Geekery

PXE Install

Computer Stuff

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May 2012

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