Passing the time, as one does, I moved the Sierpinski program over to the Floppy Emu so I could run it on the Apple IIc.

On the IIc, it runs just as it does on Virtual ][, but there's still something visceral about running it on real hardware. I can recall what it felt like forty-some years ago, seeing hi-res graphics being drawn on a 13" Hitachi color TV that I'd bought to use as a monitor.

It felt like, "the future."

I guess what it feels like now is, nostalgia.

But I can definitely recall that feeling of excitement. Nothing excites me about technology anymore. Well, maybe SpaceX and the Super Heavy landing at its launch tower.

Maybe semaglutide. Heh. But nothing about computers. Or tablets.

Or phones.

Anyway, figured I'd go ahead and run it under Beagle Compiler. Whoa! Takes about 7s compiled, about 8x faster, which means it'd run in about 2.5s on the IIe with the SpeedDemon. That was kind of exciting.

There's a little binary called FAST.HPLOT on the compiler disk that probably substitutes an ampersand-routine (a way of calling a machine language routine from BASIC) for the built-in HPLOT command. I'll have to have a look at that.

Anyway, it's a beautiful day today. The kind of day that makes people think of Florida as paradise. Makes you forget about it taking everything you have from you and leaving you homeless. Makes you forget about the cruelty of the state government here.

At least we got that goin' for us.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 14:26 Tuesday, 15 October 2024